I met with Daniel Zamora because he was a returnee.
It was 2021, and I was reporting on return migration from the United States to Mexico.
We met in a coffee shop in downtown Ciudad Juárez, a border town located along the Rio Grande opposite El Paso, Texas. We spoke for hours, bonding over our shared experience of migration to the U.S. and the ever-lasting effects it had on our lives and families. After that long conversation, I realized that I wanted to tell Zamora’s story.
How Daniel found himself back in Mexico
Daniel Zamora crossed into the U.S. without authorization when he was 16 years old. He left behind his two siblings and his life in the small town of Río Blanco Veracruz, in eastern Mexico, to follow his parents, who had migrated to Los Angeles years before in search of work and a better life for their family. Zamora excelled in high school, got a prestigious scholarship to study at Grinnell College in Iowa, fell in love, and laid the foundations of his life with his partner in Texas. Then, a road trip to the beach and an unexpected detour to the border wall changed the course of his life.
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Zamora was deported from the U.S. in 2011 and ended up in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, a city he had never been to, in a country that no longer felt like his own.
Many stories about deportation focus on just that. What I wanted to know from Zamora’s story was what happens after. How do you let go of a future you once imagined for yourself? How do you redefine your relationship with home?
My own return to Mexico
The experience of returnees from the U.S. to Mexico fascinates me because I am one of them. I was born in Monterrey, Mexico and migrated to Texas in high school with my family in pursuit of a better life.
Once I left, I didn’t really expect to come back. I went to college in Austin, Texas, and then, moved to Cairo, Egypt, where I became a journalist. In every new country, I had temporary legal permissions to live there, and all the advantages that came with this permission. I kept moving from one city to the next until 2019. Unsure of where to go, I decided to return to Mexico, eventually making my way back to my hometown, to the house I grew up in.
My experience of return could not have been more different from Zamora’s, but listening to his story in that cafe in Ciudad Juárez prompted me to question narratives around migration.
What it means to return to Mexico
Five years have passed, and I am still getting used to life in Mexico and the unintended consequences it has had on me, my relationships, my sense of belonging, and my vision of the future.
As for Zamora, what drew me to his story was his resilience – how he has rebuilt his life throughout the years.
“The deportation…. it was traumatic, but it doesn't break me,” says Zamora. “I'd like to see my deportation as a start to my life in my own land."
In this election year for the U.S. a time when immigration rhetoric becomes increasingly divisive, I wanted to tell a story that examines the effects America’s immigration and border policies have on returnees like Daniel Zamora and shows how Mexicans have the opportunity to reinvent themselves on both sides of the border.
Through our conversations, we explored how returning to Mexico is not a failure; that there is life after a deportation; and just as migration opens portals to other worlds, it closes doors to what we leave behind.
Listen to Imperfect Paradise: Return to Mexico Episode 1 here.
CONTENT WARNING: This episode includes mention of suicidal ideation.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline offers services to talk to a skilled counselor. If you are feeling distressed and need to talk to a counselor, please call 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or visit https://988lifeline.org/.
