Read more about the episode here.
Peniley Ramírez: Futuro investigates. Futuro. Futuro. Futuro. Investiga.
(MUSIC)
Maria Hinojosa: Housing, as a stand-alone issue, is now one of the top five concerns for Latino voters. And that’s the first time this has happened in an election cycle. But as housing costs and mortgage rates in the country continue to increase, the dream of owning and affording a home is becoming more and more elusive.
Jusleine Daniel: “I already been preparing for this moment. I brought all the paperwork, my credit score, my list of liabilities, my employment history, the information regarding my business.”
Maria Hinojosa: That’s Jusleine Daniel. She’s Argentinian and Haitian. And like many immigrants, she’s many things. She’s a licensed clinical social worker, she founded her own psychotherapy practice, and she’s also an artist, which influences everything she does. Jusleine, who’s based in New Jersey, said she spent years saving money and building her credit and making sure all of her paperwork was in order before even applying for a mortgage. But for Jusleine and her family, the dream of buying a home almost slipped by them entirely.
Jusleine Daniel: “When we went to the mortgage officer, this was the first question that he asked, was your zip code? I knew that something was wrong.” (MUSIC)
Maria Hinojosa: This question about her zip code set off alarm bells for Jusleine, who knew that historically, people living in predominantly Black and Latino, Latina, Latinx communities had a harder time getting bank loans. It’s a practice known as redlining and even though it was outlawed more than 50 years ago, it continues to drive inequities in mortgage lending today.
Jusleine Daniel: “He saw a Black woman with an accent and a Latino guy with an accent. This is the textbook discrimination.”
Maria Hinojosa: (THEME MUSIC) From Futuro Media and PRX, it’s Latino USA, I’m Maria Hinojosa. Today as part of our election series, ‘The Latino Factor, How We Vote,’ we dive into the disparities that make it harder for Latinos and Latinas to overcome the mortgage wall.
(THEME MUSIC FADES OUT)
Jusleine’s experience, which we heard at the top of the show, is far from unique. And there’s vast data to prove that, data that we dug into and analyzed ourselves. My co-executive producer, Peniley Ramírez, is with me now in the studio, and she led the investigation and is with me today to share our main findings.
Hey, Peniley!
Peniley Ramírez: Hey, Maria!
Maria Hinojosa: Alright, so tell us how we went about this investigation.
Peniley Ramírez: Well, we first started looking into this mortgage data after we learned about what happened to Jusleine, but also happened to, you know, her daughter, Milena, and to Milena’s father, Martín Calvino, and Martín, he is from Uruguay, he’s a multimedia artist, and he’s also a data scientist.
And after they were rejected in 2021 from even applying for a loan, Martín was convinced that certain lenders in New Jersey were more likely to reject Latino borrowers, more than white applicants.
Maria Hinojosa: Okay, so how did you go about determining if Martín’s suspicions were true?
Peniley Ramírez: Well, María, we hired a data journalist and we did our own extensive analysis using this public information, and it took us several months. We analyzed hundreds of thousands of mortgage applications filed in New Jersey from 2018 to 2022. And we focused on conventional mortgages because these are the loans that are offered by private companies.
Maria Hinojosa: So the data was already public, but someone actually has to pull it together and make sense of it all. So what did you end up finding?
Peniley Ramírez: So we found that Latinos were more likely to be rejected than white applicants. And this was not just in one bank or in one city. This was the case across financial institutions in New Jersey. And Maria, to make things even worse, those Latinos who get a mortgage loan paid higher interest rates than their fellow white borrowers, even on similar mortgages.
Maria Hinojosa: And dear listener, what this disparity shows us is that there are deep systemic barriers to homeownership for Latinos and Latinas in this country. Whether it’s access to credit, not being able to make enough of a down payment, or not even being in the right zip code, as we heard from Jusliene at the top of our show.
Peniley Ramírez: Yes, and that’s interesting because the Urban Institute, which is a think-tank in Washington that does economic and social policy research, is projecting that Latinos, hear this, will make up 70 percent of first-time homebuyers in the next 20 years.
Maria Hinojosa: Wow, that is an extraordinary number. Latinos making up 70 percent of first-time homebuyers in the next 20 years.
I mean, that’s huge! (MUSIC)
So dear listener, let’s really attempt to understand what these lending disparities in New Jersey show us about the future of homeownership for Latinos in this country, especially as housing access continues to be a growing concern nationwide in this election year. And we’re going to start in Highland Park, which is a small town in New Jersey, where Jusleine lives now.
Peniley and a team of our producers first visited her, in her home, in November of 2023. Okay, Peniley, with all of that background, I think we’re ready now, so why don’t you take us to your reporting in Highland Park, New Jersey.
(AMBI SOUND)
Peniley Ramírez: We are visiting Jusleine on a cool fall morning and the wide, tree-lined street she lives on, is quiet. Her house is two stories. It sits on the corner with a big lawn in front and steps leading up to a porch. It’s painted in a muted blue color and it has white trim around the windows and edges.
Jusleine Daniel: “Hello, how’s everybody?”
Illan: “Hi! Good.”
Jusleine Daniel: “How are you?”
“Pretty good. I mean.” ” Hi!”
“This is the office space.”
“Hi!”
Peniley Ramírez: Jusleine takes us through the side door, which is where her office is located, and it’s separated from the rest of the home. That’s where she plans out her art projects. As soon as you walk in, you can tell a visual artist lives here.
The room is full of color. (MUSIC) One corner is filled with green plants, and framed artwork lines the soft blue walls. Jusleine is 50 years old, and she has this vibrant voice, but a quiet presence, with a bright and big smile.
Jusleine Daniel: So sometimes we get very attached to things, but then eventually you will have to release them and let them go as they become something else.
Peniley Ramírez: Today she’s wearing a light pink sweater with a rhinestone bow on the front and her dark hair is styled in a long braid and she twisted red and pink flowers in it. We’re visiting Jusleine two years after she and Martín bought this house but getting here though, took way longer than that.
Jusleine Daniel: I’ve been moving from place to place, from Queens, Flushing, Long Branch, Spring Lake. I think I have moved in my whole life at least 50 times.
Peniley Ramírez: Jusleine remembers that in one occasion, she was removed overnight from an apartment that she was renting in Queens, New York. And it was because the landlord decided that she needed the space for her relatives.
Jusleine Daniel: “And I was like, but I already paid the rent, and I have all the things, and I had to go to work, and I had to go to school, and she was like, ‘I’m sorry, but you know, have my family coming in’, like, ‘you cannot come back.'”
(MUSIC)
Peniley Ramírez: Her experience highlights a common issue for many renters. Things can just get too unpredictable. And there is, of course, the rising cost of rent, which is a problem nationwide. More than half Latino renters in the U.S. say they spend more than a third of their income on rent. And this election year, polls show is the economy that is concerning Latino voters the most. (MUSIC FADES OUT)
And of course, housing is a big part of that.
(MUSIC)
California is probably the first place that comes to mind when we talk about the housing crisis. Tim Hernandez is the California State Director for Mi Familia Vota. And this is a national organization that works on building Latino political power through civic engagement. He says the economy goes beyond numbers and percentages.
It’s about how it becomes real in people’s daily lives.
Tim Hernandez: “They wake up, they go off and they get a coffee and that coffee used to be probably four or five dollars and now it’s seven. They work at their job, which has not increased their wages, and then when they go to the grocery store that night to get food for their family, they see the price of milk has increased and they go home and they worry about rent. And so when we talk about the economy, we use indicators like the market, but we don’t use indicators like individual sentiment of the consumer.”
Peniley Ramírez: What Tim told us echoes what UnidosUS, which is another advocacy organization in DC, found in a study. That is that in this election year, Latinos want their policymakers to prioritize addressing the cost of living and the housing prices.
Tim Hernandez: “And so it makes this election even more critical this year of ensuring that the folks that we’re electing and the folks that we’re putting into office care about these things.”
Peniley Ramírez: And as Latinos face multiple economic burdens, many of them still dream of owning their home. UnidosUS found that 65 percent of Latino renters want to buy a house, but have not been able to.
(MUSIC FADES OUT)
After renting in Queens for a while, Jusleine eventually made the move to New Jersey. Her many experiences as a renter instilled in her the goal of owning a home, and she said she wanted to achieve that stability, and that will become even more pressing when her daughter, Milena, was born 12 years ago.
Jusleine Daniel: “So for me, when I had my daughter, there was no question about it, like, I was going to give that stability to her.”
Peniley Ramírez: Jusleine remembers the moment when she decided that it was about time to take the big step. It was December 2019. She was renting a place in Highland Park, not too far from where she lives now.
Jusleine Daniel: “The moment that I decided that I, I was going to get the home is like, my previous landlord, it planted a tulip in my backyard and she went outside and she took it out and she threw it in the garbage.”
Peniley Ramírez: “What?” (LAUGHS)
Jusleine Daniel: “So that was the moment that I decided that I would own my home.”
Peniley Ramírez: “Wow.”
Jusleine Daniel: “Yeah.” (MUSIC)
Peniley Ramírez: A tulip in the garbage just because the landlord didn’t like it. This singular moment was pivotal in Jusliene’s life.
Jusleine Daniel: “Flowers helps me to think about the nature of existence.”
Peniley Ramírez: Jusleine just loved flowers. She incorporates flowers in almost all her art projects. Seeing the landlord throw away the tulips she planted was the final straw for her and for Martín, so they started getting ready.
(MUSIC) Jusleine prepared all her paperwork and her savings. She learned all about the buying process and less than two years later, Jusleine, Martín, and their daughter Milena made the trip to that bank, Investors Bank in Somerset, New Jersey, and they were ready to apply for a loan. She was already a client of the bank and said she had all her money saved there.
Jusleine Daniel: “So we, we get into the branch and I have to describe like he was a guy in his late 60s, blue eyes, white American, and he goes like, ‘Hey, hi guys, how are you?’ And he does the fist bump to me and the fist bump to…”
Peniley Ramírez: But it was the mortgage officer’s second question that took Jusleine and her family aback.
It was when he asked about their zip code.
“What did you think at that moment that that was a red flag?”
Jusleine Daniel: “Well, because I did the real estate course, so I already knew about redlining. Why is it like certain segment of the population can access only the home? Um, how is it that we got to be where we are? So part of the course that I had been taking involved all of this.”
Peniley Ramírez: Again, when Jusleine says redlining, she’s referring to this old practice of banks denying loans to Black and Latino families, and effectively preventing them from buying into certain neighborhoods. (MUSIC FADES OUT)
In 1968, The Fair Housing Act banned redlining to end this racial discrimination.
Archival Tape: “Now with this bill, the voice of justice speaks again. It proclaims that fair housing for all, all human beings who live in this country is now a part of the American way of life.”
Peniley Ramírez: But several investigations, including ours for this story, show how the practice is still very much alive.
After the mortgage officer asked Jusleine about her zip code, he started questioning Martín’s employment. Martín was set to begin a job just a couple of months later, and it was at Rutgers University, which is one of the top public research schools in the entire country. But according to Jusleine, the mortgage officer went after that.
Jusleine Daniel: “The fact that he hadn’t started the job and the fact that he didn’t have employment history, even though we were telling him that we were business owners and we were working together.”
Peniley Ramírez: In 2007, Jusleine founded her psychotherapy practice and her art collective, which is called “Nice to Meet You”, is also an LLC.
So they have plenty of ways to demonstrate their family income. But despite this, Jusleine says that things with the law officer just continue to spiral downwards.
Jusleine Daniel: “He didn’t run our credit score and he didn’t verify any of the paperwork that we had.”
Peniley Ramírez: “So you were rejected even before applying?”
Jusleine Daniel: “Absolutely. He never put any information in a system, in a computer or anything like just to get us on a sort of a data to compare our qualifications to anything, to any standard that they might have at the bank.”
Peniley Ramírez: Since then, the bank was acquired by Citizens Financial Group, and we tried to contact this new bank, but the spokesperson said the company could not comment on Jusliene’s case because it predated the acquisition of Investors Bank. They told us that they were committed to, quote, “creating an inclusive culture for their customers.”
You should know that Jusleine identifies herself as an Afro-Latina. She was born in Los Angeles, but for the first half of her life, she was living in Argentina, which is a predominantly white country. She said that in New Jersey, she recognized that feeling from her childhood memories.
Jusleine Daniel: “I got bullied all my life. My mom is white. She’s blonde. She has green eyes. So I clearly remember like one time we went to get ice cream. And a lady that was sitting next to her said,
‘Ay, qué lindos los negritos, ¿de dónde los sacastes?’ ‘ Oh, you have two beautiful little black kids. Where do you get them from?’ So, you know, like, I’m not putting up with any of this anymore. Not at this age, when I already know the laws. I’m not gonna tolerate it and I gonna do something about it.”
Peniley Ramírez: And she did. After leaving the bank, where she had hoped to start the process of buying a home, Jusleine filed a complaint.
She did it with the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office with the Division on Civil Rights. She said she followed up with a claim for two years, and then she became exhausted with the process. There were just too many documents to submit, and she ended up missing a deadline. And the case was eventually dismissed.
During this time, Martín started looking at mortgage application data in New Jersey.
He spent hours, like, on the computer, you know, like, just going through it, like, creating, you know, like, different things to be able to tell the data.
Martín’s research led him to believe that certain lenders in the state of New Jersey were more likely to reject Latino borrowers than white applicants.
Martín first reached out to us at Futuro Investigates in 2022 to share what he found. We were deeply interested in his research, but we also needed to analyze the mortgage data in New Jersey ourselves. So we went to the same public database that Martín used, and we spent months doing our own extensive data analysis.
(MUSIC)
So using this public data, We went through hundreds of thousands of mortgage application outcomes, and in the process, we refined our methodology several times. We shared it with other investigators and other journalists, and we asked them to critique our methods. We wanted to be really sure that our conclusions were right.
And finally, we found a clear pattern.
Between 2018 and 2022, more than 11 percent of the conventional mortgage applications filed by Latinos were rejected by lenders in New Jersey. And in the case of white residents, only around 6 percent were denied. So the data was there and it was pretty clear.
Jusleine’s story was not just an unfortunate experience. It indicated a persistent problem, (MUSIC) one that has a long history in the state of New Jersey. (MUSIC FADES OUT)
Maria Hinojosa: Coming up on Latino USA, we dive into our data analysis, which proves that New Jersey’s disparities in homeownership make it one of the most inequitable states in the country. Stay with us. No te vayas. (MUSIC FADES OUT)
(FUTURO THEME)
Hey! We’re back. And before the break, we shared Jusleine’s story and we heard from Peniley about the findings of our investigation. Our data analysis confirmed Jusleine and Martín’s suspicions that Latinos like them, like me, and like many of you listening today, were denied home loans at roughly double the rate of white borrowers.
Peniley is back in the studio with me now to talk more about our investigation. So, Peniley, what else did the data end up showing you?
Peniley Ramírez: Well, Maria, the reason why it took us several months to analyze this mortgage data is because we were looking at five years worth of raw information. So as our first step, we filtered the decisions and we focused only on New Jersey.
Maria Hinojosa: That would still leave a lot of data to parse through, though. I mean, even at that point, right?
Peniley Ramírez: For sure, Maria, it was still in the millions. So what we did is that we narrowed it down even more and we concentrated only on conventional mortgages. And we also used other criteria, like, for example, making sure that the loan was to buy a house, not as an investment. And we were only looking at loans that were either approved or rejected.
But even with all of this, Maria, this left us still with 400,000 applications to analyze.
Maria Hinojosa: All right, and so in your analysis, how did these lenders make their decisions? What did you find?
Peniley Ramírez: Well, there is a few things they looked at. The first thing is something that is called the debt-to-income ratio. And this is basically how much money you make every month versus how much money you need to pay for your debts.
Because you know, you have credit card payments, you have rent, you have car insurance, all the things that you pay every month. And when you request a loan, your lender will check how much is your income every month and how much are these expenses. So when there is a big gap, between the debt and the income, that’s when loans were denied the most. But lenders are also checking other things, like for example, credit history. And also they are seeing if the applicant has co-applicants. So if they’re buying the house by themselves or with other people supporting them.
Maria Hinojosa: (MUSIC FADES OUT) All right, already, ding, ding, ding, a flag is going up for me because, you know, Latinos, um, we, we often do things as a family. Um, a lot of us have non-traditional forms of income. It makes it hard to build up credit. So I can see that this would raise some questions.
Peniley Ramírez: Yes, exactly, Maria. I also have those questions. So we spoke with Amalie Zinn, and she’s a researcher with the Housing Finance Policy Center at the Urban Institute, and she specializes in mortgage lending, and she has a focus on racial equity, and this is what she told us about this.
Amalie Zinn: “Our current underwriting system does a really poor job of accommodating for multiple incomes, particularly more than two incomes. And so that’s a real issue as Latinos are more likely to live in multi-generational households as well. Kind of on a similar vein, Latino people are more likely than other racial and ethnic groups of people to have non-traditional forms of income.
They make up a disproportionately high share of self-employed individuals. They’re more likely than others to engage in enterprising or informal work activity.”
Maria Hinojosa: So if you, for example, sell tamales on the street for a living, or if you turn your art collective into a business like Jusleine, or you make a lot of your money in cash, for example, you’re going to have a harder time proving that you should qualify for a mortgage loan.
Peniley Ramírez: Or even if you live with your parents and your siblings, but also with your abuela, with your grandma. And yet, Maria, Latinos really go after homeownership. Here is Amelie again.
Amalie Zinn: “Latino households are more likely than others to be first-time homebuyers and more likely to be the first in their family to buy a home. And so I think it’s like sometimes, who do you turn to? I would think for myself, I’m not a homeowner, but if I were going to buy a home, I’d probably ask my parents, who are homeowners, a lot of questions, about their process, what kind of bank to go to, what kind of lender to go to, what neighborhood should I look in that are in my price range.
If you don’t have somebody in your family that’s a homeowner or you don’t know someone that’s a homeowner, That can just be a barrier right there.”
Maria Hinojosa: All right, Peni, I know this is a little nerdy, but how did the team actually do this data analysis?
Peniley Ramírez: So I will say, yes, it was nerdy, it was complicated. So what we did is that we created some statistical models and we were considering all these issues that I have been explaining, like the differences in income and in debt.
And these models gave us a clear picture of the relationship between the ethnicity of who is trying to get a house, who is trying to get a loan, and the chances that their application will be denied.
Maria Hinojosa: Wow. And what about for Latinos whose loans did get approved? (MUSIC FADES IN)
Peniley Ramírez: In that case, it’s more likely, according to our data analysis, that they will pay higher interest rates on mortgages that if a white person or a white family gets the loan.
Maria Hinojosa: So, that means that over time, they’d actually be paying more for their loans, and actually end up paying more for their house. (MUSIC)
So this just speaks to the history of barriers to owning homes for Black and brown communities, but now we actually have our own data, deep data, that is proving this. So is anything being done to fix this now?
Peniley Ramírez: Well, I will say the government has gotten involved in some instances. In the past years, for example, we found multiple cases of lenders who were accused of redlining, but they didn’t go to trial, because what they did is that they reached multimillion-dollar settlements with government regulators.
So for example, Maria, in 2022, a community bank in New Jersey named Lakeland Bank settled for no less than 13 million dollars.
Maria Hinojosa: That’s a pretty huge settlement, 13 million dollars. All right, but, what about actually making the idea of owning a home more accessible, more equitable in general for Latinos?
Peniley Ramírez: Well, there are some efforts towards that.
So let’s go back to New Jersey. That is our case study to see how. (MUSIC FADES OUT)
We’re focusing on New Jersey, not just because that’s where Jusleine’s story takes place, but also because it can help us to understand what’s going on in the rest of the country.
In February of this year, the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, which is a research and advocacy group, released a report.
And the report confirms some of our findings. For example, it found that in New Jersey, if you are Black or Latino, you only have less than 50 percent chance of owning a house. But if you’re white, your chances grow to about 76 percent. And even if you’re able to own a home in New Jersey, you’ll be paying a higher mortgage than almost anywhere else in the country.
In May, the Washington Post found that the average mortgage payment in New Jersey is close to 2,200 dollars. That’s only second to Washington, D.C. and the National Association of Realtors also found that in New Jersey, more than a third of Latino homeowners spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing.
White borrowers, on the other hand, spend 27 percent on housing. (MUSIC)
As of last year, a record of over 9.5 million Latinos in the U.S. were homeowners. But if you compare that with over 60 million Latinos living here, well, it’s not a huge number. (MUSIC) Jusleine and Martín are now part of this small group. Their first attempt wasn’t successful, but they did not give up, and in 2022, they finally bought a house.
How did they do it? (MUSIC)
Two years ago, they went to another bank and they applied for a loan to buy a house. But this time, they were intentional about who they were asking for help. They felt that they needed to work with someone who would understand their situation and their finances. (MUSIC FADES OUT)
Jusleine Daniel: “An accountant that understands your story, understands that you’re from a different country, that understand the effort that you know, like I’ve been in business for many years, but if you go and you present that to a bank, they will see you as a risk or a liability. Why is that? Because they don’t know if next week I’m going to be making an income.”
Peniley Ramírez: So first, Jusleine had a white accountant, but then she switched to another accountant that was a person of color. Her strategy paid off. She and her family were able to finally get the loan. And they moved into their new home in Highland Park in April of 2022.
Jusleine Daniel: (AMBI SOUND) “Okay.”
Peniley Ramírez: Highland Park has a small-town feel. You have local restaurants and shops lining the main street.
And it’s definitely a community that embraces art. Just walking around a couple of blocks near Jusleine’s home, we saw three murals painted on the sides of various buildings. The art, the greenery, the fact that New York City is only an hour away, or 45 minutes on a good day, are all why Jusleine loves living here. She doesn’t mind that just under 15 percent of the population are Latino. She says she’s here to stay.
Jusleine Daniel: You don’t want to see me? I don’t really care. You’re gonna see my pretty face whether you like it or not.
(LAUGHS) (MUSIC)
Peniley Ramírez: But finally settling into Highland Park didn’t mark the end of Jusleine and Martín’s housing journey. They wanted to take his research beyond just numbers on a page.
Jusleine Daniel: At some point your experience needs to make meaning for other people because if you just swallow the pain and then you go about your business, nothing changes.
Peniley Ramírez: Jusleine. and Martín knew they had a strong story to tell, and they felt a sense of duty to share it.
Jusleine Daniel: That’s how you create harmony that eventually can make changes.
Peniley Ramírez: They turned the rejection of a mortgage loan into an art installation. It was a collection of painted doors. Some were splattered designs, and others were colorful shapes.
Some had words written on them, like, if “I own a home, did I make it in America?” (MUSIC FADES OUT)
In October of 2022. Our former senior producer, Roxanne Scott, met Martín at his gallery exhibition.
Martín: So we are standing in front of my art installation called “31 South” that involves eight doors which are painted with my artistic style and in them also contains the results of my data science research on home mortgage applications.
Peniley Ramírez: The installation wasn’t only visual. It also used audio that, as Martín explained to us, sonified the home mortgage data he pulled together.
Martín: When the loan was denied, the sound of a door closing in place. And when the loan was accepted, the sound of a door opening in place. (DOOR SOUND).
Peniley Ramírez: Martín shared why doors seem like the natural element to convey their experience through this art installation.
Martín: The concept of a door is very embedded in our culture as a symbol of opportunity, right? We refer to it as someone to open the door for you into a new opportunity, and I mean, it occurred to me that using doors as a symbol of opportunity into home ownership was a good way to convey the results of my data science project.
Peniley Ramírez: While Jusleine and Martín reconciled their situation through art, there have been also efforts to increase mortgage access in New Jersey through policy. The state passed legislation last year to include a first-generation component to their down payment assistance program, and this is through the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency.
So now, first-generation buyers can apply for an additional 7,000 dollars in down payment assistance. And that’s on top of the 15,000 offered to first-timers. We spoke with Melanie Walter and she is the agency’s executive director. We asked her how the new program is helping Latino residents in the state.
Melanie Walter: “Our down payment assistance program has seen a dramatic uptick in terms of our outreach within Latino communities. Our average borrower was a Hispanic single mom who worked as a nurse or a teacher in EMT, right, and was buying that home. So she and her kids had a wonderful place to live. So we’re able to create access and we’re seeing the effect of that.”
Peniley Ramírez: And according to Melanie, the program is already making a difference.
Melanie Walter: When you add that first generation component, we’re actually seeing that 35 to 40 percent of our home buyers who are coming in the door are from Latino families. (MUSIC)
Peniley Ramírez: This June, we visited Jusliene again in her house in Highland Park.
Jusleine Daniel: (Door knocking) “Hello!” “Hello” “How are you?” “I’m good.” “It’s so nice to see you again”.
Peniley Ramírez: As she shows us around the house, she stops along the way to point out different artwork and projects that she’s working on. Dark colorful mannequins covered in leaves and flowers, and a garden where she’s growing vegetables. And, of course, the tulips she’s planted.
Something that has become a symbol of resilience for her. It’s clear that Justine feels at home here. Milena, her daughter, does too.
Milena Daniel: The first time I ever walked in, I was like, we did it! Finally! I remember I walked up to the stairs right over there and I said, ‘this is our property people!’ (LAUGHS)
Peniley Ramírez: As I said before, Milena is 12 years old now.
And she’s old enough to be allowed to walk alone just down the street to the local Greek coffee shop. It’s a safety that they were not afforded in their previous home, where the newest cafe was a 20-minute walk away. Our lead producer, Nour Saudi, took a walk around with Jusleine.
Jusleine Daniel: Okay, so, um, that’s, uh, Ellinikon, that’s the favorite place for Milena. She comes here, she, um, has her little, um, pastry, and she, she drinks coffee. And then, yeah, she, she feels so, you know, like, independent because she got to do that. And, you know, like, uh, sometimes I keep an eye on her, and I see her, like, she’s writing and drawing, you know, and also it makes me feel proud, um, in a way. (MUSIC FADES OUT)
Peniley Ramírez: We go inside the Greek café, and old-time music is playing.
Jusleine Daniel: “What I like about this place, I really like that…”
Peniley Ramírez: The owner recognized Jusleine and they greet each other.
Jusleine Daniel: “How are you? Good to see you.”
Peniley Ramírez: A few people are seated by the tables, and they are enjoying coffees and pastries from the bakery.
It’s a small family business. I come from Greece. I’m not a U.S. permanent resident.
Peniley Ramírez: We talked to Takis, the owner’s brother.
Takis: “Where did you come from originally?”
Jusleine Daniel: “I was born here, but I grew up in Argentina.”
Takis: “Argentina?”
Jusleine Daniel: “Yeah.”
Takis: “So, if I go and turn the music for tango. Astor Piazzolla tango
Jusleine Daniel: Piazzolla, yeah. I know, I can…”
Takis: “I can pick you and we can dance.”
Jusleine Daniel: “Yeah, I will dance a tango with you.”
Peniley Ramírez: (TANGO MUSIC) Jusleine also makes an effort to be involved in the community. Walking around the neighborhood, she shows us some of the places in her community where she’s made her mark, like planting flowers along the sidewalk.
Jusleine Daniel: “So, I think that this is one, is the one that I planted.”
Peniley Ramírez: She points out to a big cement planter where orange leafy flowers are growing.
In the soil, a small white sign reads: “Planted with care by Jusleine Daniel.” Back at her house, Jusleine shows us her outdoor studio in the backyard. There are broken shards of glass compiled in a plastic bin, and they are to be used for her next art project.
Jusleine Daniel: “So, uh, I’m a psychotherapist and I’m an art therapist. So, so in a way, this is what I do as, you know, like, this is what my job is. Like, I don’t usually don’t get a full piece. I get a broken piece of a person that comes with a story and then, you know, like this doesn’t serve them anymore, even if they want to keep it. So they need to sort of cut the leash. So part of what I do is cutting the leash by, um, changing their narrative and you change the narrative by breaking the pieces and then rearranging the pieces in a, in a way that either make fun, makes you laugh or you can get a life lesson in a way that it becomes healing.
(MUSIC)
Peniley Ramírez: While we chat with Jusleine, Milena goes inside the house.
Maybe she’s doing homework, or she’s scrolling photos or videos on her mom’s phone. Whatever she’s doing, she’s in a safe place. The place Jusleine dreamed for her daughter.
Jusleine Daniel: “She calls Highland Park her little town, and that’s beautiful.” (MUSIC)
Peniley Ramírez: And I wonder, just as Martín and Jusleine asked in their art installation of the doors, does owning this house mean they made it in America?
(MUSIC FADES OUT) (DOOR SOUND) (THEME MUSIC)
Maria Hinojosa: The Mortgage Wall is an original production of Futuro Investigates in collaboration with Latino USA. This episode was reported by Peniley Ramírez, who’s also our co-executive producer of Futuro Investigates and Latino USA. Our lead producer is Nour Saudi. Ilan Ireland, Roxanne Scott, and our associate producer, Roxana Aguirre, also contributed reporting to this investigation.
Data analysis was done by Jeremy Singer-Vine. This episode was edited by Andrea López-Cruzado. Scoring and sound design by Jacob Rosati. It was mixed by Stephanie Lebow and Julia Caruso. To find out more information about The Mortgage Wall and read our web article, visit futuroinvestigates.org. Again that’s futuroinvestigates.org
The Latino USA team also includes Victoria Estrada, Jessica Ellis, Reynaldo Leaños Jr., Glorimar Márquez, Marta Martínez, Mike Sargent, and Nancy Trujillo. Our marketing manager is Luis Luna. I’m Maria Hinojosa, your host and co-executive producer, and I’ll see you on our next episode. And remember, as I say, ¡No te vayas! Ciao!
Stephanie Lebow: Latino USA is made possible in part by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, working toward a just and equitable New Jersey. W. K. Kellogg Foundation, a partner with communities where children come first. And the Tao Foundation.
