After the closing night, my castmates in Roosters decided to take a trip together. They were going to Tijuana, Mexico, to let loose. They invited me to go, and I said yes. Stupid? Incredibly. But I couldn’t say no to Maddie. She was one of my many costars and, up to that point, the most progressive person I had ever met. Not just in politics, but in her philosophy of life. My repressive Catholic upbringing didn’t know how to handle someone who actually said what they were feeling.
Maddie was our de facto leader. The cast was already an eclectic group of people. There was Eddie, my cholo homeboy who was a secret theater nerd. There was Juan, the much, much older Mexican man who was a bit of a megalomaniac. There was Angie, the talented chola with a heart of gold. And then there was Maddie. Maddie was a phenomenal actress. Unlike the rest of us, Maddie wasn’t Latina—she just played a different ethnicity. She was Scarlett Johansson before Scarlett Johansson (re: Ghost in the Shell). I loved hanging out with Maddie before rehearsal and running lines with her. She was artsy and assured of herself. Nothing ever bothered Maddie because she was an incredible communicator. It wasn’t just that she said what was on her mind, but that she said it in such a way that it never hurt anyone’s feelings. When Maddie spoke to you, you knew she was going to be thoughtful, even as she was telling you off.
We were running lines together one evening when she caught me looking at her a tad bit longingly. I was developing a crush on her, but I never had much game, so I just kept my feelings to myself.
“You like me, don’t you?”
“Umm… ah… I,” I stumbled.
“It’s okay,” Maddie replied. “I like you, too. But we obviously shouldn’t do anything until the run of the show is over.”
Who says stuff like that! Maddie is who.
It turned out, Maddie was also sex positive. She had no problem talking about her needs and desires. It wasn’t a taboo for her and her parents to talk about sex. In fact, she was much more responsible with sex exactly because of all her early sex talks with her mom and dad. Maddie could differentiate between love and sex, and could speak openly about both.
Maddie and I were intimate together shortly thereafter. But unfortunately for me, it was just a onetime thing. Maddie clarified that she only wanted to experiment sexually with me and nothing else. I didn’t know how to take that. She was treating me the way guys would treat girls. I felt a little used. My eyes are up here!
By this point, I was exhausted from being afraid of my immigration status. Accepting the invitation to Tijuana was my way of saying, I’ve had enough. Also, I wanted to see if there was anything between Maddie and me. We had been intimate together but had never kissed. Her rules, not mine.
I was frightened about crossing the border, but I tried not to show it. I found comfort in how everyone in the group had gone before, and how they said Border Patrol didn’t even check their passports. I was told that there were so many San Diego college kids crossing that everyone got waved through quickly. My goal was clear: to be mistaken for a San Diego college kid. We drove the three hours to Tijuana from Walnut, and nobody could figure out why I was so quiet. I was always the boisterous one of the group, so it was definitely out of character.
We arrived at the border, parked, and then walked over a pedestrian bridge. I saw a sign that read, “You are now leaving the United States.” My heart sank. This was one of the stupidest things I had ever done. In fact, this was the very thing I had feared my entire life, and here I was doing it voluntarily. I was self-deporting. I closed my eyes and took some deep breaths. Worse than Border Patrol, I kept hoping that my parents would not find out about this.
Tijuana smelled different. It smelled more like car exhaust. There were a lot of taxis gathered at the border, eager for our business. We hopped in the safest-looking one and asked to be taken to Revolution Avenue, where a line of nightclubs resided. At this point in the night, the older Juan took over. It was as if he was a regular down here. I badly needed a drink. Thankfully, the drinking age is eighteen in Mexico, so I was able to drink freely and openly. The funny thing about Tijuana was that, as I was promised, it was mostly populated by underage white kids from San Diego. There were hardly any Mexicans partying at the clubs we stopped at. I felt more out of place in TJ than I did at a house party in West Covina. After my first shot of tequila, I loosened up a bit. The worry of how I was going to get back into the country slowly faded away. And then I started to dance with Maddie and nothing else mattered. All I wanted was a kiss from her. No parents, no green card, no problem. I had the cast of my show, the tireless Tijuana nightlife, and an awful lot of legal alcohol at my disposal.
We hopped around from club to club. I felt like a big man because I wasn’t worried about being carded for the first time in my life, plus I had some cash from my video store job that I was carelessly throwing around. Tijuana was truly as fun as everybody said it would be. Maddie was a little distant and flirting with some random military guys. She eventually came back to dance with us—and started paying attention to me once more. Maddie was hot and cold with me most of the night, but I couldn’t be upset. She’d warned me ahead of time that she wasn’t looking for anything serious. But now as she danced with me again, things were looking pretty promising on the romantic end. Then we had to head back.
Standing in line at the border to come back into the United States, my heart started pounding. I sobered up rather quickly. The reality of my situation was hitting me like a baseball bat to the gut. I was distressed standing at the San Ysidro checkpoint. What the fuck was I thinking? Why the hell did I ever leave the United States to begin with? And to go to Tijuana of all places? At least risk your American existence for Tulum or Isla Mujeres—but for Avenida Revolucion?! I had not thought this through. I began experiencing shortness of breath. I started to perspire. Maddie noticed I was uncomfortable and asked what was wrong. Quickly running out of options as we approached the immigration checkpoint, and surrounded by my homeboy Eddie and the older Juan, I finally came clean: “I’m illegal.”
Maddie looked at me, stunned. This information was a lot to take in, especially given that we were standing at a Border Patrol checkpoint. Eddie told me not to worry. Like he said, they always wave college students through. “And luckily, you can pass for white,” Eddie pointed out. Juan, however, who was at this point intoxicated beyond recognition, exclaimed: “Oh, shit.” Juan was not helping at all. “Oh, shit,” he said louder. When an immigration official looked over at us, Eddie grabbed Juan and took him to another line. Eddie told Maddie and me not to worry—“Keep going without us.” We were next up to speak to a United States immigration official. Maddie grabbed my hand and supportively looked me in the eyes. That’s when Juan started shouting: “Whatever you do, do not tell ’em you’re illegal!”
I almost fainted. “Next,” said the Border Patrol agent. Maddie pulled me toward that immigration official as we both pretended we didn’t know who Juan was.
“Do not tell ’em you’re illegal,” Juan belligerently continued.
At this point, Eddie also stepped away from Juan, figuring it would be best to pretend not to know the drunk Mexican-looking guy in line. Immigration officials marched up to Juan and told him to please settle down. As opposed to listening to authority, Juan decided to scream: “Rafa! Whatever you do, don’t tell ’em you’re illegal!”
Juan was escorted out of the line and into some back room, as Maddie and I were waved up to the immigration kiosk. I froze. I didn’t know what to do. This was the end of Rafa the Aspiring American. Maddie yanked me toward the Immigration and Customs official, and in front of the whole world to see, she started to kiss me.
Oh.
My.
God.
I mean, if I wasn’t going to be allowed back into the country, this was a great way to go out. I finally got my kiss.
The immigration officer was so disgusted by Maddie and my public display of affection that he waved us through: “Go get a room, you two. Next!”
And just like that, I was back on American soil. I could not believe it. This was incredible! Forget that I managed to get back inside the United States, Maddie had kissed me! Did she secretly harbor feelings for me that she wasn’t being honest about? Was she just flirting with those army guys to make me jealous? Did she like me as much as I liked her? I looked at Maddie expectantly. Then she patted me on the shoulder and said, “You’re welcome.” Maddie started to walk back to the car, but then turned around.
“Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.”
I’m not going to lie. I was a little heartbroken that Maddie didn’t see me the same way I saw her. But by God, her kiss got me back into the country, so that was something! Juan, by the way, was detained by Border Patrol that night. He was the American citizen, and I was the unauthorized immigrant. But Juan was darker than I was. He was also highly intoxicated, but don’t forget that we were surrounded by an abundance of drunk college kids trying to get back into the country. At the end of the day, my lighter skin got me waved through the immigration checkpoint, and his darker skin got him put in a detention center. My privilege was showing. I was definitely back in the United States.
My idiotic trip to Tijuana made me feel like maybe my immigration issues didn’t have to hold me back. Perhaps I could still live a regular, safe American existence. George W. Bush became president at this time and declared in a speech on Mexico relations that: “Scared people build walls, and confident people tear them down.” Wow. This president of the United States had some cojones to say that out loud for the whole world to hear. Then, September 11 occurred. The Patriot Act was passed. The Department of Homeland Security was created. It was later revealed that the September 11 terrorists had legally entered the United States from Canada. You wouldn’t know it by how quickly we militarized the Mexican border. Needless to say, I never went to Tijuana again.