By Doris Anahi Muñoz | Edited by Michelle Senarosa & Rodrigo Cervantes

This year marks the 10th anniversary of splitting my life between the two countries I call home. My brother Jose was deported from the United States in October 2015 at age 29. He had been here since he was 2 years old. He was returned to Mexico, a country he didn’t even know.

My parents arrived in the U.S. with my two older brothers in 1989, following the rest of my mom’s family’s migration, missing their window for the Amnesty program. I was the only citizen in my family, born in Whittier and raised across Southern California. I grew up well aware of our situation, the privilege my social security number gave me, knowing that at any given moment or traffic stop, my family could be taken from me.

In 2015, I was in my

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