Alan Muñoz helped develop the Civic Leader Education and Advocacy Program (CLEAP) with Voces Unidas, a Glenwood Springs-based Latino advocacy nonprofit in 2023.
The program in Mexico City teaches participants about U.S. and international policies that directly and indirectly affect migration. Facilitators also train attendees to speak to people in power.
Voces Unidas invited recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to participate. DACA holders were brought to the U.S. as children and are temporarily protected from deportation, and they aren’t normally allowed to travel abroad without risking those protections. However, Muñoz helped several participants with DACA secure a federal travel permit called “advance parole,” allowing them to fly internationally.
Muñoz is a DACA recipient himself and went through a wide range of emotions when organizing CLEAP in Mexico last year. The trip marked his first time returning to the country since he was three years old.
With a successful launch, Voces Unidas planned a second conference in May. Muñoz arrived early and traveled north to visit his extended family in the small town of Calvillo, Aguascalientes in central Mexico.
In this final story of a three-part series, produced by Halle Zander, Muñoz facilitates CLEAP again and connects with many family members for the first time.
Halle Zander: Alan Muñoz grew up in Rifle, Colorado with his parents, who traveled to the U.S. when he was just three years old.
The small American town has always been home, but many of his family members still live in Mexico — a country he’d never seen as an adult.
Alan Muñoz: Going back to Mexico was always on my to do list, I guess? I always imagined going back to my hometown: Calvillo Aguascalientes.
Zander: Under a federal travel permit called “advance parole,” DACA holders can fly internationally for a set period of time, but only for employment, humanitarian, or educational purposes.
By helping Voces Unidas develop an educational program in Mexico City, Muñoz gave people like him, with DACA, that opportunity.
The program launched in 2023, and when Muñoz got on the flight, he had to balance his workload and his emotions.
It didn’t really hit him until he stepped off the plane in Mexico.
Muñoz: First and foremost, it was seeing everything in Spanish. Right? I think that was like the biggest realization for me that, “Oh wow, we’re here.”
Driving from the airport to the hotel, it was seeing the architecture and the landscapes of Mexico City, which, up to that point, I had only seen in pictures, in movies, in social media. So that was when I was like, “OK, we’re here.”
Zander: Muñoz stayed in Mexico City the whole trip, so even though he was just a few hours away from his extended family, he didn’t get to see them.
It wasn’t until round two of the program in May of this year when Muñoz would set aside a little extra time for a weekend visit.
He traveled north to Calvillo to meet many of his aunts, uncles and cousins for the first time.
Muñoz: They’re a stranger to you, but you have this connection to them — aunts and uncles that I’ve connected only via text, Facetime, phone calls kind of thing. So seeing them in person, being able to give them a hug, I think is going to be very, very emotional, and the only thing that we’re going to care about right now is reconnecting.
Zander: But he didn’t tell most of them that he was coming.
So when his uncle picked him up from the airport, they drove straight to his grandpa’s bar to surprise him.
Muñoz: He didn’t recognize me at first. Grandpa, I think he has cataracts in his eyes, so he can’t really see. So I remember I sat in front of him in the bar and I said, “Hi, how’s it going?” He’s like, “Good how are you?” And then my uncle walked in and he’s like, “Do you know who this is?” And my grandpa was like, “No, who is it?” “It’s Alan.” He’s like, “It’s you, mijo? Come over here, so I can give you a hug.”
Zander: Muñoz kept running into family members after that, catching up, getting to know each other, and one Friday evening, they all met up at his uncle’s baseball stadium.
There were dozens of them who got together like this all the time.
He imagined what it would have been like if he had stayed there, grown up there.
Muñoz: So I went while the adults were talking and eating. I had the chance to go just listen in on the kids playing, because I never got to play on that field, because I came at three years old.
Had I stayed in Calvillo, that definitely would have been the field that I grew up playing on. So I got a chance to see my little cousins, all ranging from 4 years old to 15.
Zander: Sitting next to me, Muñoz pulls up a video he took while driving down a cobblestone road in Calvillo.
Trees with yellow and pink flowers line the sidewalks.
Homes are adorned with clay tile roofs, gold window frames, ornate metal grates at the property lines.
His aunt is explaining to Muñoz which houses belong to the extended family.
Muñoz: All these houses — it’s funny. They call this the “Avenue of los Valenciano,” so Valenciano Avenue in English because all the uncles, all the family members live on the same street.
I didn’t feel like a stranger, even though this is my first time meeting a lot of my cousins and the first time seeing a lot of my family members in over 20 years and obviously not remembering every aspect of Calvillo, I felt like I was at home. I felt like I belonged, which is sometimes very hard to do when you grow up in the United States as someone who grew up undocumented, someone who’s Latino, someone who has brown skin. You don’t really feel a sense that you belong.
Zander: Muñoz waited for decades to get these moments with his family, so he felt deeply conflicted. Somehow all of the emotions canceled each other out.
Muñoz: Because I was overjoyed that I was going. But I was also sad that I was going by myself. Right? I was happy to see my family, but I was mad that I hadn’t seen them in 20 years.
Zander: But he didn’t have much time to process any of that.
After a few days of reconnecting with multiple generations, seeing the life he might have had, Muñoz flew back to Mexico City to welcome his program participants — many of whom were DACA recipients like him, but seeing Mexico for the first time as adults.
He had to put his feelings, complex and unresolved, aside and be there for them.
Muñoz: If they do feel overwhelmed, they have a space to vent. They have a space to express their feelings. But then also on the flip side, getting them to enjoy the space, the time here, because it’s limited.
Zander: He tries to remind them all that this place, while unfamiliar, is still their home.
Muñoz: You also belong here as much as you belong in the United States, as much as you love your community back home, you also belong in these spaces here.
Zander: Muñoz felt this duality, that he was welcome in Mexico and that he belonged, and that Rifle was still his home.
Muñoz: It’s where I grew up, where my family’s at now. It’s a place where I’ve been able to grow into the person that I am today. Calvillo — visiting it was amazing, but I think my life is in the United States.
Zander: Having been on this trip twice, Muñoz now has two legal entries into the United States on the books, where he was inspected and admitted into the country by Customs, which is required for most green card applications.
This is a huge benefit of getting advance parole, because the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is considering the legality of DACA right now.
DACA recipients don’t have a clear path to citizenship.
The main ways Muñoz could apply for a green card now would be if he got married, if he was the victim of a crime, or if he got a work visa.
He’s trying to navigate those options now, but most of those pathways don’t apply to him.
Muñoz: I don’t really want to get married right now. I would hate to be the victim of a crime. And employment, well it’s a very complicated sort of topic. So then, is there a pathway right now? Probably not.
Am I worried about it? Sure. Not so much for myself, but more so for other DACA recipients. I know other people that don’t know anything about their home country, and probably don’t speak the native language.
Zander: Muñoz says as he visited his family in Calvillo, he took his parents with him in spirit, since they couldn’t be there with him.
But he’s also taking a bit of Mexico back home to them.
Muñoz: Now what am I going to bring from those spaces to them? It’s being grateful. It’s maybe slowing down. Before I came back to Mexico City, we had breakfast. It was great to see how everyone sort of interacted and how everyone sort of knew what to do. “Hey, do you need more soda? Hey, can I get you more tortillas? Hey!” So that piece of just living and enjoying the moment is I think what I would take. Take a step back, relax, take a deep breath, and enjoy the space that you’re in.
Editor’s Note: This is the final story in a three-part series documenting the journeys of DACA recipients in Mexico.
