Guests

We’re joined by Latino USA host Maria Hinojosa as she shares the story of Estrella Diamantina González, an undocumented transgender woman and trafficking survivor from Mexico caught up in the United States’ criminal and immigration systems. This summer, after serving a nine-year sentence in a Texas men’s prison, Diamantina González was released, but she wasn’t free. She was immediately transferred to an immigration detention facility and then deported. Hinojosa, who has been reporting on Diamantina González’s ordeal for the last decade, followed her to Mexico in the new audio documentary “Estrella: Bittersweet Freedom for a 'Bad Mexican.'”

Transcript

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

Soon after President Trump’s inauguration, in February of 2017, one of the first people arrested by immigration agents inside a courtroom was Estrella Diamantina González, a trans woman from Mexico. She was there to get an order of protection against an abusive boyfriend, but she never got the chance. Estrella spent most of the next decade caught up in the U.S. criminal and immigration systems. This summer, after serving a nine-year sentence in a Texas men’s prison, Estrella was deported to Mexico.

Journalist Maria Hinojosa was the first journalist to interview her after that courtroom arrest, and she’s been speaking to her ever since, for about a decade. Maria Hinojosa is the Pulitzer Prize-winning host of Latino USA. A new audio documentary is out today about Estrella, her life, her deportation and the evolving relationship with Maria. It’s called Estrella: Bittersweet Freedom for a “Bad Mexican.” This is a clip from a video that accompanies the documentary. It begins with Estrella stepping out of a bus and seeing Maria Hinojosa, who is waiting for her in Mexico City.

ESTRELLA GONZÁLEZ: Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! [translated] You were here waiting for me.

MARIA HINOJOSA: This is the exact moment when Estrella and I hugged for the first time in almost a decade, the first time since I have known this woman who’s become so special to me. We’ve seen each other’s faces through glass and through bars. We’ve also talked over the phone so many times, I’ve lost count over the years.

Estrella is my source, but our relationship over these years deepened in a way that challenges the old norms of what a journalist and her source should look like. I told Estrella that if the U.S. government deported her after she was released from prison, that I would be there to welcome her home.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s journalist Maria Hinojosa introducing her new audio documentary and video about Estrella. This is a clip of an interview with Estrella about her deportation that Maria did with her in Mexico City.

ESTRELLA GONZÁLEZ: [translated] I did not feel Mexico’s hug, OK? An iron bunk bed, a bed in case you decide to stay and wait for the money our president gives out — 2,000 pesos, I think. And you have to wait for it, because, really, as an immigrant, you need it. You need it for transportation.

When I arrived in Mexico, I thought, “God, what is next for me? How am I going to survive in my own country? What’s going to happen with my husband and me? What about all those plans I had to study cosmetology and become a nurse? Where will I live?”

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by Maria Hinojosa, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, founder of Futuro Media, also the host of Latino USA, her latest story, Estrella: Bittersweet Freedom for a [so-called] “Bad Mexican.”

This is an astounding story. I listened to it like in the early hours this morning. Talk about this relationship you developed way back, days after President Trump was first inaugurated in 2017, how you met Estrella.

MARIA HINOJOSA: So, here’s the thing, Amy. This is 2017. It’s a decade — almost a decade ago. And there were places where immigration officials and agents, Border Patrol, were not supposed to go: schools, churches, hospitals, courthouses and courtrooms. Now they’re everywhere in those places. But in 2017, Estrella was the first person that we heard of who was taken by plainclothes officers sitting in the back of the courtroom.

AMY GOODMAN: Where was she?

MARIA HINOJOSA: She was in El Paso. She was about to get an order of protection from a judge, as an undocumented woman who was a victim of trafficking and abuse. And at that moment, they take her. They put her into an unmarked car. And then, when journalists asked questions, they lied about it. ICE and Border Patrol said, “No, we didn’t — we didn’t — we didn’t take anybody from a courtroom in a courthouse.” Of course, there were cameras. And then, part of the story was not just that someone was taken from a courtroom in a courthouse, but that ICE and Border Patrol lied about it. Now these are things that we — the mainstream journalists understand that this is happening.

AMY GOODMAN: What did they say when the video was shown of them taking her from the courthouse?

MARIA HINOJOSA: Essentially, “Oops.” Like, it happened. The video was there. There was no way for them to make up for the fact that they had lied.

When I go to meet Estrella, who is in an El Paso jail, that’s — I mean, you know, I walked in, Amy, like with many sources: You’re going to do an interview, and then, you know, you move on to another story. But Estrella herself just captivated me. I was fascinated by how she was able to survive through, you know, growing up teased, abused, threatened, as an effeminate young boy at the time, who then understands that she’s actually a woman. She was treated horribly. But Estrella has always had this larger-than-life personality.

And so, during these 10 years when she was behind bars — by the way, I was banned twice by the Texas Department of Corrections from going to visit her or writing her. That’s when I was like, this is not just any human being. She is an incredible survivor, and she’s an extraordinary source to take us into the prison, into an immigration concentration camp, and now in her journey as she was deported into Mexico.

AMY GOODMAN: So, she’s taken for immigration reasons, but then they charge her with a criminal offense of fraud?

MARIA HINOJOSA: Correct. She’s charged. Estrella is a victim of trafficking. Her ex-boyfriend, who was abusing her, would force her to commit check fraud, under the threat of abuse or rape. He tried to kill her multiple times. And so, she pleads guilty for — I believe it’s two checks. For the nonviolent crime of fraud, they give her nine years, and then she ends up in a maximum-security men’s prison in Texas.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to your questioning of Estrella, the interview, about President Donald Trump.

MARIA HINOJOSA: You have lived through what I’m calling the dark decade, from Donald Trump’s inauguration to Donald Trump’s second term. How do you understand this dark decade?

ESTRELLA GONZÁLEZ: [translated] Donald Trump cannot take away the love I feel for my man. Donald Trump cannot take away the love I feel for myself. Donald Trump cannot take away my happiness. I’m going to fight, so that one day I can say to President Donald Trump, “You crushed me. You trampled on me as a trans woman. But I’m still standing, and I’m still alive. You can’t steal my heart. It’s the only thing you cannot do. My heart is not an immigrant. My heart belongs to me, and you can’t take that away.”

AMY GOODMAN: And this is Maria Hinojosa asking Estrella how important it was for her to find love in that Texas person.

MARIA HINOJOSA: How important was it for you to find love in the prison?

ESTRELLA GONZÁLEZ: [translated] It’s what made me feel alive, what kept me from dying or committing suicide. I felt loved, and I found a good man.

MARIA HINOJOSA: You ended up finding God towards the end of your time in prison. How important did God become for you?

ESTRELLA GONZÁLEZ: [translated] I began to feel loved. The idea that God doesn’t love you because you’re a homosexual or a trans woman, that isn’t true. God loves us all equally. God has no hang-ups. God does not judge.

AMY GOODMAN: Tell us more about Estrella and all that she’s saying.

MARIA HINOJOSA: So, during the time that Estrella was behind bars, I started reading Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning. Viktor Frankl survives Auschwitz. Viktor Frankl, by the way, was undocumented himself at points in his life. And I’m reading this book about a survivor of a concentration camp in the Holocaust and what he needed to do, Amy, basic — two things, he says, that you have to have in life to find meaning, even if you’re in a concentration camp, even if you’re a woman in a men’s prison: You have to have love and purpose.

And so, while Estrella is in prison, you know, she falls in love with a man who never expected to fall in love with a trans woman. His name is Cool. They make a pretty gorgeous couple. There they are, actually; you can see them. And Estrella’s purpose, when she realized, like, “I’m going to be behind bars for a decade,” her purpose was: “I am going to break free of this men’s body that I was born into. I am going to transform myself into the woman I’ve always wanted to be.” And that’s her purpose. And she achieves that, against all odds. She gets the hormone treatment in the Texas prisons and becomes this beautiful woman.

And by the way, there is a lot of trauma in Estrella’s story, but she is an extraordinary survivor and loves life. But also, Amy, Estrella and I laugh a lot. That’s ended up happening during the 10 years or nine-and-a-half years that she was behind bars. We’d end up talking about our bodies, how she’s working out to become this woman, and how I’m working out in order to stay young. We talk about her cooking in the prison. So, it became a relationship where I was able to find joy from Estrella in the most unexpected ways and in the most unexpected place.

AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about how she was able to make the physical transition in prison in Texas?

MARIA HINOJOSA: So, there is a law in Texas that states that if you are already in transition or you want to transition, you can actually advocate to get the hormones. And Estrella did this on her own. I had nothing to do with it. You know, the relationship between Estrella and I, we’re very close, but we also talk a lot about the journalist-source relationship. So, I was not in her life there in terms of, let’s say, get the hormones. She did it herself and changed her body.

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about that moment. Talk about a journalist giving her source hope, when you visit her yet another time in the Texas prison, and she says, “I have a gift for you.”

MARIA HINOJOSA: Yeah. So, Estrella, she starts telling me, “Maria, when you come see me” — this was when I wasn’t banned by the Texas Department of Corrections. “When you come and visit me, I have a gift for you.” And I’m like, “Estrella, you’re in prison. You can’t give me a gift.” “Oh, I have a gift for you.” When we’re in the prison, she’s behind the plexiglass, and she says, “I’m going to give you your gift. Do not react when you see what I’m going to show you.” And then she opened her left inner wrist, and right here she has tattooed in script “Maria Hinojosa.”

Honestly, Amy, as a journalist, I freaked out. I was like, “This is too much, Estrella. No, no, no. You, like, crossed the boundaries.” And then she said, “When I’m most lonely, you’re the only one who has been there to answer my calls. When I’m alone in that isolation cell, I take my arm, I put it to my heart, and I feel you.” And so, as a human being, I was like, “I understand that.” As a journalist, a little bit hard, but as a human being, I was like, “I get it.”

And then, Amy, there’s the great story of we go to visit Estrella to do a story about her, with a camera and sound. My son was doing sound. Camera was Keren Carrión, a videographer now for NPR. And they fall in love on the way to go interview Estrella. Like, so, things —

AMY GOODMAN: That’ll teach you to fall asleep in the back seat.

MARIA HINOJOSA: I fell asleep in the back seat because it’s a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Dallas to Wichita Falls, where she was. I go to sleep. They’re talking logistics. And when I wake up, I was like, “Oh my God! They just fell in love.” They’re getting married November 6th. If Estrella had a passport, she would be there in the Dominican Republic.

But again, the story of Estrella is so much darkness, but also so much hope. And as a journalist, you know, I’m documenting all of this now. My next plan is to do the next installment, Estrella’s first year in Mexico as a trans woman, and that will be the next update on Latino USA. And so, I’m — and my next book is about Estrella.

AMY GOODMAN: Which is very interesting. You won the Pulitzer Prize for your coverage of another person in prison who was freed, sentenced to life in prison as a minor, Suave, and your incredible series on him.

MARIA HINOJOSA: You know, I think that covering people who are behind bars humanizes all of us. When you’re able to go into a prison and you’re able to see what it’s like, yes, there is horror, but there’s also a lot of humanity. And Suave never gave up on hope that somehow he was going to get out, even though he was sentenced to life in prison. And Estrella never gave up hope in finding love, in transforming her body. And I would tell her many times, I would say, “Estrella, you are getting out. Remember that. Suave never thought that he was going to get out, and yet he’s free. You will get out. You will have a life when you get out.”

AMY GOODMAN: So, you call the documentary Estrella, and you talk about her as a, quote-unquote, “bad Mexican.” Talk about the significance of this story. She is all the things targeted in this administration. She is trans. She is immigrant. She is Mexican.

MARIA HINOJOSA: She’s undocumented. She’s been formerly deported. She has a criminal record. She embodies everything that we are told by this administration that we must hate. And that’s why the surprising thing is that when you look at Estrella and you’re like, “Wow! But I’m learning something from you. But you are the most dehumanized person in the country, in the world maybe. You’re the most vulnerable person. And yet I’m learning from you?” Which, again, is what — I think, a lesson from Viktor Frankl, which is, you know, you have to see yourself in the people most unlike you and find love in that story. So, for me, Estrella’s story is a story of hope and joy.

Now that we’re not being taped on every prison phone call, there are things that we can talk about, like her love life, like the fact that she’s deeply in love with Cool, who I think will eventually see this piece. And he never expected to fall in love with her. And the reason why he did, Amy, is because she’s an extraordinary human being. In the prison — in the prison, Estrella was cooking for everybody. She made these prison — prison pre-processed food that she would turn into a cake or a pizza or a lasagna or a tamale.

So, Estrella, now we find a lot of laughter between us, and yet — you know, when we’re off the record, we can do that. And yet, when we’re on the record, we very clearly understand: journalist, source. And I think, as you know, because you’re a brilliant journalist, there are sources who come into your heart, and that makes us better journalists, in my view.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, let’s end with Estrella’s words, talking about her relationship with you, Maria Hinojosa.

ESTRELLA GONZÁLEZ: [translated] You need the support and love of certain people, the closest to you. In your case, you gave me strength during those times in the SEG. In that solitary, cold cell, where I had only two photos of you to hold, I would say to myself, “I’m going to make it through this. There’s a woman back home rooting for me. Come on, Estrella.” I needed to have you closer to me. I needed to carry you with me whenever I was put in the C-unit, whenever I was placed in solitary confinement, because I felt so alone.

MARIA HINOJOSA: What did you end up doing?

ESTRELLA GONZÁLEZ: [translated] I got your name tattooed on me. I had “Maria Hinojosa” inked on. To many, it might have seemed crazy. But for me, it was a way to feel you close. Because, remember, for a while there were no phone calls, no letters, no visits. So, one way or another, I had to keep you close.

AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt from Estrella: Bittersweet Freedom for a “Bad Mexican,” The new documentary by Maria Hinojosa, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, founder of Futuro Media, also host of Latino USA. We will do this interview in Spanish and speak with Estrella herself, and post it at DemocracyNow.org/es.

Coming up, Against Tech Oligarchy: Worker Resistance in the World’s Most Powerful Industry.

Maria, thank you so much for joining us.

MARIA HINOJOSA: Oh, Amy, always count on me. Love you.

AMY GOODMAN: Back in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: “Bad Attitude” by Cristina Vane, performing at the Brooklyn Folk Festival.