Judith Perrignon: Daniel, you were born in Mexico, you were an undocumented immigrant in the United States, then a US Marine, then deported from the US, and you fought to obtain US citizenship, but how do you define yourself? Where are you from?

 

Daniel Torres: That’s a great question. I’m kind of a mix of both. I’ve always said I’m too Mexican to be American, and too American to be Mexican. First and foremost, I think I’m a veteran. That’s the place where I belong. My culture is definitely Mexican, but part of being American is that America is made up of everything and everyone.

 

 

Judith Perrignon: So, a survivor?

 

Daniel Torres: You could say that. I definitely learned how to navigate the world. I come from dirt, you know. I grew up poor. I grew up surviving, figuring it out. So it took me a long time just to get to a point that other people are born into.. That’s one of the things people really don’t understand about the immigrant mentality: we start in the negative. It takes us almost a lifetime just to get to your normal. But once we get there, the sky is the limit.

 

 

Judith Perrignon: Laurence, how did you meet Daniel?

 

Laurence Garret: I was in Tijuana for several months in 2018. I met some deported veterans who told me their stories. These men looked broken. There was something in their eyes that drew me in. They said that, even though they were still stuck in Tijuana, they had hope because one of them had received compensation, and that’s when they mentioned Daniel. I met him through another filmmaker, Rafi Pitts, who had employed Daniel as a military advisor on his film (Soy Negro, 2017, ed.).

 

 

Judith Perrignon: Daniel, how did Laurence convince you to make this film?

 

Daniel Torres: She didn’t really have to convince me, to be honest. I always felt that film has the power to change the world. In my opinion, it’s one of the few art forms that truly has the ability to elevate the consciousness of society. It’s no easy task, but it’s a goal worth pursuing.

It’s always weird for me to see myself on screen. I’ve never really gotten used to being in front of a camera, and I never wanted to be the one on the poster, to be honest. But those were the cards that were dealt, and that’s where I could do the most good, where I could help the most.

A lot of people see my story as unique, but it’s not. I’m not special. But since I have the opportunity to speak, I try to do the best I can to help other people.

 

Laurence Garret: Whilst talking to Daniel, I realized he kept a diary of his life. He let me read it, and very quickly the need for the film became clear to me. There was a story there, and I wouldn’t know how to talk about a cause without unravelling the particular story of a person; that’s how the cause becomes understandable. So I started writing based on fragments of his diary. It was during Covid; I was working in collaboration with a Mexican writer and filmmaker, Juan Manuel Sepulveda, whose films all deal with migration issues. I would write one section, he would write the next. It was a fluid process. Then I would send our draft to Daniel. That’s how we worked.

 

Daniel Torres: I started writing around the end of 2015, but honestly it was just for me. It was therapy. A way to deal with my emotions and my mental health. I was heartbroken after getting out of the military. I was discharged because of my legal status.

I actually went to France in 2011 and tried to join the French Foreign Legion. I went to Paris, knocked on the doors and all that, but I have hearing loss in my left ear, so I failed the physical. That’s how I ended up back in Mexico City, and after that I just couldn’t go back into the United States.

Trump wasn’t president yet when that happened, but it was still the same system. They’ve been deporting veterans since 1996. And now we can clearly see what MAGA really is: white supremacists.

 

 

Judith Perrignon: There’s a really powerful moment in the film where you say, "Those who believed in it are the ones who suffer the most." Did you believe in everything the United States promised you when you were younger?

 

Daniel Torres: Yeah. I definitely drank the Kool-Aid as a young man. The idea of being one of the few, one of the proud, the idea of earning my place in the United States, the idea of honor, of fighting for the country — all of that appealed to me.

It connected with those idealistic ideas that were implanted in me as a young Mexican kid, you know, the whole macho culture. I bought into all of it. And I think that’s one of the reasons why I had such a hard time after the military, when reality hits you in the face and you have to leave idealism behind and deal with the real world.

 

 

Laurence Garret: I suggested to Daniel that we take the opposite route to his family’s migration path; I wanted us to return to Tijuana, travelling through those legendary American landscapes. They carry a bloody history within them, as these lands were originally Mexican, and the Indigenous peoples who lived there were victims of a veritable genocide. The road, so central to the narrative of the American dream, turns out to be a dead end. I also felt that a voice-over wouldn’t be enough; I wanted someone to be with him, with whom he could revisit moments from his life, someone who could understand his traumas. So I suggested to Daniel that he ask one of his former battalion mates if he would be willing. And it was Erasmo, with whom he fought in Iraq, who made the journey with us. I knew that once in Mexico, we would go to meet his family, and then other deported veterans.

 

 

Judith Perrignon: Daniel, why are you in Sydney now?

 

Daniel Torres : I needed a break, for sure. I knew that if I stayed in the current situation, I was gonna end up fighting.

I still take my oath very seriously. I’m still a United States Marine. That’s the thing about Marines — we’re Marines until we die. I had an incident with ICE in my neighborhood while they were arresting somebody. I had my gun on me, and I really almost used it. So I saw the writing on the wall and realized I needed to leave for my own sake. I wasn’t gonna throw my life away for a country that doesn’t even see me as a human being.

So now I’m in Sydney for a year at film school. I’m learning to make films.