At age 11, Julissa Arce came to the United States from Mexico on a visa that expired three years later. For more than a decade, she lived as an undocumented immigrant, fearful of revealing her secret to anyone. “Every phone call or email I got from human resources would make my blood run cold,” she wrote in her Modern Love essay. And when it came to love, she would lie to nearly every man she dated, fearing the threat of exposure and deportation. On today’s episode, we hear about an undocumented immigrant’s search for love — and what it taught her about isolation and intimacy. Then, we hear from two Modern Love listeners who have kept their long-distance relationships alive during the pandemic.
[music]
Miya Lee: From The New York Times, I'm Miya Lee.
Dan Jones: And I'm Dan Jones.
This is the Modern Love podcast.
Miya Lee: Often, when people are first dating,
they hide things about themselves in order to appear in the best light.
Dan Jones: Right, they do.
But in this essay, a woman has to hide a really essential part of herself in order to survive.
And over time, that just takes a huge toll.
Miya Lee: The essay is called 'Telling the Truth Wasn't an Option.'
Dan Jones: It's written by Julissa Arce and read by Frankie Corzo.
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Frankie Corzo: Before I was even old enough to have a boyfriend,
I was trained to lie to him.
My secret, my mother said, could be used against me.
'You can never tell anyone you're undocumented.'
When I was 11,
my parents who had been living and working in the United States for years,
brought me from Mexico to join them in Texas.
Three years later, my U.S. visa expired,