Dios Aprieta Pero No Ahorca
My submission for the PEN America, DREAMing Out Loud Anthology
I’m not supposed to be here, I probably shouldn’t have made it this far, but as my pioneering tía Luisa says, uno no hace el destino, el destino lo sigue a uno. I’m not sure where I stand on the topic of destiny these days, but I do know that despite having agency, there’s a lot we experience in this life that is out of our control. My childhood was riddled with respiratory health complications that endeared all of the adults in my family to me. Turning blue in the arms of multiple family members as I was rushed to the hospital on several occasions–in combination with frequent itching frenzies brought on by my eczema–earned me a lifetime pass to say and try things normally reserved for boys and married women.
I was allowed to question and push back on machista double standards, encouraged to focus on school and extracurriculars, and explicitly instructed not to get distracted by love in my quest for greatness. After all, I did not overcome a couple of near-death experiences in my infancy and my parents did not sacrifice so that I could be mediocre. Al contrario, I was given a mandate to excel: si vas a hacer algo, hazlo bien. My dad was instrumental in driving that point home and reminded me every evening, when he would check my homework, that whatever I submitted was a reflection of my character and by extension, a reflection of their parenting; therefore, cuidadito con hacer las cosas a lo pendejo.
Even though I’m the eldest and only daughter, I often joke that I was raised as the first-born son. Like many boys, I was coddled and overprotected to a certain extent, but not because of my gender. My childhood disability made me exempt from having to take on many of the responsibilities expected of girls, but this freepass, like free lunches, had to be paid. The liberties granted to me were actually investments my parents expected to cash in on by way of my academic and professional achievements. I did not disappoint. I loved school and loved making my parents proud even more, a lethal combination that resulted in exceeding societal and even my own expectations.
As my mom tells it, I’ve always been a fan of stories. My first favorite book was a fairytale about a princess and a frog and my favorite Disney movie was The Little Mermaid, but I promise my taste has since evolved. In between reading and dreaming up scenarios that I would then direct my younger cousins and brothers to execute, my early years were spent hooked up to a nebulizer. Albuterol was my best friend, as was my spacer and pediatrician, Dra. Gutierrez. Whenever I started to wheeze and feel my chest tighten, I knew it was time to stop whatever activity I was in the middle of and walk over to my mom so that she could listen to my lungs, just like the doctor showed her. She would lean over or kneel to get on my level, ask me to turn and face the wall and take slow, deep breaths while she pressed her ear against my back.
Depending on the severity of the constriction, I’d either take a puff of my inhaler and be on my merry way or sit in my plastic chair and strap on a child-sized darth vader mask that carried precious oxygen into my tiny, asthmatic lungs. This was a familiar ritual, one that I regularly initiated at the first sign of trouble and rarely questioned. It helped that everyone in my family normalized it—we all knew that playtime would likely get disrupted if I participated, but my cousins mostly accommodated my needs without complaint and included me in the hoopla. I guess I was lucky, or maybe they pitied me, but either way, I got to experience a relatively ordinary childhood despite my frequent asthma attacks. In hindsight, being chronically ill as a kid and the treatment I received from my family as a result prepared me for the chaos of growing up undocumented and set the bar for the kind of community and support I would gravitate towards in order to survive.
I was born on a Friday in December of 1989. My birth certificate says that I am from Tlalnepantla de Baz, a part of Mexico City that I know very little about and am unfamiliar with because my parents and I came to the US when I was 11 months old. I turned one and took my first steps in San Francisco, CA in December, 1990 and have celebrated all but one of my 35th birthdays here. Don’t get it twisted though, my love and connection to my place of birth runs deep. The chh chh chh chh chh chh of cumbia sonidera instantly awakens something ancestral in me, and my appreciation for the unruliness of NYC is probably rooted in my CDMX origins, a city that is also deeply flawed and chaotic but also majestic and hypnotic.
Both my parents are 1 of 11 siblings and while most of my dad’s family still lives in Mexico City, my mom was one of the youngest and last in her family to migrate north. My three younger brothers were all born here and my parents now, gracias a dios, have their papers, but I, at my big age with my fancy law degree, continue to be undocumented—well, DACAmented to be precise. Most days I’m unbothered by this man-made technicality, I've learned to compartmentalize and set aside unrealistic aspirations so as not to break my own heart. But as I get older and experience the continued limitations of my ambitions, and demonization of my community, the less patience I have for paying taxes and $500+ dollars every year and a half to maintain this dysfunctional, deteriorating experiment. Every new headline, every botched attempt at passing progressive legislation, and every wretched executive order elicits a visceral reaction. My fists and jaw clench in unison, my toes curl in rage, and my asthmatic lungs, which have thankfully been in remission since my teens, start to feel like they did when I had to regularly use my nebulizer. I close my eyes and I’m five again, donning my favorite San Francisco 49ers shirt in our apartment on South Van Ness, running over to my mom so she can listen to my breathing. Aver, respira. I inhale, remembering that for the most part, I am safe. No pasa nada, puedes seguir jugando. I exhale the bullshit and go back to completing my tasks.
Dios aprieta pero no ahorca. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment when I learned this saying, but I find myself using it as a spiritual inhaler whenever I feel like God’s clutching me a little too tightly. I recite it in my head, visualizing it as a verbal puff of albuterol going into my throat and down into my lungs to help open up my constricted airways—it’s also my way of reminding Him/Her/Them of Their promise not to asphyxiate me or my fellow undocumented and perpetually downtrodden folks. Could He/She/They maybe loosen Their grip and focus on the oligarchs and fascists for a bit? I think me and the Global South have suffered enough and could really catch a break. This internal monologue quickly evolves into a debate when the right side of my brain takes over and reminds me that the merciful and just God, the one who gave us socialist hippie Jesus, is not at fault. White supremacy and its evil twin, capitalism—which were created by men with free will—are to blame for the bulk of our current problems and Satan himself probably feels outdone by the hell we’re currently experiencing on earth. My left brain chimes in with two questions: but what about divine intervention? Why can't God get all old testament and smite these assholes—He/She/They have performed miracles and stopped awful things before, right? I roll my eyes at myself and let out a sigh, followed by a deep inhale: dios aprieta pero no ahorca.
A veces aparecen ángeles que uno no espera. I grew up Catholic, so of course I learned about and believe(d) in guardian angels. These ethereal beings often depicted as babies or children with wings who are floating about in our orbit and supposedly protect us from ourselves and others, are not what my tía Luisa was referring to when she said this to me last summer, however. The unexpected angels she spoke of were ordinary people who slowly became her family by their showing of kindness and support when she first migrated. My tía Luisa was the first of my mom’s siblings to come to San Francisco in 1979 by way of the San Ysidro/Tijuana border. She remembers that back then, it was untouched by the heavily armed agents and grotesque metal fence we see now. There was only a rope that separated the US from Mexico and she simply walked across it to make her way to the Bay Area.
She was 21, from a small, rural town three hours outside of Guadalajara, unfamiliar with the culture and language, and moved without having close relatives nearby. She became a mom, married, and learned to navigate the Muni system with the help of some angels—strangers from all over Latin America and some Italians too who, over time, became family. These heavenly beings helped her recover from a traumatic c-section, brought her food and helped take care of my cousins while she recovered, and showed her how to catch the 14 bus from Daly City all the way to Market Street in downtown San Francisco. As she recounted the names and nationalities of her angels, and the acts of service they provided during her difficult and uncertain transition to the U.S., I thought about my own encounters with angels.
Over the last 34 years, and especially since I moved 3000 miles away from my family to pursue a legal career in New York City, I’ve been carried to safety many-a times by the kindness and grace of people who were once strangers and are now my chosen family. Most, but not all of them are US citizens, and each has played an integral part in helping me assimilate to the city I migrated to as an adult in search of opportunity. They’ve taken turns providing material and emotional support during moments of isolation, doubt, and political instability. And like my biological family did for me as an asthmatic kid, they have happily made accommodations to my legal disability as an adult. They understand that certain plans (like international travel) are off the table, and often take initiative to educate themselves on current affairs. While I never imagined I’d still be living in legal limbo at 35, I take solace in the fact that I’m surrounded by people who are committed to fighting with me against the evils these demonic politicians are unleashing. When I encounter an obstacle or read an update that makes my chest tighten, I close my eyes and take a breath. Dios aprieta pero no ahorca.
Living as an asthmatic and undocumented person has led me to conclude that when God slips up and squeezes a little too tightly, He/She/They often send an unexpected angel as an apology. They show up in the form of a neighbor, a friend, or a good samaritan willing to help you understand the difference between a local and express train. While I stand by my initial statement that I’m not sure where I stand on the topic of destiny, I know for certain that the nightmare we are living through, and the injustices that I and millions of others have had to endure, is surely not the end. Dios aprieta pero no ahorca and our defiant existence is proof that.