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Searching For Love And Legal Status

The logo for Embodied, which features a person with brown skin wearing yellow pants, a white shirt and white glasses pulling back a starry curtain of the silhouette of a person that is roughly twice as large as the person in yellow pants. The word "Embodied" is at the top with the WUNC logo directly underneath it and the PRX logo in the bottom righthand corner of the illustration. All of the text is in white, and the background of the illustration is light blue.

Dating as an undocumented immigrant can be tricky, with some folks trying to balance finding romance with finding a path to citizenship. The creator of a popular Instagram account talks about her experience and the community she’s created around dating while undocumented.

When María Lopez was 6 years old, her grandmother gave her a piece of advice: marry someone with papers. María was undocumented, and throughout her teens and 20s, she

dealt with the struggle of dating to find both love and a path to permanent legal status in the United States.

María, now in her early 30s, tells host Anita Rao about this journey and the community of “undocu-cuties” she made along the way via her Instagram page, @ytienepapeles.

Read the transcript

Stay Connected
Kaia Findlay is the lead producer of Embodied, WUNC's weekly podcast and radio show about sex, relationships and health. Kaia first joined the WUNC team in 2020 as a producer for The State of Things.
Anita Rao is an award-winning journalist, host, creator, and executive editor of "Embodied," a weekly radio show and podcast about sex, relationships & health.
Amanda Magnus is the executive producer of Embodied, a weekly radio show and podcast about sex, relationships and health. She has also worked on other WUNC shows including Tested and CREEP.
Wilson Sayre is WUNC's Director of Digital Content leading our podcasting strategy and initiatives. She has worn many hats in the audio world as an editor, producer, consultant and team lead. Wilson was Managing Producer at Pushkin (previously Transmitter Media) where she helped launch shows like Am I Normal, the TED Interview and The Heist. Before that, she served as Executive Producer at Capitol Broadcasting Company and lead reporter for The City podcast from USA Today. Prior to that, she covered social safety net programs at WLRN, Miami's NPR member station. There, she founded the station's youth radio program. Wilson's work has been recognized by the Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize and national Edward R. Murrow Awards. Wilson grew up in North Carolina and enjoys playing banjo and eating chocolate, usually not at the same time.