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“Being deported is one of the best things that has happened to me.”
Destinee Arce had planned to go missing this month to graduate from a master’s program at USC. He was 10 years old after being deported by the Obama administration in 2009, so he missed almost every milestone.
“That’s the hardest thing about being deported. I wasn’t there at that moment,” said Jose Ark, who was deported after being convicted of possession of a gun in 2006. “I wasn’t there because of her high school graduation.
Arce missed out on the second life moment of 26-year-old Destinee when her longtime boyfriend made a surprise marriage proposal at her graduation party. She said yes.
“It’s a wave of emotions that makes me happy and realize that one of my parents is not there,” Destiny said.
USC alumni have been managed through family separation for the past 16 years. After her father was deported, she was raised by her mother. The mother took on the role of her parents. Her grandfather and uncle intervened for the father’s daughter’s dance, and she continued to keep in touch with her father via phone, texts and WhatsApp videos.
“I wasn’t there because of many special events in her life, and that’s the hardest thing about being here,” said Arce, who owns and operates a tattoo shop in Tijuana.
The 50-year-old was taken to the United States in South Los Angeles when he was two years old.
His father was able to become a citizen, but he and his mother were unable to revise their status, and in 2006 Arce was convinced that he owned a gun. After he served his sentence, he was deported to Mexico and was back to fate again with Destiny. In 2009, Arce was deported again, he says.
“I think being deported is one of the best things that has happened to me,” he says in Mexico that you don’t have to live and work in the shadows, you can build your business and travel freely around the world. “I live freely. This is like real freedom. People say that the United States is a country of freedom, but I didn’t see it that way because I didn’t have any paperwork.”
Destinee does not see deportation from the same perspective as his father.
“His deportation may have been the best thing that had happened to him, but it wasn’t the best thing that had happened to me,” Destiny said. “The deportation opened a lot of doors for him, but he has his own shop there, he lives an honest life for himself, but there are so many things on this side that he thinks he has missed.”
The next one will likely be her wedding, and it will likely be held in the US where Jose is not permitted to travel. He cannot walk her down the aisle.
“Who do I have my father and daughter dance with? Thinking about these things makes me feel a little emotional and sad,” Destiny said.
It also angers her to find out that thousands of children and parents are in the same shoes that have current immigration policies that separate their current families.
“We really need to think of these people as humans,” he said that the separation of families was part of the reason they pursued a Masters of Mental Health program at USC. “We have to think about what they started, what they created, and what they are bringing to our country.”
Destinee travels to Mexico to visit his father, but is worried about crossing considering the political situation.
Not only does Jose thrive in Tijuana in his business, he also starts a new family, helping the newly deported migrants get up and do what he has done, making the most of being deported.
“We try to help each other,” Jose said.
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