Clad in traditional Oaxacan attire, 14-year-old Keila Perez Lopez stood in front of a crowd of 500 with the intention of reclaiming a label first tacked to her as a toddler: undocumented. 

Conversations on immigration and deportation permeating national media didn’t deter the Mexico native from sharing her experience during a filmed TEDxBreckenridge event Feb. 15. She said these conversations served as fuel for her poem “We Are Stories,” which she read during the event. She wanted to let people in on the emotions that accompany her family’s near four-year chase after documents guaranteeing a means to stay in the place they made home over a decade ago.

Descending from “the Cloud People,” or the Zapotec, poetry and storytelling is baked into Lopez’s indigenous roots. Her knack for it was evident on stage and earned her a standing ovation.

“Undocumented is not a word, it’s a story,” she said during the Feb. 15 performance of her poem. “Undocumented is a word that they give to the people who didn’t get the blessing of being born in the land of the free.”

Immigration status is something Lopez said she’s been keenly aware of for the majority of her life. Her family started the journey to documentation around four years ago. She said they are at the point in the process that places them in what she calls the “no zone.” 

“I’m not illegal, but I’m not documented either,” she said. “I’m somewhere in between.”

“It’s hard figuring out a good place to stand on, because everything is shaky, nothing is steady and (there’s) no rhythm,” she added. 

She said she’s been “stuck” in this limbo for years, and it prohibits her from living the life her peers can. School-sponsored trips abroad, getting jobs available to most teenagers and the possibility of going to college are currently all off the table for Lopez, as is going back to her birthplace since she can’t leave the U.S. 

Stories from Mexico live in what she describes to be the “deepest” part of her heart since the memories built when she was a toddler are no longer crystal clear. It’s her mother’s recounting of the fruit trees sprawling across the family farm or her father’s reminiscing of lively celebrations in their town square that help maintain the firm connection to a place she hasn’t visited in over a decade. 

Her “no zone” label not only forces her to confront the realities of straddling the line of citizenship, it puts her in a no man’s land of sorts when it comes to choosing a camp to culturally identity with.

“We aren’t from here because our names don’t appear in the books, but we aren’t from there because we left our home behind,” Lopez writes in “We Are Stories.”

Her time in high school as a known undocumented person hasn’t gone without snarky remarks regarding her immigration status, she said. She finds this judgement remains despite the kindness she strives to treat others with.

“I find it unfair that some people judge us by that piece of paper, while they should really judge us (based on our) personality,” she said. 

Lopez said she wanted to speak up about her immigration status because she’s seen fear dissuade many others from doing so. She said after her Feb. 15 performance she heard from other immigrants from places like Ukraine who found solace in her poem.

“I like the idea of sharing our stories, because (so much of what) people are talking about is how we broke the law, but we’re so much more than that, my parents came into this place trying to look for a better future for their own kids,” she said.