Juan
Juan Carlos Reynoso runs a deli and grocery serving Albany’s South End neighborhood, and Redemption Bottle Machine, a recycling center across the street. He fought his deportation for years until a pardon from Governor Cuomo in 2020 for his past convictions allowed him to vacate his deportation proceedings.
Photographed by Aviva Klein. Note: interview has been lightly edited for readability.
Interviewer 0:04
Okay, the recording is on. So Juan, Can you start by saying your full name, today's date, and your location?
Juan 0:14
My full name is Juan Carlos Reynoso, and I'm from Albany, New York.
Interviewer 0:21
And today's date?
Juan 0:23
And today's—November 2, 2020.
Interviewer 0:31
Great. So, can you tell us how you came to this oral history project or came to know the Immigrant Defense Project?
Juan 0:43
Well, um, when I tried to appeal my case, and I was using all the resources, and everything was denied. And all my appeals were denied. So I spoke with one of the lawyers who tried to help me and he said, “Well the only chance that you might—I don't know if you qualify, but your case look very good for me—is to call this organization.” And he was actually wanted to give me the phone number. I don't remember his name off the top my head right now. But um, I called my immigration lawyer, Daniel Jackson, and I told him about this organization, and he called from his end and then I did call myself. And I call, and I think nobody answering, and first day somebody come to me it was—Alisa Wellek? Yeah—who called me, and we started talking about me. She like my story, my case. And we start from there.
Interviewer 2:02
Great. And when you say your case, and, you know, you like—you lost all your appeals, you're talking about your immigration case, right.
Juan 2:11
Well, I was trying to fight my criminal case because, um, that's another story—very, very, very weak cases. I mean, they’re like—from the beginning, but I start, you know, differently when I took it to trial and you know, and that's—it's very hard when you—they find you guilty on trial, knowing the charges—now I did some of the charges in the—but they got me sticking—one, actually, one tragedy was that the immigration—that was actually the worst because for immigration, that was the one part there is possibility for me to get deported. And I appeal the case, and I lose, and then I tried to put a motion to reopen, and I almost got it opened, you know, but some reason they all got denied, and I don't have a lot of chance, and because of my lawyer, they made a lot of mistakes too. And I had no more chance, and that's why they refer to you guys, and that was the best thing that happened to me. [Laughter]
Interviewer 3:30
Okay, Thanks for clarifying that a little bit. So the first—you know, we want to hear more about your story of migrating to the United States. And so, what are some of your first memories of moving to this country?
Juan 3:53
My first memory when I came here? Or before I came here? Because I have memories of way before I came here. Always I try to came to United States.
Interviewer 4:04
Your first memories of I guess, maybe both, if you can talk about what your memories, you know, before you were able to get here, how you thought about this place, and then some of your memories when you arrived like the first things you remember about once you got here?
Juan 4:27
Well, let me explain, before I tell you how, how I feel— because I have to tell you a little bit about when I was home. When I have three years old, my mother came to United States with visa. Actually, my father tried to come first, but he, for some reason they denied his visa. We was seven kids: five brothers and two sisters. For me—I mean my father and my mother was too much kids to, you know—My father was a teacher, very strict guy, but the economic situation for my father and my mother was very tough. So one of the two decide to came to United States. In that time was a lot of factories or a lot of opportunity for immigrants. So because my mother’s brother came to United States, and he was doing successful—he was in the in the clothing factory, you know, he started working in hotel, then he opened his own factory.
So he start working. So my mother—he was, you know, writing letters. At the time there was no cell phone, no nothing, so he was writing a letter to my mother all the time and send a picture and my mother was, you know, and my father, they was looking the progress because how good he was doing and the economy in my country was very bad. So my father—my mother told to my father that in order for we bring, you know, the kids to school and get a better life—there’s seven kids—we were not gonna make in that situation. One of the two—my brother told me that he's gonna get me a job over there, and you can go, and I stay with the kids, eventually, you know—So my father, when he got denied, so my father said, “So why you not go and see if you can get better luck.” So, but you know, they learn about the visa in that time, so they had to put a house—the little house that we have that’s under my name—under my mother’s name, so my mother went to the embassy. She got visa. So she came to United States just with visa. Okay. But my mother was very religious woman, and when you got a visa in the United States, it’s just to visit—not for work, right. So, and the time was, you know, to make money. [laughs] So she had to stay basically illegal.
Interviewer 7:18
Yeah.
Juan 7:19
And start working under the table. And I was three years old, in that time, right. But my mother had thought to come back to my country because, you know, when I’m married with nobody, even my father say, “Do it just to get the paperwork and come back,” and then you know, but she doesn’t want. And she tried to find the Green Card from another resource.
The thing was, my mother was working factory, and then eventually she open her own factory, but that's the way we got a location back home. And I mean—and I remember all the time when I came to the United States to stay with my mother, you know, I was three years old. When I saw my mother again, I was 13 or 14 years old. And she came, she came for humanity visa because my father passed away. And so she had to come back because now my father is not there. We—some of my oldest brothers—because I’m one of the younger—they were already in college, and, you know, so they needed more support than before. [Laughs] We are 14 and you know, 17, 21—something like that. We’re all ready to go to college and finish high school. So my mother had to come back to the United States for still handle paperwork. She finally got the visa, and I think it was for the first reform, the Ronald Reagan—
Interviewer 9:00
Amnesty.
Juan 9:01
Amnesty, exactly. So she got the Green Card. So she put the paperwork in this, and after that, we got to wait another probably four or five years to get the actual Green Card. But actually when we got Green Card, we got basically—the older brother that was, they graduating college, they working—the olders, I was the younger—I was still going to college in that time, I remember. By the time my Green Card—
Interviewer 9:36
You're the, you're the youngest brother?
Juan 9:39
I got one younger than me.
Interviewer 9:41
Oh okay.
Juan 9:43
We seven, right? I’m the second younger, you know. But the olders, like three of them you see—Ana, Guillermina, Jose—they already graduate, they work. One of them married. But our economic situation was not bad, you know. In that time in Dominican Republic, I was actually police force—playing basketball for the police force and working and got a job and go to school. But all my life I want to came the United States with my mother. So as soon as I get my Green Card—I remember we all got a Green Card—in what year was that 90—90—no that was in 92’.
Interviewer 10:39
Can I ask you one clarifying question? You know when you say you played basketball for the police force, was there like a—Was there like a basketball league for people who were part of different like government agencies and stuff like that, like law enforcement?
Juan 10:57
Yeah, for the police force, I was playing basketball and handball, and because my brother—
Interviewer 11:03
Because, because we don't have anything like that here. So I just was curious.
Juan 11:06
We do in Dominican Republic, you—like most young people, you know, they go in here. Like in the United States, they go to the Army or Air Force, you know, to better life. So if you are good in sports, they looking for you to involve for one of the, you know, just to represent because they do tournaments every year—very famous—that one in Dominican Republic—very, very famous.
So, if you got a skill, they are looking for you. So when I was playing back there when was seven years—because my brother was professional, he’d bring me to the court to play ball. So I was, you know, I was—I start when I was seven year, but I started with them—play with them—when I was like 19, like 19, 18 years old. Yeah, okay, um. Actually, well we all got a Green Card. The problem is for the people who—for my older brothers who they all got professions, they working. good thing here in the Dominican Republic. So now they not speak no English, so they try to decide: now we come to the United States or we not? But we always want to come to United States, they can't. I mean, the old—I was probably like, in that year, probably like two or three—like two years to finish my career. I was, in that time, I was doing computer, engineer in computer in that time.
Interviewer 13:00
In college, you were studying that?
Juan 13:03
In college. In Dominican Republic. That's what I tried to be. Well, you know, when you came to this country, the whole thing, the history change. [Laughs]
Interviewer 13:12
Yeah.
“When I just get out of the airplane, I was so happy, you guys can’t imagine. It was like the dream that I always—that I came to the United States.”
Juan 13:15
So, my older brothers came, they start working, you know, because they are not strong with the language they can’t—you know, they start working in downtown, in different stores. But always, you know, because we got an education background, they start—they bring all the transcript from DR—you know the college, to college, because when my sister started doing like a substitute teacher.
Interviewer 13:54
Substitute teacher here? Since she had her degree from the Dominican Republic?
Juan 14:01
She bring all the credit, but I mean—but she enrolled in college again, and she probably do—basically, she did another career.
Interviewer 14:11
Oh, wow. I see.
Juan 14:13
She’s working in Manhattan. She’s teaching in one of the high schools in Manhattan. And my older brother too, Jose—one of my brothers stayed in DR because he was doing air conditioning for the hotel. He got like a little company going on where he was doing, you know, not too bad. But eventually he decided to sell everything and come here and he doing work, he worked and all of that too. And my other brother, he left, he forget about the career he was doing over there, and he go in another career here [unintelligible] and graduated, and he worked too in one of the industry—the tobacco company. Okay, with me—now we’re talking about me. When I came here, I started working in the convenience store with my cousin.
Interviewer 15:20
What are your—What do you remember about kind of like what it was, you know, what the United States was like when you got here? What was it like working at the store? Do you have any specific memories of that time?
Juan 15:36
Yeah, when I just get out of the airplane, I was so happy, you guys can’t imagine. It was like the dream that I always—that I came to the United States. I took the train from the JFK to the Bronx. My mother and my sister, they wait for me to the airport, and I just wanted to see the city, and walk the city, and jump in the train. I was so happy. And then the next day they brought me to downtown, you know, for the people-seeing. Because I was come in October, it was kinda chilly that year in 1993, and it was kind of cold that year—To downtown and all of that, then my mother gave me a job in one clothing store. I didn't like it. My cousin brought me to Albany. When I went to Albany, I fall in love with Albany because it's like more Dominican. It’s not like city-type, it’s like you feel—for some reason, as soon as I went to Albany, I loved it. It’s like you can drive, it's not so ways, not building—I was living in a, you know, like a second floor house on top of the store. I don't have to live in a tall building like this. So I stay in Albany, plus I got you know, working in the convenience store. You know, I was doing very good actually in the first year, but looking to go to school and all of that.
Interviewer 17:23
Got it. So that's, you know, really, thanks for sharing. It's amazing how you have so many brothers and sisters, they all had, you know, slightly different stories and stuff like that and to hear how they're all a little bit in different situation, and everyone kind of took their own little mini path here, you know. So, I also wanted to ask you about, you know, deportation—specifically your experiences with the criminal legal system and immigration. So do you remember when you first understood or thought about the possibility that you could be deported back to the Dominican Republic?
Juan 18:23
Oh, well, that's what I’m about to tell you, cause um, when I first—Remember the story that I tell how I got arrested for the first crime, right? When I have a convenience store and that was back in Hudson—I was so homesick to have like people from ethnics, or you know Dominicans—there was no Dominicans in Albany, no Dominicans at all. That store that I have—that little history that I did find out, I did my research for that, that specific location they always wanted to have antique. They wanted someone—because they saw all the business in that street for rich people, antique people. For my location—
Interviewer 19:27
—Rich people and what people?
Juan 19:29
You know the people who buy antiques.
Interviewer 19:32
Oh, antiques! Antiques. Yeah. Okay.
Juan 19:36
Yes, antique store. So right on Main street and Hudson, I did have a convenience store, a corner store. So they don't like that. The city, the mayor, the police—they don't like that. Plus, there's a lot of people hanging out in front of my store selling drugs—selling drugs straight out. I guess for some point, that's why they throw the case—in some way they probably thought that I was doing it or was in support and all of that. And I was having a lot of hard time, and I almost fight with those people, that I almost got into a problem one of those guys. The thing is, they, you know, the savings that I had when I was working with my cousin, that I opened the store and um—did you want me to tell the little bit, the crime? I mean how that happened, or how I feel when I get deported?
Interviewer 20:31
Yeah, I guess like, you—you were living here, it sounds like you started this store, and yeah, just like what, you know—when did you after all this was happening realize that maybe the result of it is that you could have been deported?
Juan 20:55
Well, that took me—because that first happened in 1998, right? So, from that time, to now, to this day now—
“It’s terrible. Every night, every day is constantly scared, you know, they’re coming to pick you up or whatever.”
Interviewer 21:15
That was like 20 years ago.
Juan 21:17
I hadn’t come back to the Dominican Republic, and it still hurts. Because um, when, you know I get deport—you know, because all the appeal and all of that, they couldn’t never deport me until I finally, I get—well, you guys get a Governor’s pardon. So you can imagine, if you can't come back to your home country for 20 years—how you feel? I mean, cause they—when you going and process to the deportation, you cannot travel, you can do nothing. Basically, I had to hide because I was appealing, but at some point, the appeal finish but they not come to pick you up. I got my family, I got my brother, I got kids—yeah, by that time. So, you don't want to come back to DR where you don't know nobody, where you have no kids, where you have no support. So, so I have to stay in this country even if I don't want to. Who would be even responsible if I get deported myself? You know what I'm saying? I had to fight the most I can in here until I get my kids, you know, doing well at least.
Interviewer 22:33
Right, right.
Juan 22:36
It's terrible. Every night, every day is constantly scared, you know, they’re coming to pick you up or whatever. You know what I'm saying?
Interviewer 22:45
Yeah, yeah. So you, you know, on the one hand you wanted to go back to the country that you grew up in, that you love, but also you didn't want to be deported there and separated from your family because they rely on you.
Juan 23:00
Yeah, I will miss— I will be miserable without my kids, my family, and all of that. Even if I want to go, you know, to DR.
Interviewer 23:12
Right. Do you remember—do you remember how your family—you have a lot of family—do you remember how they all reacted to the possibility of you getting deported?
Juan 23:25
Well, my mother, before she passed away, she told me “Do whatever you have to do, but not try to get deported.” That was like one week before she passed away, she told me that. I did never have a chance to have a conversation. She told me that, plus, you know, the way how I feel, you know, every time one of my brother or my family want to travel, or they want to go away, out of country—Sometimes they have to suspend a vacation, or suspend, not go to DR in Christmas just to not make me feel bad. In the same way, I feel bad because I want they go. Just forget about me. I'm fine. Just go. You know like, I want to resolve my problem in one way or another way. And carry all those years. And I—like I say again, thanks again to your organization. They helped me out with that problem. Tonight, now you have some kinda ideas of how I feel. [laughter]
Interviewer 24:33
Yeah, so you're saying, so you're saying your family members like purposely didn't go back to visit the Dominican Republic because they didn't want you to feel like you were missing out?
Juan 24:49
Yes, they don’t want me to get that feeling that they're all there and I'm here. They did that a lot of time, a lot of time—Christmas, and, you know, any family vacation, or summer, things like that. They tried to avoid, they tried to avoid to talk about DR, or how fun it was when they was there in front of me. I already know, but I feel that because I make my mistake, and I don't want to they feel like that because me. But you know, they my brother, my sister, they don’t understand that. But I told you that, that I know that happened.
Interviewer 25:25
What about um, what about your, you know, your partner or your kids? Do you remember how they reacted to it or did you talk to them about it?
Juan 25:40
Oh no, this thing, a lot time, a lot of years that I hide that. I never told them. You know, but even in one point, my partner, she went to DR with my son. And my son was asking me “Why you do not go? Why you not go?” Always I was using excuse, because I'm too busy here working. Really, I was busy. I think I was hiding working I was—maybe that's why I was so successful in here because I was covered up with working all the time, working all the time, get myself busy all the time to not have necessity to go to the DR. So always I have excuse to not go— “No because the store,” “No because I gotta fix the property,” “No because this and there.” But I want to. Yeah. But you know—but then maybe one of my family, I don't know, maybe somebody—but I never thought, I don't know, I never had necessity—The thought that I can’t travel right now, explain why. I think they was too young. This is not a conversation they need to know now. Always I was waiting, waiting, and never, never told them. And then probably they find out on their own, from my other cousin or my brother but I never told them. Even my older daughter know when they always can write a letter. Remember the letter?
Interviewer 27:02
Yeah.
Juan 27:03
They said “Wow, wow Pa—why you never told me that?” They said “wow”—I don't want to—
Interviewer 27:07
You mean the letter, the letter in support of your pardon application?
Juan 27:12
Yeah and, you know, one point my daughter turned, “Why Pa—why you never told me about this?” You know I don't want you to feel bad. [Laughs]
Interviewer 27:22
What did she, what did she say when you asked her to write the letter?
Juan 27:27
Well, she said she never thought that she will do a thing like that to me because she always sees me like a hero, and that time she feel like if she give me back something that all the things that I've been giving to her, so she had no problem to write it down. That's what she said “Oh no—” That’s what she told me that she got that feel.
Interviewer 27:58
She got that what? Sorry.
Juan 27:59
That feel, like she just feel like she had to do it—How do I say it? How do I say that word? I mean—
Interviewer 28:10
You can say it in Spanish, I can speak a little bit of Spanish so but—
Juan 28:15
All the things that I've been doing to her, she feel like she had to give it back to me, because I was doing so much thing to her. There's a specific word for that—I can’t say that right now.
Interviewer 28:31
Yeah, no, no like, it sounds like she wanted to repay you for all that you'd provided for her.
Juan 28:38
Exactly. She told me in Spanish—that’s the way she feel. But she never thought she will have to do that to me because I was like a hero for her. She was feel sorry that I never told her it was, you know, “Why you never told me,” and that she feel like sorry or bad, because I never told her, but I explain, and she said, “Okay, thank you dad but you know, you know, you know—” Like that.
“My mother, before she passed away, she told me ‘Do whatever you have to do, but try not to get deported.’”
Interviewer 29:10
Yeah. What about you know, based on your experience? What do you think about the system of punishment that you've been subject to?
Juan 29:24
Well, I think that it's very hard. The system—the deportation system, because if you work— I see people working all their life, people working for 10, 20, 25 years, paying taxes, like me, buying property, and give education to your kid, and in case you make just a little mistake you f—you lost everything, you go. It's like not make any sense—human being for—normal thing is you're gonna make a mistake in life. Anything. I never thought that I will make that big of a mistake. But now that I learned from all my mistakes, I still see mistakes that I can’t make right now, and that could bring me to the deportation. That's why I want to make myself citizen. That’s the only chance you have to not get deported. But Green Card holders—you’re vulnerable. The system is so vulnerable for—You’re driving, and you go to celebrate your daughter birthday or your brother and you have a couple drinks, you know, and you don't know, because you drinking maybe cause, still in the system and never go away from you, and they stop you, and you be out of the country because you went to your daughter’s party. You know, it's very—I don’t understand. I understand, you know, that if, you're a rapist or violence, you know, you deserve punish, deported, or something, because you're a danger to the community, but it's some little crime that you be out of the country, there’s no make any sense. Yeah, low crimes.
Interviewer 31:13
Yeah. Um, so I wanted to ask you about, you know, kind of how you survived all of this that you've been telling us about. So how you've been surviving all of this journey that you've been telling us about, and you were talking about how you haven't been able to go back to the DR, you know, because of all the deportation case that—the stuff related to the deportation case that was pending. So, you know, can you tell us about something or a moment—something from, or someone that you've missed from home?
“My best friend. We went to school together. He passed away, he got killed, and I couldn’t go. That hurt me. I was crying almost every year.”
Juan 32:07
Well, my best friend—two of my best friends—my aunt from my father's side, and all my—in the streets where I grown up—all those people when I grown up. Some are here in United States, but some stayed there. Uh like, my best friend passed away. When I told you my best friend is the one that was playing the same thing, basketball, and we all get trained, and we, I mean, we went to two international tournaments, and we got in the police force, he got in the Marines—my best friend. We went to school together. He passed away, he got killed, and I couldn't go. That hurt me. I was crying almost every year. Every time I remember it, that he passed away, or I talked to her sister, you know, I crying and all of that. Like, I couldn't go to the funeral or nothing. And her sister expecting and waiting for me, and I couldn't even say why I could not go. That was hard. When my aunt passed away too, and I missing all the people were—the street that I grew up.
Interviewer 33:29
Yeah.
Juan 33:31
And like my uncle—One of my uncles, too, died. One of my preferred uncles too. Dang. I couldn't go to the grave.
Interviewer 33:40
Yeah. That must be so, so tough. And to feel like you can't, you know, explain to them why you can't go back.
Juan 33:53
Exactly. Because they never expecting that from me ever. Nobody.
Interviewer 34:00
What? They never suspected what? What do you mean by that?
Juan 34:05
Well, because, um, I was like a role model back home. Go to school, police force, explore [unintelligible]. You know, I was—when I looked back, you know, I look at my son, and the way that my father—because my father was, he was a very bright guy. We could not be out of house at 8:30 PM every night, you have to stay home. And he waited right outside of the door, looking one corner on the street, around another corner of the street where we are playing, where we are. If we're not there at a certain time— at 8:30, we gonna be, oh my God— [Laugher] He got a belt, and I got a room behind, you know, under his shoulder and running under the bed, hiding from him because I know he found me. He looking at me, he not get away from that. He grab my legs from under the bed and sweep—he hit me with the belt like three times. So that type of education that I was growing up with my father and, um,
Interviewer 35:13
Very strict.
Juan 35:15
Very strict. And when he found out—he don't even want to—we go to play basketball because, he told me that I’m gonna get a bad influence, with a lot of people there. So we got away. We were so good in the thing that we was playing, that the manager changed the hours that we can practice when my father was working so he not know. So when my father was working, we go and practice for the team. My father found out that we was professional in basketball when he saw in tv, one of the first game, and my brother—my older brother—he was, he was in TV, and he found out. And then he started liking the story because he told me we probably gonna get bad influence. It was not bad influence. It’s just—No, it’s the way he was, very strict. But I appreciate, and I love him for a lot of things because it was just—he just tried to protect us. It was not for nothing, you know, bad. Because my mother was back in United States. We was alone all those years. And, so, all the people that know me in DR, know me like that. So me telling that I was in prison, then I go on and get deported—No way. You don't need to know about me. [Laughs] I just didn't—if you heard that because you found out that I couldn't go and see that’s enough. I’m not gonna tell them that I went to prison—No. I want you to keep this image that you think about me. So, I never thought of that. And that’s that. And that’s that.
Interviewer 36:54
Yeah. I see. What about the time, you know, the time when you were in prison? What do you—what do you remember about, you know, any people you met there or any bonds that you made while you were there?
Juan 37:14
Well, um, I actually—I met a lot of good people. In jail, I met a lot of good people. I mean, some was bad you know, drug dealers, um—cause my crime was not violent, so they classify in jail with the people that you're going to be, you know—violence in one side, and nonviolence in another side. And even the same point, like when you go to, um, go to one place to another place, we all meet together and you still meet people. But what the people that I met in my time—because I went to, I went to Shock program, you know what the Shock program, the military—
Interviewer 37:55
Shock incarceration—yeah.
Juan 37:57
Yeah, Shock Incarceration. Boot camp. And it was a lot of good people in there, you know. And they keep you busy, and, um—It's a program that you wake up at five in the morning, you got to do your bed at seven o-clock, you got to do like 20,000 exercises, you got run like five miles every day, then you got to go eat, and then you gotta go to school in the afternoon. Then when you go back to like to your room, you got to do like 20,000 push-ups. Then—you cannot sit down. Then you gotta do your homework in certain time. 8:30, you gotta be laying down in your bed because they do the count, then you gotta go to sleep. And that for six months straight. Every day. They take you out to work, you know to clean around Saturday and Sunday. And I was very, very busy, and hard time. Don't give me a lot of time to think about the deportation, to be honest with you, in those six months. They keep you busy because my sentence was three years. If you do it in six months you will be out. If you go to the Shock Incarceration, and not make any mistake, and you graduate, you will be out in six months. So I was—
Interviewer 39:18
I see. So, you were sentenced to more than six months, but if you are able to finish Shock incarceration, then you would be released in six months. Right?
Juan 39:29
Correct. And that's what I did. That's why I focused. But you really have to be focused because it’s a lot of—just for any little thing, they threw you out of the program, they sent you back to prison and you got to do your whole sentence. And any, and all—And I got the background to discipline and focus, so—and I graduate from Shock Incarceration. Yeah. We were like 60 guys and only 22 guys, we graduate.
Interviewer 40:01
Oh, wow. Wow. And you said you didn't, you didn't really have time to think about deportation very much because it was so busy?
Juan 40:12
I was so busy, but—the guy that I thinking was because, two months—a month and a half before graduation—after you be doing all those exercise and all of that, and you got to do all your class and all the work—immigration coming and pick you up and take you out of the program, and send you to immigration jail.
Interviewer 40:37
Mm. So before you finished the six months, they picked you up?
Juan 40:43
In three months, that's how I found out about that. After that, I was every night scared they coming and pick me up. But my friend told me—that's why my friend tell me, appeal your case before immigration can pick you up, and you be available to get out in six months the jail. But all my friend, they come and pick you up back to Dominican Republic. So I got—I got lucky that I put application. I mean, I appeal my case. My appeal come through and immigration can’t touch me until my appeal is pending. So I graduate, and I get out of the prison. That's why I—as soon as I get out, you know, I got my kids. I went to the union. That's why I changed career totally because I lost the store and everything. So, I went to the union and sign for sheet metal worker. And I graduate—that was a five-year trade program—And that's when I started making money, buy the houses, you know, I went to the construction site, and that’s it. [Laughter]
Interviewer 42:05
Yeah. Wow.
“Well, the system don’t even know about the emotional pain that you got inside. And it’s scary.”
Juan 42:08
And my appeal was pending. I had to appeal again. And that took me almost like eight years, and that’s when one day, immigration picked me up after that.
Interviewer 42:24
Yeah. Eight years is a long time.
Juan 42:27
Yeah. I mean, and I graduated, I went to school, and I worked for the union all those years. I was doing good. You know what I mean.
Interviewer 42:40
Yeah. Um, you know that, uh, I think this is probably our last question. Somebody we work with recently reflected that, the system never lets you go. And the question he asked was how much punishment does one person need?
Juan 43:05
I still have problems. [laughs] I don't—Well, the system don’t even know about the emotional pain that you got inside. And it’s scary. And it's scary. That's something—they sentence you just to do time, but they don't know about that. The other sentences, they indirectly, they give it to you. You have to be really strong to, you know, enlighten yourself and others in your family to handle all the thing around. And be really very smart to deal with all the situation that coming to you, when you in that situation.
Interviewer 43:49
Do you mean going to prison? You mean facing deportation? You mean both?
Juan 43:54
Facing deportation every day—that you know they're going to come, and you don't know when they're gonna pick you up when. And sometimes you go to DMV, and you got a warrant, and you don't even know, or you driving ,and they pull you over, and you gotta warrant, and you don't know. So you feel like a paranoid for every place that you go. And place that you don't want to go, you think that something’s gonna come up, they're going to come and send you back home, and they don’t give you a chance to even see your family. You know what I'm saying? And after you did your time very well. Like I did my time with no ticket, no problem. Excellent. I paid for what I did, you know. Then I had to pay another sentence to deal with all that situation.
Interviewer 44:44
Yeah. Yeah. What do you, if there's one thing that you wanted people to know about how the system works, what do you think it would be?
Juan 44:58
Well, I think if they go case by case, because not every sentence or every crime, deserve the same thing, I mean the same, the same punishment. Because in my case, in a lot of cases, I see guys, they make one mistake, and after that, they turned their life around, and they successful after that mistake. And actually, they became a better person. There are a lot of persons that not—they never been in jail because they don't know what—how hard is that, you know? And grab this person, and get a deporter, they missing—I do it for myself because I was in the union and one of the best worker and all the company love me a lot. I learned another trade. I do a lot of stuff here for the community, like I said I got five building. I help a lot of people, you know, I help homeless and people who come with no hope, and I give them my hand. So, I give it back, all of that to people because I went through all of that, and the system really has to go case by case, not every criminal, you will be do bad thing after get out of the jail. Not—not deserve to be deported. Definitely not. That, definitely, I can tell you.
Interviewer 46:32
Yeah. Um, I think that's all the questions that we had for you. Um, any, anything, any last things you wanted to offer…?
Juan 46:59
About my story? Do - should I want to say anything else about my story—uh, like I say, after, you know, get out of the jail that I got that union job, and I focus on that building right that I opened the Chico Chicken that you know about it.
Interviewer 47:14
Yeah, Chico Chicken. Your store.
Juan 47:17
Yeah, my store—the convenience store.
Interviewer 47:20
The food is good. [Laughs]
Juan 47:22
Food is good, and you—
Interviewer 47:24
You hooked me up last time I was there. [Laughter]
Juan 47:30
And, you know, the Redemption bottle company, doing very good for the community.
Interviewer 47:37
Can you say what that is?
Juan Carlos Reynoso 47:42
The Redemption bottle? Well, one of the main reasons that we had the South—in that area, in that part of the Albany, is no place where the community collect and recycle bottle. And—you walk on that street, you remember? You will be—
Interviewer 48:11
Yeah, I remember.
Juan 48:12
There will be bottle and all of that in the street, and the drain—they clog the drain and all of that. And a lot of people come to my store to bring the bottle, but my space was not enough, and I decide to open that spot for the community, and they love it because now the city appreciate because it’s more clean now. It’s a place where people can bring all the recycle. And it’s great, you know. And it’s one of the—we did it.
Interviewer 48:45
It seems great. Next time, I'll have to visit. I didn't get to see it last time, so—But, okay well, I think that's—I think that's it. Thank you so much. This was great to talk to you. And, um, I really appreciate your time and being a part of this project.
Juan 49:13
No problem. You know that everything for you. I’d do anything for the Immigrant Defense Project. You guys saved my life.
Interviewer 49:24
Well, you also are, you know, advocated for yourself and we're lucky to have met you too. And that's really how we see it, so—
Juan 49:35
Yeah, okay. Thank you very much, Jane. And anytime, don’t hesitate to call me in anything that I can help you—I'll be there for you guys.
Interviewer 49:43
All right. Thanks so much, Juan. Take care.