Elena Palacios and Victoria Nevarez

[00:01] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: Hi, my name is Victoria Nevarez. I am 24 years old. Today is January 27, 2023. We are in El Paso, Texas. I am with Elena, who is my colleague from Las Americas and most recently become friend. Elena.

[00:20] ELENA PALACIOS: Hi, my name is elena Palacios. I'm 43 years old. Today's date is January 27th, 2023, and we're in. In El Paso, Texas. My interview partner is Victoria, and we work together at Las Americas. But she's leaving me soon.

[00:38] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: Oh, yeah. So, Elena, I don't know. We were. Before we even started the interview, we started talking about our immigration stories. Do you want to talk about them?

[00:51] ELENA PALACIOS: Yes. And we work together and we do share stories, but we never really have the time to go in depth. I was telling Victoria how, why I'm still just a legal permanent resident. When I was little, my parents went on a trip and my mom had to have an emergency C section. And I was born in Chihuahua. Chihuahua, Mexico, maybe three days later. That's what she tells is when we came back home and. And I was raised here in El Paso. But I never really realized the importance of moving towards naturalization until recently because since I started working with Las Americas, I saw how a lot of people fight for that eligibility and I've kind of taken it for granted. El Paso now isn't the same as it was when I was little. When I was young and growing up, you could even cross over the bridge. You know, pre 9 11, everything was so flexible. So now it's very different than what it was when I was your age.

[02:06] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: Yeah.

[02:09] ELENA PALACIOS: How is it for you now in El Paso, living in El Paso?

[02:13] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: Well, in a similar fashion, my family also had ties over in the United States States. My mom was a naturalized citizen when I was born, and my dad, well, you know, was married to her. So we had an easy way for me and my little sister to just have status. Even if we were going to be the first ones living here in the United States, we already had the privilege of having status and like it just being part of our lives. But, you know, it's different to here. Obviously, working at Las Americas, you realize how much of that is a privilege, something that you've thought is just completely natural to you your whole life actually puts you in a completely different stage in this country to be able to just have basic rights. So it's been a lot to say the least. And I'm sure we'll talk about it more. But thanks for sharing because, yeah, I feel like it's not uncommon to Remain an LPR and not wanting to change status because before there wasn't a lot of violence for stuff that we just thought was a human right. And it's so natural to do for millions of here, of people on the border.

[03:23] ELENA PALACIOS: Right. And it didn't really feel like a threat before. And post Trump administration, it felt like complete threat for me. I honestly would sit there at night thinking, why haven't I done this before? Like, what's going to happen, you know, if he decides to change something else, become more radical with this law? What's going to happen to me, to my kids, to everything I've done here my whole life? Just because I never took advantage of that one application, just one little form that I had to do. So that's why it's. I think now it's just as important for me to get it done, not just for myself, but having clients fighting for it and struggling to get it, and me being so nonchalant about it makes me feel bad seeing their struggle. You know, I'm like, okay, I need to do this so I can assimilate my experiences with them and so they can better trust me as well. Because they're like, oh, well, you just have an lpr. Can I just stay with an LPR for the rest of my life? And I wouldn't want that. I want them to. I was raised differently. I had the benefits that they haven't acquired yet, and I want them to have those benefits because, I mean. And at one point when my parents are gone, hopefully far from now, I won't be eligible for all those benefits either. So I need to get myself back on the ball. El Paso is. Has always been very flexible and very, you know, but now everything, like to travel, the passports and everything now it's kind of scary.

[05:06] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: It is getting really scary. It's getting really militarized.

[05:09] ELENA PALACIOS: That's what it feels like. Very.

[05:11] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: I mean, I feel like I don't. I don't watch a lot of news, and maybe that's an adult trait that I'm yet to acquire.

[05:22] ELENA PALACIOS: No, I hate the news, too.

[05:23] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: I cannot watch the news. But then I cannot give you a clear depiction if the news is poor, portraying how awfully militarized the border is right now from the floods, like the influx of migrants coming to it. I mean, it's. I can only take from what I know, from comrades and colleagues of young people who are using their bodies to protect other migrants from being unlawfully beaten in the streets that I don't know if the media is covering It. Because if. I don't even know if the media does things anymore, you know, like, if it will move people to stop something. We've just. I just felt so isolated in terms of that violence that I'm like, yeah, I think we're too close to home, especially working at Las Americas, seeing that and all of what we can and can't do.

[06:13] ELENA PALACIOS: Yeah, you feel like your hands are tied. And I think the media, you know, they want to. They focus on controversy. They find, like, out of the norm stories. So they're not really saying the truth about what's happening. Like, we've been out there, we've had our people out at the bridge talking to these immigrants, and all you see on the news is there's a huge influx of immigrants. Here they are here. They're coming. What are we going to do with them? But nobody really says, hey, this is what. We sat there and talked to them, and we asked them, why are you doing this? They said, this was promised to us. They literally told our staff, we're here waiting and we're not going anywhere. Because we were told that if we did this, we would have, you know, the option of going forward and going into the United States. So that's why they're suffering. A lot of people will criticize them, and I will. I'm. I was big on that as well, because I'm a mom. And I was like, how can you sit there and just lay on gravel with your child and not feel like within you that you have to go and find something different? But these parents are sticking to the ideology that they were promised, something that had no basis, no fundamentals. So they're sitting there waiting for someone to come pick them up, waiting for a better future, and all they're getting is a separation of their own family. Those children that they came here to fight so strongly for are now being taken away from them. They're stealing children, they're separating them, and these parents have nowhere of finding them in the future. I read a story from Las Cruces. I have a friend that works at a Baptist church. She volunteers, and she had this one lady coming from El Paso, and they told her, we're gonna put you on this bus, and your daughter's gonna go on that other bus. Well, four days later, her daughter gets there, and she didn't want to say anything like, where were you on the bus and who was with you? The men. Like, now she's blocking everything, and she.

[08:28] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: Wants to tell you the amount of trauma that.

[08:30] ELENA PALACIOS: Yeah, see, that's something that wasn't part of El Paso before. I never saw that. Actually, I've been doing benchmarking for our clients right now. And before they had a catch and release program that was super effective and now they're detaining people and it's just creating so much conflict.

[08:54] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: Exactly. The amount of unregulation that is happening in the immigration sphere, not only administratively that we see in our day to day work, but like the outright violence that is being imposed on so many more people who have so many less rights than those already that are imprisoned and have, you know, have had that violence is crazy. And that thing is now, culturally, it was. I don't know if it was like this for you. Like El Paso wasn't a place where people wanted to settle down. Like that is the place that everybody and at least will transition. Exactly. Or a space that at least for me, who was like middle class here in El Paso, even still as an immigrant, it was like always like, you have to leave El Paso because there's not resources enough. And now coming back as an adult and living here and being like, there is enough resources. But really the reason that there aren't resources is because we are militarized there. Most of our resources are going somewhere. They're going to Fort Bliss. There is so much community and love that is so particular and you will probably not find anywhere else in this country because of the family ties and bond ties and the community history of El Paso. But it's always like, as soon as they saw the community of people that were not majority white, it became militarized. And now CBP is carrying out and obviously having the military there is also a huge issue. I'm like, I don't know how to take that as a young person like that there are resources and that we could give back to our community and we could probably host these migrants and if they want to go to El Paso, give them the resources to get El Paso. But if they wanted to stay, that those resources aren't going to be there for them.

[10:40] ELENA PALACIOS: Right. And you know what? The biggest difference I've seen growing up, I went to Fort Bliss elementary when I was little. My dad had a construction company and because he got tired of running from border patrol. And so he opened up his own company and it gave him a little more credit, a little more stability with his status. And he built a lot of Fort Bliss, a lot of it. So I got to go to Fort Bliss because he was there. And before Fort Bliss was a part of El Paso, Fort Bliss was, you know, El Paso. El Paso. So it was like all mixed in. Right.

[11:20] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: When did it get like, you know, very. You couldn't cross to them.

[11:24] ELENA PALACIOS: I was like, in high school when I started noticing really, that soon that they separated. For Bliss is a city of their own now. They have their own zip code.

[11:32] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: I know.

[11:32] ELENA PALACIOS: So it's a completely different, you know, they ostracized from El Paso kind of, and they have their own rules and their own laws. And when I was working at the county, and if you came in with a speeding ticket, but the next person came in and he was military, there's so many other things that are offered to that person that you are not eligible for. Yeah. Yep. Their courts, like, if it goes to a higher thing, it goes to their courts, not to ours. So, yeah, they, you know, they kind of do their own thing. They're little city on their own. They govern themselves. And it is affecting the rest of El Paso because you're right, a lot of the resources, when they're being dissipated, they're not being allocated strictly for the community. A lot of us is going to Fort Bliss because now Fort Bliss is feeding, you know, all the other little communities that they have, like, that shape and area.

[12:27] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: Yeah. No, and I mean, they're running detention camps there.

[12:30] ELENA PALACIOS: They are. So we have a client. One of our clients is working there at nighttime.

[12:36] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: I have clients working there, too. I mean, now they're employing a lot of people. They're employing well. To work at these detention camps for children.

[12:44] ELENA PALACIOS: Yeah, that's what she said. She's like, I don't know if I can handle this. She's like, because it's nothing but babies out here.

[12:49] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: Exactly. I mean, it's just ugly knowing that we are the babies of immigrants. Like, that could be. That could have been our story.

[12:57] ELENA PALACIOS: We're just in a cage.

[12:58] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: Exactly. We're just. With a blanket, and it's right next to us. It's our children. It's people in our community's children.

[13:05] ELENA PALACIOS: Isn't that sad? My kiddos and I, when they did the whole tent thing outside border patrol here in. On Trans Mountain in El Paso, they have the office, they have the parking lot, and they had like this mass area full of tents. I couldn't drive through there. I had to go through. I couldn't go through the freeway. I had to go through the regular city because my kids would cry every time I drove through there. They're like, there's babies in there. And they would cry. And it's heartbreaking.

[13:34] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: Do you remember? Would you pass before there? Before, like, you know, you had children. Like, was that there?

[13:39] ELENA PALACIOS: Like, so. See, that was one of our favorite places before. It's the Border Patrol. The Border Patrol Museum is literally next door to it.

[13:47] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: Wait, you're right. It exists within the mountain. I remember every time I drive there, I'm like, oh, my God, why did they build on the mountain? It's so cute. It is a cute space. Yeah.

[13:58] ELENA PALACIOS: And it used to be one of our favorite spots because the director of that little museum, she used to change it up quite a bit all the time. And like I said, we love that stuff. That's what keeps us in El Paso. So we would go through there a lot. And I live in Chaparral. When I commute into El Paso, I take that freeway. So it's kind of inedible, inevitable, unless you make it a point to go around, which. Which is what we had to do for almost a year. I went around so my kids didn't have to look at that and go home crying. It's sad to think that just, you know, besides, after that fence, on the other side of the fence, there's kids in a cell with foil blankets, hungry, that haven't seen their parents, that have no idea where they're going. And honestly, I was listening to a story today about human trafficking. And these kids that are raised. These kids that are raised this way grow up with the mentality that that's okay, and they start becoming offenders themselves. I heard that's what the story today from one of our associates sent in a training. A little webinar. And it was about that a person that. That had suffered the separation from the parents, and he was so on his own that he started thinking that was the norm to be leaving kids on their own and having other grownups who weren't of any relation to them be with them, that he. When he started doing that, he didn't realize that he was becoming a pedophile.

[15:42] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: Yeah.

[15:42] ELENA PALACIOS: And he became. It went as far as him becoming a sex trafficker.

[15:47] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: No, I know when you did, when you described that. The story for me, first, you're like, it's how you can be like. I'm like, how someone becomes a pedophile. And I'm like, wait, what? But it actually does give a lot of insight. Like, I. That's in general, like, a crazy story, because I do think it's just intense human pain that, like, yes. Is leading this constant cycle of incarceration, detention, other. That I'm like, I think we're evolved enough to know that we shouldn't be imposing these tactics on people, especially people that have not committed any sort of crime or perjury against somebody. Especially when we have plenty.

[16:29] ELENA PALACIOS: Exactly. Roaming the streets. Right.

[16:31] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: We have plenty to house, plenty to feed, and plenty to give in this country for it not to. For them not to even be given any form of regard or care.

[16:43] ELENA PALACIOS: It's really sad. It's really sad how it stems. I mean, from something so little because he wasn't predisposed. Like you said, it was that intense pain growing up that made him turn into all this. And here we are creating that pain with camps full of children. You know, it only makes you think, like, what's gonna happen? How are they gonna grow up? Their trauma, their fears, their insecurities. How are they gonna portray that into society? You know?

[17:11] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: And, I mean, we are aware, like, the time that children were crossing the border alone is because they can have, like, an asylum hearing here. And it's probably, you know, they have a special immigrant juvenile case, which is a type of case that we have and that we work with at Las Americas, that they could stay here and, like, adjust status and, like, live their lives, but then they get to stay here with, like, the most immense amount of trauma to carry on your back as a child. They are not set up to ever have a proper way into being in a safe space in this country. Most of them will lead into, like, how you're saying, human trafficking. Most of the cases that we deal with involve human trafficking.

[17:53] ELENA PALACIOS: Yeah. And it's sad because I've been very involved with the law for the past 13 years of my life. I've worked with it, you know, municipal courts, city attorneys, but county courts. But it's not. It doesn't prepare you for stuff that you see with the immigration world. It's so different. It's so deep. You see criminals and criminal activity, but then you see immigrants with no criminal activity, no criminal history being treated worse than actual criminals. It's very sad. It's very sad. And it's not something that when I was growing up, it wasn't prominent at all like it is for you guys now. I have a daughter your age, and I have to sit there and explain to them that this is not the norm. This is not okay.

[18:53] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: I've had this talk with my parents. I think when I came to full consciousness, I'm like, is this how the world is? I remember asking that when I was 10. And it's like, when they're teaching you, like, really what 911 is about or.

[19:05] ELENA PALACIOS: Like all that you were trying to normalize?

[19:07] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: I was trying to be like, is this what is our normal human experience look like? And they're like, for them it was like, 9 11. I'm like, for me, it's the pandemic, you know, like, it's always going to change. And if this is the normal human experience and if catastrophic things continue to happen and if we know that we're on limited resources, stuff is going to happen. You know, like greedy people have the thing that most of us learn to have because of poverty, which is enough.

[19:36] ELENA PALACIOS: Yeah. And they have their bases covered, per se, as to where we have to figure out what our next step is.

[19:44] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: Yeah. And I mean, I think it's. This is just like classically it, like, I mean, I don't know. Did you join immigration because of how much it's been like, started. Started to publicize that. You're like, I want to apply to Las Americas or how did immigration find you?

[19:57] ELENA PALACIOS: Honestly, it was something that was always on the back of my mind when I was growing up. My dad, before he acquired his construction company, worked for many contractors. And every evening we sat there waiting for him. Is he coming home today? Is he not? Every single evening, because they didn't ask. They would do the redadas and they would show up to the construction sites and vamanos everybody inside that camper. And he would call us from Mexico and be like, hey, bring me my passport. They got me again. So it's kind of scary. Even though we knew it was like a back and forth thing, that it can happen and it'd be so normal. You still want your dad to come home every night, you know, you still want him to get there and hug him and not have to worry. And I saw how my parents, my mom was always a homemaker and I saw the way she was discriminated and the way she was looked down upon because she didn't have a job, wasn't a citizen, and because they were barely getting their papers. And I remember there was such abusive people. You know, they would go to them and they would fill out their paperwork and take their money and they never hear from them again. So. And I personally crossed the river myself and it was horrible. I can remember till this day the bone chilling coldness after you cross. It stays with you for a couple of days. It doesn't just leave your body with a warm bath. It stays with you. I guess it's the combination of fear, not knowing what's gonna happen. The cold Your kid, like, you don't know. You're trusting your parents, but you're like, okay, well, what happens? They get picked up. Where do I go? You know? So that takes a couple days to get over. And I grew up thinking, if I can take that fear away from someone and let them sleep at night peacefully, knowing, yeah, your dad's gonna come back, because I'm gonna help your dad get his papers.

[22:13] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: You know, that's such a.

[22:15] ELENA PALACIOS: That's what did it. Me wanting other people not to have the sleepless night.

[22:20] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: So did you always knew you wanted to. Like, you were like, I'm gonna become a paralegal, so I know I can become an immigration paralegal. Like, sooner or later. You knew you were gonna be there.

[22:29] ELENA PALACIOS: I wanted to be a lawyer. I wanted to be an attorney, an immigration attorney, and. But then I decided I wanted to have more kids instead.

[22:39] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: Yeah.

[22:40] ELENA PALACIOS: So we had more children, and I didn't finish anything further.

[22:46] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: Would you go to law school? I would do it.

[22:49] ELENA PALACIOS: I think I would.

[22:50] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: I think you should.

[22:52] ELENA PALACIOS: You know, I was contemplating. Because of my Sebastian, he's three. And I was like, no, this is it. Like, I. That's when I decided to do the. Okay, so I went to an msu, and I got my bachelor's degree in criminal justice. With that, I was like, well, in order to work effectively against the system, you have to know the system. So I went into the system. I started working for the county. I learned as much as I could with the county, and then I started working with the city. I learned as much as I could with the prosecutor's office and the municipal court. So then I feel like that's to my advantage because now when we have clients that didn't get a certification, I can tell them, hey, wait, look, there's this other way that you can do it. Because I used to do that when I was there.

[23:36] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: That's amazing.

[23:37] ELENA PALACIOS: It is.

[23:38] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: So you should definitely, like, in this point period, not, please keep on going, but, like, you should definitely go to law school.

[23:47] ELENA PALACIOS: I would love to. I just feel so tired.

[23:50] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: I understand.

[23:51] ELENA PALACIOS: When I had my Sebastian, I was like, okay, I'm gonna go back to school. Before having him, I was like, I'm gonna go back to school, and I'm gonna do this. My kids are grown. They don't need me anymore. So then I had Sebastian. I was like, okay, I'm tired. I don't think I can do this again. And that's when I came to UTEP and got my paralegal certification. And I Became a notary also for the state of Texas and a notary for the state of New Mexico. And that was my little like, okay, you didn't go to law school or anything, but you got this, you know, And I was content with that.

[24:30] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: Yeah.

[24:31] ELENA PALACIOS: Until now. Now that we're working there at Las Americas, and I see the need for immigration attorneys, I want to do that now. Now that's. That's on my.

[24:38] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: Right now. There is a huge need.

[24:40] ELENA PALACIOS: Huge need. And we were talking about that during lunch, how we tried to. Attorneys, you know. I know. And everyone's so, like, no, no.

[24:48] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: There's a need for fashion attorneys, for sure. I think you should definitely go to law school.

[24:52] ELENA PALACIOS: I'll see. Let's see. What about you? What? What.

[24:59] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: In what regard? I feel like you. I. I love listening to you talk, so I'm very comforted. I'm not a matter of fact, if this is like, yeah. I mean, me in general, like, what? Dr. Meet immigration law. Like, immigration law. Because immigration has, of course, living in El Paso and Juarez, Immigration will always be, like, a theme in your life.

[25:22] ELENA PALACIOS: Multiverse.

[25:23] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: Exactly. If you lived in El Paso, definitely. Well, I don't know. You know, there's some people that never went to Juarez, which is super strange to me. I'm definitely, like, binance. Bicultural. Like, I was born in the United States, but my parents immigrated only after I was grown enough to, like, go to school over here. So. But my mom always worked in El Paso. She, like, became a United States citizen. She was adjusted through her father. When she was, like, in high school, that was like, my grandma's, like, leading contract. Like, I will sign this divorce if you naturalize these children. Smart. Very baller of her. Very boss lady of her.

[26:03] ELENA PALACIOS: She made sure you guys were all taken care of.

[26:06] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: Exactly. She was like, no. Like, the reason this happened is because of this. So my mom was naturalized, which was, you know, like, a huge step for me for my dad to become. He's right now in lpr. He wants to become a citizen when he doesn't have to take the exam in English.

[26:22] ELENA PALACIOS: Well, you don't have to. So there's a thing with the exam, and it turns out that you can take it in your native language if you show up to the interview with a certified translator.

[26:41] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: But. And you're right, he can know the questions. I'm trying to let him know thanks for giving me that tip. He. But the. Yeah, you know, I told him I didn't give him legal advice because I am a paralegal, but I was telling him, I'm like, yeah, you could either take it now and like, have to do it in English or you can take it in five years and you would be okay doing it Spanish. He's like, oh, wait, five. What's another five? Yeah, like, very cool. And then, yeah, I mean, but he worked in Juarez. We lived in Juarez. And for most of my childhood is, was that we lived in Juarez and my mom would cross from El Paso to Juarez and there wasn't any line. Like, it wasn't like, it was, you know, there was like zero line. It was very chill. You know, it was a 15 minute cross. But then the violence started happening in Juarez and we moved to El Paso. Oh, and then my dad was the one crossing and then my dad was the one that had. Would have to get like La Line Express. And then.

[27:36] ELENA PALACIOS: Because he had to go back home every day to Juarez.

[27:38] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: Exactly.

[27:39] ELENA PALACIOS: So you guys stayed over here?

[27:41] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: No, no, no. He would go every day back to El Paso. Like, he would go to work every morning and then come back every night. And we had a, you know, we got a house very close to Zaragoza Bridge. So it was very, very circular. And then, you know, I always have learned English. Like, I think I knew English the same time I knew Spanish, because in all of the private schools, I went to private school in Juarez and they make you learn English the same time you're learning Spanish. So I remember my mom tells me the story all the time that we would have days where they would come because I went to like a Montessori school, that they would come and like sit in on the children and that I would, I would be a show off and lift my hand and like be like, yeah, I can say that all in English. And then even when we weren't in English class, I would still talk in English even when we didn't talk English at home. Like, it was only at school.

[28:36] ELENA PALACIOS: You speak it very clearly.

[28:37] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: Thank you so much. I feel like it's when I went to school in Dallas, so I felt like I came back with like a very southern accent back to El Paso. But I feel like it's finally gotten back. Yeah, my twang is finally gone, but it's gonna be back soon.

[28:51] ELENA PALACIOS: Yeah. You leave us.

[28:55] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: I know.

[28:55] ELENA PALACIOS: So when you leave Las Americas, what are you still going to do? Immigration stuff. What are you planning on doing?

[29:02] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: I don't know. I'm definitely going to take a break, like you said. I know. I think we just trauma dumped on this story corpse. But it is a really traumatizing thing. Like, it wouldn't be traumatizing if it wasn't so such a violent experience. And if it wasn't such a violent experience, it wouldn't be having many American eyes looking upon it.

[29:23] ELENA PALACIOS: Yeah. And you know what? Maybe your experience out there, deeper in Texas will be a little different because you are in the border and you are going to see a lot more things that are a little more hidden or not so propense down there. Here it's all the. Like you said, it's not just the illegals and the migration and there's so much violence behind it right now. Not on their part necessarily also, but everything that's going on and that could be pretty traumatic when you're working here and you're like, oh, my God, this is too much for me. But you're wonderful at this. So I think that you should pursue it over there where you're going, and hopefully it won't be as intense as it is here in the borderland.

[30:05] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: Thanks. I really appreciate it. I really appreciate your kind words. I don't. I know I'm definitely gonna take a break. I'm really lucky that my partner got a job and I won't have to have, like, income for a while.

[30:18] ELENA PALACIOS: Nice.

[30:18] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: But it is. It definitely took a little bit of my soul.

[30:27] ELENA PALACIOS: It does. I'm older and I can feel it. So I can imagine you guys that are there young, but I think that all of you there that are so young, it's an amazing thing that you're doing because now you can carry it with you.

[30:42] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: I think so. And hopefully when I have the break to rejuvenate, it will be like, that's what I'm able to do now.

[30:48] ELENA PALACIOS: Yeah, I hope so too. Thank you so much, Victoria, for sharing that with me.

[30:53] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: Thanks. Elena is there. What about you? Like, are you, you know, I know you say. I know you're saying that you're like thinking about law school. I think you should definitely do it. But like, aside from like, career or anything, like, is there anything you're looking forward to in life?

[31:13] ELENA PALACIOS: Yes, definitely. I want. I'm a single mom with four kids and I have two girls. And I want my girls to know the world doesn't end when you get a divorce. I want them to know not only can you keep moving, but you can probably even keep moving better. My ex husband was very like, stay at home, take care of the kids. He's the main reason why I quit going to school because we wanted more attention at home on the children. And I was Fine with that. But now I'm not. I want my girls not to be fine with that and for them not to be their norm, you know. Yeah, that's great for them to keep moving forward. So I, the whole paralegal thing, honestly I did it just because I told them I'm going to school and I didn't want them to think my mom is not going to do anything anymore. So I did it and I pushed forward and once I did it, it felt so good.

[32:04] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: That's great.

[32:05] ELENA PALACIOS: And their, their response to it was so beautiful that I do want to go back to school. You should do it and I have fully support you. Yes. So I want them to see like it doesn't end and just because she's for, you know, they're about to graduate.

[32:22] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: Yeah.

[32:22] ELENA PALACIOS: My 25 year old is graduating this semester, God willing with a double major. And I don't want them to think you have to do this when you're young and then after a time passes it's done and you're. No, I want them to know you can keep going forward. So that's. If I, if I were to go back and do it, that would be my primary reason too. And because I love it and this is what I love to do. But aside from all of that, I want to one day have my own business doing this. I want people to come to me and me be able to help them without having to get the approval of someone else. You know, like now we're contingent on approval of our supervisors, but I want to take as many people as can walk through my door when I have my own business, God willing, someday.

[33:13] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: Yeah.

[33:14] ELENA PALACIOS: That's my long term goal.

[33:16] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: That's amazing.

[33:17] ELENA PALACIOS: Thank you.

[33:17] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: I hope it happens. It's definitely needed.

[33:19] ELENA PALACIOS: I would want to do it somewhere like in Chaparral where I live, because.

[33:23] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: Is there nothing?

[33:25] ELENA PALACIOS: Nothing. First of all, we're not even incorporated as a city, so we don't have businesses out there. It's just a little itty bitty town and people like my parents have to drive all the way to Las Cruces to get their applications filled out and every single time they go they end up paying like 12, 1300 each. I want to take that burden away from some of the people that live there, you know, because our community is so impoverished that that's what I would love to do right now with the little knowledge that I have that I've learned from here. I've been helping. Like I can tell them this is how you look up your case. This is you don't have to hire an attorney.

[34:01] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: It's, like, such an intense job. I'm really grateful I get to do it with you. I've been really grateful to hear you, like, at least tell me your story. Thanks, Elena.

[34:09] ELENA PALACIOS: And I've been blessed to go into a job with people like you guys. You guys have been amazing. Thank you.

[34:15] VICTORIA NEVAREZ: Yeah.