Judith Samper Albero - Antonia Gonzalez Got Me Arrested!

 

[Spanish language] Hola. Me llamo, Judith. Soy espanola ya mucha wondra. But well, maybe you want me to talk in English, right? I don't know. Maybe you can understand me better. 

 

All right, so, before telling you my story, I need to tell you a little bit about my culture. I'm from Spain, so I'm going to let how the Spaniards are. The Spaniards, we love to get things for free. [audience laughter] The more we can get, the better. Just imagine you have a bowl of candies, and the Spaniard will get one for themselves and one for the cousin, one for the mother, one for the father, the sister, the daughter, for all the whole family. If there is nobody in the room, they will take all the candy and the bowl because it will look amazing in the living room. [audience laughter]

 

Well, when I was 25, I was an art student in London. I was broke. As you can imagine, paying rent or paying for food, it was a struggle. [unintelligible [00:01:59] was paying for transport. One day, I was waiting for my bus at the stop. I was looking at my bus pass and thinking. this would be so easy to falsify. [audience laughter] Like, I'm an artist, I can't do things. So, I was thinking, oh, my God, I can't do this with my eyes closed. ,So I decided to give a try. [audience laughter] And the first time I tried, I was a bit scared. But it worked. It worked. 

 

So, after a couple of weeks, it just became a routine to start my week, clicking around the computer, hitting print. [unintelligible 00:02:37]. I was ready to go. So, I don't know, after a couple of months doing that, I was so easy that I didn't feel that I had any more fake bus pass. It was totally real for me. So, another day, I was just going to downtown London for a party. I was going in the bus, listening my music, looking through the window. 

 

I felt like somebody stabbing my shoulder. I turn around and I see an inspector asking for my bus pass. So, I just handed it to him. And as soon as I gave it to him, I remembered that I'm giving him a bus pass that is fake. I looked at his face and I can notice that he knows it too. So, the next thing he does is taking his notebook, “Name, please.” And without even thinking, I say Antonia Gonzalez, which obviously is not my real name. And Antonia Gonzalez is the most Spaniard name, most common name that you can find. It would be like here, St. John Smith, something like that. [audience laughter] 

 

But I thought, okay, he's going to put me a fine, this fine that they give to everybody when they don't pay their tickets, like it's £20. That's a shame, because that would be a few less beers tonight. But what can I do? Just [unintelligible [00:03:58] pay. That's it. So, the next stop, he made me go down the bus and there is a line of 10 policemen waiting. Two of them, they grab me by my arms so high that my feet can barely touch the floor. And like in a movie, they bring me to the police station reading my rights. 

 

When I arrived there, I managed to sneak my ID into my panties, because I realized the thing I'm Antonia Gonzalez there and I don't want them think I lie about my name. [audience laughter] So, after that they frisked me and they take everything I have in my pockets, they take my piercing, everything and they couldn't find it. They asked me as well where I bought the bus pass. And I say, I bought it on the street. I didn't know even it was fake. So, I don't know, they didn't believe me too much, but [audience laughter] they have to ask if I wanted a court appointed lawyer. And I say, “Of course, I needed to defend my innocence.” [audience laughter] 

 

So, I had to wait for a couple of hours until he came, and they brought me into a cell. They took off my shoes, they opened the door and I see like a cement bed with a blue mat like this one that you can find at the gyms. A metal toilet and in front of it a camera. So, they cannot lose any detail. They can know even if you are constipated there. In those two hours, I was thinking about my story, what I was going to say. Like, thinking about where I bought it exactly, from who I bought it. But without trying to give too many details, I didn't want it to point to anybody in concrete, because I'm a good person, you know? [audience laughter] 

 

So, my lawyer came. I tell him all my story. They bring us to an interrogatory room with another police officer, with a police officer. She starts recording and make me all kind of questions. I start answering, but none of my answers seems to please her. She starts playing with the fact that English is not my mother tongue, so everything I was saying, she was changing the meaning of everything. After 45 minutes, like going back and forth, back and forth, she just asked me if I want to translate her. And then, my lawyer, again like in the movies, looked at her and said, “Can I talk to my client, please? 

 

So, she stopped the recording, leaves the room. My lawyer turned to me and said, “Listen, this is how the things work in England. The police here has a 90% of solved cases. And that's because you need to say what they want to hear. So, when she come back, just say to her that you are a student, you don't have much money, you knew it was fake, it's wrong what you did, you regret and you're never going to do it again.” At that point, I was so convinced of my story and my innocence that I wasn't [audience laughter] like I didn't want him to do that. I was like, “Why I have to say that?” [audience laughter] But the whole night there, I was like five, six hours with them. And I was thinking, okay, maybe he's the lawyer. Maybe I should follow his advice.

 

And the police officer came back and I say my speech. And after that, she doesn't make me any more questions or say anything else. She stopped the recording, leave the room. When she come back, she said that they are going to release me. So, I said, “Great. I'm just feeling great. Everything is finished.” They are going to release me as soon as they certify my identity. Yeah, Antonia Gonzalez. So, at that point, my whole world crumbled. 

 

I was like, I just start crying and crying. And the lawyer and the police officer, they were handing me Kleenex. They didn't know what was going on. I couldn't even talk, keep crying until I managed to say to them that I lied about my name. And then, the lawyer was looking at me and he was smiling, thinking. I think he knew I was a young person. I didn't know what I was doing. But the police officer, the police officer thought that I was a terrorist. So, after that, it took me hours to make them believe which one was my real identity and demonstrate that I wasn't a criminal, because they thought that too. 

 

During all that time, I never once pulled out my ID, [audience laughter] because I thought it was going to be an insult to the police officer who frisked me before. [audience laughter] So, I think at the end, they just felt sorry for me and they thought it was having me the whole night like that. I think they thought it was enough punishment. So, they let me go without any fine. At the end, no fine, nothing. So, when I get up at 06:00 in the morning from the police station, the only thing I could thought about it was, how I'm going to get home now without my bus pass? [audience laughter] 

 

Obviously, I learned my lesson. After this. I never in my life even there about falsifying another bus pass. But lately, I've been observing at the MoMA membership card, [audience laughter] because $25 to get in, come on, I should be free. Thank you.