--:-- Ira Glass: Support for This American Life comes from AT&T. You know that feeling when someone's already looking out for you before you even need it? AT&T brings that kind of reliability to your connection with the AT&T Guarantee. Staying connected matters. That's why AT&T has connectivity you can depend on, or they'll proactively make it right. That's the AT&T Guarantee. Terms and conditions apply. Visit att.com slash guarantee for details.
--:-- Ira Glass: Hi, everybody. Ira, here, my voice is weird today. I feel fine. Heather loved being Mormon, until she and her husband split up. After that, she says, people in the church treated her and her kids differently. She realized she would never have the perfect Mormon family. She was still a believer, but she started secretly doing things members of the church aren't supposed to do. She slept with men she wasn't married to. She drank. But on the surface, she kept up appearances. She lived a double life for years before she quit the church. A double life with occasional moments where she thought she might get found out.
--:-- Heather Gay: As a Mormon person, you're not supposed to drink coffee. And that seems fairly innocuous, fairly simple. But I was slipping and I was drinking coffee. And I had gotten myself a coffee before I picked up my kids from school. And they were young enough that they wouldn't understand or get it.
--:-- Heather Gay: And, oh my gosh, yeah, and my friend saw me and waved and started to walk over to the car.
--:-- Ira Glass: Saw you come out of a coffee shop?
--:-- Heather Gay: Nope. She just saw me in the carpool line standing there, but I had a hot coffee in my car, and it was fall, and that meant if I unrolled the window, the smell of coffee was going to waft out right and smack her in the face. And so I started to panic, and I unrolled the window, and I can remember the panic. And you just learn to lie so easily and so quickly. And I think I said, "Oh, I'm not drinking it. I just love the smell in fall. Don't worry. Don't worry. I just love the smell." And she accepted that and said, "Oh, I do too. Isn't it so tempting?" And we both just kind of sat there. Obviously, I didn't buy a coffee for the smell. It was just a conversation that was completely fake, and we both engaged in it.
--:-- Ira Glass: And so when she said, "Oh, it's so tempting," did you take it as her saying, "This is our secret, I love you, we're good"?
--:-- Heather Gay: I took it as her saying, "I'm going to pretend to believe your lie because it's an easier path for both of us." And I think my kids probably did that a lot too, who pretended to believe my lies.
--:-- Ira Glass: This is actually why I wanted to talk to Heather. Our Saturday is about how different members of the family perceive the same events differently. And what was happening inside Heather's family during those years seemed like such an extreme example of that. Because she was trying to deceive her kids. She was raising three daughters on her own. Raising them in the church, she says, to be the perfect, pure vessels of Mormonism for their future husbands. Her words, not mine. This was partly because it was the only way she knew how to be a mother. But also, Heather loved her own childhood growing up in the church. She wanted to give that to them. And Heather wasn't just still a believer. She's the kind of try-hard, can-do believer who became Relief Society president in her ward, which meant that she ministered to the women in about 150 families. Heather stood at a pulpit every Sunday teaching Mormon doctrine. And she did that knowing that her kids sometimes saw her break the rules. For example, after her divorce, she stopped wearing the special Mormon undergarments that adults are supposed to wear. Her kids knew that she didn't wear them.
--:-- Heather Gay: Because they would see me change and I didn't have them on.
--:-- Ira Glass: And do you remember any moments where they saw this and they asked?
--:-- Heather Gay: No, they never asked. They never said a word.
--:-- Ira Glass: What do you make of that?
--:-- Heather Gay: I don't even know what to make of that. First, I feel like they probably felt confused. And also, I would think resentment because I was a strict mom and I held them to the standard of appearances at church. And I taught from the pulpit. I taught gospel doctrine. And then for them to go home and see that the words coming out of my mouth did not match the simplest of actions, like the type of underwear I was wearing.
--:-- Ira Glass: Do you think that they weren't saying anything because it's just one of those things when you're a kid sometimes where you don't even know what it means, but you just know, like, don't go there?
--:-- Heather Gay: Yeah. I think that's exactly what it was. I think it was laden with meaning, and so they knew not to ask.
--:-- Ira Glass: Mostly, Heather tried to keep things on the down low from her kids. She kept a bottle of vodka hidden in the house, high on the third shelf of a closet with sweaters and other clothes that she was sure the girls didn't go into. And she says there were no visible clues of her secret life in the house.
--:-- Heather Gay: Until my business partner bought me a Keurig.
--:-- Ira Glass: Keurig, the little coffee maker.
--:-- Heather Gay: The little coffee maker, the counter coffee maker. And I immediately went out and bought a tier with all of the herbal teas and hot chocolates because those are kosher. And I made sure that those were on display. And for years, every time someone would come to my house, the first thing I would do is gesture to the coffee maker and say, "We love this for hot cocoa for the kids." I would lead with that because it was just such a blaring symbol of rebellion and slipping.
--:-- Ira Glass: Where were the coffee pods hidden?
--:-- Heather Gay: They were deep in the pantry. Honestly, it's a Cheez-Its multi-pack box because with the kids' lunches, you get the bigger boxes and then you could just take out all the single serves and you just put them in it.
--:-- Ira Glass: And then was the scheme that once the kids were off at school, you were home alone and you could put the little capsule in and make yourself a coffee?
--:-- Heather Gay: I was doing it first thing in the morning.
--:-- Ira Glass: You would do it first thing in the morning?
--:-- Heather Gay: Yeah, I was doing it first thing in the morning and they could smell it. And I don't know how to explain it. It's like I assume they wouldn't know what it was because they had never been exposed to it. They didn't see coffee at their friends' houses.
--:-- Ira Glass: Oh, that didn't even occur to me. It's not like coffee was open. They don't live in a world with coffee.
--:-- Heather Gay: They don't live in a world with coffee. So you can get away with lying about a lot of things.
--:-- Ira Glass: So your 10-year-old isn't smelling coffee and thinking it's coffee. Your 10-year-old is smelling coffee and just thinking it's a smell. And she might have been making the connection all along, but it was a don't ask, don't tell, don't acknowledge policy. Your oldest is Ashley?
--:-- Heather Gay: Yeah, Ashley. She's 22 now.
--:-- Ira Glass: Oh, my God. I want to ask her.
--:-- Heather Gay: Yeah, you should.
--:-- Ira Glass: So we reached out to Ashley. It was 12 the year they got the Keurig. Her little sisters were 9 and 8. She came into the studio, and from the moment I brought up the Keurig, her memory was totally different from her mom's.
--:-- Ira Glass: Guess who gave her the Keurig?
--:-- Ira Glass: Heather, as you heard, remembers it was her business partner. But Ashley said no. She had money she had earned babysitting. It was the first big grown-up Christmas present she ever bought her mom.
--:-- Ashley: I can't believe she didn't tell you that I was the one that got it. It was a big deal. I saved up my money to get her this Keurig.
--:-- Ira Glass: And when you bought the Keurig, what did you think it was for?
--:-- Ashley: For coffee.
--:-- Ira Glass: Ashley said she got the idea for this at her friend Elsha's house. Elsha and she were best friends and two paid partners. And their moms got to know each other and went into business together. Elsha's family was ex-Mormon. So Ashley would see Elsha's parents drink coffee or go to the store or the gym on Sunday, which Mormons aren't supposed to do on the Sabbath. And they seemed normal and happy. And those things did not seem harmful to their family at all.
--:-- Ashley: I was so fascinated by having a glass of wine at dinner. Seeing parents just having a glass of wine at dinner. And I don't know how to explain it. It felt cool. Very cool. And I want my family to be like this. I was with them a lot growing up. And having a Keurig in the house was so normal. And seeing that, I'm like, why can't we have that?
--:-- Ira Glass: So you bought it for your mom, understanding, my mom drinks coffee, I'm buying this for her so she can have coffee.
--:-- Ashley: Yes. I want you to drink coffee. Me buying her a Keurig, I think she kind of thought, "Oh my gosh, Ashley understands me. I'm seen by my daughter and supported in a way." It wasn't... I was on the same wave. Like, yeah, let's get a Keurig.
--:-- Ira Glass: She had no idea that her mom didn't remember it this way at all. But she said she was so young, it was really possible that she never told her mom, "This is for you to drink coffee. I know you drink coffee."
--:-- Ashley: Honestly, because I was so... I was 12. I guess I wouldn't up and say that.
--:-- Ira Glass: So you think what might have happened... I'm just trying to get this straight. So you think you might have given her the Keurig, understanding what the Keurig is for, but she didn't get the hint.
--:-- Ashley: I think maybe that's what's going on here.
--:-- Ira Glass: Or she didn't want to believe that I saw that side of her.
--:-- Ira Glass: That's so interesting. She couldn't understand what you were trying to show her because she wasn't ready for it?
--:-- Ira Glass: I mean, your mom said to me that you and your sisters were properly raised Mormon children and she was betting on the fact that you hadn't been exposed to coffee at friends' houses or elsewhere, so when you would smell coffee at home, you guys wouldn't even know it was coffee.
--:-- Ashley: Oh, she said that?
--:-- Ashley: Okay. Yeah, I think she's underestimating what I knew about the world at that time.
--:-- Ira Glass: So, Ashley and her mom were in this situation where they each saw why the Keurig arrived very differently, but at the time, each of them thought they both saw it the same way. Which is so weird that I wondered about Ashley's sisters. Again, they were eight and nine when the Keurig arrived. We called her youngest sister.
--:-- Ira Glass: Hello, Blue?
--:-- Blue: She remembers the Keurig this way. We only used it for hot chocolate and... I can't... Yeah, I don't think she used it for coffee at all.
--:-- Ira Glass: So when Ashley got her the Keurig, as far as you understood, that was a machine for cocoa.
--:-- Blue: Yeah. Hot chocolate machine.
--:-- Ira Glass: Your mom explained to me that she was drinking coffee out of it all the time, and she was just betting on the fact that you just didn't know what coffee smelled like. Is that possible?
--:-- Blue: Oh, yeah, no, that could definitely be true because I didn't know what coffee smelled like, and I didn't notice at all. So that's crazy. I didn't know that.
--:-- Ira Glass: Yeah, your mom said she was drinking coffee in the house all the time, making it all the time.
--:-- Blue: What? Wow, yeah, I had no idea. That's mind-blowing to me. I totally thought she only started drinking it like a couple years ago. When we left the church.
--:-- Ira Glass: Can I blow your mind with one other piece of information?
--:-- Ira Glass: Ask your sister Ashley if she knew.
--:-- Blue: Did you know, Ashley?
--:-- Ashley: Yes. I'm actually mind blown that you thought that she just started drinking coffee like a few years ago.
--:-- Blue: You had no idea?
--:-- Blue: What? That's crazy. Because I thought it was such a huge... Mom would never do that. That's how you see it.
--:-- Ashley: Oh my gosh, this is blowing my mind.
--:-- Blue: Yeah, I'm mind blown. I can't believe that. I'm dead. That's insane.
--:-- Ira Glass: This is as good a time as any to tell you that Heather is on a TV show. If you know the show, I'm guessing that maybe you've already figured that out. Heather is Heather Gay, one of the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. Kind of an audience favorite from that show. And one of the things that comes out on that show, and in two books that Heather's written, is the shame that she sometimes still feels, the fear of judgment, for not following the church's rules. What was interesting about talking to Heather's three kids, and we also talked to her third daughter, Georgia, was that they felt none of that. None. They'd always seen themselves as one of those Mormon families that bends the rules. They'd always stopped to do things like pick up Mexican food after church on Sunday, even though you're not supposed to get takeout on Sabbath. The mom not wearing church undergarments wasn't a big deal to them. They thought that rule was silly anyway. Ashley always figured she and her mom both felt hemmed in by the church.
--:-- Ashley: I just understood her. I could see that it just wasn't her. That she wanted something different.
--:-- Ira Glass: Ashley and I picked up the phone one more time to call her mom.
--:-- Ashley: This is like the best day ever. I'm really enjoying this.
--:-- Heather Gay: Hello?
--:-- Ira Glass: And I actually told Heather what she told me, that she was the one who bought the Keurig, and that she did it knowing that her mom drank coffee, trying to say, "Go ahead, drink coffee at home. That's fine with me." This, of course, was news to Heather.
--:-- Heather Gay: I don't know why it's making me emotional. It feels like you're kind of giving me permission to be myself. And I didn't know all of that behind it. I didn't know that.
--:-- Ashley: You didn't?
--:-- Heather Gay: I didn't.
--:-- Ashley: That makes me want to cry too.
--:-- Heather Gay: I really can't believe we never had that conversation.
--:-- Ashley: That was totally what it was.
--:-- Heather Gay: I felt like I couldn't embrace it because I felt somehow that I was letting you down, letting the church down, letting down your sisters by being brazen in something that I wasn't allowed to drink. And a good mom doesn't have a Keurig. And I was already a bad mom because I'd gotten divorced, and I was already a bad mom because I was working. I was just trying to cling to the standards that I thought... that I'd been told to find a good person from a bad person.
--:-- Ira Glass: But it's funny... by giving you the Keurig, Ashley is trying to say, "I know you drink coffee." Do you think you just weren't ready to hear that from Ashley?
--:-- Heather Gay: I wasn't ready to hear that from... I didn't admit it to myself. So definitely wasn't ready to hear it from my daughter who I was supposed to keep shielded from all of those things. And when I say keep shielded, not from coffee, but from my failings.
--:-- Ashley: Oh no, mom. I just... that breaks my heart that you... it all breaks my heart, but I just always... yeah, I've understood you. And I feel like we were in the same boat. And when you finally were like, "Guys, I don't want to go to church anymore," I felt this sense of relief for myself, but also for you that you don't have to live a lie just for us.
--:-- Heather Gay: Yeah. And it started with the Keurig.
--:-- Ashley: Started with the Keurig. The gateway.
--:-- Heather Gay: The gateway.
--:-- Ashley: Wait, I still have that Keurig. I still use it.
--:-- Heather Gay: That's the same one?
--:-- Heather Gay: Wait, that makes me want to cry. The Keurig. Ten years.
--:-- Ira Glass: People in the same family, people who live under the same roof, can see things so radically differently. Even simple things like a coffee maker. Today on our program we have another very loving family. Two parents, two kids. And they're in this situation, living through the same events, seeing the exact same things, that they all have very different takes on. They try to get on the same page, but it's hard. From WBEZ Chicago, this is This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Stay with us.
--:-- Ira Glass: It's This American Life. Act 1: A House Divided.
--:-- Ira Glass: There's a spot in Mackenzie and Bella's house that's perfect for eavesdropping on their parents. A small sitting nook on the second floor at the top of the stairs. Where the parents are downstairs talking in the kitchen or in their bedroom, sound travels up, making its way through the stairwell. So you can hear everything that's going down.
--:-- Mackenzie: Or you sit in the rocking chair, right across the door. So they'll have the door closed and you can hear murmurs. We're kind of in the shadow. I know what's going on, but I don't know exact things.
--:-- Ira Glass: That's Mackenzie. She's 17. The girls' parents, Jenny and Fidel, almost never fight. They're one of those families that like spending time together. They do arts and crafts together, go on road trips and don't kill each other. That kind of family. The girls are close to their parents. So all this disagreement is abnormal in their house. But since last November, when President Trump won the election, they've been in a stalemate over whether Fidel should self-deport, return to Mexico, where he hasn't lived in 30 years. The girls exist on the periphery of this stalemate, living their high school lives during the day, dipping in and out of their parents' discussions at home at night.
--:-- Mackenzie: Sometimes I'll be upstairs and they'll be discussing stuff, and I'll turn down my music to make sure that I'm not going crazy thinking about what they're talking about because they seem to be as important.
--:-- Ira Glass: Here's Bella. She's 15.
--:-- Bella: Every once in a while when I'm watching TV or something and I'm sitting on the couch, I'll pause my show and I'll listen in for a few minutes, and then I'll be like, "Okay, cool. That's what's happening." And then I'll turn my show back on.
--:-- Ira Glass: One of our producers, Valerie Kipnis, was interested in how families are making this decision over whether to self-deport, and especially the families where people do not agree on what to do or how to handle this. She's been following the Riveras for most of this year. The parents were definitely, emphatically, not in agreement. They live outside Raleigh, North Carolina. Jenny Rivera is a high school math teacher. She's a citizen, born here. Which you might think would mean that her husband, Fidel, who's from Mexico, would have a path to citizenship. But there's a longstanding part of immigration law. Fidel crossed into the States illegally back when he was 18, left, and came back into the States. And because of that, he cannot get citizenship through Jenny. Until he spends 10 years living outside the United States. So he's been living in the U.S. without legal status for 30 years. And for most of this year, he's been in a prolonged, high-stakes dispute with Jenny over whether to stay here. Valerie wanted to see how making this decision would reverberate around the walls of this one house. Not just how Jenny and Fidel would figure out what to do, but how their kids, Bella and Mackenzie, would deal with the stress of this choice that was being discussed for months and could have ended their entire lives. Here's Valerie.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: In spite of being incredibly close, Mackenzie and Bella are a classic case of opposites. Mackenzie has a high, girly laugh, long hair, gold hoops, a senior in high school. Bella, just two years younger, wears baggy shorts and a soccer jersey and pitches her voice lower in this "yeah, whatever" way when she speaks.
--:-- Bella: I just like to sit in my room and exist. Honestly, I'm sitting on the couch watching TV, and then she comes and blocks my view and is like, "Is this outfit good? Do these shoes match this outfit? Does my hair look good?" But I'll be honest with her. I'll tell her if her hair looks frizzy or something.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: On cue, Bella points to her big sister's neck, where her necklace has gotten tangled.
--:-- Bella: Your necklace is like...
--:-- Mackenzie: Okay, thank you, queen.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: Upstairs are the girls' bedrooms and a little hangout area. Downstairs is the site of their parents' disagreement about whether their dad and the family should leave the country, what the girls have been calling "the situation."
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: Could you tell me about some of the moments that it has come up? Like about the situation?
--:-- Mackenzie: I think that most recently it's just been like every day.
--:-- Bella: It's mostly because, like...
--:-- Mackenzie: Is she singing?
--:-- Bella: She's singing. Yeah, she's singing.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: The person singing in the background is their mom, Jenny. She's in the room next door wearing noise-canceling headphones, singing the 2015 hit single, "Fight Song."
--:-- Mackenzie: Okay. Okay.
--:-- Bella: Well, she does that a lot, actually. Every once in a while, I'd be sitting upstairs, and then I hear her voice coming through the floor, and I was like, "What is happening?" I thought it was like a ghost in my room.
--:-- Mackenzie: Because my grandma told her it's a good way to distract your mind.
--:-- Bella: Yeah. So she does that by singing.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: Jenny's been singing a lot this past year, ever since Donald Trump won the election, because she's stressed about Fidel. She just wanted him to make a plan. Either he should move to Mexico, or they should move together as a family. The one thing they couldn't do, from her perspective, was to keep doing what they had been for the last 16 years. Living under the radar.
--:-- Jenny Rivera: That wasn't working for me anymore. Just doing what we're doing wasn't working. I needed to have a plan in place in case something happened.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: Jenny is a rule follower. For 16 years, she worried when Fidel drove to work without a license that he'd get into an accident and their insurance wouldn't cover it. Or he'd get stopped by police and end up in detention. The only way Jenny had been able to sleep at night was because a lawyer had told them that if Fidel got picked up in that situation, it wasn't hopeless. They could go in front of a judge and argue for Fidel. He's got a great job, no criminal record, dad of two, married to a U.S. citizen. Maybe they could make their case for him to stay.
--:-- Jenny Rivera: We had one card to play. That's what I call it. We had one ace in the hole that we could play.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: In Trump's second term, that option would probably go away. And if Fidel got picked up, he'd probably be detained and deported. Jenny couldn't see a path forward. Fidel, however, saw it differently. Trump hadn't even taken office yet. He thought she was overreacting.
--:-- Fidel Rivera: It's like, are you crazy? I'm not going to go away. I told her, "I've been here for 30 years and nothing happened. I'll never be in jail. I'll never be in a bad accident. I just go to work and come back. What you need to worry about too much." I was thinking, "I'm going to prove you wrong. It's not going to happen."
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: When I first started talking to Fidel and Jenny over the phone, this is where they were, at an impasse.
--:-- Jenny Rivera: Right now, she's the one. Like, what are we going to do? What are we going to do?
--:-- Fidel Rivera: I think some part of my brain is lack or something.
--:-- Jenny Rivera: Because you feel like there's time pressure?
--:-- Fidel Rivera: Yeah, the time and the... And his wife is driving him nuts.
--:-- Jenny Rivera: And my wife's driving him nuts.
--:-- Fidel Rivera: My wife is...
--:-- Jenny Rivera: Getting mad because he's sticking his head in the sand.
--:-- Fidel Rivera: He has sticking my head in the sand. Like I said, I try to not think in that way. But like I said, we are totally different persons.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: These are the conversations the girls are overhearing. Fidel and Jenny have been married 17 years. Happily. They met salsa dancing. He stepped on her foot. She said, "You owe me an ice cream." They spent the night talking at Denny's. These days, they still salsa dance in the living room and corner off weekend mornings just for talking. When I ask Fidel to describe who's who in the relationship, this is how he frames the answer.
--:-- Fidel Rivera: I always tell her it's the positive and the negative.
--:-- Jenny Rivera: Yeah, it's the positive and the negative.
--:-- Fidel Rivera: Because you're an electrician.
--:-- Jenny Rivera: It's funny that you're saying positive and negative because that's...
--:-- Fidel Rivera: Yeah, it's like how the body works, how the cars work. Because I always think positive, but she always looked at reality. She's the one saving money. She's the one who makes sure everything in the house works, all the paperwork is right, make sure the girls got the right school.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: Jenny posts to-do lists around the house. He executes, crossing each item off as he goes along. That's how they both like it.
--:-- Jenny Rivera: He is the fun dad. He does all the fun things. He takes the kids out for ice cream, and he spoils them. And if it's the disciplinarian, that's me. He is not the disciplinarian at all.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: Fidel's style is more to try and tease the girls into listening to him. For instance, Mackenzie likes to wear short shorts. So one day Fidel said, "Hey, if you're going out like that, I'll do it too." He grabbed scissors and cut off the bottom of his t-shirt and made it into a crop top. Then he reached for his shorts.
--:-- Fidel Rivera: I cut them and I stuck it up all the way up. Like, stuck it up all the way up. It's like, "Hey, if you're going to go to the street like that, hey, let me go too. We can go together."
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: Was she embarrassed? What'd she say?
--:-- Fidel Rivera: She said, "I'm not going to go with you like that."
--:-- Mackenzie: My dad is very obnoxious.
--:-- Isabella: So would you annoy me?
--:-- Fidel Rivera: Even Jennifer said, "Stop being annoying." And even Mackenzie said, "Stop being annoying." It's love. I don't know if it's annoying to them, but it's love.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: In January, on the first day of President Trump's second term, he declared a border emergency, moved to end birthright citizenship, and suspended refugee admissions. Within weeks, the TV was full of ads. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem telling immigrants, "Leave now. If you don't, we will find you, and we will deport you. You will never return." Jenny had tried to find out everything about the Trump administration's plans. She'd read about Project 2025 and worried that if Fidel got picked up, he'd get stuck in a detention center and it would ruin their lives. She'd heard horror stories, people being treated cruelly, getting abused. She couldn't stop picturing Fidel in there, in a cell with nowhere to sleep, nowhere to call. What if he came out a completely different person than he went in? She didn't want that for her sweet goofball of a husband. And would they have to spend their life savings to get him out? One couple they were friends with, the husband, had gotten picked up.
--:-- Jenny Rivera: They are over $50,000 in debt to attorneys. So you have destroyed this couple's life.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: But Fidel told her he was willing to take the risk. He wanted to stay.
--:-- Jenny Rivera: And I said, "So what do you want to do if you get picked up? Tell me what that looks like. So if we're just going to take our chances and we're going to stay, what happens if you get picked up?" During that conversation, he said, "I don't want you to spend any money to get me out." If he were to get picked up for anything. And I told him that he needed to tell his children that. Because if something were to happen, they would never forgive me. They would never forgive me for leaving him in there. Even if it was a decision that he and I made together, they would never forgive me because I'm the fixer for all these kind of things.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: Fidel felt that unless ICE was here, here, like in their small suburban town an hour outside Raleigh, North Carolina, there really wasn't much to worry about. He figured the odds were with him. While they were having these conversations last winter, ICE had arrested less than half of 1% of the 14 million undocumented people in the country. Besides, Trump was still saying that he was going after criminals, and Fidel didn't see himself as a criminal. He was a tax-paying dad, a successful electrician, helping build public schools in the area. If Fidel got detained and deported, it'd be disastrous. But it was just so unlikely. Jenny wasn't going to wait around for Fidel to agree with her, to make a plan. She started prepping on her own, pulled herself away in her home office, and got to work, putting together these massive purple binders of pay stubs, receipts, paperwork.
--:-- Jenny Rivera: His birth certificate, a copy of all of his passports and identification, just copies of our tax returns.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: Hundreds of documents, in the case of his arrest or detainment, that she could use to prove that Fidel had been here, working, not committing crimes for the past 30 years. She labeled the binders "in case of emergency." Fidel found it all a little bit...
--:-- Fidel Rivera: Annoying. Like, annoying. Like she want me to go. Like she want me to go.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: Did it hurt your feelings, this idea that she might want you to go?
--:-- Fidel Rivera: I guess just... yeah, it's like, "Why do you want me to go? My life is in here." That hurts.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: Did you ever tell her that it hurt your feelings?
--:-- Fidel Rivera: No, I think it's like a proud thing. I'm not going to tell you what hurts, you know.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: Mackenzie and Bella could understand both parents' arguments over whether he should go, but it was easier to side with their dad. He was saying there was nothing to worry about. Everything was fine and things could stay the same.
--:-- Mackenzie: Me and Bella both swayed to the side of keeping my dad in the United States. We kind of just didn't want him to go, so we kind of just avoided it more. We just didn't really think about it, I guess.
--:-- Bella: It'd be a shadow, and I definitely feel like it would come out, though, when we were at home. And if we weren't doing anything, if we were being a family, it would be like, oh, this might come to an end.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: They'd been sitting with some version of this dread for over five years. They first learned that their dad might have to move to Mexico back in 2020, when Donald Trump was running for a second term. They were in fifth and seventh grade, and their mom, Jenny, was scared of what Trump would do with immigration in a second term and felt like she had to prepare the girls, who at that time had no idea at all that their dad was undocumented or that he might have to leave.
--:-- Mackenzie: Of course this was life news. I was crying.
--:-- Bella: Yeah. I know that.
--:-- Mackenzie: Were you crying too?
--:-- Bella: Yeah. Definitely. I distinctly remember trying to hide the fact that I was crying by putting my hand right here, and then I would lay down on the desk in my arm like that. I did not want to be crying. So, yeah. I don't like the feeling of it on my face. So when I try to cry, I try to get it before it gets down to here area.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: Their parents asked them not to tell anyone, which made this big news feel even heavier. Suddenly, they felt different from the other kids at school. Things started to also just make more sense.
--:-- Mackenzie: Because people describe, when you're married, the man's supposed to drive. And then I'm like, oh, but my dad doesn't drive. And then I was like, oh, that's probably why, because he doesn't have a license.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: Fidel does drive. But when the family's together, Jenny's the one who drives.
--:-- Mackenzie: I started understanding why we didn't travel as much. Like, I heard my friends all the time saying they traveled to Canada or Europe or whatever. I don't know what a five-year-old's doing in Europe, but whatever. But it was like, you could hear them traveling, and I was like, why don't we ever travel? And so I kind of started understanding why.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: With this new understanding came fear. Mackenzie started having nightmares about ICE.
--:-- Mackenzie: They come and break into the house almost like a movie. And then we know that they're coming, but we're all hiding in the house behind the TV. And then they find my dad, and I'm standing hiding away, but I still see him, and they're just taking him away. That was in seventh grade.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: She's older now. But the nightmares returned when Trump took office again, and she started overhearing her parents arguing. The situation was back.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: Do you guys ever talk about it amongst yourselves?
--:-- Mackenzie: I actually don't think we've talked about it.
--:-- Bella: Yeah, no, we don't really talk about it.
--:-- Mackenzie: I think that we both do the same thing where we try to avoid it in conversation. I don't think we've ever brought it up willingly just to talk. Because it's just, we're going to sit there and be sad.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: Instead, they dealt with the tension in the house by distracting themselves.
--:-- Mackenzie: I think there was, at one point, Mackenzie had a running phase where she ran every night. I ran every night during the wintertime because Trump had just won and then all these things were just standing in my head.
--:-- Bella: And she doesn't like running in the lake. She doesn't like people looking at her while she runs.
--:-- Mackenzie: Exactly. So when it'd get dark, she would run and I would ride my bike next to her because I cannot run for anything. Like it's so bad.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: Would you guys talk too?
--:-- Bella: I think when I would be walking, we would talk, but it must be about school drama.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: They'd run and bike for as long as they could until it was too late to be out. And only then would they go home, traipse past their parents watching the evening news, and go upstairs.
--:-- Mackenzie: It's not like I don't care about what's going on. It's more like, it's just sad. And it's like, if you're going to be sad forever, or you're going to block it out and just move on or something.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: But the Trump administration did not want anyone to block out what they were doing. They wanted their immigration policies splashed across headlines and social media. They wanted them embedded in the nation's psyche, especially in families like this one. In March, the headlines were that Kilmar Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported from Maryland to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador, along with 260 other people. The Trump administration added a self-deport button to the Customs and Border Protection app. Meanwhile, Mackenzie was working weekends at Jersey Mike's. Bella was on the wrestling team. She and Fidel practiced grappling in the living room. He drove the girls to soccer games most weekends, cheering them on from the sidelines. Jenny taped little cards all over the front door on red construction paper: "What to do if ICE comes knocking." Bella's 15th birthday was coming up. Her quinceañera year. A big deal. Fidel and Jenny kept asking her about plans and ideas for the party, but she just kept pushing it off. At one point, her parents even asked her, do you want a quince or a car instead?
--:-- Bella: Quince, she said. I wanted one, but then I was thinking about it and I was like, what if he's not actually there for it? The dad is like a big part of a quince. So I was like, what if he's not even there to celebrate it with me? Do I really want that? And I was like, I don't want a quince without him. So I didn't want to go through all the trouble of planning it and then him not being there. So I was like, I don't want to do this anymore.
--:-- Fidel Rivera: I was not happy with that. I just want to do the party. I just want to see Isabella happy. But it is what it is. We need to plan everything and have that stress, and for some reason happen and you're not going to be there at the party. I think that would be a pretty bad thing to happen.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: Coming up, the pressure in the family increases, and the kids overhear something they haven't heard before. That's in a minute, Chicago Public Radio, when our program continues.
--:-- Ira Glass: This American Life. Today's program, Under One Roof. Stories of families going through experiences where different family members see things very differently from each other. We're in the middle of Valerie Kipnis' story about the Rivera family, trying to figure out if they should self-deport. We pick up in the spring.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: The stalemate between Jenny and Fidel was getting worse. Every day Jenny went online, trying to think through a possible move. She scrolled through houses in Mexico, trying to find towns they could afford with expat communities. She looked up English language schools for the girls, who don't speak Spanish. She showed all this to Fidel, and he went along with it, begrudgingly. He didn't think it was necessary. And all these months of pressure, of arguing, culminated in this one fight when Jenny and Fidel found themselves standing across from each other in the living room, yelling. No one can remember what started the fight. What they do remember is the yelling.
--:-- Fidel Rivera: I think the kids upstairs, and they hear that stuff.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: How do you know?
--:-- Fidel Rivera: I'm pretty sure they hear. We yelling pretty loud. We yelling pretty loud at each other. It's like, I think in the top of my head, it's like, are you crazy? It's not going to happen if we're yelling at each other.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: Was that unusual for you?
--:-- Fidel Rivera: Yes, that is unusual because, like I said, 17 years, we never yell at each other. That is when my head started thinking, like, she's over stress. And it's like, now is when my head starts to kick in. It's like, I need to do something. I need to start thinking.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: The truth was, Fidel's resolve was starting to unravel. He had always believed that until job sites near him got raided, he was okay. There was nothing to worry about. But by the spring, ICE arrests in North Carolina had more than doubled since the same time last year. He started counting heads at work. Was anyone missing? He started getting nervous whenever he was driving or when he saw a cop. In May, the Trump administration created Project Homecoming, offering people $1,000 and a free plane ticket to leave the country. They regularly posted triumphant videos on social media of agents with gators and guns, blasting doors, raiding people's homes and workplaces, of people in shackles being led onto planes. Often to the tune of trolling music. Fidel watched those videos and others that were going viral, and they had the effect on him that the Trump administration probably wanted. They scared him.
--:-- Fidel Rivera: I think I saw it on the TV when the kids separated with the parents. That video is where they grab the mom and separate the mom and the kids stay crying or the mom never coming back and the kids thinking, what are they going to do? It's like, I don't want that feeling for my kids. I don't want to give them that feeling.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: One day, Mackenzie saw reports on social media that ICE was in their area. She texted her parents. Fidel texted her back a goofy face emoji and, "don't worry about it." But it bothered him that she was thinking about this stuff. I called him in June to check in. His friend's brother, who worked nearby, his job site had just been raided. And Fidel was preoccupied with two bills in front of the North Carolina legislature that would force state agencies, like Highway Patrol, to cooperate with ICE.
--:-- Fidel Rivera: Almost all last year when Jennifer told me, it's like, hey, when I started to make a plan, it's like, oh, I don't think nothing's going to happen. But now it's special with these two bills. It's like, oh, I think my wife is right.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: Wow. Fidel, last time that you and I spoke, you were kind of like, I don't know, she's a bit dramatic. Like, I don't know if I need to do this.
--:-- Fidel Rivera: Yes. It's a big change. Every day I was like a little bit processing. It's like I need to start thinking. Like I need to change my switch.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: The last straw for Fidel was alligator Alcatraz.
--:-- Fidel Rivera: I'm not going to be in one of those places. That is my switch. When Jennifer told me five months ago, hey, they're going to build detention centers. And even I told her, it's like, are you crazy? They're not going to build. And three months later, we got the first one. And I'm pretty sure maybe it's going to be more.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: After all those months, all those conversations, Fidel finally agreed that he needed to leave. Maybe with the family, but probably alone. So in June, he sat Jenny down.
--:-- Fidel Rivera: The Saturdays or Sundays, we sit on the couch in the mornings. And I told her, it's like, okay, fine, I'm going. I gotta go. It's like, you sure? And I say, yes.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: Like the face changes right away. Like she was relieved?
--:-- Fidel Rivera: [nods]
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: This is what Jenny had been asking for all along.
--:-- Jenny Rivera: She's had such a hard time watching the Trump administration's war against immigrants escalate. But I've already been living in that fear and panic for 16 years. And I can't take any more. And maybe if I was a different person, I could wait it out. But I'm not. I am who I am. Something I think a lot is, people who do support Trump, if they were to think about this, they would feel like this is the point. It's for people to be scared. It's for people to leave, to self-deport, right?
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: Is there a part of you that feels like this is admitting, like raising the white flag and being like, you won?
--:-- Jenny Rivera: Yeah. It feels like you're giving up. It absolutely does. But if you'd been living in the purgatory that we've been in for all of these years, and you weren't able to make any plans for your future, for your kids' future, for your life, at some point, everybody is going to raise that white flag. And so I am. I just can't do it anymore.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: Meanwhile, Fidel had spent decades feeling like, even though he entered the country illegally, he was here now, and he'd do things by the book. Work hard at his job, pay into Social Security he'll never get back, support his kids' soccer team and Girl Scout troops, hoping that the people of America would see what he and so many other people were doing, that they were already contributing to this country, and embrace them and make them full citizens. But now, he realized, that deal was never going to come. In fact, a lot of people didn't even want him here. He couldn't stop thinking about how hard he'd worked to make it in this country, picking oranges and tobacco. He'd started as a sweeper at his electrical company, worked his way up for years.
--:-- Fidel Rivera: I think that is one of the reasons I feel angry. It's because you are at the top of your career. I work so hard. I work so hard. I start from the bottom and go all the way up. And now, I'm going to start again. But now, the difference is I'm 50 years old. I'm not 30 years old. And my legs are not going to be the same. And my hands are not going to be the same.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: Next, Fidel and Jenny told the girls their dad would leave after Christmas. And the girls didn't really take it seriously. They'd been talking about Fidel leaving for months. This just felt like another update, so far away. For months, Jenny had been gaming out their Mexico options. And they weren't great. There was the money. She had just a few more years, five years, before she could get her full pension. If she moved away now, they could live comfortably in Mexico, but probably never could come back to live in the U.S. again. They couldn't afford it. So she decided she probably wouldn't move. It wasn't worth it. As for the girls, she couldn't find them a public school with a good English program. But she wanted this to be a family decision. So Jenny called the girls into the living room for a family meeting.
--:-- Mackenzie: We were all sitting downstairs over there on the couches. I'm sitting in the middle, and my mom's over there on that couch by herself, and my dad's sitting next to me.
--:-- Bella: And I think I'm on the floor.
--:-- Mackenzie: Yeah, I think you're on the floor.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: Jenny held up her iPad. On it was the listing for a house in Mexico.
--:-- Mackenzie: She was like, check out this house I found. Maybe we could all move down to Mexico together. Would you want to live there? Go to school there?
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: Mackenzie, the older sister, was the first to respond.
--:-- Mackenzie: I think I said no to begin with. I was like, I don't want that. Didn't we have a whole thing, Bella? She was so adamant that she did not want to move.
--:-- Bella: Oh, yeah. It was bad.
--:-- Mackenzie: I remember not wanting to leave the country at all because this was my only place that I've been born here, raised North Carolina. So it was like, you're going to make me leave when I've dedicated my work in my school to North Carolina and to United States? That didn't make any sense. I said, I don't want to leave. This doesn't make any sense for me to want to go because this is my senior year. This is my last year at the school. You're not giving me enough time. And then my mom got mad and she responded at me. Your dad is dealing with this. It's causing me stress. It's causing the family stress. It's intense around here because of what's going on. And then Bella didn't say anything. I don't think my dad really said anything. I think me and my mom were just rapid firing against each other. And then Bella kind of came and defended me. I guess she was like, I see why Mackenzie doesn't want to go. Just let her be for a little bit. And my mom was like saying, you need to come back here. We still need to talk. And then my dad probably said the same thing. And I was like, I don't really have anything to say. I don't want to go and I don't want to hear about all your plans about moving.
--:-- Bella: I said no to everything in general. Moving, thinking about moving, thinking about my dad leaving, thinking about the house, thinking about everything. I was like saying I don't want anything to happen. I just want it to stay how it is.
--:-- Mackenzie: I mean, I was chill with whatever. Honestly, that's what I said. I was like, I don't really care what happens. Like, I do care. I do. But you can literally take me out of the country. I could care less where I go. I'll stay here. I'll leave. I'll do online school. I don't know. I didn't really care for it. I do care. Stop looking at me like that.
--:-- Bella: Why are you looking at her like that?
--:-- Mackenzie: I'm not looking at her like anything. She just sounds weird.
--:-- Bella: I was going to do whatever my mom thought was best. Leaving or staying, that's what I was going to do. And I get why Mackenzie didn't want to leave either. I think my mom was really upset about the fact that she didn't want to leave, but I get why she didn't, because she is literally one year away from 18. And you're not going to really make any new friends at a new school for senior year.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: Jenny had always thought that this was where the girls would land. The girls felt like Jenny was asking a question she already had the answer to. Fidel sat there quietly during this whole conversation, not saying much at all.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: Did you secretly wish that everyone said, okay, let's all go, or no?
--:-- Fidel Rivera: Fidel's sister went to see the house in Mexico. It's four bedrooms with a small pool, not far from the beach. She called him afterwards and told him it was really nice, a smart investment. When Fidel heard, his heart dropped. There was no backing out now. He'd have to be there to sign the documents in September. In three weeks, he was really leaving.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: Jenny was out of town and asked Fidel to be the one to tell the kids he'd be leaving in three weeks. He was nervous to tell them, so he kind of sidestepped the whole conversation. Just said, "So you know I might be leaving, right?" They were like, "Yeah, that's what we've been talking about." And then he dropped it. A few days later, Jenny called the girls.
--:-- Bella: And then I'm sitting on the couch one day, my sister's on a call with my mom, and then my mom says something about him leaving in September. And then Mackenzie tells me, you know, Fidel's leaving in like mid-September. And I was like, what? And then she goes and checks her calendar on the phone. She's like, that's next month. Yeah, I was like, what the heck, guys? I didn't know this.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: I visited the girls in August, weeks before his scheduled departure. Mackenzie and Bella were processing this sudden new reality in real time.
--:-- Mackenzie: I mean, in a year I had time to get myself kind of ready for it. I could spend a little bit more time with my dad. But he's leaving in a month and there's not really much you can do in a month with your dad. And that's literally how probably I'm going to think about it when he's gone. I could have done more.
--:-- Bella: Yeah. It's like he's just going to disappear. He's going to be here one day, and then he's going to be gone.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: They were just starting to get their minds around it. For their whole lives, it had been the four of them. Now Fidel would be gone. What would graduation look like? What about wrestling on the weekends? And soccer, which was such a big part of their lives. Fidel was the soccer parent. He'd go to every game.
--:-- Mackenzie: I realized he's not going to be there for another tournament. Oh, soccer season. He's not gonna be here. We'll be here for the first part of it barely. I hope at least he gets to come to one more game.
--:-- Bella: Maybe we'll be going to a couple. But yeah. I remember it was the other day and my mom was still gone and my dad was in some place, I don't know, he was outside or something. And I realized she's going to college next year. My mom's the only one that's gonna be here because my dad's gonna be gone. So this is what my life is gonna be like for three more years. I'm not gonna have anybody just to talk to. So yeah.
--:-- Mackenzie: You guys are spreading telepathic messages to one another. What are they?
--:-- Bella: No, I'm not spreading telepathic. I'm just sad because I didn't even really think about that.
--:-- Mackenzie: Okay. I guess I didn't think about how Bella was gonna be here all by herself without people.
--:-- Bella: Yeah, well, I'll have my sports to distract me from things. And I'll probably go to the gym or something. I have my friends and everything, and I talk to my best friend about everything. But it's not gonna be the same as my sister.
--:-- Mackenzie: Yeah, I guess that's the same for me. I don't tell my friends everything. I mostly just tell Bella everything.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: The plan was, Jenny would stay with the girls. She would work for five more years so she could get her pension, retire. Then she'd join Fidel in Mexico, in the city of Merida, in a nice little neighborhood with lots of expats. Far from his family in Mexico, but that's sort of what he wanted. He didn't want to feel like a failure, coming back to the same place all these years later. Jenny and the girls would visit him on school breaks. As his departure date approached, the girls started hugging their dad a lot more. Bella even watched one of his favorite TV shows with him, The Voice. Fidel's been acting differently, too. He's imparting all the last-minute wisdom he can think of. How to change the car oil, how to fix the stove, how to get the barbecue to work just right.
--:-- Fidel Rivera: Make sure you know what is a screwdriver and you know what is a wrench. But that is the part that got sad, like angry, because I'm going to leave my kids. I think that is the stuff when I got angry with myself. It's like, oh man, I need to leave my kids.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: How do you think your relationship will be if you're not over here?
--:-- Fidel Rivera: That is going to be a challenge. She's going to be here, I'm going to be there. And some days they're going to feel alone and some days I'm going to feel alone. And she's going to be, I'm pretty sure, someday she's going to be really frustrated because she got two teenagers and I'm going to be over there by myself. No pretty much no responsibilities. She's going to have all the work.
--:-- Jenny Rivera: He sucks talking on the phone. He does. I love my husband. He has a lot of great qualities, but he's on the phone. He's like, uh-huh. Yeah. Okay. It is 100% going to suck for the next five years. There's no question about it. I wake up in the morning and I have my coffee while I talk to my husband. And I talk to him before I go to bed at night. And I'm like, I don't know how I'm going to manage without him. I really don't.
--:-- Fidel Rivera: Can you imagine your life there? I see my house, big house, empty. I think my only way to spend my time is working, like work the most I can, like 12 hours, 13 hours, 14 hours.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: Why? So you don't have to be alone in the house?
--:-- Fidel Rivera: Yeah, I don't need to be alone. I don't need to be depressed or thinking on something else. Just stay busy working.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: Since Trump took office, 1.6 million people have self-deported, at least according to the Trump administration. That $1,000 that they offer anyone who self-deports, Fidel refused it. He found it insulting. He didn't want his name part of any official list, being used to prove Trump's success. Instead, he decided his own terms of departure. When and how.
--:-- Fidel Rivera: I can leave from the front door, not the back door. I can leave on my own terms. I live happy. I live my family happy.
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: He had planned to take off quietly. But Jenny and the girls refused to let him disappear without a trace, as if he hadn't been here all this time. So they threw a farewell Fidel party, invited all his friends, his co-workers, and their neighbors to celebrate the last three decades. On the day of the party, he disappeared for a while. When he showed back up, he had a massive piñata of Donald Trump, custom-made. They hung it in the backyard. Fidel swung at it, laughing. And Bella finished it off.
--:-- Bella: What the heck?
--:-- Valerie Kipnis: Fidel left in October. He pushed back his departure date so he could be there for his 17th wedding anniversary and for the first soccer tournament of the season. Valerie Kipnis is a producer on our show. A week after Fidel left, Jenny heard from the school that a father of two kids there was picked up by ICE and is in detention now.
--:-- [Music: "We'll Meet Again" by Vera Lynn]
--:-- Ira Glass: Our managing editor, Sara Abderrahman. Our senior editor, David Kestenbaum. Our executive editor, Emmanuel Berry. Special thanks today to Kathy Kapp, Ashley De Acevedo at American Families United, Vanessa DeHacas-Torres, and Bell Woods. Heather Gay, who you heard at the top of the show, has a new documentary series about the Mormon church that premiered this week called Surviving Mormonism. It's on Bravo. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the public radio exchange. A reminder, if you like our show, if you listen to us a lot, please consider signing up as a This American Life partner. Do it for the stuff you get, bonus episodes, an archive of greatest hits right in your podcast feed, ad-free listening, or do it simply because you want us to be able to keep making the show. Join at thisamericanlife.org slash lifepartners.
--:-- Ira Glass: Next week on the podcast of This American Life, a teacher hands her class a white cardboard box. It's closed. They can shake it, but they can't open it. And they have to guess what's inside. And then she takes the box away.
--:-- Speaker: And I get sick when I'm wandering.
--:-- Speaker 2: You get sick?
--:-- Speaker: I'm allergic to wandering. I'm allergic to wandering.
--:-- Ira Glass: Stories of people who just want to know. Next week on the podcast or on your local public radio station.
