VOCES

When Manuel Valenzuela finds out his brother also receives a letter of deportation, he is shocked and says, “Join the club, brother.” Both had minor offenses on their record, which landed them in deportation court decades later. They decide to fight together and hit the local newscast to share their story and start a movement to stop the deportation of fellow veterans.

Ashley Sietsema was 20 years old when she was deployed to Kuwait. Her mother, Olivia Segura, recalls receiving the news her daughter died. Amid grief, her husband was caught drinking and driving and has been scheduled for deportation. Segura says she fights for the rights of fallen veterans’ families because her family's pain is a result of the sacrifice her daughter made for this country.

Brothers Manuel and Valente Valenzuela both volunteered and fought in Vietnam. Fifty years later they are among thousands of veterans who are being deported. The brothers don their uniforms for one last fight, to bring all the veterans back home.

Zahid Chaudry joined the military after coming to the U.S. from Pakistan on a tourist visa. He was trampled in bootcamp training and is now in a wheelchair. His citizenship request is denied for failing to disclose misdemeanors from his time in Australia and a documentation mishap while volunteering at his local police department. His wife Anne is crushed when his deportation order moves forward.

When Manuel Valenzuela went to Vietnam with the U.S. Marine Corps in 1971, he was 19 years old. He wears his uniform proudly to attend an event in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he announces his trip to Washington to deliver a letter requesting the president takes action to stop the deportation of veterans.

While Manuel Valenzuela heads east to Washington D.C., his brother Valente Valenzuela heads south to Chihuahua, Mexico to self-deport and live in exile. Valente shares the emotional turmoil he has faced since receiving his removal notice — including his suicidal thoughts. “This is not what America is supposed to be,” Valente says. He tosses his war medals into the Rio Grande in disappointment.

"Paradiso" marked José Lezama Lima as a writer too independent to be trusted by a government that required full compliance. Cuba censored his work as a result of the novel and suspicions that he was gay. Despite being forbidden in his own country, the novel was translated and revered worldwide. The poet grew hopeless as attempts to travel abroad were thwarted by denied exit visas.

Based on correspondence with his sister in exile, "Letters to Eloisa" recounts the life of Cuban literary great José Lezama Lima, author of a homoerotic novel, "Paradiso," and tells the story of his silencing by the Cuban revolutionary government.

Poet José Lezama Lima published his long-awaited novel "Paradiso" in 1966, revealing with it scenes that mirrored his own life and secrets he kept for decades. The novel was considered an exaltation of family as the center of human life. In the same way, it was considered an unprecedented invitation to think about being human in an erotic way, making it a source of scandal upon publication.

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