Surveillance Lasts a Lifetime

     
      

      Throughout the memoir, Castillo describes his experiences with family, immigration, sexuality, and much more. One theme that I saw continually throughout the text was that of surveillance, both real and imagined.
       Castillo compares his life to films and television shows, "I felt like everyone around me knew something I didn't, like I was in an episode of The Twilight Zone, or in the move The Truman Show, and everyone around me was playing a role. Everyone was looking at a small invisible camera except for me," (Castillo 311). The connection to The Truman Show is striking because, in the movie, Truman, from his birth, was raised in a made up world for television to be seen worldwide as the first "real" reality show. From his youth, Castillo believed that ICE had him under constant surveillance, "I was certain they [ICE] knew everything about me, my crushes, my fears, my deep longing to wander. I was sure they had been watching me for a very long time, " (Castillo 5). When Castillo received his green card it was no longer ICE watching him, but everyone. He had replaced the real ICE with the imagined belief that there was something everyone knew that he did not. In the section of the novel we read for today, Castillo reflects on the aftermath of his father's kidnapping, "We didn't know who was involved, so we assumed everyone was," (Castillo 303). Castillo's fear of those around him during this time stems from his lack of knowledge of the abductors of his father and their motives. This reaction is incredibly rational considering the situation and amount of duress to which Castillo and his family were facing, but it also creates a new, real surveillance. 
       This issue of surveillance is even more prevalent with the current pandemic. CNN released an article regarding the locations of people to help "track and combat the spread of the coronavirus." What some used to see as imagined surveillance, government phone tracking, is even more real today. 

Discussion Questions:

1.) Where in the text can we see surveillance, real or otherwise, affecting Castillo? How?
2.)  How does the affect of the real surveillance differ from the affect of the imagined surveillance? Is there a difference at all?