‘It’s time to be brave’: This entrepreneur has a plan if she’s deported (and a spiritual mission if she stays)

She’s a mother, an entrepreneur and a healer — but for some, Alex Villalobos-McAnderson is just what’s on paper, the Kansas business owner said

Alex Villalobos-McAnderson — like many immigrants within the borders of the United States — is living life in limbo, she shared.

But the Shawnee-based energy medicine practitioner and owner of Villalobos Vitality can breathe a sigh of relief, at least for now; the application to renew her DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) status recently was granted for another two years.

“And yet, this moment is layered,” she explained in an Instagram post. “I’m deeply grateful for this renewal, for the ability to continue building, creating, and being in community. But I also know none of us are truly safe. Even permanent residents — who did it the so-called “right way” (which is bullshit anyway) — are seeing their rights revoked.”

What is DACA?

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) temporarily delays the deportation of people without documentation who came to the U.S. as children. Renewal is not automatic.

“It’s scary as hell — especially right now; I have DACA, but it can be revoked,” Villalobos-McAnderson added, in an interview with Startland News. “Most of our community is in survival mode.”

Click here to read the most-recent updates to U.S. immigration policy related to DACA.

Amid President Trump’s nationwide crackdown on undocumented immigrants, Villalobos-McAnderson — who arrived in the United States 36 years ago as a young child — and her husband, Brandon McAnderson, have a plan in place if she gets deported, she acknowledged. In that scenario, she and her husband would take their youngest son (10) with them to Mexico and their oldest (16) would stay with family members to finish high school.

“We’ve had to have some hard conversations when we didn’t know if the DACA was going to be renewed or not,” she explained. “My biggest fear is that I get deported and have to leave my children behind. My son is 16 and you start to think, ‘Oh my gosh, will I miss his graduation?’”

“My husband — when we had that hard conversation — he’s like, ‘I’m coming with you. [Our 10-year-old] is coming with us,’” she continued. “And our oldest would have to stay, just because it wouldn’t be fair to a 16-year-old to rip him out of high school to go to a place where he’s going to speak at a third grade level. It just wouldn’t be fair. As hard as that would be, he would stay with his grandparents. So I think having a plan was really helpful.” 

Brandon McAnderson and Alex Villalobos-McAnderson; photo by Whitney Warne, Ivy House Photography

Time to lay low or stand up?

The couple are talking honestly about the situation with their sons while still trying to keep them insulated from it, she noted. But when her eldest asked if she could be deported, she didn’t lie.

“I was like, ‘Look, your mom’s a badass and a chingona, so you never have to worry about her,’” Villalobos-McAnderson recalled. “‘I will always figure it out. We are so blessed because we have community, we have resources, we have support, we are plugged in, we are educated.’ And I was like, ‘But can it happen? Yes. But we will figure it out. There’s no point in stressing about it now.’”

“And that’s when he’s like, ‘OK, if you say not to worry, I’m not going to worry.’”

“What really sucked in that moment when he shared that with me — even though it was a good conversation — I felt a little bit of his innocence get taken and that’s when I got really pissed off,” she added.

“We want to make sure that we’re moving through this together and that we’re talking about it. So that this doesn’t become a wound, so it doesn’t become trauma. So much trauma is because you have to go through it alone.”

— Alex Villalobos-McAnderson

Through the uncertainty, Villalobos-McAnderson is working to channel her rage and energy into something positive. She wants to retrain her mind to remember the good that could happen and not just the bad. After they formed a deportation plan, her husband helped her to lean into that optimistic view, she said.

“He literally had me shut my eyes,” Villalobos-McAnderson explained, “and he just created this vision of the beauty. Our life is based on what we create regardless of the land that we’re on and that’s our gift. We were just playing down timelines of what we could create with the kids and Brandon would have to go back and forth, but how that would make him a more educated human and compassionate human.”

“We want to make sure that we’re moving through this together and that we’re talking about it,” she added. “So that this doesn’t become a wound, so it doesn’t become trauma. So much trauma is because you have to go through it alone.”

She also knows that — despite potential threats from speaking out — it’s important to share her story.

“My role is to speak for those that may not have the platform or it’s too much of a risk for them to share their story,” Villalobos-McAnderson said. “It’s a decision that — as a family — we’ve said, ‘We just have to show up, and if that means taking a risk, that means taking a risk.’”

“It’s time to be brave.”

Undocumented as a child

Villalobos-McAnderson was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, she shared, where her father was politically active, fighting against a wave of corruption in the country. When his best friend was killed, he knew he was next, she said. So in the middle of the night, he fled for California and the rest of the family went into hiding until he had enough money to bring them to Los Angeles to be with him.

Alex was just 6.

“I think as immigrants — especially first-generation — we hold so much because our parents gave up so much to be here,” she said. “My dad was a veterinarian in Mexico. They were building a house. He lost communication, really, with his family. He wasn’t able to go back home when my grandmother died and that changed him as a person.”

Once in California, her father (who is now a citizen) filed for political asylum, she noted, not knowing that the U.S. doesn’t give political asylum to immigrants from Mexico. His application was denied and a deportation note was put on his file. Her parents — both college-educated professionals before leaving Mexico — appealed, but her father’s file was suddenly closed administratively.

“That’s what makes my case really, really funky and weird,” she said.

That’s when Villalobos-McAnderson and her family found themselves living the reality of being undocumented in America. When it came time to choose a college, she explained, she had to find a place where she could receive a scholarship — since her family couldn’t afford to pay — despite her status. That’s how she ended up at Baker University in Northeast Kansas.

“It was very humbling to go from LA to Baldwin City,” she recalled. “It was very hard. It wasn’t as diverse as it is now. Just to jump right into it; it was more assimilation and trying to fit in.”

Brandon McAnderson; photo by Whitney Warne, Ivy House Photography

During her time at Baker, she met her husband, who was the captain of the 2008 University of Kansas Orange Bowl-winning football team and is a first-generation Dominican-African American. Their bond led her to stay in Kansas.

“He’s been my rock,” she noted. “He’s been super supportive.”

Challenged by a broken system

Over the years, Villalobos-McAnderson said, she has spent a lot of money on multiple immigration lawyers who always told her that she needed to wait to reopen her case until federal immigration reform successfully worked its way through the U.S. Congress and across the president’s desk.

She would only have one chance, they said; fearful she would be asked to leave and then wouldn’t be able to petition for reentry for another 10 years — an even scarier prospect with her having young children, she said.

“That’s the inconsistency that people don’t understand with immigration. It depends on the day. It depends on the judge. You can have two people who have the exact same case situation and get two completely different outcomes.”

— Alex Villalobos-McAnderson

“That’s the inconsistency that people don’t understand with immigration,” Villalobos-McAnderson explained. “It depends on the day. It depends on the judge. You can have two people who have the exact same case situation and get two completely different outcomes.”

Being undocumented, she noted, can mean losing your humanness. 

“I was never allowed to get loans,” she said. “It was so hard to buy a house. Everything that had to do with banking — as soon as it’s non-citizen — the guards go up. So you become just what’s on a paper.”

When DACA was established in 2012, she was able to apply for protection under the program, Villalobos-McAnderson continued. But when President Donald Trump’s first term began and the fate of DACA became uncertain, her lawyer at the time decided she needed to bring her case from LA to KC and reopen it. A year and a half ago, that case finally went before a judge.

“That’s the whole (Trump) administration and then a whole other administration (Biden),” she said of the time spent waiting for the case to be addressed. “I’ve been in the system since I was 6. I’m about to be 42. That’s what people don’t understand.”

“Basically, it’s like dealing with a slower version of the DMV for about 15 to 30 years,” she added.

Although her DACA status has been approved for another two years, Villalobos-McAnderson is now faced with wariness of an ineffective system and the whims of another Trump administration, she noted.

“The immigration system isn’t broken because of the people — it’s broken because it’s outdated, intentionally unjust, and designed to keep us in limbo,” she wrote in her Instagram post. “And we’re seeing that play out everywhere.”

Alex Villalobos-McAnderson with a hawk wing, representing the Kansas healer’s rebirth; photo by Whitney Warne, Ivy House Photography

Reborn as a healer

As an energy medicine woman, Villalobos-McAnderson — who also does community outreach for the nonprofit Eye of an Immigrant — feels her role amid today’s ongoing political uncertainty is to be a sanctuary for her fellow immigrants, she shared, especially among those who are in boots-on-the-ground roles.

Alex Villalobos-McAnderson, a Shawnee-based energy healer and entrepreneur; photo by Whitney Warne, Ivy House Photography

“They are the line of defense,” she said, explaining her priority clients for healing therapies. “They hear the stories — all of the undocumented, the families, the mothers are reaching out terrified of what’s going to happen to their kids at school. And so I have to be able to be that space for them to come and have a reprieve for a moment, to be in their bodies for a moment, to let go of the mind and recharge. So that we can continue to do this work.”

“In the work that I do, it’s about you stepping into your fears and you understanding that you’re not alone and tapping into your ancestry,” she added.

But Villalobos-McAnderson didn’t always know that healing work was her calling, she noted. After college, she worked in early childhood education and then finance.

She convinced herself to work her way up the ladder in finance; it was her “golden parachute” and the perceived American dream.

But once her body started breaking down because of stress, Villalobos-McAnderson started her own healing journey, which led to her realizing — albeit reluctantly — a true calling: to open an energy medicine business.

“I was like, ‘Nooo,’” Villalobos-McAnderson recalled saying during a traditional cacao ceremony. “I was like, ‘I don’t know anything about business. I don’t want to be an entrepreneur. My dad was an entrepreneur and he was never present.’ And I remember they said like, ‘Well, why would his story need to be yours?’”

So at the end of 2019, Villalobos-McAnderson opened Villalobos Vitality, where as a holistic energy medicine practitioner, licensed Reiki master teacher, and mindful leadership coach she  assists individuals from entrepreneurs, athletes, and executives to lead and perform from a place of oneness and empathy — seamlessly weaving spiritual work into the corporate and athletic sectors. She also holds monthly community healing circles.

“I’m just trying to have that balance between — I call it the “healer shuffle” — where you’re learning your own lessons and you’re growing and expanding,” she continued. “Then you’re coming back and sharing that with the world.”

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Alejandra (Alex) Villalobos-McAnderson (@villalobosvitality)

Everyone has a role in meeting the moment

During the 2024 presidential election, Villalobos-McAnderson acknowledged, she had to let go of some clients because of their political views.

“They would say, ‘Well the economy,’ ‘well this,’ ‘well that,’” she recalled. “You can talk about all of these extra things, but the brass tacks are human rights.”

“We’ve been working together for two years, and we still have to have a conversation about who we’re gonna vote for?” she added. “And you want me to convince you? Why? I was like, ‘No, no. Then what’s the point? Why are we here? All the work that we do is how to be able to heal yourself, so that you can tap back in, so that you can remember you’re a part of something bigger, and live from a place of love and connection and peace.’”

“For me, I can’t try to fix a world that is already broken and that was not meant for us. Instead, I want to create something new. I believe that the evolution of our humanity is not going to come from tech. It’s going to come from us.”

— Alex Villalobos-McAnderson

In the wake of the election, Villalobos-McAnderson said, comes a year of integrity; her call to action is for each individual to show up and share their medicine with the community.

“You don’t have to be a soldier, you don’t have to be on the front lines,” she explained. “But if you’re not going to be a soldier, you’ve got to at least be a watchdog.”

“Everyone has a role,” she added. “Everyone has gifts; Everyone has medicine that we are supposed to share with each other in this moment.”

She encouraged her fellow immigrants to keep pouring into each other and remember who they are.

“That’s how we’ve survived all the things that we’ve survived: by coming together,” Villalobos-McAnderson said. “We’re not just immigrants. We are creators; we are mathematicians; we are doctors and lawyers. And we are also contributing to this country.”

“We are strong and kind and powerful,” she added. “Don’t believe the lies. We’re resilient.”

And Villalobos-McAnderson wants people to remember that they are part of something bigger, she noted.

“I always tell people, everything’s in cycles,” she continued. “Everything is a death and a beginning, and this is a death of what we know. But if we step into it, what if we can create something more beautiful?”

“For me, I can’t try to fix a world that is already broken and that was not meant for us,” Villalobos-McAnderson added. “Instead, I want to create something new. I believe that the evolution of our humanity is not going to come from tech. It’s going to come from us.”

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