trans
 

My name is Mylissa Heredia Garcia although I was born Xavier Garcia.   You can call me Mylie.  I was born in Los Mochis Sinoloa, birthplace of the modern day Cartel.  I was two years old when some rap artists, my moms friends, took me and my brother across the border in a tow truck.  I actually remember them buying me a happy meal when we got to Arizona. 

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I lived my whole life in Phoenix Arizona, I learned to speak Spanish in our house but my first language is english.  I feel like Im an American.  I think American although Im learning pretty quick what it means to think Mexican.

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I wasnt a rapist or a drug dealer like Trump says.  I was a good kid.  I was straight A´s in school always on the principles list, a perfect student.  My mom studied at beauty school.  I was seven years old and I would help my mom do curls on ladies, loved doing braids.  I thought I love doing this, Im a dude though, Im not supposed to love this.  But I did. 

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My grandmother used to buy me toy cars and i would go to the garden and fill them with flowers.  And loved wearing my moms dresses.  This was all before I was even six years old. 

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My mom was a beautician but her real job was being a coyote.  Her real job was to smuggle Mexicans across the border into Arizona.  She would make 5,000 a person, and so we had money, lived in a nice house.  I never washed a dish in my life.  We had maids, ilegal women who had no place to stay so they would stay with us and help us. 

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So as long as I had good grades my mom would give me money.  My mom was never home so I looked after my sisters, get them ready for school, braid their hair, make their lunches, and get them in the car, cuz we had drivers take us to school.  And I also had a best friend Bernice and I used to love buying her dresses.  One day Bernice said, why dont you try one on.  That really was when I discovered how much I loved being a girl  By the time I was thirteen I was already a Trans. By that I mean a Transgender, not a transvistite.  A transvestite dresses up on weekends.  A transgender lives every day as a girl, lives to be a girl, is a girl, but in a guys body. 

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When I was 12 years old I started to research what it would take to be a girl.  And I knew that was what my future would be.  I love what Kaitlyn Jenner has done, I think shes cool, she's old but she did a great job though.

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Anyway, I was never made fun of or harrassed.  I was actually popular as a boy too.  I had tough Friends who I would always share my money with, so if anyone tried to take me down they would have to deal with getting the shit kicked out of them. I had a good life in school. 

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But I was popular because I was also fun, I had personality.  And so basically I won my school over.  Of course there were rules i couldnt just go to school as a girl but by 14 i started to grow my hair so atleast i could have the hair of a girl, although I wasnt allowed to put any color in it.

 

My mom being a coyote I saw a alot of crazy shit.  One time a guy showed up with this leg almost cut off and we had to take him to emergency.  I was 17 then.  I used to cook for the people my brought across too.  I didnt really like having the Mexicans in my house because honestly, I didnt like the way they smelled, having just spent days in the desert, no showers, no nothing, so as a kid thats how i felt.  But I also felt good for them making it, they were gonna start a new life.  And my mom helped them, and we made money.

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My mom never had a problem with me wanting to be a girl.  We would go shopping together and pick out clothes for each other.  So I never grew up feeling like it was wrong to feel what I felt, like I know so many transgender people, and kids feel.  I guess thats one thing I hope maybe I can help change with this film.   

 

I never got in any trouble with the pólice.  Never had jay walking ticket.  How it all ended for me was because of my brother.

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When my brother was 18 he got more heavy into drugs and drinking, and one night he was partying with his Friends, and they were all drugged out and drunk and they were playing with guns, playing russian roulette, and my brother killed his best friend.  It was a stupid stupid accident.  My brother had a new born baby girl at the time.   It was the worst time for all of us. 

 

And that led to the swat team breaking in our house that night, and I was there.  And, with my mom, my step dad, and my uncle, I was taking to jail.

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I wasn’t charged with anything but I spent three and a half months in jail just waiting to for my day in court, and I could have fought my  case and maybe got to stay in America.  But i couldnt take jail anymore, so took the option to be deported.  And thats how i ended up in Cabo San Lucas, because my dad lived here, and I went to stay with him.  I showed up with hair down to my waste, and my dad made me cut it.  He started to make me dress like a guy.  So that didnt last too long  And that is how this story started.