"El Miedo te Apendeja." (Fear makes you stupid.)
Maria Lopez on how creating @ytienepapeles led to leaving one job and working to foster communities of solidarity and friendship.
The morning after the election, with little sleep and a lot of fear, I sat at the dinner table with a cup of coffee slowly losing its warmth, catatonic and hopeless. Being afraid of what this country could do to us as undocumented Americans is not new. But there was something especially daunting and sinister about the bloody red map of the United States the morning of November sixth that put in me in such a dark space.
“El Miedo te apendeja.” It translates to fear makes you stupid. Translating is difficult, because I feel like there is no one word to describe apendeja, which is the colloquial verb for apendejar (to make someone act foolish or lose clarity due to fear.) Apendejar sort of describes this state of being when you are so sick with fear. Y esa mañana me apendejo la eleccion. Maybe not just that morning but the weeks to follow. I was afraid in a different way, afraid because when I was fresh out of high school with a new crisp authorization to work card in my wallet and all the hopes and goals of a dreamer in my heart I had much less to lose. I am now an adult, with little kids who depend on me and the crushing wait of capitalism on my back. Y el miedo, of losing the sliver of the American pie I have been able to carve out for myself and now my family me apendejo. I cried for weeks, felt small and pathetic for it too. Like, bitch why are you crying? Who cares if they want to deport you? WE AREN’T GOING ANYWHERE! I became afraid to move within my own neighborhood. Afraid to move within my city, to drive my girls to school, my son to occupational therapy, to the park, to the grocery store.
This week we present the second part of our conversation with Maria Lopez, the creator of ytienepapeles. As I made my way through this interview again, Maria’s father’s words, “El miedo te apendeja.” really resonated with me. In a way reenergized me.
As Maria described leaving an institution for not aligning with their values and hosting traveling groups with other undocumented people, sali de ese estado. We can be afraid, without letting it dictate how you exist in your own body, in our states, our cities, our neighborhoods and our country.
ALIX DICK: What did you do before you started ytienepapeles, or what are you doing when you’re not online being so funny?
MARIA LOPEZ: I used to be an advisor running an undocumented support program in one of the Cal State schools when I first graduated college. It was right around when DACA was rescinded and it was a crazy time. Towards the end of my time there, it had been four years into Trump’s presidency and I started seeing a lot of new high school students coming in that never got to apply for DACA. I was worried for them, they didn’t have any sort of documentation and they wanted to get their degrees, y pues despues como le van hacer, no? There were also a lot of students that I worked with who were wishing that DACA ended, because they felt frustrated and angered by it. And I totally understood that frustration. I witnessed how they put the blame on community members instead of on the system that continues to oppress us. That was really huge for me, because I was like, I don’t hate the undocumented people. What is the system that creates this ways of thinking and conditions?
So, I worked in higher-education for a long time. I left in the beginning of 2023. I actually lost my job because of this account.
AD: No!
ML: They found my content. I was about to be a year into my new position. So before your year probation o lo que sea, they can basically fire you for any reason. And this program was not receiving adequate financial support on top of that. When they let me go, they did mention my page and said, “We’ve been looking into your content. We did an investigation.” Y me dijeron que, my values were not aligning with the institution’s.
Tipo así like, “Well what are your values?” Because they love to call themselves, undocu-friendly, and all these other labels that these institutions like to place on themselves. Pero in the end es cómo, “Well, okay our values do not align.” And that was really rough because, toda tu vida te dicen que this is the goal: to work for una institución, ya sea para el gobierno o para la educación. And I had to unlearn that because my whole life had been about working for una institución. I had to see that it wasn’t—o sea, eso no era mi valor.
“Toda tu vida te dicen que this is the goal: to work for una institución, ya sea para el gobierno o para la educación. And I had to unlearn that because my whole life had been about working for una institución. I had to see that it wasn’t—o sea, eso no era mi valor.”
After that I started digging into my own love for doing travel groups. It was something that I had been doing outside of working for this institution. And as I began to do that more, I learned a lot about people’s fears of movement, fears of traveling within the U.S. — which are very valid fears right, it is always a risk. Pero yo sentía como que — es que no puedes vivir con ese miedo. Mi Papá, when we were little would take us on these long distance road trips. Y nos pasíaba, because he was like, “My daughters are going to have these experiences.” Y nos decia, “El miedo te apendeja.”
CHRISTIÁN PENA: I love that. Is that something that you feel helped you be comfortable creating these travel groups?
ML: Yes. I would talk to folks that would join my trips that had never left their state, or their cities and would only do road trips — no airports. Tenia much que ver con las conversaciones que tenian con sus papas. Their parents really planted this fear into them.
AD: I do get really scared. I traveled to Washington when the DREAM Act was starting to happen for a protest. I used to do a lot of things — but when I almost got arrested in Washington, I was like, “There is no way I can continue doing this.” In my heart I really wanted to do it, but I get very nervous. Even with posting stuff on instagram about my life. I used to be very outspoken but I had a few bad experiences and had to hide that part of myself. But I am glad that you never did.
ML: Yeah, in a way traveling like we did was a the first step into breaking apart from that fear for them. It’s been very beautiful to connect with my community in that way.
AD: I think it would be so fun to organize a La Cuenta / ytienepapeles event and we all get together. I would just love to do something with you and learn from you and all the things that you do. It would be wonderful to connect and meet other people like us.
ML: That would be very, very fun. That’s what the meetups are for. They are to create community and to connect with one another. I have a group chat that I add people to once they come to a meetup. And people connect in other ways like they will send jobs to each other y cuando estaba pasando lo de COVID, they were sharing vaccination sites, or where to find free at home tests. It’s really fun. I have had really good turnout in LA. People have messaged me and asked me, “Come to Seattle.” Or, “Come to DC.” And I really do hope that I can get there one day because it would be great to do meetups in different parts of the country.
CP: I wouldn’t even suggest Arizona. It is so hot here and I’m not sure how safe it would be traveling to this state.
AD: We have to get you here. I don’t know how you're doing it all the way in Arizona.
CP: My life is here. We have had so many xenophobic assholes terrorizing and trying to further oppress our communities for as long as I can remember. There are periods in our history here, that are really scary, I mean Joe Arpiao, SB1070 and now Proposition 314. People get so scared that they do leave, they have chosen voluntary repatriation to avoid prosecution and abuse from the state. Growing up my parents never got to that point, where their fear or their worries led them to make that decision, but we did have to be incredibly cautious of our movement within our own city. And honestly, I’m not going anywhere. My life is here.
ML: I like that and understand that perspective that you have, Christián. About how they have been trying to kick you, they have been trying to pass policies that strip you of your humanity, y la gente sigue existiendo — regardless. I have shared a similar sentiment: If they kick me out of this country, I’m not coming back. It’s like when they kick you out of a club like, “I’m too cool for this place anyway.” Y creo que también doing advanced parole has shifted my view on living here, or being here.
At the same time I also think about how people are pushed out because of these policies and this fear that is instilled in them. I am absolutely fucking amazed by undocumented people that live in states like Arizona and Texas where they endure so much rhetoric and abuse from their governments, and even their neighbors who are voting for these polices and government officials.
Propina
If you missed the first part of our conversation with Maria, you can find it here:
We’ll see you next week.