Note: Elizabeth Perez, star of David Sutherland’s film Marcos Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (a co-presentation of Independent Lens, FRONTLINE, and Voces), wrote us a heartfelt update about how she, her husband Marcos, and their family are doing. Here’s Elizabeth with more:
I guess it’s kind of like a journal. I hope it’s not too long. It may not be what people want to hear, but it’s our truth.
Here’s my update:
I would love to share some great news with the audience, but unfortunately the hamster wheel of this situation is still spinning and spinning hard. Our family’s turmoil and pain continues while we live separately, unable to manage all of the hardships of living in Mexico. We gave it every ounce or droplet of willpower and commitment to our family, but ultimately we decided to come back to the United States and Marcos to Mexico City.“Our children are longing for the physical relationship with their father.”
We continue to focus our energy on finding a way for him to return to the US. There is a chance for a visa in 2020, but no guarantee. Once again, we await not knowing what the future will bring and how much destruction and suffering we must endure. Our children are longing for the physical relationship with their father. Our sons, Pele and Rocky, are beginning to understand their feelings and express them through both anger and heavy bouts of sadness.
They both play soccer and long for the guidance of their dad, not just in his favorite sport, but in their social lives as well. They call him daily to discuss soccer moves, players and games. They send him messages and pictures and joke with him about his accent while they mimic him and laugh. When they hang up he is not there anymore until the next call missing so much of their lives.
I do not allow the news in my home while my sons are around. Every day there is another horrific and shocking account of pain and suffering related to immigration and inhumane atrocities on our fellow man endorsed by our government and those who represent us. Pele and Rocky are no fools and connect it all to their father. The heavy anti-immigrant sentiment worries us all as there is no sliver of a guarantee that Marcos will have his visa granted in 2020. The same people enforcing these dark policies like ripping children from their parents, putting people in cages, and children dying after days in their care of dehydration will be the same people reviewing his application.
We keep our faith in God as ultimately it is His will that will be done, not ours. We are uncertain of the fate of our family as are so many others. We continue to run like hamsters on a wheel, trying to get to that water bottle right there unsure if we ever will.–Elizabeth Perez, April 11, 2019