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Scene ten, take one.

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So try to think back what it was really like coming to this country, your initial impressions.

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The contrast? A lot of my reminiscence. I think it was the first time I had ever been

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in a country where I had nostalgic memories have to do with places at this point in my life.

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The contrast, I'll try to illustrate it.

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The region where I spent my childhood, Ayutla was a small town. I think at the time there was around 2,000 people spread over a pretty wide valley area.

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It was surrounded by mountains and there was two rivers, major rivers passing through.

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I spent some of my time with my father's parents and there was even more in the rural section, more isolated, less people.

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What I recall is again the feeling of the mountains, the air in the morning with the morning dew.

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We usually had fog, it was like clouds. I remember enjoying so much.

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What appeared like the heaven had come down to the mountains so we had this fog covering the top of the mountains.

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The sun coming through so there was this silvery glow to the mornings.

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The other things I recall are the smell after rain.

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Streets were dirt roads and just that smell was something that I enjoyed.

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Until this day I enjoyed especially being around the parks or the smell of grass and the earth after rain.

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The other thing was the clearness of the environment. There was no fog, there was no smell of smoke.

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One of my earliest memories of Chicago was when we drove into Chicago coming by way of the Skyway and seeing this reddish-blackish glow covering the city.

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Which is a premonition of some kind of doom or gloom.

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I was a pollution of Chicago but it had these other meanings for me.

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The neighborhood where we did live in a different house for a while but I don't recall that time.

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The apartment where we lived, the one that I recall was the one where we didn't have any space.

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There was the alley, it was concrete and garbage and the sidewalk all concrete so everything was concrete.

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We had a tree which I loved, that tree next door, the only thing that I could connect to.

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Different architecture. My grandmother on my father's side, her house was built of adobe.

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Also that memory of the smell of the house after rain was pretty much a smell of earth.

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Here there was the concrete that Samantha would, different way of designing.

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These were one family homes with usually a space for a garden and very open.

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Lots of windows and our apartment didn't have that. It faced the back so there was very little light coming into our house as well.

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Emotionally the memories just clashed and elicited a sense of homesickness that at this point I even resist eliciting in myself.

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I think that this was an experience that my parents as well as other family friends had.

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As a result of that we had little processions to Grand Park and to the Lake because these were places where a little bit fragments of home could be nurtured and carried within ourselves.

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Okay, thank you.

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Speed.

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Scene 11, take one.

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Wait a minute, wait a minute. Okay.

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Scene 11, take one.

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Now I'll wait for my cue. Okay, whenever you're ready.

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To give you a sense of what it felt like to a young girl or teenager living in the neighborhood that I did, just a few years, I think it was three or four years after I'd come into the United States, one of my teachers...

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I thought you were going to grab, I tell you what, you could do it over and if you could take...

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Speed, we have an airplane also.

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Wait.

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Yeah.

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It was so quiet.

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Okay, so...

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Scene 12, take one.

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This is something I wrote...

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Just once, okay, wait, now, okay.

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This is something I wrote when I was I think 16 or 17, which expresses some of the feelings about growing in that neighborhood.

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It's in September and it starts, today we celebrate Mexican Independence Day. Who is independent? Who is free?

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The city is so noisy. There are so many sounds.

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Car wheels screeching, horns blowing, sirens wailing, radios blaring, loud TVs spearing out meaningless sounds that sound like human talk.

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I hear my neighbors arguing or celebrating.

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Preachers preaching, Jesus people out, saving people, crying, repent.

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Vote for me. This is the way. Everybody's talking. No one says anything.

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Let there be silence. I can't hear myself with all this noise.

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Everybody's afraid in the city. We fear ourselves. We cannot face what we are.

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We fear each other. We hide behind a dial. Our doors are securely locked to keep intruders out and keep our wealth within.

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We cannot walk about the city streets freely. There are certain areas that cannot be trespassed.

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White does not live in Black Street. Black cannot live in White Street. Birds of a feather must flock together.

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Look out. They're out to get you. Don't go there alone. Always look behind you when you walk the streets at night.

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Somebody was raped. Somebody was killed. There are worse fates. To live and be afraid.

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We all wear some type of armor to defend ourselves because we are afraid.

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We surround ourselves with walls to keep intruders out and keep ourselves within.

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We are afraid. We are feathered by fear. But today we will celebrate our independence.

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And speed. Scene 14, take one.

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Okay, when you're ready.

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Thinking back, my exposure to the murals, which opened the rest of the world, for me, they were a source of inspiration for me.

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That the curiosity that I had, anyway, that I could trust it.

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And in college, where I was exposed to different cultures, different peoples, all of that continued to nurture.

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I don't know if it's an urgency, but the desire to, as an individual, be more open to my experiences, break loose from the sense of isolation that I experienced as an immigrant.

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And...

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Do we have more time?

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I'll open you and how you're in a different place now. In part because of the murals.

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Scene 15, take one.

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Okay, when you're ready.

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The murals provided the inspiration that allowed me to nurture the curiosity so that I took paths that my family had not taken before.

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I went to college and then decided to go to graduate school, went into medicine.

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And after that, psychiatry.

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I feel that all these things are connected in that, in a sense, I became the translator.

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I continued my role in the family, but in a way that opened up murals, if I may use that word.

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That were not, and that perhaps are not there still for my own family that are not available as options, as ways of living.

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Or...

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And the one desire, I think, is that more people in my community, in my own family, also experiences breaking out from the, perhaps the protective walls that we also have built around ourselves.

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Was there one more thing you wanted to do?

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They kind of helped inspire you to the things you've been able to attend.

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Scene 16, take one.

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Okay.

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The murals provided inspiration which allowed me to break from that, the constrictions that I felt.

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These were invisible constrictions, in a sense.

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And so that I took paths that my family had not in the past.

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I finished high school and went to college.

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And then decided to go into medicine.

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And finally, psychiatry.

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And in a way continued my role, but in a way that opened worlds for me.

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Both as far as concepts and geographically, too.

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And...

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Thinking back, my hope is that...

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That sort of, that sense of inspiration also would become available to not only other members in my family, but also to other members of the community.

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So that they perhaps be inspired to also open up to experience, to other experiences.

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Scene 17, take one.

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Okay.

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For an individual to grow beyond their...

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Themselves, beyond their boundaries, they must dream.

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In a sense, they have to dream up themselves, what they will become.

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For a community, I think that at a certain level the murals provide this process of being the dreams of the community.

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That allows the community to grow beyond itself, to evolve beyond itself.

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I think I recall the...

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That was pretty much what you said.

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Scene 18, take one.

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Okay.

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One moment here.

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Okay, anytime.

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For an individual to grow beyond themselves, to evolve, they must dream.

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They must dream themselves.

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A community, the process in this process of growing beyond itself, murals are or can be used on a certain level, not conscious, as these dreams that allow the community to see what they might be and what they can become.

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Okay?

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Okay.

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Alright.

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This is scene 18, take one.

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Presents also.

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Could you guys in the kitchen be quiet just for like 60 seconds so we can get presents?

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Okay.

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You can talk.

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Thank you.

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We have...