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I Survived 6 Years Inside a Shelter That Felt Like a Prison. Eduardo Verduzco · Libro Abierto Interviews ENGLISH

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I was living a life on the streets. The next
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: day I was already out of the Gran Familia shelter. Well,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: at first when I arrived I said, no, I'll just
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: deal with it, at least I'm not with my family.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: When I looked around, it literally looked like a prison.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: My first meal was a potato full of white worms
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: and at the end, a rat, cooked. You have to
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: get used to it, little princess, because your life from
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: now on is going to be like this. Where rats, cockroaches,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: and everything would run over us. Feces would come up
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: through the floor. The people in charge would pull the
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: little kids by their ears, grab them, and smash their heads.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Between the ages of 12 and 15, Mama Rosa was
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: arrested and taken away. We never saw her again. She
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: even had a promoter trying to get her the Nobel
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Peace Prize. We are from the Office of the Attorney
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: General of the Republic. Come on, we've come to rescue you.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: I really think that if that hadn't happened, I wouldn't
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: be here telling you about it.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Please, give me your name, your age, and what you
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: do for a living. Hi, I'm Eduardo Verdusco.
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: Uh, I'm 28 years old.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: I'm a writer, composer, and social activist.
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: Can you tell us a little about your childhood, your mom,
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: your dad, your siblings? Tell us a little bit about that.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Of course. Look, well, I'm the youngest of six siblings
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: from the same father. I'm from a town called Tela Lola,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: which is in the northern mountains of Puebla. My mom married, well,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: she moved in with my dad, from what I know,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: when she was around 15 years old. He was 10
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: years older than her. I remember he was a fisherman
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: there in my town. However, even when they were dating
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: there was already violence, I mean, there was definitely violence
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: in everything. I don't know my mom's story very well,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: why she wanted to leave my grandmother's house, I don't
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: know a lot of the context. What I do know
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: is that she left, they moved in together, they had me,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: they had my other siblings. However, when I was about
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: six years old, I remember that my dad would hit
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: my mom, and not just her, but my other siblings too.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: He ruptured one's eardrum with a kick, and the oldest,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: he burned his leg with a pot of hot coffee. Ah,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: my mom, after about ten years of being with him,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: got tired of the suffering and everything and she left.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: She was already working in prostitution. And she says, no,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: I can't take care of my children as such. She
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: makes a decision that for many might be right or wrong,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: I can't decide between that, you know? And she sells
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: my siblings, right? And I say, well, I can't decide
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: if it's right or wrong, because in the end, today
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: my siblings have, for all those wondering on social media, yes,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: I saw them again. Unfortunately we don't have a connection
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: as such, but I know they are okay in that,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: right or wrong. Whatever happened, they have built their lives.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Who were your siblings sold to? To what kind of people?
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't know how to tell you. I only know
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: there is one I never managed to see again. Why?
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Because my mom sold him, but to a high-class person,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: the richest in town, supposedly at the time. And so,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: imagine that, well, she sold them, and you know, when
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: they sell them they change their surnames too. And neither
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: my mom nor my grandmother could tell me They didn't
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: want to tell me who he is because he already
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: has another life, right? And you, why weren't you sold?
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: I wasn't sold.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Why?
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Because I was the youngest. I was like the smallest, right?
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: I was six years old. And I think I wasn't
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: going to be of use for, for hard labor, right? Today,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: well yes, I have seen them again, but we don't
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: have a connection as such. And well, everyone built their
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: own life, right? Do you remember the feeling of emptiness
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: or perhaps even abandonment when your siblings were no longer there? Well,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: more than anything, emptiness. I had to start perceiving things
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: very coldly from that age, because when, well, they sell
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: my siblings and everything, my mom told me just like that,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: I am not your mom. Meaning, your mom died in
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: an accident from now on. I am your aunt, my
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: name is Rokio. I am only your aunt and that
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: is what you will call me because she started to
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: form another family, right? She started to, date someone, I
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: think 15 years younger than her, and everything. The guy
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: came from a middle class background, his mother even had
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: a restaurant, or she still does, right by the side
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: of the road. So, they didn't want her there. Obviously,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: the lady realized that she wasn't my aunt, but actually
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: my mom, right? And, well, at that moment, what I
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: understood they were saying was that she had already been around,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: you know? Like, saying maybe she even has more kids,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: and all that. right? However, despite all of that, the
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: lady started saying, no, son, if the kid has no family, well,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: give him your last names, right? So, before, my name
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: was Eduardo Yer Gonzalez Cruz. When this person gave me
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: his last names, my stepfather, I became Eduardo Yer Cruz.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Now my name is Eduardo Verdusco. Well, the man didn't
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: treat me that badly. The one who did treat me
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: badly was my mom. I never had a toy. I
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: never had a hug, I never had anything. No Christmas
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: or birthday gifts. I had never even experienced what it
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: was to have a birthday party, right? And all the get-togethers.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: At the get-togethers, when I started going to school, I
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: would go into the school bathroom to cry because I
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: saw the moms of my classmates bringing them things, since
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: they had to contribute a dish and all that for
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: the parties, right? And well, I didn't have anyone to
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: go see me and to be with me, right? So, well,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: I had to start catching on to a lot of things.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Back then, when my mom was teaching me the vowels
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: and all that at home, I remember she had a
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: little chalkboard and one of those abacuses used to teach
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: you how to add and subtract. If I didn't know
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: a vowel, my mom would grab me by the ears
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: and slam me against the chalkboard, and if I didn't
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: say them right, she'd do it all over again. When
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: she had fits of hysteria, I remember well that those
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: aluminum brooms had just come out, and she'd bend them
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: over my back, or when the plastic cap came off
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: and they were sharp, she'd leave me with scars. I
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: think you can still see the scars I have. She
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: gets pregnant. I think I was about nine years old
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: when she got pregnant. And she said, now, now I
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: am going to have children. And that's when she got
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: pregnant with twins, two little twins. The pregnancy was high risk,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: because they were telling this guy, my stepfather, they told him,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: you know what? Either we save her or we save
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: the children. We can't save both. They did everything possible,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: and in the end, they were both saved. Both the
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: twins and her. Even so, I say, despite having lived
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: through that experience and being so close to death, my
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: mom never changed. I mean, my mom never showed that weakness,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: you could say, or those feelings, right? So, she had
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: the twins and she'd leave me at home. I mean,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: she'd leave me at home to look after them. She'd
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: give me 10 pesos so that I could eat. I'd
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: buy 5 pesos of tortillas and 5 pesos of ham
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: at the store, and that's what I would eat all
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: day long. Sometimes she'd even go out dancing and leave
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: me behind, and then my stepfather would come home and
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: ask me where my mom was. I'd tell him I
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: didn't know, and that guy, honestly, with his belt buckle,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: one of those ranch-style ones, he'd hit me. He'd take
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: it out on me. And that's even though my mom
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: was supposed to have sought a stable family and a
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: different life. like we were saying, that she wanted to
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: start a family and forget the past. And all that. However, well,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: I don't think that was really her mindset, you know?
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: And one day she leaves me to look after my
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: little brothers. My little brothers were tiny, just babies, and
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: I was in charge of doing the cleaning, washing, and
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: all that. And one day, I don't know, I set
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: the iron down on one of the armchairs and didn't
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: pay attention because I was watching my little brother. And
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: it burned right through. What a mess I made. My
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: mom was one of those people who put covers or
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: blankets on the armchairs so they wouldn't get dirty, you know?
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: One day she had off. She worked at her mother-in-law's restaurant.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: And well, one day she came back home on her
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: day off and I thought, oh crap, I said, no,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: I'll do it, no, I'll change them, don't worry. And
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: so don't, don't do anything, mom, no, I'll do it.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Then she noticed my nervousness and everything, and well, she
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: lifts it up and sees the hole I made in
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: her chair with the iron. At that time I was
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: already ten years old, and in that fit of rage,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: first they start in on me with a wet belt,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: my stepfather and everyone, well, it was like they had
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: already gotten their revenge, and my mom, in a fit
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: of hysteria, like, just horrible, she starts in on me
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: with the broom handle. That must have been her favorite,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: since the brooms were, to the point that we had
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: this handcrafted table, I mean, from back there, and it had, like,
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: small transparent mirrors, like four squares, I remember, on the table,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: and she lifts me onto it and starts, she started,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: but like, horribly. The good thing is that my stepfather
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: was there, and at the moment I felt like I
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: was meeting my maker, he kind of pulls her off
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: and everything, and he tries to calm her down, grabs
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: her and all, and that's when I took off running,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: you know? A. In the town where I'm from, well,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: it's little mountain after little mountain. I mean, it's just
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: hills and dirt roads, you know? So I, I escape,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: and everything. I leave. Well, I wanted to get to
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: my grandma's house because she was the only one who, like,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: really looked out for us. She was the only one,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: for example, whenever there were end-of-year ceremonies in elementary school,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: she was always my godmother, you know? And I even
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: remember the nicest memory I have is that she used
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: to bring me those, those cookies that came in a
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: little metal tray. That was my gift, you know? It's
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: not like she saw me much because she couldn't, either,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: but she was always my mother at the ceremonies, the
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: only nice memories I have of my childhood, and all that,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: so I was going to go with my grandma. My
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: mom literally made up that I was, well, a problematic child,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, that she couldn't handle me, that I even
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: stole money, I mean, she invented so many things, to
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: the point that, well, my grandma believed all those kinds
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: of things. She sends me to a town, a village,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: over there with one of her friends and all that. But,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, they treated me terribly there too. I had
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: to pick 40 kilograms of coffee a day because that's
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: what I could handle to bring in, less than a
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: quarter of a sack, and all that. Well, I was
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: like a little donkey there, you know, I could go
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: up the hill and all that. And well, when my
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: grandma found out, she came for me. I was afraid
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: to tell her that they were also treating me badly
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: there and all that. and the point is that they
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: called one of my brothers, one who is older than
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: me but younger than the oldest, he lived in Mexico City,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: and they told him so many things, they told him,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: that I was a thief, that I was caught up
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: in bad things, and so on, they practically wanted to
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: get rid of me, to my mom, I was very
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: much in the way of her being happy, and so
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: my grandma says, you know what, your brother is coming,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: he's going to come for you, and he came for me,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: I remember that day he gave me some tic-tac mints
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: because back then those were the thing. Reggaeton was really
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: popular at that time back then. And well, he arrived
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: looking so impressive. He arrived with a sweater, with a
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: trench coat, and I said, wow, this guy has a
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: lot of money, you know? I mean, it shows, right?
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: The status and all that. He says that, well, that
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: brother of mine tells me, he's coming for you now, right?
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: Everything is going for me. We arrived in Mexico City.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Back then it was the federal district. So, your brother
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: knew who his mom was, and, yes, he had already
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: grown up differently here and that's the context I'm getting at.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: He lived with a person named Carlos. This guy had
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: a budget eatery called El Cantarito in the Tepito neighborhood. He,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: my brother, worked for him and also lived with him.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: This guy was probably around 45 years old or so.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: The first week everything was fine, everything was, well, okay,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: by the second week, he started, He threatened me that
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: if I told my brother anything, they would kill him.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: His excuse to me, and what he would tell my brother, was,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: your brother is just a slob, he doesn't scrub himself well,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: and I'm going to scrub his elbows with a pumice stone,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: you know, the little stone. And that was his excuse
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: to get in the shower with me, literally, my brother
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: believed him. I lived, I lived through two hells, I mean,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: the first hell of being held captive by this person
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: who was also exploiting me for labor. I worked for him,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: I had to make deliveries and take orders for the
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: market stalls in Tepido, and on top of that, work
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: for him. And without any pay or anything like that.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: The hell, I call it the double hell.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: Why?
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Because I basically sacrificed myself so this person wouldn't do
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: anything to my brother. And imagine, this guy Carlos would
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: tell my brother, he's a rebel, he's a slob. And
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: my brother would, I mean, he'd climb on top of
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: my shoulders while I was lying down and hit me, saying,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: I've tried to help you, and, you know, blaming me
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: for everything, and I lived through those two hells. The
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: one person I could tell what was happening to me
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: was also the one who was beating me, you know,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, he would beat me to a pulp. I
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: don't know, I think I've always had a special guardian angel,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: and when they would take me to see this person's family,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: his sisters and everyone, they owned factories in Pinos, women's
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: clothing factories. They had money, they had a lot of money.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: In fact, they lived, one of this man's sisters lived
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: right by the monument to the revolution. I mean, honestly,
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: back then that lady even owned taxis. I remember every
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: week they would take me to see her because they
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: usually met up on Saturdays and Sundays, and the lady
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: had a very, very fond affection for me, I mean,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: she would say, don't you want me to be your mom?
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: And with her, I could sort of be a child,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: you know? But when I got home, my brother would
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: scold me, he'd say, look, Behave like this here, here
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: these aren't your friends. Like they were very resentful, right?
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: I don't know what was up, I really can't explain it.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Even the man himself would say, because the lady would
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: then tell me, what if I adopt you? What if
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: you come to live here instead? You're so small and all.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, they did love me in a certain way,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: his family. I couldn't tell them anything because if I
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: said something, I would pay for it, right? So it
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: went on like that until one day I decided to
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: run away. I mean, I punched this, sorry for the language,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: but I punched him because this man already wanted to
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: put me in a skirt. I mean, literally, there was
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: a lady who helped us cook. It was this, the
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: lady who came from, I think, Chalco to work, I remember,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: it was that man, my brother, and me who delivered
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: the work equipment. And one day, when my brother went
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: out to deliver, that man told me, well, I'm going
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: to put a little skirt on you so you can
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: make deliveries like that. I started to change a lot,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, I was always thinking about being on the defensive,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: having a lot of internal anger, and things like that.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: And well, when he said that to me, I just
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: swung at him, with all my might and I just
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: took off running. I still saw my brother and I
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: said to him, and he says, no, you're wrong, you're wrong.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: And he just let me go, just like that. I
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: went into hiding. I hid because I had already told
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: one of the people we used to make deliveries to
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: what I was going through. And that person helped me,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: that person helped me a lot. She's a woman, I
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: adore her, and I recently reconnected with her. She's just
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: amazing at what she does, you know? Back then, she
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: put me in a van where they loaded up the
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: clothes and stuff, and she hid me. She hid me
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: and got me out of the Tepido neighborhood and brought
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: me to Neza, because that's where she had her workshops. Yes,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: I know I was living with her for a while
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: and all that. One day she even took me to
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: her apartment and said, well, so you don't have to
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: stay in the workshop. you're going to be my right-hand man.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: I was very diligent, you know, very hardworking. Sometimes she'd
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: have us sell the leftover stock at the street market,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: and she would pay us for that clothes, and I
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: was more than grateful to her. I was really impressed, like,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: I'd say. She feeds me, buys me clothes, and even
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: takes me to her home, and she trusts me with
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: her family and everything. But one day, after I had
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: already told her how the situation was, she says to me,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: guess what, that man, the one who is your uncle,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: because that guy was passing himself off as our uncle
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: back there. He's looking for you, and someone tipped them
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: off that you're with me. We found out through the
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: grapevine and everything. She says, I'm scared, I'm just a
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: woman on my own. Honestly, she says, if I take
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: you to a group home, they'll ask me questions and
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: might even arrest me, wondering why I have you and
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: all that. She says, and the only other option is
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: for you to go back to your uncle, grab your things,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: She even gave me one of those black bags they
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: used for merchandise. And she told me, pack your bag,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: I'm going to decide what I'm going to do. And
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: she left. So I took charge and said, no, no way.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm never going back to where they hurt
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: me so much, I'm leaving their apartment. So I just
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: took off, and that's how I wandered around. I was
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: about 11 years old at the time, and I ended
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: up living on the streets. I mean, it sounds intense.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: But sometimes I had to search through trash cans just
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: to survive because the streets are so brutal and people
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: are really something else. I mean, I'll put it that way.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: Because even though I was just an 11-year-old boy living
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: on the street, society is so cruel that they look
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: at you and belittle you. I suffered a lot of
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: social rejection, you know? And everything else. So, I was
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: just living like that. But tell us about that time
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: when you lived on the street, where did you sleep,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: Were you cold or hungry? I understand you looked in
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: trash cans, but did you make friends? Did anyone help you? Look,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: while living on the streets, I discovered that the streets
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: have owners. Where I slept wasn't under a bridge, because
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: no way, it was like a small park. But in
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: that little park, there was a leader, and that leader
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: would charge you, for example, if I wanted to sleep there,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: I had to pay a fee. Whatever I earned from
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: cleaning windshields or whatever people gave me, I had to
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: give it to him for his drugs and all that,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: and he would let me sleep there. I discovered many
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: things in there. I never got into the drug scene myself,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: but I did discover a society so, well, I'll say
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: it again, a society that doesn't even show pity for children,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: or have any mercy, or offer them any support, I
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: always got comments like, hey, dirty kid, you know? And
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: disgusted looks because of how I looked. Yes, I suffered
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: from hunger and cold and everything, and fear, too. Fear
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: that someone would hurt me. All because despite the history
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: I already had, I hadn't become a tough person. I mean,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: I was still afraid of getting hit, of getting into
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: fights and all that. One day I ran into a
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: lady who passed by, and she told me, you can
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: change your life, she said, you can go to the
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: DIF in Nezahualcoyotl. They even took me to the door
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: and said, you know what, I'm going to show you
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: that you can change your life, you're going to this
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: DIF and there you'll study, they'll give you food, you'll bathe, and,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: you're going to be a good man and all. I'm
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: going to the DIF, I mean, I practically turn myself in, right,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: and I tell them, Hey, my name is Arte Cruz.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: I'm from the northern Sierra of Puebla. Ah, my mom's
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: name is, well, I can't say it here. They tell me, no,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: it's that you're hiding. You've already, you've already stolen. They
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: sent for some guys one day who all showed up
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: wearing tactical vests, right? Like they were police officers. And
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: I'm crying. It's just that I want to change my life.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: I remember that when I was a kid I wanted
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: to be a doctor. Imagine that. It's that I want
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: to change my life. I want to study. I want
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: to go to school. I want to eat well, I
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: want to bathe, and, you know, live right. You're hiding, and,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: we even discovered that you killed someone, they say, that's
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: why you're coming here. I was like, no, it wasn't
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: until I was, overcome with emotion and crying, that they
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: left me alone. They didn't take me to the DIF
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: as such, but they took me to an annex because
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: they didn't have room at the DIF. I was there
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: for about two months in withdrawal and all. And in
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: that annex I was there for those two months, well,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: I didn't even know what was going on because they
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: made us read the Bible, they made us stand in
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: a square formation, they sometimes gave us things without salt
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: in the famous, bear broth. Where they give you vegetables
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: in water and, and all that. That was it, right?
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: One night in the early morning, two social workers arrived,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: a man and a woman. They put me in a
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: car that had child locks and, they tell me, we
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: found your family. we already found your family and we
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: are going to take you to them, okay, well, I said,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: if there is nothing left, then they are going to
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: take me to my family, right, just like that, I said, no,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: well they found them already, so blah, blah, blah, the
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: next day I was already outside the La Gran Familia shelter,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: I was out there, I only saw through some cracks,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: in front of her desk was Mama Rosa, Rosa del
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: Carmen Verduzco Verduzco, an old lady, She had on a
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: red sweater that was embroidered on the left side with,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: La Gran Familia, and it had two little figures, two children,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: you can't see them smiling, a red plaid skirt, some
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: big tire sole sandals, and, one of those big walkie-talkies
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: like a brick that she used to communicate with all
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: the supervisors. At the main entrance was an officer who
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: was guarding so that no one would escape from the
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: La Gran Familia shelter. Well at first when I arrived
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: I said, well I'm going to do something great, At
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: least I'm not with my family, I'm going to come
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: out of here a success, I'm going to study music,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: because the tour they gave us, in the first courtyard
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: was the auditorium, there was the symphony, on the other
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: side were the piano students, the classrooms, there was the choir.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: The moment the social workers took me there, I automatically became, uh,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: I became a son of Mama Rosa. I mean, instead
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: of being called Eduardo Hiero Lart Cruz, now I became
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: Eduardo Verduzco. Verduzco. Why did they take your last names
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: away and give you that one? Because what Mama Rosa
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: did was, for those brought by DIF or those who
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: didn't have a family as such, that no one claimed,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: she would give them her last name. Even children who
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: were born there, who did have their mom and everything,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: became Mama Rosa's children. But legally, well, it was supposed
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: to be legal. Later they found the notary and all
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: that mess, and well, they discovered that it wasn't legal.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: In the approximately 50 years that that foster home or
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: shelter operated, just imagine that over 4,000 children passed through.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: And legally, what is your name, really? Legally, today, my
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: name is Eduardo Verdusco. With lawyers, I managed to keep
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: those last names. So, when I arrived there inside the shelter,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: I first imagined that everything was going to be fine, right? However,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: they call over someone in charge at the time. Miguel
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: Angel Ibarra Valencia, alias, El Chivo, and say, hey, Chivo,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: come here, come get this kid, and he takes me
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: to the second courtyard, when I get to the second courtyard,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: there were kids tattooing themselves, literally, I mean, it was
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: a shoe sewing needle with thread, some Johnson shoe polish,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: that was the ink we used to tattoo ourselves, and
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: a motor from one of those wind-up toy cars, that
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: was the little machine they used to tattoo us, at
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: that moment, I see people getting tattoos, other kids beating
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: each other up, they were all buzzing around me like
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: wasps because I was the new kid, right? I didn't
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: understand when I looked around, it literally looked like a prison. Why?
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: Because we didn't even have windows, I mean, with glass
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: and that, it was bars upon bars, padlocks upon padlocks.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: The rooms were like that, the bathrooms were horribly like that,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: without proper facilities, in fact, There was no hygiene because
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: the pipes just dripped water, with lice and everything. I
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: remember that when they take me to eat, where they
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: assigned us our spot at the table, we called it,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: your place. Your place was like, well, this is where
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: they put your food. My first meal was a potato
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: full of white worms, an avocado that was all, well,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: half an avocado, completely green, literally, I mean, you couldn't
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: even eat it. two moldy tortillas, with green spots and everything,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: and I remember that I didn't want to eat that day, right?
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: And the person in charge told me, he said, you
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: have to get used to it, little princess, because your
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: life from now on is going to be like this.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: At first I felt fear, but with time you get
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: used to it. Around 5 o'clock in the afternoon they
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: started serving dinner because at 6 o'clock in the evening
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: they would send us up to our rooms. So, at
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: 5 o'clock they served dinner and everything, they stopped letting
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: us go directly into the dining hall, it was outside
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: the dining hall door. It was one of those big
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: metal pots, it was cabbage with broth and everything and
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: at the bottom a rat, cooked, when they poured out
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: all the broth, they wouldn't give you plates, no, nothing
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: like that, I mean, literally with the t-shirt they gave
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: you as a uniform because they didn't uniform us. You
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: had to hold it like that to be able to
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: reach a little bit of cabbage and be able to
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: eat it, I'll tell you a little bit more. They
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: assigned me a room. In each room there were around 20,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: 20 kids sleeping there, one after another, with rats and
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: cockroaches and everything passing by us. We didn't have a
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: toilet as such in the rooms for our needs, but
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: rather a bucket about this size that you had to
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: take down the next day and dump it into the
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: drain without it falling over on the way. We had
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: to clean ourselves with, when you arrived they gave you
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: a mattress that was, this thick, more or less like this,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: and you would take some off the mattress to be
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: able to clean yourself. Some of us did get a bed,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: but they were literally, they were those metal ones, like
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: metal bunks that were all tangled up with wire. They
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: put me in a room, there was a person in
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: charge who looked after us, they would lock us in,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: count us, and everything, and they would put a padlock on,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: like two padlocks, and then they assigned someone in charge,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: who was the one watching to make sure you didn't, well,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: pull out a bar to escape, that you didn't dig
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: a hole, and all that. The next day when they
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: took us down, they would count us, there was a
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: person in charge for primary school, there was a person
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: in charge for counting those in middle school, others for
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: high school, and others for those who had finished high
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: school years ago. I want to emphasize that the little
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: ones also suffered a lot because they were isolated in
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: other rooms, but in those rooms, literally, feces would come
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: up through the floor, and they had to stay on
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: their mattresses all soaked in urine. They suffered a lot
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: of sexual abuse from the people in charge. The staff
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: would pull the little ones by their ears, grab them
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: and throw them around, hitting their heads, and then, when
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: they counted you, for example, it was literally at 6 a.m.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: when they would take you down and count you. Later,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: they would make some of us bathe with jets of
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: cold water, but just like chickens, I mean, literally, they
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: would all pile up at the bathroom door like that.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: We had no hygiene, no soap, no towels, no changes
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: of clothes. You just jumped into the jet, literally, that's
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: how you showed you had bathed, all in the cold,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: and you dried off with your own shirt. That day
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: when that happened to me, with the new clothes I
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: arrived in, they later took me to music theory class
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: because if you studied music and everything, they would play
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: sounds and you had to write the notes on the staff.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: And if you didn't do it, they would hit you
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: with sticks, a stick this big, and they would beat you,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: and if not, they would even take away your food,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: which was already rotten anyway. Before that they would also say,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: if you don't learn music, honestly, we are going to
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: take away your food. What was the urgent need for
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: you to be forced to learn music? Because we, well,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: I'll say it at the time, for example, we would
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: come to play at Bella's Arts, at the Palace of
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Fine Arts, we played at the Fox Center, teachers from
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: the University of Guanajuato would go. Because Mama Rosa had
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: that sense, she had that philosophy. That if she taught
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: them music, she'd say, you just go up and sing
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: and you've earned your living. That was her philosophy. That
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: with music, you could achieve whatever you wanted, and that
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: you didn't depend on anyone to boss you around, and
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: so on. And that is what she believed. So they
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: taught us solfage every day after 6 in the morning,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: from getting dressed or bathing until 8 in the morning.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: There were people who had grown up there and become teachers,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: even entire families there. Who already had kids and everything.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: And Mama Rosa would pay them with a kind of voucher.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: she made herself. I think, about 50 pesos, I believe,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: at that time. And when she paid them, which was payday,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: she would sell them L'Oreal soap, toothpaste, shampoo, boxes of Mazapan. So,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: after finishing sulfage classes and all that. You'd go to
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: have breakfast or they would give you food that had
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: gone bad. I mean, sometimes there were even pigs dying
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: in the back because behind the shelter there were pigs.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: Who knows why they died, but that's how they did it.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: Literally with all the hair still on it. That's how
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: they served the meat. We started trying to cope with
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: all that. To the point where we even made jokes,
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: you know? We'd say, no way, they're going to feed
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: us mammoth. We're going to eat mammoth, right? because they'd
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: put it in one of those deep plastic plates, it
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: was supposed to be, and they'd just pile bones in there,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: they'd serve you meat that stank, horrible. That's one topic,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: the food situation. Mama Rosa received donations in bulk, literally
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: every day a truck would come, one of those with
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: an open back. They would come and give her a
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: sack of potatoes, a crate of bananas, really nice ones,
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: they even came wrapped, with their little, you know, mangoes,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: those big ones. What Mama Rosa would do is send
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: it to be stored in the warehouse, and once it
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: was putrid, she'd give it to us. When it even
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: had little sprouts coming out of the mango pit, and
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: it had white worms in it, she'd give it to us.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: She liked to torture us. With the food issue, that's
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: how it was. Even big brands, I remember back then,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: it's censored now because it's a discrimination issue, but there
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: was something called Negrito Bimbo, and your lunchbox would have
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: your Negrito Bimbo and your little milk. Huge trucks would arrive,
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: Even from Bonifant Water when they started releasing those 600ml
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: flavored ones, they would just arrive in droves, the Iro
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: Puerto Carnitas, which are very famous over in Zamora, Michoacan,
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: they were given those, which were like little balls of
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: meat with carnitas and all. We had a KFC right
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: next door, and they would send us chicken, they send
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: us bags of boxes of chicken, and I would watch
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: how they would go by, and she would send them
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: straight to the storage rooms. And when the Kentucky chicken
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: already had green spots on it, that's when she would
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: give it to us with flour tortillas. I have a trauma,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: though to this day I do eat them, I mean,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: I've tried to, if not get over it, at least
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: know that it's not bad anymore because I'm eating good
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: food that's in good condition and all. But I have
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: a trauma with flour tortillas because when she gave them
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: to us at the shelter, they were, full of green spots,
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: and we would just scrape off the green spots, fold
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: the tortilla, put it in our mouths, and drink tap water.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: That was to mitigate the hunger, but she, She really
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: did receive huge donations, I mean, trucks would arrive and
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: literally unload fruit in good condition. I don't know why,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: you know, that part of doing that to us, giving
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: us food that was literally spoiled.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: But that shelter, it's not like they were there because
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: they were helping them, that's evident.
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: And from what I understand, you couldn't escape either, you
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: were locked up.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: Actually, that's where I'm going with this. I suffered a
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: lot from the age of 12 to 15 because, well,
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: I was locked up for six years inside the La
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: Gran Familia shelter. From 12 to 15 years old, I
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: was beat. The very people in charge of the La
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: Gran Familia shelter. It reached a point where Mama Rosa
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: would make us wear uniforms. Just imagine, we had two
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: changes of clothes a week. On Monday they would give
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: them to us depending on if you were in elementary, middle,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: or high school. but the uniforms had the La Gran
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: Familia logo on them. So that when you escaped, the
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: local municipal authority there was, colluding with Mama Rosa. So,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: imagine you escaped and they would immediately identify that you
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: were one of Mama Rosa's kids and they would return
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: you to the La Gran Familia shelter, right? They would
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: lock you up in a place called El Pinocho. That
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: place only had a tiny crack to, see the light
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: of day, a hole to relieve yourself, and Mama Rosa
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: would lock you up for a month or two months
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: without food. And that is very surprising because when I've
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: told it on social media, they say, well no, I
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: don't know, honestly God is so great that he let
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: us survive all that. She wouldn't let anyone get close,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: not even to give you a glass of water. She
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: would do that until you finally gave up psychologically and said,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: and asked her for forgiveness on your knees, and promised
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: her you wouldn't run away again and apologized for having
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: done it.
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: I mean, that was worse than being actually locked up, right?
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Uh-huh, I mean, inside that same confinement there was another confinement,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: and I'm telling you, you didn't see, I mean, the
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: rats literally crawled by there. This, this little room, you
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: didn't leave. Imagine being confined there, not being fed, just watching,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: seeing everything go by, not being able to, not even
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: being able to talk to anyone, because they weren't allowed,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: if you approached even to give them a glass of
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: water or something, you would end up just like him.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: And I'm telling you, the authorities themselves were in cahoots
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: with her. They gave you shirts that were full of
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: knits in the armpits. You had lice down to, your
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: private parts. We even played, we'd say, no, we have moms,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: we have big bulls, right? Like that, you would even
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: pull them out, right? And you'd say, oh, look, this
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: one is really fat, right? I even got the idea
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: that I was never going to get out of there,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: but I would say, well, I'm going to get out
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: alive or dead. So I started. That's why I have
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: all these scars on my hands. All of this. I
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: don't know, honestly, I'm really still trying to make sense
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: of it. I've lived some very beautiful things, for some
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: time now, and everything, but at the time I said, well,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter to me. Where they did stitch me up,
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: I would take and I would cut my veins when,
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: when they locked me up and everything, and I would
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: put on a, a shawl. right, and I would actually
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: see how the blood would gush out like crazy, and
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: I would just stay like that, like, I'm leaving, literally,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: and the next day I'd wake up with all my
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: blood clotted, it would get like, really clotted, I'd say, no,
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: I just don't want to die, just end this suffering,
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: at 15 I started to change, I would get into fights,
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, I stood up for myself, I had friends, right,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: I had my little groups, you know, each one in
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: their own corner, If someone messed with one of us,
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: the issues would jump up. And something they taught me
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: was that if I didn't defend myself from those jerks,
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: my own crew would beat the hell out of me.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: They'd tell me, go hit the guy who looked at
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: you with this pipe. If you don't do it, we're
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: going to kill you ourselves. So they taught me to
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: defend myself and said, if we see you're losing, we'll
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: jump in and beat him up. We'll hit him with
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: the pipes and stuff. We started making friends like that,
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: we started defending each other. I started to change a lot,
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: I was always on the defensive, if someone said anything,
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: even if it was nice, I'd say, no, screw you,
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: get lost. Why would I listen to you? When you
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: reached a certain age you got some discmans, you could
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: ask for sneakers, but everything was for trade there. When
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: they gave me mine, when I was 15, I asked
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: for some, like, basketball sneakers, like NBA ones, those big ones,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: and when they brought them, I was able to make
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: a trade. I sold them to a supervisor and could
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: buy myself bathing stuff, my first bar of L'Oreal soap,
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: my first lotion, and I even bought packs of cigarettes.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: I felt like a real tough guy, right? Because I
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: tried to escape. When I got that money, I started
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: to slip away. Yeah, people even came from, what's it called?
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: From Samuel's Sanctuary in Michoacan, and they would organize charity stuff,
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: because in the end, they already knew everything we were
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: going through, right? I mean, honestly, it's hypocritical and it'll
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: be normal. And I hope I don't get cancelled for this,
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: but total hypocrisy from Zamora Society because what we lived
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: through inside the Gran Familia shelter was an open secret.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: And those same shitty hypocritical people, I mean, literally, went
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: to the shelter and knew what we were living through.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: They already knew what was being lived inside the Gran
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: Familia shelter. It was an open secret in society. Even
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: at some point, the kids themselves remember that their moms
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: or dads would tell them, if you don't behave, I'm
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: taking you to Mama Rosita, you know? And that was
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: what they used to scare them with. So, right there,
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: there were people, I don't remember very well, but they
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: were important people, you know? And they were the ones
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: who were in charge, like we would write letters and
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: they were verified by Mama Rosa. She literally went letter
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: by letter, reading and authorizing them. They couldn't bring us anything,
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: like cell phones, none of those things, or, what were they, iPods, right?
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: Because at that time iPods and all that were starting
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: to come out, and she managed it, she would say, no,
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: from this age up, or those in middle school can
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: have some sneakers. To the ones in elementary, we'll give
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: them a ball, you know? And so, as you went
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: up in age levels, it's like how you earn things, supposedly,
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: in the lives of these people. to look good in
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: front of society and all. They even gave us new clothes,
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: but brand new, right? I mean, it even looked elegant, right?
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, and they gave us dinner that day. First
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: they gave us carnitas, a little plate of carnitas like
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: this small. You chose if you sold it to the
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: person in charge, you sold it to him. The plate
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: cost 5 pesos. And all day it went year by
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: year because there were also women. Let's remember that there
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: was also a population of women. You would go take
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: turns at the piñatas, and so on. But before, before
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: they brought us the gifts, Mama Rosa would do the following.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: If she didn't see you in socks or underwear, she'd
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: take away your right to get your gift and even
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: your meal on December 24th. She'd say, no, I'll give
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: you your socks, but I've traded them for your food.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: We're not giving you food on the 24th anymore. You
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: wouldn't be allowed into the dining room, you were grounded, literally.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: You weren't allowed to break the piñata. I mean, she
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: was a real piece of work, right? Even the moments
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: that could have been happy, she made them filthy. I mean,
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: some of the kids would say, no, they treat us
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: like this, and then they'd get a beating, get sent
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: to the other courtyard. as if nothing had been said
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: to the politicians, right? We didn't move up year by year,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: we'd even trade our candy. She gave us our gift,
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: and she gave it to us in the auditorium that
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: was in the first courtyard. On the nice side, you
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: could say, after that, they'd service food and all that,
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: and you had to decide whether or not to sell
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: it to the person in charge. You'd walk by, Mama
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: Rosa was there, because if you ran by or anything,
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: she'd say, hey, hey, come back here, you, or, come here,
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: come here. Come here. That's how she did it. Come here.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: Come here. Come here. I'm going to set you straight
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: because you're getting out of line. And she would give
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: you some real hard slaps. I was slapped once.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: That is that is a question. What was Mama Rosa's
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: interaction with all of you like? The beatings.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: Mama Rosa wasn't the little old lady they wanted to
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: paint her as. I mean, Mama Rosa was a beast
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: who was almost two meters tall, that woman. She wasn't
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: that little old lady like, oh, you poor thing, no.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: She saw you as a wretch, you know? She'd say, hey,
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: come here, get over here, get over here, you're getting
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: out of line. That's how she did it. And you'd
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: get over there, and if you pulled away, she'd say, hey, hey, kid,
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: come here, give this guy a beating because he's acting up,
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: because I am his mother. And then the person in
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: charge would come and it would be worse for you.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: They'd give you a beating, they'd rearrange your jaw like that,
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: and damn, you had to take them. or the hard
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: slaps she'd give you, right? That old lady, for example,
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: she'd say, hey, don't you be falling asleep on me
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: in the hall, she'd say, come here, come here, come here.
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: Then she'd grab those huge bricks, which were those big
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: Motorola walkie-talkies, boom, right to the back of your neck, bam,
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: she'd hit you with it, she'd say, come here, come here,
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: put it, put it here, and when you pulled away,
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: you could feel the sting of the beating, the beatings
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: that Mama Rosa would give you. Hey, call the goat
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: for the roll call. She'd say this guy is acting up,
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: and they'd come and give you a reality check, slaps
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: to the face, the caretakers would step on your head.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, when you didn't have anything, for example, back
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: to the subject of gifts or Christmas, I'm telling you
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: she'd send for you and say, well, what do you prefer,
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: that I give you your food because you're a starving beggar?
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: She'd say, I'll leave you your food, but right now
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: we're going to give you some lashings. Some lashings we
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: played so much, some smacks on your backside. I mean, seriously, man,
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: come on. Or otherwise she'd say, let's see, let's see.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: I'll give you your food, but you know what? Come here,
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: hold your hand out like this, but I want them
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: with a, what is it called? The violin bow. With that,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: she'd hit your hands, bam, bam, bam, and you had
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: to endure it. She'd say, now I'll give you your food.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: But all these parts of your wrists were bleeding, right?
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: and she'd tell you, I already gave you your food,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: you already earned some. Go on, get to the other patio.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: When she saw someone arriving like that, she'd say, come
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: over here, don't forget that I am your mother. Hey, look,
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: that kid over there who's hiding. Listen, I am your
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: mother and you have to obey me, and bam. She'd
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: hit him with the radio. That's how we lived through Christmas.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: The caretakers, I'm telling you, inside there it was all
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: a trade, When you were in the rooms with the
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: toughest ones, because it was the law the strongest, and
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: I ended up in those rooms, it was the ones
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: who were already escaping, the ones making jailbreaks, the ones
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: digging holes in the wall, and all that, we would
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: save up all year and send someone to buy a candy.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: I tried alcohol and vices inside La Gran Familia shelter.
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, during Christmas we'd get wasted, literally, because Mama
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: Rosa would leave with some person, some public figure from
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: Michoacan or Guanajuato. After giving us dinner and all, she'd say,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: go ahead. We would steal. I remember we'd break into
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: the warehouses and we'd say, hey, we brought stuff from outside.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: We'd bring in pants, a t-shirt, and we had our cigarettes,
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: we'd raise hell. That day we could raise hell in
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: the rooms however we wanted. There was sex going on everywhere.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: There were the women's dorms and the men's dorms right
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: across from them. So we'd make signals, you know, see
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: you there tomorrow, right? We'd tell the girls to cover
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: themselves with shawls at 7 o'clock, because at Christmas they
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: sent us to our rooms later, when it was almost
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: completely dark. And that's when we'd take the opportunity to
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: hook up. Sadly, when women got pregnant at the shelter,
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: there were women in charge of making sure no one
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: escaped or anything. Mama Rosa would send them to be
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: dealt with using bleach or beatings. There were women who
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: got pregnant inside. and since they had no family or
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: no one to claim them, she did whatever she wanted.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: The staff would drag them across the second courtyard, beaten
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: up because they got pregnant. Mama Rosa had the final say.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: She would say, I want you to feed her bleach.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: Literally like that.
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: And I imagine there were girls who died.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: No, thank God, no. In the six years I was there,
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: only one person died. and I think it was natural
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: causes because the man was already very old. I don't
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: know how we survived so much neglect. There were times,
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: for example, when I had diarrhea so bad I almost
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: didn't make it, my organs were failing. Remember, remember that
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: we also went through the first pandemic, which was the flu.
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: I lived through that inside La Gran Familia shelter, where
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: you felt like your head was going to explode, it
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: was horrible. We didn't have doctors, we didn't have medical attention,
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, we just survived inside the Gran Familia shelter.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: That diarrhea I'm talking about, it was monumental. I spent
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: the whole night like that, it was already green, my
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: were in bad shape and everything. Even the supervisor took
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: pity on me, they gave me a dose of medicine
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: and with that, and it's incredible. The supervisors did eat well,
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: they could steal things, the bread, all of that, and
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: they ran businesses inside the shelter itself. Let's remember that
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: inside the Gran Familia shelter there were privileged ones too,
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: because there were people whose families had brought them and
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: who had visitors every two months, every three months, even
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: every six months, twice a year. Whenever a visitor came,
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: there was a supervisor guarding them so the boy wouldn't
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: say anything. But inside the shelter they also had a network,
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: the supervisors themselves gave protection to these people, to these
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: people who did have visitors and so on, because they
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: paid them, I mean, they paid them, they even got
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: cell phones, even inside a cake during a visit, they
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: would put the cell phone in there, they would put
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: money inside a pasta dish. The family members.
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: Why?
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: Because these people who did have phones, the supervisors, without
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: Mama Rosa knowing, would call the family member and the
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: family member would cry, right? Saying I'm being threatened. And
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: it's like this here at the shelter and if you
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: don't give this much they're going to hit me, they're
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: going to do this to me. And with that, the
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: family member would go and discreetly slip money to the
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: supervisors so they would protect them, just like in prison.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, literally. But why didn't they get them out
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: of there? Because, it's not like, I'm not justifying it
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: too much. There were low-income families who said, you know what, well,
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: I'm going to leave my child because I don't have
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: enough to feed him, so he gets an education, so that.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: Mama Rosa made agreements. She'd say, I'll return your child
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: to you when he's 18. The agreement wasn't signed, it
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: wasn't a legal treaty. People who didn't have knowledge of
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: the law either, who couldn't afford a lawyer, I mean,
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: things like that. So, when the expiration date of the
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: contract arrived, she'd say, I won't give him to you
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: because he's my son too, because I'm his mother. And
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: then she would say, well, yeah, I'll give him to you,
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: but give me a million pesos. No, that's absurd. I mean,
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: if the lady didn't have enough to provide her child
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: with education, food, or shelter, how was she going to
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: come up with a million pesos to get her child back?
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: Hey, but Lalo, why did Mama Rosa or why did
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: the shelter keep you all there? I imagine there was
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: an objective, a purpose. And there was also a purpose
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: behind taking music theory classes and going out to sing
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: in various places. All of that must have had a reason.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: Look, I can tell you something. I understood it later,
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: because when I left and went through a lot of hardships,
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: I managed to get a job in the federal government.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: I was in the special prosecutor's office for electoral crimes
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: and at some point I managed to uncover many things.
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: I remember very clearly that when we were inside the shelter,
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: Mama Rosa would have voter ID cards issued for those
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: who hadn't even reached the age of majority yet. Back then,
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: the IFE existed and held the power, and well, I
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: can't name the political party, obviously for protection reasons, but
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: they would say, if we win, we'll give you a treat,
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: because they already knew who to vote for. For the
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: Bolio Party. And they would take 100 people, whether they
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: were of age or not, give them the ID cards,
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: tell them to vote for the Bolio Party, and take
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: them under guard to the polling station. Can you imagine?
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: And you can imagine what that represents in terms of votes, right? Also,
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: let's remember the very, very close relationship Mama Rosa had
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: with Marta Sahagin and Vicente Fox. That's why we would
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: go play at the Fox Center, literally. And I imagine
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: you also went to play in other places. Exactly. I mean,
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: like I said, we played at Bella's Arts, at the
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: Fox Center, and at private parties that were rumored to
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: be for drug traffickers. At that moment, what was the
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: deal with those private parties? It's just that, you see,
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: Mama Rosa would get paid for the gigs, but it
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: was all like favors. And I was just mentioning those
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: vouchers she paid with, which she made herself inside the
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: shelter to use as currency, and she'd tell them, if
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: you guys play, tomorrow I'll pay you 50 pesos in vouchers,
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: so they would go play, I mean, we would go
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: play at private parties, but we never really knew. We
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: were guarded, obviously, but yes, there were huge cases, I mean,
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: there was luxury, there were so many things, and in
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: those houses, besides going to perform, which were clearly places
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: for people with money and power, did things happen at
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: those parties? Well no, because Mama Rosa was very strict.
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: It was rumored, I mean, I say, it's a rumor,
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: it was rumored that she had many ties to the cartel. Yes,
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: that's true. I remember a lady, at one point a
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: chubby lady arrived, a, Jera, who told Mama Rosa, let
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: me hide here. She kneeled in the middle of the
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: main courtyard, but she was supposed to be hiding from someone,
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: and Mama Rosa said no. There was a lot of
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: talk about political power and even drug trafficking, because she
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: was a woman no one could touch, not even the
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: authorities themselves. There were reports from 20 years before we
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: were rescued. Cameras wanted to enter the shelter and they
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: were never allowed in. And that's why the authorities were
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: questioned a lot, because people said, for 20 years there
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: were reports and everything, and you did absolutely nothing to
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: open the shelter. I mean, the level of corruption was
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: much greater. Hopefully, she did contribute a huge, huge amount
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: of money. Political power really was everywhere. For example, it
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: amazes me a lot when back then the mayor was
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: Rosilda Vascal, from Michoacan, and her daughter was at the DIF.
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: She was the director of the DIF there in Michoacan.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: They came off as real hypocrites when the operation happened, saying, no,
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: it's just that we didn't know anything, right? When months earlier,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: she even had photos with Mama Rosa. They are right
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: there on the internet. And she arrived saying, no, we
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: didn't know anything, but we're going to support the victims
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: and all that. But she had ties. There was even one,
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: I think her name is Arendira, something like that, she
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: was the chief officer, I think, I don't know, a woman,
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: and we talked a lot. She had a lot of power.
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: Even the teachers who came to give us classes there
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: were provided by the Ministry of Public Education, and they
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: didn't say a thing. I mean, they knew we suffered
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: from that kind of treatment, but they didn't say anything
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: out of fear of Mama Rosa, who even had the
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: power to take away their jobs. Why did she have
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: so much power and why did she have those contacts?
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: I can tell you that, And it's the last I know,
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: because at some point they told me, you are a
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: legal child of Mama Rosa, you cannot claim her properties
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: as a son. Obviously, it entails a very, very intense
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: trial and years, right, of litigation and everything, but it's
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: because she owned half of Zamora, Michoacan. She began her work,
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: her supposed altruistic work, at 13 years old, when she
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: took in her first child. She had a treasurer, someone
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: who took charge of all the finances. It's rumored that
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: the land where we were was valued at 42.5 million pesos,
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: just the land, the land alone, you know? Which, in
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: the end, today, they've already destroyed the shelter, they completely
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: disappeared everything. I mean, explain something to us, Lalo, what
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: was the purpose of the shelter? It's rumored that it's
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: part of the electoral votes. The other thing is the begging,
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: for example, before they rescued us, a year before, Cetasol
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: at the time gave her a million pesos just to
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: change the floor of the shelter's dining room, just a
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: million pesos to change that, you know? It's rumored that,
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: imagine how many contributions they had. In fact, it's supposed
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: that volunteers came from many countries, I mean, many countries.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: In December, every December, uh well, before December, but it
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: was that, Leon Krause, the writer, he would do magazines
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: for her because Mama Rosa did something called the Silver Kilometer,
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: where the ones who didn't run away, the little kids,
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: she made them beg for change all over Michoacan, I mean,
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: through all the towns, you know? I mean, she made
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: them beg when she really didn't need money anymore, I mean,
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: it was just like a facade. Something like that, if
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: you don't believe me, you can look for the photo,
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: I even have it myself. You see, During one of
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: Queen Elizabeth of England's two visits to Mexico, she was
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: welcomed in Guadalajara by the mariachi from the big family,
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: and Queen Elizabeth gifted them an Olympic-sized pool that was
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: behind where we were. I mean, we couldn't see it,
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: but it was back there. And she also gifted an
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: Olympic gym, one of those where you climb up on
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: the bars or something. I mean, all those kinds of
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: things she gave her.
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: So, she was using all of you as a front
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: to get things?
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: And money. In fact, before we were rescued, she also
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: had a promoter working to get her the Nobel Peace Prize.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: I'm mentioning all these details so people can grasp the
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: political power she wielded. I mean, sometimes even presidents, the
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: presidents of the Republic, can't reach the royals, of Spain,
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: of England. And so, imagine a mortal, supposedly a mortal,
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: who takes in children with few resources, from the street,
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: all of that, getting to rub shoulders with Queen Elizabeth
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: of England. people are going to judge me. I mean,
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: I can understand that at some point, she did do
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: some work, right? You could say that, yes, she took
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: many in because I have heard many versions that Stockholm
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: Syndrome also happened, because today I support people who were
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: there before us, who are older adults now, and they
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: suffered from Stockholm Syndrome. I mean, even though Mama Rosa
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: did things to them and all, they say today that
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: she is their mom. I respect their accounts and everything,
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: but they say that at one point there was no
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: such treatment, There were no such things, and because they
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: arrived when they were children, there were people who left
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: 50 years after having entered that shelter. They couldn't rebuild
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: their lives like I did. Thank God, when the operation happened,
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: I was 28 years old and I was able to
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: rebuild my life and make a life for myself. I'm
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: married and all, but there were people who, even after
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: they were taken out, couldn't lead a normal life. You
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: could say, they're out now, I mean, they went in
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: at 10, 15 years old. something like that back then.
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: They got out at 65, 70, years, I mean, they
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: couldn't enjoy life like I'm enjoying it today, thank God.
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: I can imagine that at some point she did do
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: altruistic work and then lost her way. Supposed social assistance, well,
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: it just turned into receiving resources, for her own ego of,
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: look at me, I am Mama Rosa and I am,
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: I can even move things, I mean, I can even
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: move the President of the Republic. and I did move him, right?
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, the authorities, she would arrive, and even during
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: the raid, it's rumored that when they arrived and told her,
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: she would say, no, well we're already here, we're going to,
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: who can we settle this with? Mama Rosa says in
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: an interview, with him, that was her character, with that
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: boy passing by there, go settle it with him, I mean,
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: she was like that. She wasn't some frail old lady,
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: she went around in a van, one of those trucks,
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: she drove, She was a woman who didn't have, as
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: they say, any disability, nothing. I imagine that having so
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: much power was what corrupted her. I can believe that, right?
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: And I try to understand that part, that at the
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: end of the day, seeing so much money, seeing so much,
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: even though she looked almost destitute, she owned half of Zamora, Michoacan.
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: She had entire buildings, for herself. And among all the
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: donations she received, besides food and things like flooring, donating
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: the tile, what other things were donated to her? Well, money,
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: but we never saw that. It's just that she had
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: coffins in the back. When they carried out the raid
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: there were coffins, they even wanted to dig to see
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: if there weren't people buried there, but the scandal was
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: so media-driven that they didn't know what to do. They
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: removed two tons of trash in total. It was weeks,
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: the raid was in July. I think I didn't leave
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: the shelter until the end of August.
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: But tell us, Lolito, about the raid. Is everything still
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: going just as horribly at the shelter?
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: Everything is still going on as usual.
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: As things usually happened and functioned. But at what point
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: was there a raid?
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: Tell us about that.
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: I was already one of the rebels. I would go
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: to Mama Rosa and I'd tell her, right there at
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: her desk. I'd tell her, damn it, just let me go.
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: I already want to get out of here. And well,
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: I already knew that brought consequences. Like, they were going
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: to give me a beating or lock me in the
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: Pinocchio room. I started running away and everything, but the
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: nuns couldn't catch me. 2014 arrives, and I think we
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: were on vacation, I remember everyone had gone to have breakfast,
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: but like I said, I remember it was more or
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: less vacation time. Why? Because at that moment, nobody was
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: in the main courtyard. After everyone finished breakfast, we were
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: all in the second courtyard. We see Mama Rosa come out.
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: She comes out with a white background, her sandals, a
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: red sweater that was always her trademark. He tells the
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: people at the entrance, the police officer tells them, you
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: know what, look, don't let them in, don't let them in.
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: And holy crap, where did the old lady go? She
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: went through the other courtyard and we never saw her again.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: When we turned around, it was all like in those movies,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: people surrounding us, hooded, with helicopters. At this point, I
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: now know who conducted the raid, who headed it, more
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: or less, the official. At that moment he arrives and
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: tells us, we are from the attorney general's office. Come,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: we've come to rescue you. They move us aside, but
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: they start giving us numbers, they start assigning numbers to
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: the men and everything. People from the operation come in
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: with these things that are like shears and they were
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: cutting the padlocks. They start telling us all of that.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: I think they didn't imagine or didn't grasp the magnitude
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: of the raid. At that time, they rescued 530 of
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: us victims who were being held against our will. Inside
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: there were babies, there were elderly people, there were minors, adults,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, there was everything. Among women and children too. Well,
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: they probably thought they were going to rescue 20 people
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: who were at their limit. but when the operation happened,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: they didn't measure the repercussion it would have in the media,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, that same day on the news. The woman
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: known as Mama Rosa was detained, it was an outrage.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: Then Vicente Fox comes out saying no, that he's going
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: to defend her. We started to have a crisis, others
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: wanted to escape, because the PGR, at that time, started
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: changing everything, they started removing those ugly mattresses, they started cleaning.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: It was our first meal. I remember they gave us sandwiches,
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: an apple, just like those DIF breakfasts, but finally in
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: good condition. It was the first meal we had tasted
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: in years that was in good condition. Families start appearing,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: they ask for, they demand DNA tests, they start doing this,
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: they take our statements, one after another, and so on.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: We lived with uncertainty because it was coming out in
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: the media that they weren't going to close the shelter.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: We saw they were holding protests in Michoacan with the
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: hashtag hashtag I am also a Mama Rosa child so
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: they wouldn't close the shelter. I saw they were also
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: saying Mama Rosa was good, that she was their mom.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: For those of us who said no, who had lived
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: inside the shelter, the future was uncertain. Because suddenly it
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: even happened to me, at one point a family came
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: and told me, you are my son. I told them,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: no way, I don't remember you, no. It's just that
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: my son, I came to see Mama Rosa one day
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: and she told me he escaped. but you have his characteristics, right?
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: I said, oh no, I do remember where I come
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: from and everything. There were many who went missing, I mean,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: their families never found them. Others who were claimed, and
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: they did DNA tests, but while all that time passed,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: we were anxious and desperate because.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: But why couldn't you leave that place? Is it called
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: Mama Rosa or what?
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: No, Mama Rosa was arrested and taken away. We never
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: saw her again. Okay, and why couldn't you leave? Why?
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: because the state never imagined or grasped the magnitude of
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: the operation. There were even people who were born there
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: and their mother existed, but legally they were their sisters,
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: you can't say it like that. So they would say, no,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: we have to prove it's true. And the families from
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: the outside came to claim their children, but they had
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: to perform DNA tests before handing them over. That's why
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: I'm telling you that I was one of the last
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: to leave on the last bus to Mexico City, literally,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: because there were, for example, people saying, man, there are
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: seniors here. Where are we going to take them? Their
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: families didn't come to claim them. Where do we send them?
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: There were minors who weren't claimed by their families, so
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: they said, you know what? We need to move them
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: to the DIF, to shelters and homes, that was the recommendation.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: Others were taken to Toluca, and they are only just
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: now about to graduate, from the DIF centers and all that. So,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: for us, at the very end, I tell you, the
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: operation was in July, we were the last bus of
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: adults that left the Gran Familia shelter for Mexico City.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: There were around 100 of us on that bus, some
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: people came up to me and said, um, it was
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: like they took us in, like our dreams, because there
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: were also people with disabilities inside the Gran Familia shelter,
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: and they said, well, we're going to base this on
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: what you tell us, I mean, what do you want
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: to be, right? Well, we'll consider you, And so, the
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: truth is that's how it was, they started to look
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: at us in terms of whether they saw a future
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: for us. The truth is, when we arrived, they set
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: up a camp here in Mexico City. It was an
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: institution whose name I cannot mention, but the director broke
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: the rules because it was meant only for women. They
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: set up camps here with tents and everything to welcome
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: us and help us out, you know? And then, one
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: by one, they were sent off. Some were sent to Tamaulipas,
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: others wanted to go somewhere else, and so on. My
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: own future was very uncertain because I had one of
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: those big grey birth certificates that said, well, it didn't
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: even have my mom's name, I mean, nothing. It only
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: said that my name was Eduardo Verdasco Verdasco, that I
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: had been registered in Zamora, Michoacan, that I had been
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: born in Zahualcoco, state of Mexico, and that was all.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: When I started looking for work, or trying to get
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: an ID card, I couldn't because the birth certificate was fake,
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: and at that time I also had to get my
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: military service card, and I remember when I went to
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: do the paperwork in Clarelpon, they told me, no, where
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: did you get this certificate? I almost went to jail
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: for that. I said, the government gave it to me,
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: and it's sealed, and the paperwork is all there, and
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: having to explain it all over again, and all those
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: kinds of things. And literally, I didn't exist here. I mean,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: I didn't exist in the country, I wasn't in the
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: civil registry, nothing like that. Do you know why the
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: operation was carried out?
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: Imagine this. The second-in-command under Mama Rosa, when I arrived
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: and they enrolled me in the fifth grade, she was
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: someone from my own time. Just imagine, Le Chabalot, as
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: she was called, was Mama Rosa's prefect. She was the
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: one who was going to be second-in-command. Besides being in charge,
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: she also played in Mama Rosa's mariachi band. She had
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: a daughter named Josefina, and we were both in the
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: same class. Le Chabalot escapes. And so one day, she
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: tells Mama Rosa, give me my daughter, right? If not,
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: it's going to cause a mess, a scandal, she said, no,
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: I'm not afraid, blah blah blah, and what a disgrace.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: So Chabalot, seeing that they wouldn't give him his daughter,
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: started talking to more parents who were also being denied
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: their children. In total, they gathered 50 parents and they
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: went straight to the attorney general's office and filed a
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: formal complaint there and everything. What happened in the meantime
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: was that Josefina got involved with this person in charge, honestly,
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: because from what I know it was a consensual relationship,
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: but it still happened because she was a minor at
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: the time. So that gave Chabelo more leverage to be
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: able to fight for his daughter. The point is that
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: the operation took a year to carry out. the Attorney
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: General's office still took a year to set up the
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: operation and all that, until they finally decided that it
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: was time. It is rumored that at that moment, we
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: were just a smokescreen. I mean, really, at that time
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: there was a lot going on with drug trafficking, with Latuda,
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: the Knights Templar in Michoacan, and it was even rumored
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: that the governor himself. A video scandal came out where
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: he's with Latuda and everything. So they said, you know what,
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: let's create a smoke screen, and that's why they actually
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: rescued us. I really, really believe that if that hadn't happened,
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't be here telling you about it, because when
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: they rescued us and all, we were on the air
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: for two weeks. I mean, literally at an international level,
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: people even came from Univision, people we didn't know, even
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: speaking English. Telling the story, the shelter, and all that business.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: We were just stunned by how impressive it was when
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: the operation happened.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: And what did you talk about among yourselves? Were we
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: going to leave, or what was it like?
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: Damn, we were saying goodbye, because day by day they
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: were leaving. At some point, I did feel nostalgic, thinking, man, nobody,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, nobody showed up to come for me. I mean,
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: where am I going to go? What am I going
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: to do? Literally, there was no one to claim me.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: We were saying our goodbyes, friends. As we said our goodbyes, well,
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: everyone went their own way. I tell you, Once they
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: finally released us, the government itself began to place others
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: in other group homes. In other, what are they called?
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: Asylums and all that, because as I mentioned at the start,
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: there were people who in 50 years had never been
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: able to leave. I mean, how do you rebuild the
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: lives of those people? Because they literally told me, you're
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: an adult now, no association or institution is going to
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: take care of you anymore. And all that. So I
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: started to find my own path. I remember that. I
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: later fell into depression, I tried clonazepam. Because I was
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: taking that medication when I left the shelter and they
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: admitted me to Fray Bernardino. I was, I mean, I
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: got out in August 2014 and that same year from
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: November to December I was admitted to the psychiatric hospital.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: which is when I tell you I went through the
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: worst stage of my life because, well, nobody came to
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: see me. There were people who unfortunately were very ill
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: in the psychiatric ward, who would talk to themselves. I
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: was very afraid. They medicated me and told me, you
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: have to walk up and down the hallway so the
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: doctors will discharge you. If you're just lying there like that,
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: they won't, they won't discharge you because they'll say you're
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: doing poorly. So I would start walking up and down
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: the hallway, at Fray Bernardino. Until they finally discharged me
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: after two months. When I left, they told me, you
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: know what, we've found you an annex where they'll give
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: you a place to live, you'll be able to go
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: out and everything to look for work. After that, well,
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: I started working. I was a janitor at this place,
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: the ESCA in Tepepan, at the poly. The pay was, honestly,
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: very miserable. I had to pull double shifts. I'd arrive
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: at 6 in the morning and leave at 10 at night,
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: just so my bi-weekly pay, and everything. My co-workers were
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: the ones who supported me, honestly. The same ones there
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: would tell me, oh, you didn't bring anything to eat
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: because we ate at 2 in the afternoon, I remember.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: And she said, no, it's okay, I didn't bring any,
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: don't worry, we'll all give you a taco. And when
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: I wanted to cash my first bi-weekly paychecks, I couldn't
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: cash them because, I mean, I had to endorse the check.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: I had to learn, I mean, to reintegrate myself into
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: society on my own, and I would endorse the checks
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: and a co-worker would do me the favor of cashing them,
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: and that's how I started, I mean, I started and
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: then I began renting a little room in San Pedro
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: Martir all the way to Mexico Cuernavaca, at the exit.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: I had many patterns, I mean, the same thing happened,
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: I didn't know how to show affection, and with the
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: people I met, well, I was open. Later on, well,
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: things went much better for me. I managed to get
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: a job at the Attorney General's office. This was in 2015.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: I started in March 2015 and, well, I thought my
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: life was finally sorted out. Because the truth is, it's
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: very true what they say about money giving you stability. Well,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: I felt like I had made it. I'm earning now.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: I already had my paychecks, the big paycheck, from the
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: PGR and everything. I felt like a pro because I
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: kept learning. Just as I started working, I kept learning.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: I got on my first plane, then they started sending
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: me to do operations alone, they literally commissioned me. One
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: day I went to Los Mochis, seen Aloha as an agent,
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: I already felt like a pro, and I kept developing,
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: I started to see that there were more, I mean,
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: how society worked, that there were rules within society, that
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: there were laws. Well, I'm on my way now, well dressed, yes,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: with the MasterCard, Like, charge it and everything. I felt
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: like I was living a good life. I had roommates
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: at the time and one of my roommates was one
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: of my best friends. May he rest in peace. His
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: name was Luis Andres Barragan Loya. He also came from
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: the La Gran Familia shelter and the event happened in 2017.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: We were living in a building in Azcapotzalco and in
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: the laundry area was where he took his... I had
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: to take him down. I mean... There were many things
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: at that moment. I took him down, when I lowered
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: him I tried to give him resuscitation, but he no
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: longer had a pulse. The officers arrived, they told me, no, well,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: you shouldn't have done that, that wasn't due process. They
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: took me to the Osco-Posalco public prosecutor's office, then they
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: talked among themselves and at first it was like, your
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: situation is going to get worse, and this and that
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: you're done for, but I haven't done anything, and I
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: am going through a very difficult moment of grief. By
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: the night they spoke among the authorities, the government speaks,
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: for that, someone from the executive commission for assistance speaks.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: He says, no, don't worry, we even paid for the casket.
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: You're just going to be taken to the Institute of
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: Forensic Sciences to identify the body. You have to identify
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: him and everything and you're going to bury him at noon,
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: but everything is already paid for, even the little plot
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: and everything where you're going to bury him. When I
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: started to realize, I said, oh my god. I mean,
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: there was a resource for people or for victims that
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: they should have supported us with in medical, psychological matters,
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: give us a, make us a life project, a social reintegration,
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: into society. However, if that resource was taken by the
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: authorities of that time and they never supported us, never,
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: literally they never exercised the law or anything like that until,
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: as I tell you, what happened to my companion. So
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: that was when I opened my eyes. Days later I
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: hit the 2017 earthquake. It was three days later because
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: it was September 19th. It didn't give me time to
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: cry or anything like that. I mean, not even to
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: sink into depression, and I started working automatically. So I
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: started plotting how I was going to get the authorities
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: to support the victims of the La Grande Familia shelter.
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: I make a petition on change.org. It gathered 65,000 citizen signatures,
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: but in that petition I was demanding from the government
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: at that time. which was Enrique Peña Nieto's, from the
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: Executive Commission for Assistance to, this to the state government
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: of Michoacan, to provide me with a report on how
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: many victims had been supported since the operation. However, I mean, like,
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: I did it so, I mean, I never imagined the repercussion,
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: that it would have so much, so much visibility. When
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: I saw it, I said, 65,000 citizen signatures, they even
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: sent me everything and told me, 65,000 people signed your petition, dude.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: It's time to take it to the next level, I said,
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: holy crap, Plumis Atomicus started interviewing me. However, the same
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: media outlets, the newspapers, picked up the story and bam, boom, boom, boom,
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: and my story started being replicated, and I never imagined
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: that impact. I even said, no, no one is going
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: to see it, it's just a petition I wrote like that,
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: and I even made it to Amnesty International. and the
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: director of Amnesty International at that time was the one
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: who took me to the Executive Commission for Victim Assistance.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: He said, well, let's do this. They told me, we
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: can't give you information on how many we are supporting,
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: because they must be anonymous, no one has to know
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: that you are one, nor can you know who else
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: was one. Neither does society. We have to protect their
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: identity and all that. I said, well, damn, at least
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: give me the numbers, what have you done with the resources?
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: Because at that time they had resources, they had resources allocated,
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: for example, and I'm going to say it like this.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: There are also resources, for example, for missing persons, that
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: commission is created for that, to defend and protect the victims.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: In fact, there is a general law of truth. However,
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: this commission never did anything for us. So, when I arrived,
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: they offered me 5 million pesos and told me, yes,
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: we are going to give it only to you. but
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: we are not going to give anything to your companions.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: And that was when I said no. I said, no,
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: I am going to fight for my companions. I am
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: going to fight for them. I don't want this to
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: happen again because I had already heard that there were
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: about eight others who had followed the same pattern. I mean,
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: it was the same pattern, and the authorities had never
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: really done anything. So I said, no, I said, hell no.
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: I truly declined the offer and I want my colleagues
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: to be given psychological and medical support, so they can
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: have full reparation for the damages and, well, social reintegration, however, well,
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: they didn't like that. So, I started holding sit-ins, I
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: started closing down facilities and everything, and that led to
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: the Director General of Legal Affairs of the Executive Commission
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: for Victim Services having me jailed in 2019. They have
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: me jailed, They send me to the reclusorio oriente as
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: if I were the worst criminal in the world, worse
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: than El Chapo. I spend a week there, then they
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: transfer me to the Superior Court of Justice of Mexico City,
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: where they are going to set my sentence. It turns
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: out there was no real crime to prosecute, but nevertheless
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: they charge me with damaging property at a federal government institution.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: That's how it was, they really made up the charge
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: well and everything. I even had to pay for a chair,
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: the most expensive chair I've ever paid for, 3,500 pesos.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: They claimed that because I caused damage and all that,
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: I couldn't leave the country. I had to come in
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: to sign in bimonthly and I was left with a
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: criminal record. Still, they thought that in a way it
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: was the best way to silence me, because during that
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: time from 2017 to 2019, apart from doing all this activism,
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: I started bringing in more colleagues. I would say, look,
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: they have to give you psychological care. It's not that
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: I go and they refuse me. They tell me no,
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: that they can't help me. I said, how can they not?
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: And I, I would even do the paperwork myself. I mean,
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: not knowing about laws, not being an educated person. I
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: would even file sworn statements and support them. And then,
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: if for example someone from legal affairs came down and said, no,
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: I can't provide the care. I would say, you know what?
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: give me a written refusal where you are justifying exactly
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: why you aren't providing care to the victim. And when
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: I told them that, they had no choice but to
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: start the paperwork and to provide what the general law indicates, yes.
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: During all that time, those two years, I dedicated myself
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: to doing that. And besides that, well, getting news articles
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: published in Reforma, El Universal, La Jornada, and many media outlets,
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: even giving information interviews and I even had my little group,
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: that supported me in everything. And I tell you, well,
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: I started to be a thorn in the government's side.
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: They send me to jail. They thought I was going
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: to give up, already afraid because they left me without
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: a house, without money, without a job. That's when I decide,
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: you know what, to say, I am not going to
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: give up. No, I'm not going to give up. And
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: I came back stronger with the firm that currently represents me,
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: which is a private firm. And so we started to
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: support more, etc., and everything. Later, when the pandemic came,
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: I fell into an addiction to crystal meth. Because at
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: that moment I really didn't have the energy to keep
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: going to the institutions and fighting for all of that.
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: and at a party someone, someone I will say, was
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: from the Executive Commission for Victim Care, and we became friends.
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: And that person invited me to a party one day
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: and had me try a pipe, and from there I
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: got hooked. So, they set you up, I mean, that
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: person was an addict, but she was a public servant
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: at the Executive Commission for Victim Care. I ended up
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: in very bad shape, I was skin and bones, I
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: owed rent, I didn't have money to eat, I was
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: literally sleeping on a small mattress. I felt I couldn't
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: take it anymore, so I took 100 pills of quetiapine
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: to end it. That time I didn't call anyone. Previously,
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: when I had those crises of attempted suicide, I would
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: still call friends, I would call therapists, I would tell them, no,
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: I'm going to take my own life, and they would
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: stay until the morning giving me support, on the phone.
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: And that time I decided I wouldn't talk to anyone anymore.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: I decided that I didn't want to anymore. So I
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: took those, and I was living alone, in a tenement.
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: I found the courage and spent two days unconscious. That
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: was a Friday night, and when I woke up, it
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: was Sunday afternoon. At night too, at night, my face
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: was drooping really bad. I couldn't even speak or stand
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: on my own feet. I went back to sleep. The
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: next day I woke up as best I could and
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: went to the doctor. Thank God they didn't have to
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: pump my stomach. The doctor says it's a miracle I'm
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: alive and didn't have any lasting effects. And that's all
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: because I could have been permanently damaged, or the doses
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: and everything could have just caused a cardiac arrest. And,
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: I believe a lot in God. I didn't use to
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: go to church, I wasn't into saints. I would simply
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: talk to God when I felt bad and light a
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: candle for him. I'd say, well God, help me. This,
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: really was hitting rock bottom, you know? Afterwards, I told God,
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: you know, if you don't want me up there or
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: down here, send me someone, because I know I can't
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: do it alone, you know? I mean, I know I
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: won't be able to do it by myself. A week later,
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: I met my husband. I told him, look, I'm a mess,
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: I can't do this alone. And I said, it won't
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: be easy, quitting the substance won't be easy, but I
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: do want to do it. I have reasons to do it,
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: I want a good life and everything, but it's also
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: going to be hell, you know? And I don't know
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: if you're willing to endure it because, who stays with
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: an addict? Let's be realistic, right? And, he told me yes.
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: Three days later, he moved in with me. I mean,
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: I tell people, I was two months behind on rent,
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: and he helped me with everything little by little. And
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: then he would say, here's some money for you to
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: go eat, and all that. But, well, he would leave
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: feeling scared, right? That the money he gave me, I'd
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: just spend it on the substance or end up like that.
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: Those were six months, the six most difficult months of
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: my life.
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 2: Why?
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: Because I used to tell him, it's just that I
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: want to go get high. I would curse him out.
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: I'd say, go to hell, because I just want to
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: go get high. You're here, and honestly, I don't care
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: about you, right? But he told me, no, he said,
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: I'm staying with you until you're okay. He said, if
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: later on you don't want to be with me, well,
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: so be it. The first six months, thoughts of using
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: would suddenly hit me. The truth is, for people who
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: judge and say, oh, that guy is buried in it
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: because he wants to be, he doesn't want to get out, no,
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: that's just not true. I mean, having lived it firsthand,
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: it was so strong that even six months later I
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: was thinking, damn, I just want to take a little
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: chance to smoke a bit, it won't change anything. And
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: then I'd be there with my anxiety on edge, and
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: I'd talk to him. He would stay with me until 12,
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: until 1 in the morning, even 7 in the morning.
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: Please don't leave me, because I feel like I'm going
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: to relapse, you know? Well, little by little, the thoughts
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: of using gradually started to disappear. I stabilized more, and everything.
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: Then I told him, look, I've had a book written
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: for seven years that, honestly, I just don't have the
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: nerve to publish. Why? Because I'm not an educated person.
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: I barely finished middle school. Who would be interested in
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: my story? And besides, I don't have the resources, you know?
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: And he said to me, no, let's do it, let's
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: make it happen. You'll see that it is possible. You'll
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: see that your book will do very well. He pushed me, right?
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: Two years ago, we published my first book, which is
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: called The Story of Eduardo Verdusco. It went super well.
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: We gave interviews in Los Angeles, now national media, and
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: we also went on tour, there was even an option
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: to do a play, a monologue and everything, I mean,
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: we were in talks, a series, we did a documentary
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: for an institution called Save the Children, an organization. I
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: gave lectures at the Inter-American Court, I presented my book
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: at the CNDH, and in many more places. The support
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: from the people was massive, I mean, like I never imagined,
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: because we launched the book totally independently and all. And
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: where can we buy it? Well, I have a phone
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: number because right now I do have. I ordered a
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: print run because right now I'm writing my second book. Well,
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: it's almost, almost finished. It's just that a book is
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: quite a process, missing the copy editing, the cover design,
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: the title, registering it most of all, and then ordering
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: the print run. But right now the first book can
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: be obtained at the following number that I am going
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: to give you. If you want, send a WhatsApp, if
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: we can put it here, which would be 55-61-55, okay?
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 3: And how does the process work, they write to you?
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: They write to me, whether it's for a digital book
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: or if they also want it in physical form. Of course,
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: there is a pre-sale for the physical version, they first
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: have to tell me about the book and a week later,
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: once we have the copies, it's sent to them.
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 2: Very good. What an incredible story, seriously, because I'm also
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 2: seeing here, I've been watching your husband's face for a
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 2: long time and you can tell you love each other
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 2: a lot and what an incredible relationship, what an incredible story.
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 2: I hope our audience here at Libro Abierto buys many books.
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 2: And Lalo, what is the biggest lesson you take from
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 2: everything you have lived through?
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: That despite the circumstances, you will always have a better future.
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: I was always super pessimistic. I would say, no. Things
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: are never going to change, and even, well, I'm always
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: going to want to, and maybe one day I'll succeed,
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: and I was always in risky situations, I was always,
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: maybe I even went without food, maybe I went through
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: many situations and all, even with relatives. For everyone asking
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: if I ever saw my siblings again, no, we have
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: no contact whatsoever. Everyone has gone on with their own lives,
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: you know? There is always a better future ahead, and
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: I think I am the living portrait of that, I mean,
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: many people when they find out or I tell them, well,
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: I used to live on the street, I went through this.
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: Even therapists ask me, they say, given everything you went through,
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: why didn't you choose to be an abuser? Why didn't
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: you choose to be a drug trafficker? Why didn't you
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: choose to be a criminal?
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 2: Why?
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: Because your life history, even the therapists say it, should
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: have led you in that direction, right? simply because I
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: think there is no malice in me, you know, and
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: I cannot be mean to people. I can tell you
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: that there were people who are free today who, in
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: a way, were also from, La Gran Familia, shelter, but
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: they were in charge, you know? And sometimes my husband
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: doesn't understand certain things, because one of them, who hurt
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: me a lot and even ordered me to be beaten
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: when she was in charge, called me one day and said, Hey,
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: I have two daughters, their dad hits me and even
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: kicked us out of the house. and we don't have
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: anything to eat, you know? And at that moment my
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: husband was working, and I thought, what do I do?
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: I had some little chains and stuff. I went and
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: pawned them, gave her that money, took her to eat,
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: and helped pay rent so they could live. My husband
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: asked me, why did you do that? Simply because I
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: don't have the heart, man, too. I mean, even she
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: herself told me, I thought you were going to take
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: revenge on me, you know, because the conditions are different now, right?
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: She said, I thought you were going to take revenge
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: on me for everything I did to you inside the shelter.
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: Because she had me beaten many times, even by the supervisors.
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: And one time I couldn't even defend myself, because, well,
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: I was just sitting there, and the person who gave
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: the order, who was one of the greenest ones there, eh,
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: gave me a huge kick to the jaw and said,
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: that's so you would have taken revenge on me. I said, no,
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: maybe I haven't forgiven all of that and I haven't
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: forgotten it because it will always be there. but I'm
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: not going to let anything affect me in this life anymore.
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: And I really believe in that, that the bad things
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: you do or the bad actions you take toward people
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: will always come back. I mean, the same thing you give,
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: good or bad, is going to come back to you, honestly,
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: I don't want to live a life of hate, and
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: I've already suffered enough. Today I deserve to be happy,
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: and I'm not going to hold on to those grudges,
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, like I told him, if I have the
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: chance to help you now, go ahead. As for those
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: in prison, the people who hurt me too, all that, well,
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to dwell on the past anymore.