To Those GOOD FOLKS With Whom I Like To Exchange Stories, share ideas, mutually engage in real work, visit and generally keep up to date:
At what point do we call closure to time periods in our lives? With some of them, it's easy. Grades, for instance, terminate with absolute clarity upon the last stroke of the bell on the last day of school. The school year is over, and summer begins. Within the day, perhaps within seconds, books are dropped, backpacks tossed aside, and victory is declared: "I'm done!" The transition, an emotional wave, crashes upon the beach of time and receeds into the next of life's adventures. Yet some transitions in life, are not so clear.
At what point does one call an end to a trip? a journey? How do we mark the conclusion of a time spent in a distant land? When do we claim that we are home? That a new time is beginning? When is it safe to say, "It's over,"? How do we say, "That has passed; this begins,"? How do you wrap up loose ends? How do you conclude a story?
How do I conclude this story. All these stories? What else must I share?
In his recounts, at what point did Odysseus tell others that his time far from Ithica was coming to an end? When did he say his travels were over? Was it upon embarking for home? After he left the island of Circe? Upon arriving in the harbor of Ithica? Upon entering his household? After Penelope accepted him back only for Odysseus to find that the citizens of Ithica sought his head? How does the Odyssey end? Or, more appropriately, did it ever end?
Will it ever end?
~ ~ ~
On my way home, since my flight dropped me in Tampa, I stopped for a couple of days in central Florida to visit my grandmother. She's 89, so I try to pay a visit each time I'm back in Florida. But, her age, actually, is no indication or eminant prediction of death. Her mother lived to be 94. And her mother, the one well versed in "woods medicine" lived to be 105. As just about anyone who knows my grandmother, Granny Wiley, will tell you, she's tough. And besides, she has a mean way with hot chile pepper and lye. She retold a couple of stories to me.
At one point, she said, "We had rats so bad in our smoke house; you hadn't ever seen so many rats in your life. They were everywhere; there were big ole holes down in the corners, and when you walked in, they'd bolt for those holes, jumping off our meat hanging up and all." Well, she put her mind to work, set a wash tub of water to boiling, added hot chile and lye, and let it simmer. Then she and my grandfather poured that water down those rat holes. She laughed, "You ain't never seen rats move so fast. They came running out of 'em holes, the hair just slipping off of 'em. Your Uncle Ceder like-to-have run himself to death chasing 'em rats around the yard beating 'em with a stick."
A couple of years later, she put experience to use when Lester, my grandfather, went back on his promise to quick dipping snuff. She found his contraband can of snuff tucked in the outside wall of the barn and filled it up with pulverized red chile peppers. "He didn't sleep all night long; kept gettin' up to get water." She concluded that story, interestingly enough, saying, "But we never fought, not the whole time we were married.... But," she added, "I did have to beat the hell out of him once or twice for meddling where he didn't belong." Of course, "It was his fault, you know."
A tough lady, and a darling soul. She's one blessing I count regularly.
Well, anyway, she lives in a poor neighborhood in Auburndale, FL (a bit south of Orlando in the center of Florida) right in the middle of Florida's orange groves. As things go, every one of her neighbers, except one, are migrant workers from Mexico and Central America. Before I knew their stories from their own mouths, I asked my grandmother about her neighbors. She told me, "I don't know nothing about 'em. They have their parties; they listen to their music out there in the yard from their trucks, but I don't speak their talk." After four months on the border, I'm still learning "their talk," but, at this point, I've got enough spanish to introduce myself, to let them know I was visiting my grandmother, to tell a few jokes about huevos (eggs), and to ask questions.
The first night, I met Ermillo and Emelio. They lived across the street. Ermillo was twenty, from Chiapas, the southern-most state in Mexico. He'd come three years ago at the age of seventeen. Emelio was twenty-five, from Mexico City. He'd come nine years ago, at the age of sixteen. Both are currently working contruction doing "Stucco", or drywall in new houses. I told them I'd been studying on the border in Nogales, Sonora, "Puro Sonora" for four months. Something glinted in their eyes. It was recognition. So, I asked, "You know Nogales?" "Yeah," they both said, "We went through there. Everyone goes through there. Either Nogales or Tiajuana," Emelio said. Ermillo added, "Yeah, I passed through there three times. I was caught [depending on the translation of the spanish word "coger"], twice by the border patrol. They sent me back to Nogales." They both passed through the desert west of Nogales by way of Altar and Sasabe. Although their journeys were separated by six years, they passed along the same trail, they both walked four days through the desert, both started with two gallons of water, both gallons were gone by their second days.
We talked on Thursday night. Emelio told me that saturday morning he was catching a bus from Auburnale to Mexico City. "The greyhound?" I asked. "No," he said, "it's an express. Goes strait from Auburndale to Mexico City." "Huh," I responded. "Huh." An express from Auburndale-- have you ever heard of Auburndale, FL?!-- to Mexico city. Huh. I asked him whether he would come back. "I don't know.... The border patrol is getting really tough," he said.
Meanwhile, Ermillo is sticking around. He works building houses, doing sheet rock. Besides paint and carpet, Ermillo puts one of the final touches on new houses. Where do you live? When was your house built? How about those houses built down the road from you? Your friends' and your extended family's new homes? Who put up the dry wall in those houses? Ermillo. And still, for a lot of people, none of that matters because he "snuck in." As such, Ermillo might be a "terrorist." "I've got no problem with people immigrating legally, it's just those illegal aliens I have a problem with." "Why don't they just come in legally?"
~ ~ ~
Robert, my fellow BorderLinks student and my roomate for the semester, researched legal immigration for a class presentation. In Nogales, Sonora, he went to the U.S. Consulate to ask how one immigrates legally from the United States of Mexico to the United States of America. Or, how might one work legally in the in the United States of America if they were a citizen of the United States of Mexico? Again, how might someone visit legally, as a tourist, a cross-border customer? In other words, what's it take to get a visa?
A crossing card is a visa that allows Mexican citizens to cross the border for 72 hours and only allows folks a limited travel distance from the border. Tons of folks in Nogales attempt to get crossing cards because groceries are cheaper in U.S. And, in reality, lots of folks get and have crossing cards. They use them to cross through the ports of entry to buy eggs, milk, cheese, meat, vegetables, and, sometimes, beans because it's cheaper to buy food on the American side.
In order to get a crossing card, first you have to have a job, which you can document that you have had for at least one year. You have to have a permanent residence in a Mexican border city, a Mexican passport, and a birth certificate. Then, with no gurantee of a visa, you have to pay $100 for an appointment with the U.S. Consulate. When you arrive for your appointment, in addition to every thing previously mentioned, you must bring the appropriate forms with you. The forms are available online. Only. This is true in spite of the fact that only 21% of the Mexican population has access to and uses the internet (internetworldstats.com). Even with the necessary forms, passport, residence, and required job, most people are arbitrarily denied. If, by luck or grace of God, they are granted the right for a crossing card, it cost $300.
In order to get a work visa, every thing is the same with slight differences. You must own property and have $10,000 in a bank account. The appointment fee ($100) with no gurantee of approval is the same. The cost of the work permit, also called a work visa, also called a green card, however, cost between $300 and $1500.
Have I mentioned to you that the foeign-owned maquila factories (almost entirely owned by American corporations) are the primary employers in most Mexican border cities, and they pay between 40 and 85 pesos (less than $4.50 to $8.50) a day? A day. Ten to twelve hours. Four to eight dollars. Groceries cost less on the U.S. side of the border.
Supposedly, if you have family and/or if you have a "skill in high demand" it is easier to immigrate. It's strange that there is fruit falling off the trees in central florida, the meat industry in Arkansas is having a tough time filling their meat-packing lines, there is a shortage of agricultural workers in California's central valley, and yet, there is no big legislative move to accept folks already in the US or permit folks to enter legally to fill vacant jobs. Somehow our politcal definition of "skills in demand" does not include those skills which are in demand.
~ ~ ~
Friday a week ago, my last night in Tucson, I went up on the BorderLinks roof to watch the sky, to look at the stars, to await a "good-bye." I found orion and even the big dipper and my personal star, which I claimed about two years ago. Pegasus had already set. In August, Pegasus did not even come into view until midnight. And by December 14th, it had already dipped past the horizon by 1am. A lot has changed this semester.
As I was watching the sky, I saw a shooting star. In a moment, I saw another. It was cold; it was getting late, but I didn't want to go in yet. I was still looking for closure. So, I made myself a deal: when I see one more shooting star-- three in total-- I'l go in. Three in total will be my "good-bye." Three shooting stars in a row will tell me it's over, done. It's time to go inside. You can leave in peace. You can let go. Closure.
I waited with my face to the sky. It was chilly and getting late. The wind blew, and I let out a slow breath. Brrrr. I watch the sky, waiting...
~ ~ ~
Saturday, December 22nd, I made it home. After a stop in Salt Lake and a few days in central Florida to see cousins, my aunt, grandmother, uncle, and more cousins, I'm back home. Like Odysseus.
I find myself back in front of my window. Four months ago, the yard was alive with green. To my western-adjusted eyes, it's still incredibly green. But things have changed. The dogwood tree out front has lost all its leaves. I can see its branches. The trunk. Without its cover, it's naked, like the truth. Complicated, strong, self-supporting. With the spring, the leaves will come back, and it will grow a little more. And just maybe, one day, it will reach far enough.
~ ~ ~
I never saw that last shooting star. Eventually the time and the cold drove me inside. Despite my worded attempt to wrap up my experiences on the border like a cute little present-- like a nice little story-- the heavens denied closure. In the end, life isn't about termination. It's about taking one more, one more, one more, and then, one more step on the path of life. It's not over. In this book, at least, life keeps walking.
~ ~ ~
Merry Christmas. They say it's about "new beginnings." Maybe so.
Maybe Christmas is just another glorious step, dancing with the mystery.
Merry Christmas.
Nathan
PS-
Thank you Good Folks. Indeed, you are those of my dearly beloved with whom I like to exchange stories, share ideas, mutually engage in real work, visit and generally keep up to date. Thank you for reading. Your eyes and attention have been and, for the most part, will remain a blessing I will be unable to repay. Throughout these four months, your replies, questions, requests, and interest (and un-mentioned attention) has affirmed my life's story as I walked down the road. I am honored by your support. Thanks folks.
Hey listen. If you want to revisit any of these stories, but you've lost emails... It's all posted at Nathanwileyballentine.blogspot.com.
+ + I know that, perhaps, you've considered these emails a little long. Ha. In case you take time for them, I've attached two extra pieces I wrote this semester. One is a re-write of the story of the good samaritan. It's called "The Story of the Good Mexican," which I saved under its biblical reference Luke, chapter 10.. The other is a firey, populist/classist paper I wrote about the connections between anti-immigrant sentiment and elite interest. It's called "Profits, Profits, Profits." ('Course, if y'all want them from the blog, you'll have to send me an email: nathan (dot) ballentine (at) gmail (dot) com).
Pues, Andale.
Bai, bai.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Border Update: Why I came, VOL XII
To Those GOOD FOLKS With Whom I Like To Exchange Stories, share ideas, mutually engage in real work, visit and generally keep up to date:
The other morning, I was down in south Tucson at Southside Presbyterian Church where everyday of the week, the church hosts a day-labor center for migrants. Folks in need of a bit of cash wo are living in Tucson or who are passing through on their way to Denver, New York, Florida, Arkansas, Seattle, or North Carolina can show up at six in the morning to put their name on the list. The church volunteers put all the names in a hat, and pull them randomly to determing who gets to go out first, second, third, and so on. They devised this system so that workers wouldn't start coming to the church at four o'clock in the morning-- or heck, camping over night at the church-- to be first in line. Then, as contractors or homeowners or anyone else that needs some help for the day comes by, the guys hop into trucks based on the list of priority. Church volunteers are around, but mostly it's the guys that enforce the system: "Hey man! What are you thinking?! Don't even try to get into that truck. You're not number 18, you're number 25 this morning.... Jose. Jose! Hey, Jose, you're up." If the guys are mostly running the show, then why do they choose to congregate on the church's corner? Because the church has worked out a deal with the local police to leave them alone. And, Border Patrol mainly let's them be so long as the guys stick close to the church. In addition, any employer who comes to the church to pick up guys agrees to pay at least eight bucks an hour.
So, as I was saying, I was down at the day labor center. It was a chilly morning. People weren't up to moving around a lot, just trying to stay warm. I got to talking with these two guys from Sonora. They were about my same age, 19 and 21. We started out with jokes. In order to understand, you've got to know that in spanish, the the slang word for testicles is "huevos", or "eggs." They use "huevos" in place of "balls" or "nuts." (Sorry, y'all. To the gutter again.) I told them about my host father in Nogales who liked to ask me, "Te Gustan los testiculos de la gallena?" (Do you like the testicles of the hen?) And, of course, I told my host father, "Hey man. Hens don't have testicles; they're hens." But then pointing to the eggs on my breakfast plate, my host father would point out: "Yeah they do have them. You're eating 'em!" Fausto, my host father, would laugh every time. And then, there's also the joke he taught me about which animal "makes" the biggest "huevos." "Which?" I asked these two guys at the day labor center. They started brainstorming: "What's that big African bird called?" But I interrupted. "No," I told them, "It's the bee. Because when they sting you...."
So, we were joking, but then, when I tried to ask them about anything of substance such as: "What do you think about the US?" "Why'd you come?" "Where're you headed?" "How'd you get here?", they wouldn't let me get anywhere. All they told me was that they were "Pure Sonoran," and then they'd try to throw me off track with some joke about me being gay. Finally, I heard, though I'm cloudy on the specific words, them say- more or less-, "This cat's the migra." They thought I was an undercover Border Patrol agent. I couldn't get anywhere. Although I'd told them about BorderLinks at the very beginning, about "studying both sides of the border to try to understand what's going on, about migration, the situation here," and about staying with a family in Nogales for six weeks, they asked me with suspicion in their eyes: "Why are you here, man? Why'd you come?"
It's a question I was asked a lot in Mexico, and recently I realized I have yet to share the answer with you. So, let me try to sort it out.
~ ~ ~
When I think about it, I reference a few reasons for my presence here on the border.
First of all, I'm here in the borderlands because of a man who I've included in my list of "Good Folks." Perhaps some of your know him. His name is Rick Ufford-Chase. For two years he served as the moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Years before that, though, he left seminary to engage more directly and more immediately with the world and its people. After a while in Guatemala, he came back to Tucson where he founded BorderLinks.
The first time I ever heard Rick speak was in Richmond, VA at a church conference three and a half years ago. Presbyterian events, you should know, are usually quiet posh. At this particular conference, I was staying in a Sheraton and the event was hosted at the downtown convention center. The first thing Rick said, standing in front of several hundred people, was: "This afternoon, I was riding the city bus,..." Now, there we were at a posh presbyterian event-- something that makes me a bit uneasy-- and this guy starts talking about being on the city bus. Who is this guy? He continued his story: "...and I met this man named Eduardo."
Eduardo, as it turned out, was from Guatemala, and he was searching around Richmond for the train station because he'd heard there was work out that way. Speaking both Spanish and English, Rick helped Eduardo find directions. Then Rick asked, "Hey man? How'd you get here? Well first, how'd you get from Guatemala to the US-Mexico border." "Oh, I jumped the train," he told Rick. But Rick said, "Wait a second. I know about that train. If you're on top, there are gangs that run along, and if you don't pay them, they'll shoot you and throw you off. And periodically, they stop the train in the middle of nowhere, in the desert, haul everyone off, and often beat the heck out of them. How'd you just 'jump the train'?"
Rick continued, "That's when Eduardo's face lit up. He smiled real big and said, 'Ah. I found that if I hung four ropes underneath the train--in-between the wheels-- they did not look there.' This man," Rick shared, "rode 1800 miles underneath a train, in-between its wheels, hanging in four ropes inches above the tracks. Through the desert. Through the night. In order to to make it to the US." And then Rick said something else. He said, "These are the stories we're called to tell. Not just to know and appreciate them but to somehow make them our own, so that we an be agents of change."
By that time, I was sitting forward, on the edge of my seat. My heart had sped up, and I was thinking: "Alright buddy. You just start walking; I'm followin' You."
Well, in the next couple of days, I met and got to know Rick. We talked a bit about social movements, and he found out that I was headed to Warren Wilson for school. "Warren Wilson, huh? BorderLinks and Warren Wilson have a partnership," he told me. "You ought to try to make it out to the border sometime during your time in college."
That's the first reason why I came.
~ ~ ~
The second reason I'm out here has to do with volunteering at a Swannanoa (NC) Valley food bank. I was in the back stocking food when one of the volunteer client-interviewers walked into the food pantry to ask, "Does anyone back here speak Spanish?" A couple of other folks said, "Hola." I looked around hesitantly, hoping for someone with more spanish than I. Nope. So, I responded, "I, I speak a little." Cathy, the client-interviewer instructed me to follow her. I tried to warn her, "Look, I only speak a --," but she cut me off. "It'll do," she said. "I've got a lady named Patricia up front. We were talking through a tele-translator, but the line went dead...."
Turned out, Patrica who was from the Mexican state of Zacatecas needed help with her power bill. "Tell her," instructed Cathy, "that we want to help her with her power bill, but we can only help once she has received a final notice." Oh god, I thought. How in the world do you say "Power bill" or "final notice" in Spanish? Oh, goodness. So in Spanish I began, "You know the paper about money? For your lights?" "Si, si," Patricia responded. "We want to help, but we can only help when you recieve a final paper." She understood. And then, I had to translate about diapers (another word I didn't know) for her six-month-old baby son and where to go around back to get some groceries.
This experience taught me, once again, that I had to learn some more spanish; I had to learn more about where folks like Patrica were coming from. The non-profit world-- indeed American society in general-- is woefully unprepared to interact with, help, or collaborate with our newly arrived neighbors.
~ ~ ~
And finally, though it's not necessarily a reason why I came to the border, I feel a sense of obligation to members of my family, friends, past professors, and members of American society that are afraid of people from south of the border. A week before I came out here, my uncle asked me, "You're not going down there without a gun, are you?" After the sound bite, he told me a story about a friend of his in the concrete business who'd been outbidded by a Mexican contractor. My uncle's friend estimated a job at $600, and the next day a Mexican contractor quoted a price of $200. "He got out-bidded by a third," my uncle told me. "Truth is, he doesn't know whether he's going to be able to stay in business. It keeps happening to him. Seems like these people coming up don't care how little they work for. We can't all compete against that." My uncle's words commissioned me with a new purpose for my trip to the border: synthesis.
How can we welcome our new neighbors without ignoring or white-washing our fears, some of which are legitimate? How do we overcome barriers of language and latitude to realize we're in this boat together? What do we do when our way of life is confronted by competition from hunger, absolute deprevation, and 1800 train rides? How do we react? How should we react? How will we react? And, given that we're in this boat, this hemisphere, this country, this state, this town and neighborhood together, how are we going to make the world we hope for out of what life offers us? What's our first step?
I've found some answers along the border. Perhaps you're finding some too. What's on your mind? How are we going to get from the world-as-it-is to the world-as-we-hope-it-to-be? What's up your sleave?
In any case, my uncle gave me a lot to think about, a lot of questions. I thank him for that.
~ ~ ~
Although I didn't tell those guys at the day labor center all of this, these are the reasons I came to the border.
~ ~ ~
Well folks, I've got exactly one week left in Tucson. I leave on a twelve o'clock-noon flight next Saturday, December 15. In the meantime, like most college students at this time in their semester, I have papers, projects and presentations in every one of my classes. In the coming four days, I'll be writing: a critical reflection on a book about the Mexican president Cardenas and his influence in the state of Sonora; an oral history report about my conversations with Dona Gloria; a paper concerning sweatshop conditions and possible routes to change in the maquila factories; a paper concerning the connection between anti-immigrant sentiment and elite interest, and my first ever true Spanish paper. Connected with all these, of course, are presentations. Ahh, it's the PPP time: papers, projects, and presentations.
Take care, now, ya-hear-
Nathan
The other morning, I was down in south Tucson at Southside Presbyterian Church where everyday of the week, the church hosts a day-labor center for migrants. Folks in need of a bit of cash wo are living in Tucson or who are passing through on their way to Denver, New York, Florida, Arkansas, Seattle, or North Carolina can show up at six in the morning to put their name on the list. The church volunteers put all the names in a hat, and pull them randomly to determing who gets to go out first, second, third, and so on. They devised this system so that workers wouldn't start coming to the church at four o'clock in the morning-- or heck, camping over night at the church-- to be first in line. Then, as contractors or homeowners or anyone else that needs some help for the day comes by, the guys hop into trucks based on the list of priority. Church volunteers are around, but mostly it's the guys that enforce the system: "Hey man! What are you thinking?! Don't even try to get into that truck. You're not number 18, you're number 25 this morning.... Jose. Jose! Hey, Jose, you're up." If the guys are mostly running the show, then why do they choose to congregate on the church's corner? Because the church has worked out a deal with the local police to leave them alone. And, Border Patrol mainly let's them be so long as the guys stick close to the church. In addition, any employer who comes to the church to pick up guys agrees to pay at least eight bucks an hour.
So, as I was saying, I was down at the day labor center. It was a chilly morning. People weren't up to moving around a lot, just trying to stay warm. I got to talking with these two guys from Sonora. They were about my same age, 19 and 21. We started out with jokes. In order to understand, you've got to know that in spanish, the the slang word for testicles is "huevos", or "eggs." They use "huevos" in place of "balls" or "nuts." (Sorry, y'all. To the gutter again.) I told them about my host father in Nogales who liked to ask me, "Te Gustan los testiculos de la gallena?" (Do you like the testicles of the hen?) And, of course, I told my host father, "Hey man. Hens don't have testicles; they're hens." But then pointing to the eggs on my breakfast plate, my host father would point out: "Yeah they do have them. You're eating 'em!" Fausto, my host father, would laugh every time. And then, there's also the joke he taught me about which animal "makes" the biggest "huevos." "Which?" I asked these two guys at the day labor center. They started brainstorming: "What's that big African bird called?" But I interrupted. "No," I told them, "It's the bee. Because when they sting you...."
So, we were joking, but then, when I tried to ask them about anything of substance such as: "What do you think about the US?" "Why'd you come?" "Where're you headed?" "How'd you get here?", they wouldn't let me get anywhere. All they told me was that they were "Pure Sonoran," and then they'd try to throw me off track with some joke about me being gay. Finally, I heard, though I'm cloudy on the specific words, them say- more or less-, "This cat's the migra." They thought I was an undercover Border Patrol agent. I couldn't get anywhere. Although I'd told them about BorderLinks at the very beginning, about "studying both sides of the border to try to understand what's going on, about migration, the situation here," and about staying with a family in Nogales for six weeks, they asked me with suspicion in their eyes: "Why are you here, man? Why'd you come?"
It's a question I was asked a lot in Mexico, and recently I realized I have yet to share the answer with you. So, let me try to sort it out.
~ ~ ~
When I think about it, I reference a few reasons for my presence here on the border.
First of all, I'm here in the borderlands because of a man who I've included in my list of "Good Folks." Perhaps some of your know him. His name is Rick Ufford-Chase. For two years he served as the moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Years before that, though, he left seminary to engage more directly and more immediately with the world and its people. After a while in Guatemala, he came back to Tucson where he founded BorderLinks.
The first time I ever heard Rick speak was in Richmond, VA at a church conference three and a half years ago. Presbyterian events, you should know, are usually quiet posh. At this particular conference, I was staying in a Sheraton and the event was hosted at the downtown convention center. The first thing Rick said, standing in front of several hundred people, was: "This afternoon, I was riding the city bus,..." Now, there we were at a posh presbyterian event-- something that makes me a bit uneasy-- and this guy starts talking about being on the city bus. Who is this guy? He continued his story: "...and I met this man named Eduardo."
Eduardo, as it turned out, was from Guatemala, and he was searching around Richmond for the train station because he'd heard there was work out that way. Speaking both Spanish and English, Rick helped Eduardo find directions. Then Rick asked, "Hey man? How'd you get here? Well first, how'd you get from Guatemala to the US-Mexico border." "Oh, I jumped the train," he told Rick. But Rick said, "Wait a second. I know about that train. If you're on top, there are gangs that run along, and if you don't pay them, they'll shoot you and throw you off. And periodically, they stop the train in the middle of nowhere, in the desert, haul everyone off, and often beat the heck out of them. How'd you just 'jump the train'?"
Rick continued, "That's when Eduardo's face lit up. He smiled real big and said, 'Ah. I found that if I hung four ropes underneath the train--in-between the wheels-- they did not look there.' This man," Rick shared, "rode 1800 miles underneath a train, in-between its wheels, hanging in four ropes inches above the tracks. Through the desert. Through the night. In order to to make it to the US." And then Rick said something else. He said, "These are the stories we're called to tell. Not just to know and appreciate them but to somehow make them our own, so that we an be agents of change."
By that time, I was sitting forward, on the edge of my seat. My heart had sped up, and I was thinking: "Alright buddy. You just start walking; I'm followin' You."
Well, in the next couple of days, I met and got to know Rick. We talked a bit about social movements, and he found out that I was headed to Warren Wilson for school. "Warren Wilson, huh? BorderLinks and Warren Wilson have a partnership," he told me. "You ought to try to make it out to the border sometime during your time in college."
That's the first reason why I came.
~ ~ ~
The second reason I'm out here has to do with volunteering at a Swannanoa (NC) Valley food bank. I was in the back stocking food when one of the volunteer client-interviewers walked into the food pantry to ask, "Does anyone back here speak Spanish?" A couple of other folks said, "Hola." I looked around hesitantly, hoping for someone with more spanish than I. Nope. So, I responded, "I, I speak a little." Cathy, the client-interviewer instructed me to follow her. I tried to warn her, "Look, I only speak a --," but she cut me off. "It'll do," she said. "I've got a lady named Patricia up front. We were talking through a tele-translator, but the line went dead...."
Turned out, Patrica who was from the Mexican state of Zacatecas needed help with her power bill. "Tell her," instructed Cathy, "that we want to help her with her power bill, but we can only help once she has received a final notice." Oh god, I thought. How in the world do you say "Power bill" or "final notice" in Spanish? Oh, goodness. So in Spanish I began, "You know the paper about money? For your lights?" "Si, si," Patricia responded. "We want to help, but we can only help when you recieve a final paper." She understood. And then, I had to translate about diapers (another word I didn't know) for her six-month-old baby son and where to go around back to get some groceries.
This experience taught me, once again, that I had to learn some more spanish; I had to learn more about where folks like Patrica were coming from. The non-profit world-- indeed American society in general-- is woefully unprepared to interact with, help, or collaborate with our newly arrived neighbors.
~ ~ ~
And finally, though it's not necessarily a reason why I came to the border, I feel a sense of obligation to members of my family, friends, past professors, and members of American society that are afraid of people from south of the border. A week before I came out here, my uncle asked me, "You're not going down there without a gun, are you?" After the sound bite, he told me a story about a friend of his in the concrete business who'd been outbidded by a Mexican contractor. My uncle's friend estimated a job at $600, and the next day a Mexican contractor quoted a price of $200. "He got out-bidded by a third," my uncle told me. "Truth is, he doesn't know whether he's going to be able to stay in business. It keeps happening to him. Seems like these people coming up don't care how little they work for. We can't all compete against that." My uncle's words commissioned me with a new purpose for my trip to the border: synthesis.
How can we welcome our new neighbors without ignoring or white-washing our fears, some of which are legitimate? How do we overcome barriers of language and latitude to realize we're in this boat together? What do we do when our way of life is confronted by competition from hunger, absolute deprevation, and 1800 train rides? How do we react? How should we react? How will we react? And, given that we're in this boat, this hemisphere, this country, this state, this town and neighborhood together, how are we going to make the world we hope for out of what life offers us? What's our first step?
I've found some answers along the border. Perhaps you're finding some too. What's on your mind? How are we going to get from the world-as-it-is to the world-as-we-hope-it-to-be? What's up your sleave?
In any case, my uncle gave me a lot to think about, a lot of questions. I thank him for that.
~ ~ ~
Although I didn't tell those guys at the day labor center all of this, these are the reasons I came to the border.
~ ~ ~
Well folks, I've got exactly one week left in Tucson. I leave on a twelve o'clock-noon flight next Saturday, December 15. In the meantime, like most college students at this time in their semester, I have papers, projects and presentations in every one of my classes. In the coming four days, I'll be writing: a critical reflection on a book about the Mexican president Cardenas and his influence in the state of Sonora; an oral history report about my conversations with Dona Gloria; a paper concerning sweatshop conditions and possible routes to change in the maquila factories; a paper concerning the connection between anti-immigrant sentiment and elite interest, and my first ever true Spanish paper. Connected with all these, of course, are presentations. Ahh, it's the PPP time: papers, projects, and presentations.
Take care, now, ya-hear-
Nathan
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Border Update: Ilegales sin documentos, XI
To Those GOOD FOLKS With Whom I Like To Exchange Stories, share ideas, mutually engage in real work, visit and generally keep up to date:
On November 21st, 1977, my cousin Rhonda was born, which means this past Wednesday, November 21st, 2007, she turned thirty. What's November 21st, 2007 mean to you? What'd you do? What'd you eat for breakfast? What were you wearing? Can you remember?
This past Wednesday, November 21st, Chayito, my host mother in Nogales, Sonora received a call. There was a group of nine migrants at Grupo Beta (the Mexican agency established to educate migrants about water, the desert, etc and aid deported migrants). They had arrived naked. They'd been deported naked. Grupo Beta had called the Madres (Mothers), a group of three nuns who live in Nogales. And then, the nuns called Chayito because they knew that Chayito and the rest of Pastorales de los Migrantes (Pastors of the Migrants) often having clothing, and, besides, they live just up the hill from Grupo Beta.
I went upstairs to check my email. By the time I'd come back downstairs, the humanitarian response was in full action. Beans and spaghetti were cooking on the stove. Lupe, my fellow student's host-mother was searching for disposable plates, Chayito was making salsa, a man outside was unloading bags of clothing out of his truck. Jenny, my fellow student and I quickly joined the action, loading the van with food, clothes, shoes.
Five minutes later, we were in the van headed down the hill to Grupo Beta.
The migrants had received a layer of clothes by the time we arrived, but they still had no shoes, no socks and had not eaten for several days.
As we served food, the story came out. The group, an entire family, had lost their farm in Guerrero a state in southern Mexico. With no place to stay and due to the fear of their family being separated, they chose to come north as a family. In the desert west of Nogales, they had been walking in the desert for three days and two nights. In the afternoon of the third day, a man, "a good American", by their reports, showed them the way north to continue their journey towards Tucson and offered them lodging and food for the evening. "That's the way, but come to my house for the evening. You can stay with me; I'll give you something to eat."
But, apparently, according to their story, a "bad woman" saw them on their way to the "good Samaritan's" house and called the police. They came and took him to jail. The woman came along and stayed behind with the migrants to keep watch until the Border Patrol arrived. She took all of their shoes, their coats, and the rest of their clothes.
They were then loaded into the Border Patrol "dog-catcher" trucks-- naked. They were processed in the Nogales Border Patrol headquarters-- naked. They were loaded into the contracted Wackenhut deportation bus-- naked. They were dropped at the port of entry-- naked. From Mariposa, one of the two ports of entry in Nogales, they walked along the highway and down Reform St, about a mile, in order to reach Grupo Beta-- naked.
I talked with Jesus, one of the older brothers. He was probably 24, 25. He was traveling with his mother and father, brothers and sisters, including two girls about 14 and 15. Imagine.
Everyone was served three tortillas, a scoop of spaghetti, a bit of salsa, a scoop of beans and some cucumber slices leftover from a church function. Then we made another pass with the tortillas: two more. Then one more pass: one more tortilla each.
Socks were pulled over cold feet. Five of the nine found shoes in our box that fit. Sweaters. Coats.
Later, in the car as we were driving away, Jenny, my fellow student asked me: "Why'd she take their shoes? All their clothes?"
"I don't know," I told her. "Maybe she thought that if she took their things, they wouldn't be able to come back through the desert."
Why DID she take all their clothes?
I still don't know.
Today I remembered with realization that almost all migrants sew secret pockets into their clothing to hide money because being robbed is routine and expected on the Devil's Highway. Accordingly, migrants split their money up: a little in the hat, a bit under each shoe insole, some sewed into the hem of their pants, a few more bills sewed in their shirt. All told, they might have several hundred dollars in order to make due until they find work. Or, in case they don't make it the first time and have to hire another guide, or... There are a lot of unexpected scenarios on the Devil's Highway to the American Dream.
Maybe she knew that migrants hide their money, sew it into their clothing, hide it in their shoes.
I don't know.
Maybe, she was just trying to do her part to stem illegal immigration.
I don't know.
Even my guesses run short.
My guesses also run short when I think about what Jesus and his farming-family of nine is up to tonight. Where are they? Have they eaten since Wednesday? Are they trying to make the trip again, five of them with the shoes our host-family offered them, the other four in socks? Through the desert, which tonight is 35 degrees?
It gets personal. 1000 miles from home, in clothes you got from two middle-aged Mexican women. The sun dips down behind the horizon; you're in a city you've never visited in your life. You're with your family. It's getting cold. You ask a couple of other migrants, and they don't know where to go either, they're from Oaxaca. You've got no money, none; out of your family of nine, four are without shoes. One of these is Maria, 14-years-old. She's getting cold. She doesn't say anything, but her lips are a bit purple. One of the agents at Grupo Beta tells you that if you stick around, you can get a job in the Maquilas (American owned factories). The agent tell you the pay is between five and eight bucks (if your lucky) a day. You play everything out in your head: night coming on, desert, 65 miles to Tucson, $5, $8 or even $10 per hour working in the US, $5 a day in Nogales. You remember from friends' reports that in order to emmigrate legally to the U.S. you have to have a bank account filled "with lots of zeros" at the end of the figure. And as you work things out in your head, the Grupo Beta agent tells you that "Unfortunately things cost a lot here in Nogales. Too bad you won't be able to cross over to the US to buy your groceries for at least a year. Milk only costs $3.50 a gallon there. Here in Nogales, it costs $4.50." Finally you hear about a shelter, but they don't serve food. For a fleeting moment, you imagine there might be an appetite for prostitutes here in Nogales with American tourists in the city. You heard about such things about Acapulco back in Guerrero. Who in your family? No! You put it out of mind. It's too awful. You'll find a way. You heard years ago from friends that the drug cartels will sometimes pay for your guide to Tucson if you'll carry a 50 pound sack of weed on your back. No. There's got to be another way. You'll make work. But how?
What would you do?
It can make you sick. And you, YOU can just stop reading. My sister keeps telling me: "That's enough Nathan."
But Lord, Folks! This family is screwed. Why do they have to carry the weight of NAFTA, ruinous foreign relations, unjust border policy, and inhumane, civilian and bureaucratic "border protection" on their naked backs? They're our neighbors, y'all. Neighbors.
Border Patrol apprehended 350,000 "illegal entries" in Arizona during 2006. 350,000. Nine of those 350,000 "illegals" are going to remember November 21st for the rest of their lives.
~ ~ ~
This afternoon, back in Tucson, I was walking through the neighborhood on my way to the laundry mat. On the bumper of a nice, little, red truck with bike racks on top, there were two stickers. One read: "Build the fence." The other one said, "No mas Illegals!"
The owner of this truck is probably a nice person. I could probably have a great conversation with them about mountain biking, how my friends up at school are big into it. With this tie-in, I could then introduce my college. Perhaps we'd get around to gardens and I'd mention the edible cacti and rosmary growing in the owner's yard. Maybe s/he is a college professor. Maybe s/he has a kid that they take to soccer practice a couple times a week. Maybe s/he watches Fox. Or maybe s/he watches CNN. Or maybe they don't watch the news. Maybe they have personal experience along the border. Maybe they don't. Maybe they'd be proud of the lady who called the police. Maybe they don't know what goes on. Maybe they think that since migrants enter without papers and are therefore illegal, they're dishonest and dangerous. Maybe.
I don't know. But.
There's a new idea of legality emerging in my soul. It is surging through my veins, and I feel its strength.
It's the legality that ended slavery. It's the legality that guarantees the landless, the middle class, women, American Indians, and blacks the right to vote. The legality that says you're worthy of respect regardless of your paycheck.
It's the legality that says we are all created equal, that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Nathan
"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
On November 21st, 1977, my cousin Rhonda was born, which means this past Wednesday, November 21st, 2007, she turned thirty. What's November 21st, 2007 mean to you? What'd you do? What'd you eat for breakfast? What were you wearing? Can you remember?
This past Wednesday, November 21st, Chayito, my host mother in Nogales, Sonora received a call. There was a group of nine migrants at Grupo Beta (the Mexican agency established to educate migrants about water, the desert, etc and aid deported migrants). They had arrived naked. They'd been deported naked. Grupo Beta had called the Madres (Mothers), a group of three nuns who live in Nogales. And then, the nuns called Chayito because they knew that Chayito and the rest of Pastorales de los Migrantes (Pastors of the Migrants) often having clothing, and, besides, they live just up the hill from Grupo Beta.
I went upstairs to check my email. By the time I'd come back downstairs, the humanitarian response was in full action. Beans and spaghetti were cooking on the stove. Lupe, my fellow student's host-mother was searching for disposable plates, Chayito was making salsa, a man outside was unloading bags of clothing out of his truck. Jenny, my fellow student and I quickly joined the action, loading the van with food, clothes, shoes.
Five minutes later, we were in the van headed down the hill to Grupo Beta.
The migrants had received a layer of clothes by the time we arrived, but they still had no shoes, no socks and had not eaten for several days.
As we served food, the story came out. The group, an entire family, had lost their farm in Guerrero a state in southern Mexico. With no place to stay and due to the fear of their family being separated, they chose to come north as a family. In the desert west of Nogales, they had been walking in the desert for three days and two nights. In the afternoon of the third day, a man, "a good American", by their reports, showed them the way north to continue their journey towards Tucson and offered them lodging and food for the evening. "That's the way, but come to my house for the evening. You can stay with me; I'll give you something to eat."
But, apparently, according to their story, a "bad woman" saw them on their way to the "good Samaritan's" house and called the police. They came and took him to jail. The woman came along and stayed behind with the migrants to keep watch until the Border Patrol arrived. She took all of their shoes, their coats, and the rest of their clothes.
They were then loaded into the Border Patrol "dog-catcher" trucks-- naked. They were processed in the Nogales Border Patrol headquarters-- naked. They were loaded into the contracted Wackenhut deportation bus-- naked. They were dropped at the port of entry-- naked. From Mariposa, one of the two ports of entry in Nogales, they walked along the highway and down Reform St, about a mile, in order to reach Grupo Beta-- naked.
I talked with Jesus, one of the older brothers. He was probably 24, 25. He was traveling with his mother and father, brothers and sisters, including two girls about 14 and 15. Imagine.
Everyone was served three tortillas, a scoop of spaghetti, a bit of salsa, a scoop of beans and some cucumber slices leftover from a church function. Then we made another pass with the tortillas: two more. Then one more pass: one more tortilla each.
Socks were pulled over cold feet. Five of the nine found shoes in our box that fit. Sweaters. Coats.
Later, in the car as we were driving away, Jenny, my fellow student asked me: "Why'd she take their shoes? All their clothes?"
"I don't know," I told her. "Maybe she thought that if she took their things, they wouldn't be able to come back through the desert."
Why DID she take all their clothes?
I still don't know.
Today I remembered with realization that almost all migrants sew secret pockets into their clothing to hide money because being robbed is routine and expected on the Devil's Highway. Accordingly, migrants split their money up: a little in the hat, a bit under each shoe insole, some sewed into the hem of their pants, a few more bills sewed in their shirt. All told, they might have several hundred dollars in order to make due until they find work. Or, in case they don't make it the first time and have to hire another guide, or... There are a lot of unexpected scenarios on the Devil's Highway to the American Dream.
Maybe she knew that migrants hide their money, sew it into their clothing, hide it in their shoes.
I don't know.
Maybe, she was just trying to do her part to stem illegal immigration.
I don't know.
Even my guesses run short.
My guesses also run short when I think about what Jesus and his farming-family of nine is up to tonight. Where are they? Have they eaten since Wednesday? Are they trying to make the trip again, five of them with the shoes our host-family offered them, the other four in socks? Through the desert, which tonight is 35 degrees?
It gets personal. 1000 miles from home, in clothes you got from two middle-aged Mexican women. The sun dips down behind the horizon; you're in a city you've never visited in your life. You're with your family. It's getting cold. You ask a couple of other migrants, and they don't know where to go either, they're from Oaxaca. You've got no money, none; out of your family of nine, four are without shoes. One of these is Maria, 14-years-old. She's getting cold. She doesn't say anything, but her lips are a bit purple. One of the agents at Grupo Beta tells you that if you stick around, you can get a job in the Maquilas (American owned factories). The agent tell you the pay is between five and eight bucks (if your lucky) a day. You play everything out in your head: night coming on, desert, 65 miles to Tucson, $5, $8 or even $10 per hour working in the US, $5 a day in Nogales. You remember from friends' reports that in order to emmigrate legally to the U.S. you have to have a bank account filled "with lots of zeros" at the end of the figure. And as you work things out in your head, the Grupo Beta agent tells you that "Unfortunately things cost a lot here in Nogales. Too bad you won't be able to cross over to the US to buy your groceries for at least a year. Milk only costs $3.50 a gallon there. Here in Nogales, it costs $4.50." Finally you hear about a shelter, but they don't serve food. For a fleeting moment, you imagine there might be an appetite for prostitutes here in Nogales with American tourists in the city. You heard about such things about Acapulco back in Guerrero. Who in your family? No! You put it out of mind. It's too awful. You'll find a way. You heard years ago from friends that the drug cartels will sometimes pay for your guide to Tucson if you'll carry a 50 pound sack of weed on your back. No. There's got to be another way. You'll make work. But how?
What would you do?
It can make you sick. And you, YOU can just stop reading. My sister keeps telling me: "That's enough Nathan."
But Lord, Folks! This family is screwed. Why do they have to carry the weight of NAFTA, ruinous foreign relations, unjust border policy, and inhumane, civilian and bureaucratic "border protection" on their naked backs? They're our neighbors, y'all. Neighbors.
Border Patrol apprehended 350,000 "illegal entries" in Arizona during 2006. 350,000. Nine of those 350,000 "illegals" are going to remember November 21st for the rest of their lives.
~ ~ ~
This afternoon, back in Tucson, I was walking through the neighborhood on my way to the laundry mat. On the bumper of a nice, little, red truck with bike racks on top, there were two stickers. One read: "Build the fence." The other one said, "No mas Illegals!"
The owner of this truck is probably a nice person. I could probably have a great conversation with them about mountain biking, how my friends up at school are big into it. With this tie-in, I could then introduce my college. Perhaps we'd get around to gardens and I'd mention the edible cacti and rosmary growing in the owner's yard. Maybe s/he is a college professor. Maybe s/he has a kid that they take to soccer practice a couple times a week. Maybe s/he watches Fox. Or maybe s/he watches CNN. Or maybe they don't watch the news. Maybe they have personal experience along the border. Maybe they don't. Maybe they'd be proud of the lady who called the police. Maybe they don't know what goes on. Maybe they think that since migrants enter without papers and are therefore illegal, they're dishonest and dangerous. Maybe.
I don't know. But.
There's a new idea of legality emerging in my soul. It is surging through my veins, and I feel its strength.
It's the legality that ended slavery. It's the legality that guarantees the landless, the middle class, women, American Indians, and blacks the right to vote. The legality that says you're worthy of respect regardless of your paycheck.
It's the legality that says we are all created equal, that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Nathan
"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Border Update: Not in 100,000 houses, VOL X
To Those GOOD FOLKS With Whom I Like To Exchange Stories, share ideas, mutually engage in real work, visit and generally keep up to date:
Forget the politics and the economics for a moment. Sometimes a story is "just a story." Because sometimes a coincidence is too good to pass up.
~ ~ ~
I just found out this summer that my great, great grandmother (in Spanish: my tata abuela) was an herbalist, a medicine woman, or in the words of my grandmother: "She knew woods-medicine." According to my Uncle C, my mother's brother, she'd follow behind folks weeding in the fields gathering "the roots or some part of them plants the rest of us called weeds." Then, "She'd boil 'em and boil 'em and boil 'em until she made a... little vile of something" like what some of my friends today call "tinctures." My Uncle C told me all about it: "Then, she'd take a little bit of it everyday. She said it taste good. It kept her healthy."
So, I asked my Uncle C whether he thought it tasted good: "Tasted good, huh? You ever get sick? She give you some? It tasted good?"
"Oh yeah," he said, "It tasted real-good. Like," he paused for effect, "Like trying to swallow a bag of nails."
In her role as a medicine woman, Mary Carroll, Mary Emeline Elizabeth Carroll, my great-great-grandmother was also a midwife. The two went hand-in-hand. And the healing touch passed down through the generations. My great-grandmother knew the plants too, my grandmother told me. But when Grandma Mary (my great-great) died, "Big Granny" (my great-grandmother) stopped collecting plants. So my grandmother didn't learn the plants. But the healing-touch wastn't to be lost. My mother's a nurse. And three of my cousins have been involved with healing others in one way or another.
~ ~ ~
Three weeks ago, before our semester break when I made a dash to Seattle to visit my sister Kelley-- Three weeks ago, as a BorderLinks group, we visited Dona Gloria, an Indian medicine woman (una curandera) who lives on the west side of Nogales in a neighborhood called Los Encinos. She's 79. We ate chicken soup, she told us stories and sang us songs. She said, "If I were to tell you everything my father taught me, we would be sitting here many days." Such are the words of a storyteller. Like obediant grand children, we sat around her while she told stories.
And at some point, I asked her about my hypoglycemia. First, she said, you must not eat those things that "make you mad" because you have "emotional blood sugar. It is mental, crazy." And then, she told me, "Every morning, you must take a glass of water and lift it towards God and say, 'Dios (God) help me today. Fill this water with your spritual medicine. Give me the strength I need and the steadiness to make it through the day.' And then, drink it all and give thanks to the Lord." Lastly, she suggested that when I feel my blood sugar crash, I should eat something good for me and do something else for a while like write or sing a song or draw a picture.
And her plants! When she moved to the city in 2002, she brought her plants with her from the country-side. In pots, growing in her patio, peach, orange, lime, lemon, and other fruit trees. Several plants for diarhea, several for stomach pains, several for nausia, several for head ache, several for ant bites, bee stings, muscle pain, bone strains, menstral cramps, when you have a cough in January, when you've got a runny nose in spring time, for a clear mind, for internal parasites. They looked like weeds. She knew better. Her eyes and words flowed with wisdom.
We were there for two hours. Only two hours. Maybe it was actually five minutes. But the short hand did move two places.
~ ~ ~
Like I said, I just found out in August that my great-great-grandmother knew "woods-medicine." Too bad, I thought, that my great-grandmother didn't pass this knowledge down to my grandmother and she to my mother.... How I would have liked to walk the forest with a person of such wisdom. How I would have liked to ask my mother or grandmother for cures. How I would have liked to be able to pick weeds, make teas, and take them to family and friends as medicine because I grew up in a house with such wisdom. But, it wasn't passed down.
For this reason, just for one more taste of my family's history, I wanted to visit Dona Gloria again.
~ ~ ~
Well, I didn't know Dona Gloria's address. All I knew was the name of her neighborhood, its general location in Nogales, a city of 450,000, the correct bus route, the main road into the neighborhood, the look of the hill on her street, and the look of her patio from inside her fence. I talked to Elias, my spanish tutor about visiting her, and he told me it'd be no problem. "Just go to her neighborhood and ask the people. Since she's a curandera, everyone will know where she lives."
So the other day, I took a walk. I took a bus to Los Encinos, and then I took another walk into the neighborhood.
I walked asking the people as I went. Contrary to the advice of Elias, no one seemed to know Dona Gloria, "la curandera que vive en una loma en esta colonia" (the medicine woman who lives on a hill in this neighborhood). Finally, two different women pointed me to a house. "She lives there," one, and then the other, told me. But I'd visited her with Theresa and the other BorderLinks students before, three weeks ago. The house they pointed to was not the same house I'd visited.
So, after the first referral, I explored the neighborhood again. Up streets, past growling dogs, always with my questions at the ready: "Do you know Dona Gloria?" But I didn't find her house, and the people didn't know where she lived or, even, who she was. "Good afternoon," I told the folks on the street. Then I returned by the same way: "Good afternoon." And again: "Good afternoon again."
Who is this gringo? I've seen that gringo three times already.
"Do you have the address?" they asked. "No, but she lives on a hill," I replied. "Si (yes) but there are many hills..." "I know. Well, Thanks. Thank you. I'm going to look some more. Thank you again. Adios."
So I returned to the main street once again. Who are the gossips? I began to wonder. Who in a Mexican neighborhood, colonia would know everyone else? The shopkeepers? The elderly? I passed a beauty shop. I stopped.
"Excuse me. Do you know Dona Gloria? She is a curandera." The lady inside told me she did. She told me, "She lives right there," pointing.
It was the same house again, not the one I'd visited three weeks ago but the one with a green gate. Well who knows, I thought.
Perhaps, I thought, she received us in a friend's house because it had a bigger kitchen or perhaps this house in front of me was her child's house. Regardless, if it was the house of another Dona Gloria, perhaps all the Dona Glorias in the nieghborhood knew each other.
So I opened the gate and knocked on the front door.
A woman, say, 40-years-old, opened the door.
"Ah, oh. Estoy, I am looking for Dona Gloria. Does she live here?" I asked.
"Dona Gloria?" No. She doesn't live here." And she said something else, but with my limited spanish I missed most of it and forgot the rest. "Pero mi mama, But my mother Dona - - - - - lives here." (I didn't catch the name.)
The lady left calling her mother. Was it her, Dona Gloria afterall? I saw an elderly figure approach the door from the shadows. Dona Gloria?
Nope.
This elderly woman told me her name was Elora. She knew a Dona Gloria, but not the same one I visited. Her Dona Gloria lived across the street, was sick, and "is about 80-years-old." But she's not a curandera.
Dona Yoya, as Elora is called, asked me what I was doing? Why was I trying to visit Dona Gloria? Where was I staying in Nogales?
"Just to talk," I responded. "She tells stories very well, and I visited her three weeks ago with group. I'm living with a family in Colonia Rosario, but every day I go to the Casa de la Misericordia (House of Mercy, the BorderLinks' compound) for classes."
"BorderLinks?" she asked. "Yes. I'm studying with BorderLinks," I said.
"Oh really?" she said. "I'll be right back," she prefaced. She came back with a book of photos. "Two years ago, I had 'BorderLinks children' in my house for five weeks. Four of them.... They were wonderful." She began to show me the pictures. "Chelsea from Washington, " she pointed, "And David from North Carolina.... And Colin--"
"David?!" I jumped. I knew that kid. "Si," she continued--
"David is from my college!" I exclaimed. No way. I shook my head. I bit my lower lip. No way. 100,000 houses in Nogales...
"Si, David, David Andrews from North Carolina. "He was so nice. When he came, he couldn't speak any spanish. But he learned very fast. They," pointing to a group photo of BorderLinks students, "made me a pinata for my birthday." She showed me the birthday cards they'd made her. I saw David Andrew's signature. "They were terrific," she told me. "He's from your college? Really?"
"Si," I responded.
~ ~ ~
David Andrews was my admissions tour guide the first time I visited Warren Wilson. I sat in on his eight-person theology class in April of my junior year of high school. He's two years older than I. He attended BorderLinks two years ago. And, out of the hundred-thousand houses in Nogales, he lived in the house of Dona Yoya, which I happened to find via a bad referral from a lady in a neighborhood beautyshop in a nieghborhood on the far side of Nogales from my host family and from the Casa de la Misericordia.
David Andrews, Matt Blue, and I are the only students I know who have been to BorderLinks. There have been others, but we are the only ones I know of. I found David Andrew's host family, and Elias, my spanish tutor was Matt Blue's tutor.
How do you say, "It's a small world," without sounding like a Disney promotion?
~ ~ ~
Well, I did eventually find Dona Gloria. I found her today. And we talked, and she told me stories, and I drank fresh-made tea and ate fresh-made soup from her patio plants. She gave me more suggestions for my hypoglycemia: cactus broth. She told more stories, sung another song, showed me pictures of her family, mentioned her indian heritage, commented on her home before Nogales: a farm in the country; and she told me that whenever I want to come again, "Mi casa es tu casa (my house is your house)."
~ ~ ~
Some things are really nice in this world, and there's no politicin' or economizin' that.
Nathan
Forget the politics and the economics for a moment. Sometimes a story is "just a story." Because sometimes a coincidence is too good to pass up.
~ ~ ~
I just found out this summer that my great, great grandmother (in Spanish: my tata abuela) was an herbalist, a medicine woman, or in the words of my grandmother: "She knew woods-medicine." According to my Uncle C, my mother's brother, she'd follow behind folks weeding in the fields gathering "the roots or some part of them plants the rest of us called weeds." Then, "She'd boil 'em and boil 'em and boil 'em until she made a... little vile of something" like what some of my friends today call "tinctures." My Uncle C told me all about it: "Then, she'd take a little bit of it everyday. She said it taste good. It kept her healthy."
So, I asked my Uncle C whether he thought it tasted good: "Tasted good, huh? You ever get sick? She give you some? It tasted good?"
"Oh yeah," he said, "It tasted real-good. Like," he paused for effect, "Like trying to swallow a bag of nails."
In her role as a medicine woman, Mary Carroll, Mary Emeline Elizabeth Carroll, my great-great-grandmother was also a midwife. The two went hand-in-hand. And the healing touch passed down through the generations. My great-grandmother knew the plants too, my grandmother told me. But when Grandma Mary (my great-great) died, "Big Granny" (my great-grandmother) stopped collecting plants. So my grandmother didn't learn the plants. But the healing-touch wastn't to be lost. My mother's a nurse. And three of my cousins have been involved with healing others in one way or another.
~ ~ ~
Three weeks ago, before our semester break when I made a dash to Seattle to visit my sister Kelley-- Three weeks ago, as a BorderLinks group, we visited Dona Gloria, an Indian medicine woman (una curandera) who lives on the west side of Nogales in a neighborhood called Los Encinos. She's 79. We ate chicken soup, she told us stories and sang us songs. She said, "If I were to tell you everything my father taught me, we would be sitting here many days." Such are the words of a storyteller. Like obediant grand children, we sat around her while she told stories.
And at some point, I asked her about my hypoglycemia. First, she said, you must not eat those things that "make you mad" because you have "emotional blood sugar. It is mental, crazy." And then, she told me, "Every morning, you must take a glass of water and lift it towards God and say, 'Dios (God) help me today. Fill this water with your spritual medicine. Give me the strength I need and the steadiness to make it through the day.' And then, drink it all and give thanks to the Lord." Lastly, she suggested that when I feel my blood sugar crash, I should eat something good for me and do something else for a while like write or sing a song or draw a picture.
And her plants! When she moved to the city in 2002, she brought her plants with her from the country-side. In pots, growing in her patio, peach, orange, lime, lemon, and other fruit trees. Several plants for diarhea, several for stomach pains, several for nausia, several for head ache, several for ant bites, bee stings, muscle pain, bone strains, menstral cramps, when you have a cough in January, when you've got a runny nose in spring time, for a clear mind, for internal parasites. They looked like weeds. She knew better. Her eyes and words flowed with wisdom.
We were there for two hours. Only two hours. Maybe it was actually five minutes. But the short hand did move two places.
~ ~ ~
Like I said, I just found out in August that my great-great-grandmother knew "woods-medicine." Too bad, I thought, that my great-grandmother didn't pass this knowledge down to my grandmother and she to my mother.... How I would have liked to walk the forest with a person of such wisdom. How I would have liked to ask my mother or grandmother for cures. How I would have liked to be able to pick weeds, make teas, and take them to family and friends as medicine because I grew up in a house with such wisdom. But, it wasn't passed down.
For this reason, just for one more taste of my family's history, I wanted to visit Dona Gloria again.
~ ~ ~
Well, I didn't know Dona Gloria's address. All I knew was the name of her neighborhood, its general location in Nogales, a city of 450,000, the correct bus route, the main road into the neighborhood, the look of the hill on her street, and the look of her patio from inside her fence. I talked to Elias, my spanish tutor about visiting her, and he told me it'd be no problem. "Just go to her neighborhood and ask the people. Since she's a curandera, everyone will know where she lives."
So the other day, I took a walk. I took a bus to Los Encinos, and then I took another walk into the neighborhood.
I walked asking the people as I went. Contrary to the advice of Elias, no one seemed to know Dona Gloria, "la curandera que vive en una loma en esta colonia" (the medicine woman who lives on a hill in this neighborhood). Finally, two different women pointed me to a house. "She lives there," one, and then the other, told me. But I'd visited her with Theresa and the other BorderLinks students before, three weeks ago. The house they pointed to was not the same house I'd visited.
So, after the first referral, I explored the neighborhood again. Up streets, past growling dogs, always with my questions at the ready: "Do you know Dona Gloria?" But I didn't find her house, and the people didn't know where she lived or, even, who she was. "Good afternoon," I told the folks on the street. Then I returned by the same way: "Good afternoon." And again: "Good afternoon again."
Who is this gringo? I've seen that gringo three times already.
"Do you have the address?" they asked. "No, but she lives on a hill," I replied. "Si (yes) but there are many hills..." "I know. Well, Thanks. Thank you. I'm going to look some more. Thank you again. Adios."
So I returned to the main street once again. Who are the gossips? I began to wonder. Who in a Mexican neighborhood, colonia would know everyone else? The shopkeepers? The elderly? I passed a beauty shop. I stopped.
"Excuse me. Do you know Dona Gloria? She is a curandera." The lady inside told me she did. She told me, "She lives right there," pointing.
It was the same house again, not the one I'd visited three weeks ago but the one with a green gate. Well who knows, I thought.
Perhaps, I thought, she received us in a friend's house because it had a bigger kitchen or perhaps this house in front of me was her child's house. Regardless, if it was the house of another Dona Gloria, perhaps all the Dona Glorias in the nieghborhood knew each other.
So I opened the gate and knocked on the front door.
A woman, say, 40-years-old, opened the door.
"Ah, oh. Estoy, I am looking for Dona Gloria. Does she live here?" I asked.
"Dona Gloria?" No. She doesn't live here." And she said something else, but with my limited spanish I missed most of it and forgot the rest. "Pero mi mama, But my mother Dona - - - - - lives here." (I didn't catch the name.)
The lady left calling her mother. Was it her, Dona Gloria afterall? I saw an elderly figure approach the door from the shadows. Dona Gloria?
Nope.
This elderly woman told me her name was Elora. She knew a Dona Gloria, but not the same one I visited. Her Dona Gloria lived across the street, was sick, and "is about 80-years-old." But she's not a curandera.
Dona Yoya, as Elora is called, asked me what I was doing? Why was I trying to visit Dona Gloria? Where was I staying in Nogales?
"Just to talk," I responded. "She tells stories very well, and I visited her three weeks ago with group. I'm living with a family in Colonia Rosario, but every day I go to the Casa de la Misericordia (House of Mercy, the BorderLinks' compound) for classes."
"BorderLinks?" she asked. "Yes. I'm studying with BorderLinks," I said.
"Oh really?" she said. "I'll be right back," she prefaced. She came back with a book of photos. "Two years ago, I had 'BorderLinks children' in my house for five weeks. Four of them.... They were wonderful." She began to show me the pictures. "Chelsea from Washington, " she pointed, "And David from North Carolina.... And Colin--"
"David?!" I jumped. I knew that kid. "Si," she continued--
"David is from my college!" I exclaimed. No way. I shook my head. I bit my lower lip. No way. 100,000 houses in Nogales...
"Si, David, David Andrews from North Carolina. "He was so nice. When he came, he couldn't speak any spanish. But he learned very fast. They," pointing to a group photo of BorderLinks students, "made me a pinata for my birthday." She showed me the birthday cards they'd made her. I saw David Andrew's signature. "They were terrific," she told me. "He's from your college? Really?"
"Si," I responded.
~ ~ ~
David Andrews was my admissions tour guide the first time I visited Warren Wilson. I sat in on his eight-person theology class in April of my junior year of high school. He's two years older than I. He attended BorderLinks two years ago. And, out of the hundred-thousand houses in Nogales, he lived in the house of Dona Yoya, which I happened to find via a bad referral from a lady in a neighborhood beautyshop in a nieghborhood on the far side of Nogales from my host family and from the Casa de la Misericordia.
David Andrews, Matt Blue, and I are the only students I know who have been to BorderLinks. There have been others, but we are the only ones I know of. I found David Andrew's host family, and Elias, my spanish tutor was Matt Blue's tutor.
How do you say, "It's a small world," without sounding like a Disney promotion?
~ ~ ~
Well, I did eventually find Dona Gloria. I found her today. And we talked, and she told me stories, and I drank fresh-made tea and ate fresh-made soup from her patio plants. She gave me more suggestions for my hypoglycemia: cactus broth. She told more stories, sung another song, showed me pictures of her family, mentioned her indian heritage, commented on her home before Nogales: a farm in the country; and she told me that whenever I want to come again, "Mi casa es tu casa (my house is your house)."
~ ~ ~
Some things are really nice in this world, and there's no politicin' or economizin' that.
Nathan
Friday, November 2, 2007
Border Update: barriers and fumigation, VOL IX
To Those GOOD FOLKS With Whom I Like To Exchange Stories, share ideas, mutually engage in real work, visit and generally keep up to date:
Look here. Nine Posts. Nine.
A couple of years ago, for three years, I served as a Co-Moderator of the Presbyterian Youth Connection, which is like the "Congress" of Presbyterian youth. I learned a lot about email. Along with my co-hort Patricia, we coordinated meetings, recruited volunteers, and passed ideas along. Because of my work with the Youth Connection, I had somewhere around 300 related email addresses in my address book. I learned a lot about emails and, more generally, about communication. If, for instance, I was in need of some help to run a meeting, plan a conference, or start a movement (you know, small things) and I sent a blanket email to "Everybody out there"-- around 300 folks-- I'd get absolutely no responses. If, on the other hand, I copy-pasted the email into ten separate emails, added a personalized first paragraph like "That book you were telling me about, you know The Populist Moment?, really sounded great. I've put it on my "to read" list. You know, I got to thinking about something that's coming up..." and started the emails with names: "Hey Michael!" "Lateef listen here" "Megan, check this out" "Fauntleroy" you know "Daniel-" "Rachel" "Lindsey" "Chris" "Mary, how are you?" ... with this bit of personalization, I'd end up getting nearly eight out of ten responses, and a bunch of them would be positive.
But, of course, I'm not doing that with these update emails. So, after eight emails, your mental space, your lack of time, and your fidgety fingers probably add up to a desire to delete. Hey, I've done it too. These emails aren't about guilt; I don't think good things come of that emotion.
So...
I moved in with my host family. Spanish for breakfast, lunch, dinner, late evening snack. All spanish, all the time. The first night here, I wrote in my journal:
"So, I've moved in with my homestay. Oh my God I am tired. As I try to find words even in english, they are impeded by the great slate of blank, like the "nothingness" from the Never Ending Story; it consumes all thoughts and they are forever lost as my mind attempts comprehension and my thoughts navigate rapid translation. Every gap is filled with the meaningless word "Pues" (Well). Something funny? "Pues." Something serious? "Pues." Something I agree with? "Pues." Something I don't understand? "Pues" Mi mente esta muy cansado, tanto cansado. Solamente tengo dos mas palabras: Buenos Noches. [My mind is very tired, so tired. I only have two more words: Good Night.]"
The first night, before I wrote in my journal, we met our to-be host families at a potluck dinner party. We started learning all the important words, like, you know: boogers. "How do you say, caca en tu nariz (poop en your nose)?" Mocos. As it turns out, "mocosos" are "snotty nosed little children" or just "kids." So, we learned the five, ten, or fifteen other ways to say kids. In spanish, or at least in northern Mexico, there's about a million different ways to say everything. Everything. Cada cosa. Todas las cosas. And so it goes.
About that time at the party, amid the laughter, Fausto, my to-be host father, reacted to our use of english. "No. You can't. No!" he joked. "From now on, only spanish. No more english. You're here to learn spanish, so you can only speak in spanish. Every english word costs one dollar." I bargined with him: "How about ten cents?" "No, un dolar," he said. I've been living with Fausto, Chayito (the mother), Iban (20-year-old son) and Cynthia (12-year-old daughter) now for two weeks. Still, every use of engligh in the house is promptly called out: "Un dolar!" Of couse, nobody actually pays. The other day, I called Fausto out because he said "Good morning." When I said, "Un dolar!" he said that we were actually even because I'd said "dolar" and "dolares" (or dollars) are American and therefore english, and so, in fact, I owed him a dollar. "No, no," he corrected himself: "10 pesos."
Currently it costs 10.85 pesos to change for a dollar. In 1994, it was three to one (3 pesos, 1 dollar). Promptly after the passage of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), in a matter of two days, the peso devalued to 50% of its prior exchange value. In two days, the exchange rate went from 3:1 to 6:1. Two days. Imagine going to the grocery and paying $7.50 for milk this Sunday. The devaluation was wrapped up in the NAFTA negotiations. I read it was anticipated and agreed upon. Why? Who'd it help? NAFTA has cost the U.S. workers three million jobs, and our neighbors to the south have to pay $7.50 for milk. Good ole not-free, free trade.
The wall, "el muro" is practically in my host family's backyard. Well, it's in the neighborhood, just up the street. The first day in the neighborhood, I walked up the street and saw these great rolling hills just a few hundred yards away. My mind raced forward to picnicks and afternoon reading opportunities. I kept walking up the hill, and, then, in the ravine between the hills, I saw the wall. 16ft of rusted corrogated steel with a guard-rail at the top to prevent recreation and temp-work. Well dang. My imagined picnick would cost a possible concussion and a felony. 100 yards: so close, yet so far away.
Remember Elias? My spanish tutor? The guy whom I asked how to say "Your feet stink like dead fish"? The man loves to eat acorns. We watched Narnia the other day in Spanish, and jointly munched away. They're a lot sweeter here than in the East. My friend Rachel Williamson, from Warren Wilson told me that she'd found a single oak tree at Warren Wilson that had "the sweetest nuts on campus. [She] ate a whole acorn without spitting it out." So either Elias found the sweet tree, or they're just sweeter here in northern Mexico.
Anyway, today we went across town on the buses to a community center where he works teaching kids English. Last night was halloween, so a little snotty nosed kid, a "mocoso" had a bag of candy and shared it around. She kept insisting I have some, but, of course, I can't eat sugar. I swear those kids love Elias. When he took out his guitar, all talking stopped, and they gathered around. Listening. Watching. The four-year-old, Martin kept trying to strum the cords. Eventually, we moved around back to the basket-ball court. Elias left his guitar in the hands of Martin and the other five-year-olds while we and the rest of the children played a game a lot like duck-duck-goose. Then he played some more songs. After a song or two, the kids began to drift away.
The girls started doing cartwheels and back-bends. The boys climbed on top of the basketball goal and jumped down acting like their favorite wreslers from the Lucha Libre (Mexico's WWF). All of them called for attention. "Natan! Mira (Look). Watch me. Watch this." And to Elias: "Profe! (Teacher!) Profe! Look. Watch. Watch me. You weren't looking. Hey, I'll do it again. Watch. Watch!"
Katie, my niece, she's ten. I know about this stuff.
They did their own thing until Elias started singing and playing songs in English. The cords started; I thought: Do I know this one? What is this? No, I can't. Of course not. Ahha! It was "Imagine," John Lenin's song. Then he played "Stand By me", the overly-sentimental song that I can only guess originated in the early nineties. If you want to know beauty, listen to 25 little mocosos try to sing, "Darling, Darling, Darling. Stand. Stand by me."
Of course, it's has become routine now to hear people speak of "el otro lado" (the other side). The first couple of times I heard the phrase, I asked for clarification: "The other side of what?" Or, one time, we were walking on the street, so I asked, "Over there?" pointing. No. It means the other side of the wall, the Estados Unidos, the United States.
The great thing about talking spanish with kids is that they do most of the talking. They say a lot of "watch!" They fill me in on the gossip of their friends: so-and-so is her boy friend-- "No he's not!" "Yeah. He. Is." But, mostly all I have to do is listen, and nod, and laugh, and try to offer appropriate listening grunts. They have a lot to share. The problem arrises when they ask me questions in their high-pitched, pre-puberdescent voices. They're about as easy to understand as, well, um-- They're hard to understand.
Still in the community center, midstride through a smile-and-nod, I received the blank, anticipatory look that means I was supposed to say something because my companion asked me a question. I'd missed it entirely. Turned out, Guadalupe was asking me where I was from, and some other details. I told her I was from Florida. Her nine-year-old face screwed up in confusion. Her friend clarified the situation: "It's on the other side," he said. "Oh," she said, "I've got an uncle that lives in Phoenix, en el otro lado (on the other side)."
The wall was built in 1994 here in Nogales as part of the Border Patrol's "Operation Safeguard." Guadalupe was born in 1997. It's part of her reality. I guess kids grew up in Berlin as well. Nogales is not a Mexican town. Only because of the wall, there now is a Nogales, AZ and a Nogales, Sonora. It historically was known as Ambos Nogales (or both Nogaleses). Nogales is a border town. Ceselia, a long-term employee with BorderLinks told us yesterday that back before the wall, folks would call across the chain-linked fence to their neighbors, many whom were friends: "Hey. Could you pick me up a gallon of milk?" "Yeah, grab me a pint of tequila on your side and we'll swop." It was faster than going through the Port of Entry.
When you drive into Mexico, you don't have to show your drivers license. When you drive to the U.S., you've got to huff exhaust for one and a half to two hours waiting in the customs Port of Entry line. You've got to answer questions about what you did, where you're going, whether you're "bringing anything back with you?" etc, etc. All cars get stopped, and poorer vehicles, darker faces, and heavier accents all increase the likelihood of a search, canine sniff-out, and further questioning. I'm not crying for anybody or throwing guilt; it's just true. You ought to know. For a U.S. citizen to enter Mexico, you've got to... nothing. If you're Mexican, in order to enter the U.S., you've got to have a crossing card (which costs $300 U.S. dollars), or a Visa (which also costs at least $300), and starting in January, everyone also has to have a passport (which costs $80 U.S. dollars). Starting in January, US citizens will also be required to carry a US passport to re-enter the U.S. from Mexico.
At the top of the 16ft corrogated steel wall, there is a guard rail. I've mentioned it twice before. It angles backwards into Mexico. The edge is sharp. Back in September, our Border Parol tour guide told us about how he sliced open his arm rather seriously during the wall's construction. On the U.S. side, I often heard this wall talked about as "protection." Here the kids talk about the wall and "the other side." Folks here think of the wall more like the walls of a cage. In reality, they don't talk about it much. It's a rather bitter subject. Here it's not wrapped in such good PR. It's actually rusted corrugated steel, 16ft tall with a guardrail at the top.
It's a curious thing, our border relations with Mexico. Have you ever ran into one of those folks that are seriously afraid of germs? They're usually pretty insulting. I like to think of myself as a fairly clean person. I wash my hands. I don't cut my vegetables on the same cutting board as my meat without washing it first. And then, there are those folks that microwave their sponges before every use in order to sterilize them. They tend to furrow their eyebrows a lot and open their mouth in panic when you abid by the "five-second rule." They're only a step away from Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets. They're the folks that don't really want to hug you, and if you're in town, they're afraid to offer you a place to stay because they'll have to wash their sheets and hire a fumigator as soon as you leave. Really? What do they think I've got? Gengivitis, leprosy, cold-sores, hand-fugus, influenza, and oozing venereal disease? What the heck?
Sometimes I think that American immigration policy is kind of like the reactions of an obsessively-clean, rich person. Really? They're Mexican. Well shit. Then they must be dirty, lazy, dishonest, theiving, illegal, impatient, waiting for a hand-out, and a-- if not already, a potential-- rapist. Solution: keep them away. Let's build a fence-- make it a wall. And, we need to micro-wave our sponges and take some antibiotics. Please. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), please, we need you to sterilize our community as well. Raid our communities too, please.
Remember the Greyhound? Folks I know tend to have a certain hesitancy with folks that have less money than they do. They're "dangerous." I do it too. It's no secret that we let slip words like "The sketchy part of town," which is affluent-code for "the poor part of town" or "they-have-less-money-than-we-do part of town." Y'all. We do the same thing with the twelve million illegal migrants. Except it's worse because they've got even less money.
That's a couple of things I've been seeing, hearing, living, and thinking.
peace be with you,
Nathan
Look here. Nine Posts. Nine.
A couple of years ago, for three years, I served as a Co-Moderator of the Presbyterian Youth Connection, which is like the "Congress" of Presbyterian youth. I learned a lot about email. Along with my co-hort Patricia, we coordinated meetings, recruited volunteers, and passed ideas along. Because of my work with the Youth Connection, I had somewhere around 300 related email addresses in my address book. I learned a lot about emails and, more generally, about communication. If, for instance, I was in need of some help to run a meeting, plan a conference, or start a movement (you know, small things) and I sent a blanket email to "Everybody out there"-- around 300 folks-- I'd get absolutely no responses. If, on the other hand, I copy-pasted the email into ten separate emails, added a personalized first paragraph like "That book you were telling me about, you know The Populist Moment?, really sounded great. I've put it on my "to read" list. You know, I got to thinking about something that's coming up..." and started the emails with names: "Hey Michael!" "Lateef listen here" "Megan, check this out" "Fauntleroy" you know "Daniel-" "Rachel" "Lindsey" "Chris" "Mary, how are you?" ... with this bit of personalization, I'd end up getting nearly eight out of ten responses, and a bunch of them would be positive.
But, of course, I'm not doing that with these update emails. So, after eight emails, your mental space, your lack of time, and your fidgety fingers probably add up to a desire to delete. Hey, I've done it too. These emails aren't about guilt; I don't think good things come of that emotion.
So...
I moved in with my host family. Spanish for breakfast, lunch, dinner, late evening snack. All spanish, all the time. The first night here, I wrote in my journal:
"So, I've moved in with my homestay. Oh my God I am tired. As I try to find words even in english, they are impeded by the great slate of blank, like the "nothingness" from the Never Ending Story; it consumes all thoughts and they are forever lost as my mind attempts comprehension and my thoughts navigate rapid translation. Every gap is filled with the meaningless word "Pues" (Well). Something funny? "Pues." Something serious? "Pues." Something I agree with? "Pues." Something I don't understand? "Pues" Mi mente esta muy cansado, tanto cansado. Solamente tengo dos mas palabras: Buenos Noches. [My mind is very tired, so tired. I only have two more words: Good Night.]"
The first night, before I wrote in my journal, we met our to-be host families at a potluck dinner party. We started learning all the important words, like, you know: boogers. "How do you say, caca en tu nariz (poop en your nose)?" Mocos. As it turns out, "mocosos" are "snotty nosed little children" or just "kids." So, we learned the five, ten, or fifteen other ways to say kids. In spanish, or at least in northern Mexico, there's about a million different ways to say everything. Everything. Cada cosa. Todas las cosas. And so it goes.
About that time at the party, amid the laughter, Fausto, my to-be host father, reacted to our use of english. "No. You can't. No!" he joked. "From now on, only spanish. No more english. You're here to learn spanish, so you can only speak in spanish. Every english word costs one dollar." I bargined with him: "How about ten cents?" "No, un dolar," he said. I've been living with Fausto, Chayito (the mother), Iban (20-year-old son) and Cynthia (12-year-old daughter) now for two weeks. Still, every use of engligh in the house is promptly called out: "Un dolar!" Of couse, nobody actually pays. The other day, I called Fausto out because he said "Good morning." When I said, "Un dolar!" he said that we were actually even because I'd said "dolar" and "dolares" (or dollars) are American and therefore english, and so, in fact, I owed him a dollar. "No, no," he corrected himself: "10 pesos."
Currently it costs 10.85 pesos to change for a dollar. In 1994, it was three to one (3 pesos, 1 dollar). Promptly after the passage of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), in a matter of two days, the peso devalued to 50% of its prior exchange value. In two days, the exchange rate went from 3:1 to 6:1. Two days. Imagine going to the grocery and paying $7.50 for milk this Sunday. The devaluation was wrapped up in the NAFTA negotiations. I read it was anticipated and agreed upon. Why? Who'd it help? NAFTA has cost the U.S. workers three million jobs, and our neighbors to the south have to pay $7.50 for milk. Good ole not-free, free trade.
The wall, "el muro" is practically in my host family's backyard. Well, it's in the neighborhood, just up the street. The first day in the neighborhood, I walked up the street and saw these great rolling hills just a few hundred yards away. My mind raced forward to picnicks and afternoon reading opportunities. I kept walking up the hill, and, then, in the ravine between the hills, I saw the wall. 16ft of rusted corrogated steel with a guard-rail at the top to prevent recreation and temp-work. Well dang. My imagined picnick would cost a possible concussion and a felony. 100 yards: so close, yet so far away.
Remember Elias? My spanish tutor? The guy whom I asked how to say "Your feet stink like dead fish"? The man loves to eat acorns. We watched Narnia the other day in Spanish, and jointly munched away. They're a lot sweeter here than in the East. My friend Rachel Williamson, from Warren Wilson told me that she'd found a single oak tree at Warren Wilson that had "the sweetest nuts on campus. [She] ate a whole acorn without spitting it out." So either Elias found the sweet tree, or they're just sweeter here in northern Mexico.
Anyway, today we went across town on the buses to a community center where he works teaching kids English. Last night was halloween, so a little snotty nosed kid, a "mocoso" had a bag of candy and shared it around. She kept insisting I have some, but, of course, I can't eat sugar. I swear those kids love Elias. When he took out his guitar, all talking stopped, and they gathered around. Listening. Watching. The four-year-old, Martin kept trying to strum the cords. Eventually, we moved around back to the basket-ball court. Elias left his guitar in the hands of Martin and the other five-year-olds while we and the rest of the children played a game a lot like duck-duck-goose. Then he played some more songs. After a song or two, the kids began to drift away.
The girls started doing cartwheels and back-bends. The boys climbed on top of the basketball goal and jumped down acting like their favorite wreslers from the Lucha Libre (Mexico's WWF). All of them called for attention. "Natan! Mira (Look). Watch me. Watch this." And to Elias: "Profe! (Teacher!) Profe! Look. Watch. Watch me. You weren't looking. Hey, I'll do it again. Watch. Watch!"
Katie, my niece, she's ten. I know about this stuff.
They did their own thing until Elias started singing and playing songs in English. The cords started; I thought: Do I know this one? What is this? No, I can't. Of course not. Ahha! It was "Imagine," John Lenin's song. Then he played "Stand By me", the overly-sentimental song that I can only guess originated in the early nineties. If you want to know beauty, listen to 25 little mocosos try to sing, "Darling, Darling, Darling. Stand. Stand by me."
Of course, it's has become routine now to hear people speak of "el otro lado" (the other side). The first couple of times I heard the phrase, I asked for clarification: "The other side of what?" Or, one time, we were walking on the street, so I asked, "Over there?" pointing. No. It means the other side of the wall, the Estados Unidos, the United States.
The great thing about talking spanish with kids is that they do most of the talking. They say a lot of "watch!" They fill me in on the gossip of their friends: so-and-so is her boy friend-- "No he's not!" "Yeah. He. Is." But, mostly all I have to do is listen, and nod, and laugh, and try to offer appropriate listening grunts. They have a lot to share. The problem arrises when they ask me questions in their high-pitched, pre-puberdescent voices. They're about as easy to understand as, well, um-- They're hard to understand.
Still in the community center, midstride through a smile-and-nod, I received the blank, anticipatory look that means I was supposed to say something because my companion asked me a question. I'd missed it entirely. Turned out, Guadalupe was asking me where I was from, and some other details. I told her I was from Florida. Her nine-year-old face screwed up in confusion. Her friend clarified the situation: "It's on the other side," he said. "Oh," she said, "I've got an uncle that lives in Phoenix, en el otro lado (on the other side)."
The wall was built in 1994 here in Nogales as part of the Border Patrol's "Operation Safeguard." Guadalupe was born in 1997. It's part of her reality. I guess kids grew up in Berlin as well. Nogales is not a Mexican town. Only because of the wall, there now is a Nogales, AZ and a Nogales, Sonora. It historically was known as Ambos Nogales (or both Nogaleses). Nogales is a border town. Ceselia, a long-term employee with BorderLinks told us yesterday that back before the wall, folks would call across the chain-linked fence to their neighbors, many whom were friends: "Hey. Could you pick me up a gallon of milk?" "Yeah, grab me a pint of tequila on your side and we'll swop." It was faster than going through the Port of Entry.
When you drive into Mexico, you don't have to show your drivers license. When you drive to the U.S., you've got to huff exhaust for one and a half to two hours waiting in the customs Port of Entry line. You've got to answer questions about what you did, where you're going, whether you're "bringing anything back with you?" etc, etc. All cars get stopped, and poorer vehicles, darker faces, and heavier accents all increase the likelihood of a search, canine sniff-out, and further questioning. I'm not crying for anybody or throwing guilt; it's just true. You ought to know. For a U.S. citizen to enter Mexico, you've got to... nothing. If you're Mexican, in order to enter the U.S., you've got to have a crossing card (which costs $300 U.S. dollars), or a Visa (which also costs at least $300), and starting in January, everyone also has to have a passport (which costs $80 U.S. dollars). Starting in January, US citizens will also be required to carry a US passport to re-enter the U.S. from Mexico.
At the top of the 16ft corrogated steel wall, there is a guard rail. I've mentioned it twice before. It angles backwards into Mexico. The edge is sharp. Back in September, our Border Parol tour guide told us about how he sliced open his arm rather seriously during the wall's construction. On the U.S. side, I often heard this wall talked about as "protection." Here the kids talk about the wall and "the other side." Folks here think of the wall more like the walls of a cage. In reality, they don't talk about it much. It's a rather bitter subject. Here it's not wrapped in such good PR. It's actually rusted corrugated steel, 16ft tall with a guardrail at the top.
It's a curious thing, our border relations with Mexico. Have you ever ran into one of those folks that are seriously afraid of germs? They're usually pretty insulting. I like to think of myself as a fairly clean person. I wash my hands. I don't cut my vegetables on the same cutting board as my meat without washing it first. And then, there are those folks that microwave their sponges before every use in order to sterilize them. They tend to furrow their eyebrows a lot and open their mouth in panic when you abid by the "five-second rule." They're only a step away from Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets. They're the folks that don't really want to hug you, and if you're in town, they're afraid to offer you a place to stay because they'll have to wash their sheets and hire a fumigator as soon as you leave. Really? What do they think I've got? Gengivitis, leprosy, cold-sores, hand-fugus, influenza, and oozing venereal disease? What the heck?
Sometimes I think that American immigration policy is kind of like the reactions of an obsessively-clean, rich person. Really? They're Mexican. Well shit. Then they must be dirty, lazy, dishonest, theiving, illegal, impatient, waiting for a hand-out, and a-- if not already, a potential-- rapist. Solution: keep them away. Let's build a fence-- make it a wall. And, we need to micro-wave our sponges and take some antibiotics. Please. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), please, we need you to sterilize our community as well. Raid our communities too, please.
Remember the Greyhound? Folks I know tend to have a certain hesitancy with folks that have less money than they do. They're "dangerous." I do it too. It's no secret that we let slip words like "The sketchy part of town," which is affluent-code for "the poor part of town" or "they-have-less-money-than-we-do part of town." Y'all. We do the same thing with the twelve million illegal migrants. Except it's worse because they've got even less money.
That's a couple of things I've been seeing, hearing, living, and thinking.
peace be with you,
Nathan
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Border Update: Poo and All the Rest, VOL VIII
To Those Good Folks With Whom I Like To Exchange Stories, share ideas,
mutually engage in real work, visit and generally keep up to date:
We moved down to Nogales the day before yesterday. We’ll spend a few days here at the Casa de Misericordia (House of Mercy), which serves as the BorderLinks compound and neighborhood community space, and then, on Friday, we’ll move in with our host families. We’ll continue reading, writing, and project-ing for our classes, which will now meet at the Casa. So, we’ll spend most everyday, during the day, at the Casa. (The Casa is a compound consisting of a dormitory (18 beds) with a cafeteria downstairs, a day care building, an office building, a classroom building, all made of concrete block, plus a flower garden, and basketball/soccer court.) Throughout our time in Nogales, we have two hours, three times a week with a Spanish tutor.
Everyday at lunch, a staff of three ladies and a couple of volunteers prepare and serve a noonday meal to one or two hundred neighborhood kids who’s parents work in the maquiladores, Free-Trade-Factories, (or maquilas for short) and, so, can’t come home for lunch. The plan is for us, semester students to eat with the children most days. Yesterday, the meal consisted of pasta salad and refried beans with crackers on the side and a cup full of sugar water colored red; that is, “juice.”
Lest you miss the irony, know that I’m hypoglycemic. My blood sugar rushed upward and, promptly, crashes if I eat sugar or basic carbohydrates. Basically, if I understand it right, my pancreas is on steroids, so whenever I eat anything related to sugar, it releases insulin with the force of Niagara Falls. For about twenty minutes I feel like I took speed: I start sweating, my face gets all red, I feel like I could conquer Everest, and my vision becomes incredibly clear. Then everything reverses: irritable, lethargic, apathetic, uninspired, and my brain becomes really foggy and slow. The after effects last up to a day or two. Frijoles (beans), pasta, crackers, and punch. Pues (Well).
So I got out a can of tuna. Looks like I’ll be eating a lot of it these next few weeks. “Hey Nathan. What’d you have for lunch today? Eh?” Tuna. “How about yesterday? Tomorrow?” You guessed it. Heck. If you’re considering a career path in canned fish, let me know.
I believe that we are called to take steps to the margins of society. I believe that we have a responsibility to know about and experience the underbelly of the global economy, to know the people on whose backs we ride. We all, in one-way or another, catch piggyback rides at others’ expense. It started, if not before, in middle school—everywhere. And due to our global influence made possible through cheap energy, we can, incredibly, ride the backs of others on the far side of our own continent and far side of the globe.
As I was saying, I believe that we are called to take steps beyond our privilege, however it might express itself (wealth, age, association, coolness, race, gender, southern-ness, whatever). We are called to ride the wave between comfort and panic. We are called to hear and tell stories with folks we don’t know and we’d be unlikely to know because of the various walls that divide us. We’re called to offer mutual aid and support across the boundaries of division because we can create a world that is better for all involved.
Yeah, but the truth of the matter is that philosophy, ideas, whatever—although it may glow with justice and goodness, Listen—it’s not easy. Eeeesy. This is not my regular life. If you’ll allow me, once again, a moment of irreverent honesty, I’ve got little bit of reality to share with you.
The truth of the matter is, I still don’t know the family I’m going to be living with for five weeks. I haven’t met them. I don’t know their name. We meet on Thursday night; we move in on Friday. During lunch, I wonder at the four year old kids speaking Spanish: they’re vastly ahead of me. I keep catching myself flabbergasted by their skills. How can they know all those words? I think. Then, I remember they grew up with the language. My Spanish is improving, but, lord, I’ve got a long way to go. I’m hypoglycemic, and the people here eat beans and tortillas. I have a clear mind because I live in an affluent family in the most affluent country the world has ever known.
So, aside from my concern about where and who I’m living with, language, and food, I also carry concerns about having concerns: “Nathan. You’re going to deal with it for five weeks, tops. You get to go back to your posh life. Deal with it. If you were born in most any other place in the world, you’d just learn to live with a foggy brain. You’d read four times slower because you would eat carbohydrates because if you didn’t, you wouldn’t eat—But I’ve got projects and continued reading on the border.” The tension pulls back and forth. And then I think about language: “Nathan, really. Don’t you realize that tons of folks all over the world move to other countries and regions out of necessity and can’t speak the language yet. They’re learning as fast as they can, but they don’t necessarily have the four people you have that speak their native language with whom you can relax and speak without thinking.” I feel my body tighten. Before and, moreso, after meals, my belly feels stiff.
Really what I’m trying to tell you is that I was constipated. Really, there’s nothing like it. Full. Over-full, all the time. My cup filleth up, except it’s supposed to subside. Except it doesn’t. “Oh, I think I’m going to sit down. Gosh, I’m wiped-out.” Laying down is no relief. Full. Over-full, all the time. And remember, I’m hypoglycemic. In order to control my blood sugar, I eat every few hours. So, I add a little more. A little more. Full. Over-full, all the time.
I think perhaps the most disappointing thing in the whole world is a full belly that just won’t let go in the moment, the judgment day of constipation, at the pleasant surprise of cool porcelain, on the pot.
My fellow students looked me over and asked, “Nathan. Are you alright? You’re looking a little…” but they never finished the sentence. Either they couldn’t figure it out, or they didn’t grow up in the house with a nurse as their mother. I hear that in some houses bodily functions are not dinner conversations. Well. I’ll let you guess about mine.
I apologize in advance: Early last summer (’06), I was getting into stories. I decided that I’d make my way into stories by writing down stories as I heard them or as I experienced them. I was in the mountains of North Carolina with my father. We were camping and going on hikes everyday. From the time he’d picked me up from school, I kept my eyes and ears tuned to stories, but I just didn’t see any. Anything I contemplated writing down was more like a summation of events, which are lists and, although they can be engaging at times, they’re not really stories. Then—
This one morning, I was making our lunch, spreading mayonnaise on bread making sandwiches or something, and my father walked down from the tent where he’d been sweeping it out. He walked kind of stiff legged like, and said, “Oh, um.” He looked at me with the strained eyes of a two-year-old which reveals the secret of secret places. “It’s like a snake that wants to get out,” he paused, “I mean BAD!” He waddled off to the camp bathroom. Struggling. He said something over his shoulder about if it started raining that I ought to put his clothes under the tarp. He, really, was in no position to make requests.
Okay, but that’s not all.
The next morning, same time. There I was fixing lunch again. Spreading mayo or something, when my Dad dropped a bag of ropes on the table, laughed and said, “S—time,” though I couldn’t distinguish his syllable. “What time?” I asked. “He he, SNAKE time!” he said as he heading for the bathroom.
And there it was, hissing at me in the face: a story. It was the first one I wrote down in my storybook- journal—ever. In spite of any insult you may feel I give my father in repeating this story, I salute him for it. It made me realize that the stories are all around us, and most of the time, story boils down to ten seconds of dialog with a good five minutes of build up. Stories. They’re our lives.
Saul Alinsky, the Chicagoan organizer with Back of our Yards, made frequent allusions to bodily functions and the bathroom. He justified it because he said, more or less, “Look. There are few things in this world that are truly universal. But everybody has to go to the bathroom. Everybody. So everyone can relate.” So perhaps I speak of the bathroom for you to understand. Or perhaps it’s because I grew up in the house with my mother, the nurse. Perhaps it’s because of our family’s medical conversations or my father’s loose orifice (mouth, mouth! Get your mind out of the gutter.) Or perhaps my thoughts are just preoccupied with the simple pleasures of life.
So, I’ve held you in suspense long enough.
I took a poo, and it was glorious.
I’ve since taken a few more. I’ll allow your imagination to fill in the blessed sighs of relief.
Today, I walked around with my Spanish tutor. He’s a fantastic man named Elias. Walking by the kitchen, he said, “Huele de tortillas” (It smells of tortillas). “Huele,” I repeated. “Pies” (feet), I said, “Pies huelen” (feet smell). Almost immediately, I asked him, “Como se dice,” (How do you say) “cuando pies huelen como un pescado se morio?” (when feet smell like a fish that died?) He told me the word is “apestan (stink).” Tus (your) pies apestan de pescado muerto (Your feet smell of dead fish).
I swear: humor is definitely one of the best ways to learn and communicate.
Nathan
mutually engage in real work, visit and generally keep up to date:
We moved down to Nogales the day before yesterday. We’ll spend a few days here at the Casa de Misericordia (House of Mercy), which serves as the BorderLinks compound and neighborhood community space, and then, on Friday, we’ll move in with our host families. We’ll continue reading, writing, and project-ing for our classes, which will now meet at the Casa. So, we’ll spend most everyday, during the day, at the Casa. (The Casa is a compound consisting of a dormitory (18 beds) with a cafeteria downstairs, a day care building, an office building, a classroom building, all made of concrete block, plus a flower garden, and basketball/soccer court.) Throughout our time in Nogales, we have two hours, three times a week with a Spanish tutor.
Everyday at lunch, a staff of three ladies and a couple of volunteers prepare and serve a noonday meal to one or two hundred neighborhood kids who’s parents work in the maquiladores, Free-Trade-Factories, (or maquilas for short) and, so, can’t come home for lunch. The plan is for us, semester students to eat with the children most days. Yesterday, the meal consisted of pasta salad and refried beans with crackers on the side and a cup full of sugar water colored red; that is, “juice.”
Lest you miss the irony, know that I’m hypoglycemic. My blood sugar rushed upward and, promptly, crashes if I eat sugar or basic carbohydrates. Basically, if I understand it right, my pancreas is on steroids, so whenever I eat anything related to sugar, it releases insulin with the force of Niagara Falls. For about twenty minutes I feel like I took speed: I start sweating, my face gets all red, I feel like I could conquer Everest, and my vision becomes incredibly clear. Then everything reverses: irritable, lethargic, apathetic, uninspired, and my brain becomes really foggy and slow. The after effects last up to a day or two. Frijoles (beans), pasta, crackers, and punch. Pues (Well).
So I got out a can of tuna. Looks like I’ll be eating a lot of it these next few weeks. “Hey Nathan. What’d you have for lunch today? Eh?” Tuna. “How about yesterday? Tomorrow?” You guessed it. Heck. If you’re considering a career path in canned fish, let me know.
I believe that we are called to take steps to the margins of society. I believe that we have a responsibility to know about and experience the underbelly of the global economy, to know the people on whose backs we ride. We all, in one-way or another, catch piggyback rides at others’ expense. It started, if not before, in middle school—everywhere. And due to our global influence made possible through cheap energy, we can, incredibly, ride the backs of others on the far side of our own continent and far side of the globe.
As I was saying, I believe that we are called to take steps beyond our privilege, however it might express itself (wealth, age, association, coolness, race, gender, southern-ness, whatever). We are called to ride the wave between comfort and panic. We are called to hear and tell stories with folks we don’t know and we’d be unlikely to know because of the various walls that divide us. We’re called to offer mutual aid and support across the boundaries of division because we can create a world that is better for all involved.
Yeah, but the truth of the matter is that philosophy, ideas, whatever—although it may glow with justice and goodness, Listen—it’s not easy. Eeeesy. This is not my regular life. If you’ll allow me, once again, a moment of irreverent honesty, I’ve got little bit of reality to share with you.
The truth of the matter is, I still don’t know the family I’m going to be living with for five weeks. I haven’t met them. I don’t know their name. We meet on Thursday night; we move in on Friday. During lunch, I wonder at the four year old kids speaking Spanish: they’re vastly ahead of me. I keep catching myself flabbergasted by their skills. How can they know all those words? I think. Then, I remember they grew up with the language. My Spanish is improving, but, lord, I’ve got a long way to go. I’m hypoglycemic, and the people here eat beans and tortillas. I have a clear mind because I live in an affluent family in the most affluent country the world has ever known.
So, aside from my concern about where and who I’m living with, language, and food, I also carry concerns about having concerns: “Nathan. You’re going to deal with it for five weeks, tops. You get to go back to your posh life. Deal with it. If you were born in most any other place in the world, you’d just learn to live with a foggy brain. You’d read four times slower because you would eat carbohydrates because if you didn’t, you wouldn’t eat—But I’ve got projects and continued reading on the border.” The tension pulls back and forth. And then I think about language: “Nathan, really. Don’t you realize that tons of folks all over the world move to other countries and regions out of necessity and can’t speak the language yet. They’re learning as fast as they can, but they don’t necessarily have the four people you have that speak their native language with whom you can relax and speak without thinking.” I feel my body tighten. Before and, moreso, after meals, my belly feels stiff.
Really what I’m trying to tell you is that I was constipated. Really, there’s nothing like it. Full. Over-full, all the time. My cup filleth up, except it’s supposed to subside. Except it doesn’t. “Oh, I think I’m going to sit down. Gosh, I’m wiped-out.” Laying down is no relief. Full. Over-full, all the time. And remember, I’m hypoglycemic. In order to control my blood sugar, I eat every few hours. So, I add a little more. A little more. Full. Over-full, all the time.
I think perhaps the most disappointing thing in the whole world is a full belly that just won’t let go in the moment, the judgment day of constipation, at the pleasant surprise of cool porcelain, on the pot.
My fellow students looked me over and asked, “Nathan. Are you alright? You’re looking a little…” but they never finished the sentence. Either they couldn’t figure it out, or they didn’t grow up in the house with a nurse as their mother. I hear that in some houses bodily functions are not dinner conversations. Well. I’ll let you guess about mine.
I apologize in advance: Early last summer (’06), I was getting into stories. I decided that I’d make my way into stories by writing down stories as I heard them or as I experienced them. I was in the mountains of North Carolina with my father. We were camping and going on hikes everyday. From the time he’d picked me up from school, I kept my eyes and ears tuned to stories, but I just didn’t see any. Anything I contemplated writing down was more like a summation of events, which are lists and, although they can be engaging at times, they’re not really stories. Then—
This one morning, I was making our lunch, spreading mayonnaise on bread making sandwiches or something, and my father walked down from the tent where he’d been sweeping it out. He walked kind of stiff legged like, and said, “Oh, um.” He looked at me with the strained eyes of a two-year-old which reveals the secret of secret places. “It’s like a snake that wants to get out,” he paused, “I mean BAD!” He waddled off to the camp bathroom. Struggling. He said something over his shoulder about if it started raining that I ought to put his clothes under the tarp. He, really, was in no position to make requests.
Okay, but that’s not all.
The next morning, same time. There I was fixing lunch again. Spreading mayo or something, when my Dad dropped a bag of ropes on the table, laughed and said, “S—time,” though I couldn’t distinguish his syllable. “What time?” I asked. “He he, SNAKE time!” he said as he heading for the bathroom.
And there it was, hissing at me in the face: a story. It was the first one I wrote down in my storybook- journal—ever. In spite of any insult you may feel I give my father in repeating this story, I salute him for it. It made me realize that the stories are all around us, and most of the time, story boils down to ten seconds of dialog with a good five minutes of build up. Stories. They’re our lives.
Saul Alinsky, the Chicagoan organizer with Back of our Yards, made frequent allusions to bodily functions and the bathroom. He justified it because he said, more or less, “Look. There are few things in this world that are truly universal. But everybody has to go to the bathroom. Everybody. So everyone can relate.” So perhaps I speak of the bathroom for you to understand. Or perhaps it’s because I grew up in the house with my mother, the nurse. Perhaps it’s because of our family’s medical conversations or my father’s loose orifice (mouth, mouth! Get your mind out of the gutter.) Or perhaps my thoughts are just preoccupied with the simple pleasures of life.
So, I’ve held you in suspense long enough.
I took a poo, and it was glorious.
I’ve since taken a few more. I’ll allow your imagination to fill in the blessed sighs of relief.
Today, I walked around with my Spanish tutor. He’s a fantastic man named Elias. Walking by the kitchen, he said, “Huele de tortillas” (It smells of tortillas). “Huele,” I repeated. “Pies” (feet), I said, “Pies huelen” (feet smell). Almost immediately, I asked him, “Como se dice,” (How do you say) “cuando pies huelen como un pescado se morio?” (when feet smell like a fish that died?) He told me the word is “apestan (stink).” Tus (your) pies apestan de pescado muerto (Your feet smell of dead fish).
I swear: humor is definitely one of the best ways to learn and communicate.
Nathan
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Update from the Border: An Open Letter, VOL VII
To Those Good Folks With Whom I Like To Exchange Stories, share ideas, mutually engage in real work, visit and generally keep up to date:
From the messages I've been receiving, I seems as though, perhaps, folks think that I'm struggling. Well, I've be wressling, yeah, but hardly struggling. I've been synthesizing. I've been strategizing, planning, imagining, instigating, trying like hell to learn spanish, reading, remembering, writing, chatting, walking, seeing, reflecting.
Pending the department's approval, I'll be compiling a senior thesis next spring of personal writings and research on social movements. In that light, you could say, I'm in my element here on the border. I suppose the best way to illustrate this is to cut short the description and share with you an open letter I just composed addressed to "organizers and activists of the Borderlands Movement."
An open letter to the Organizers and Activists of the Borderlands Movement:
Several things have occurred to me regarding the potential Borderlands Movement.
But first, to root myself in experience, I must share with you about a young man I met last week at the Quaker meeting. I'll call him Dwight. Having recently completed his commitment to the Navy in Afghanistan, accepted a job with Homeland Security here in the Boderlands, and began his civilian life in Tucson; he was not the man I expected to meet at the Quaker meeting. It was his second time attending.
"I took care of getting a job," he told me. "So then I knew—my wife and I knew—we had to attend to our spiritual lives." He took a spiritual/religious survey online, he told me, and it told him that he was just about one-hundred percent Quaker. Or one-hundred percent Buddhist. "I don't mean them any disrespect, but I'm not Buddhist," he explained. He made a point to meet me because during visitor self-introductions, —a Quaker tradition—I said I went to school just outside of Asheville, NC.
He asked me if I'd "ever heard of a little place named Swannanoa?" His interest was rooted in his roots: he grew up there. (Warren Wilson College, my school is in the heart of the Swannanoa Valley.) Dwight's father and grandfather worked at the Beacon plant, the textile mill that was the primary employer, life-blood and exploiter of the valley for around 100 years until it closed shop in 2004 to move to Central America for cheaper wage-labor.
He asked what I was doing in Tucson, so I gave him my worn out summary: "BorderLinks semester on the Border… a few months in Tucson… Nogales… travel on both sides of the border… Magdalena… Altar, the place where migrants meet up with their guides to travel through the desert—"
He interrupted me. "Now that's," he began, looking around at the other Quakers, "Something I just don't understand around here," referencing the meetinghouse. "My job is to stop those people sneaking in."
He mentioned something about Muslim terrorists posing as Mexicans seeking to harm us because of the freedoms we enjoy.
"Huh," I said. "Is that right? How about that?" I suppose it was my mother who taught me to listen and wait, listening through initial disagreement in order to hear what otherwise would be missed, trusting the conversation and the relationship to push beyond sound bites and rehearsed phrases; to listen and wait enabling people the chance to offer each other something not previously considered, the chance to share from beyond one another's places of comfort. I waited. He continued.
He said a few things that I now forget, and I replied, "Yeah, huh, well, yeah, I hadn't thought of that before. I'm just down here trying to learn more about the Border, so I don't have to rely on the TV to tell me what's going on. You just can't trust it a lot of the time." I told him about a few of our stops along our travel seminar: Border Patrol, Grupo Beta, and a few other stops in the Borderlands.
"I just don't get it," he said. "If they'd just come in legal like the Europeans and Asians…"
"Huh. Yeah. I wonder what that process is," I said.
"It's just all this sneaking…. Besides. They're poor. So why don't they just plant themselves some food? Take care of themselves? I still don't see why—The Europeans, the Asians. They come in legal. It's just all this sneaking."
"Hm," I responded. "That's a good question."
Off hand, I mentioned land speculators pushing people off their land, bad economies, the lack of options and the coyote organizations that include recruiters "all the way down in South Mexico—and even Central America." And then I mentioned quotas, long waits.
"Then, why don't they just wait?" he asked. Frustration looking for an answer. But a question. They weren't fighting words. It was a question.
"That's a good question. I, I don't really know. I think maybe it was something to do with being hungry. But the truth is, I, I don't really know."
"Yeah, well," he responded. "Coming in illegal makes you question a person's core values. You've gotta wonder whether they're honest or not."
Like I mentioned, several things occurred to me this past week concerning the potential Borderlands Movement. First, inspired by Freire, I realized that Americans cannot give the migrants their liberation. It is something Americans can support and aid, but they cannot lead the way. Migrants must lead their own liberation. Perhaps Americans have a role in dramatically illustrating their support, rolling out a red carpet of sorts. In the end, Americans can walk along side, but the explicit movement—like the great migration, the continental momentum—must be initiated from beyond the United States' borders, which leads me to another point.
The Populist, the Labor, and Civil Rights Movement I have previously claimed as strictly American movements. But now I see, they neither were nor are American movements. They were and are the movements of people. And this Borderlands Movement, if there is to be one, will also be a movement of people.
In addition, this movement must be international. It must transcend the border. It must bridge and defy the border that is only as historical as 1848 and only real on paper and temporarily real in wire, fences, and search towers. Ultimately, the movement must be more than bi-national, though it will start here.
It also occurred to me that Dwight is not an enemy of the migrants. He spoke many of the questions and concerns that we should daily ask ourselves. "Why don't they just plant something, take care of themselves?" Indeed. Why do they not? Why can they not? If we coordinate and influence the Borderlands Movement well, we will return to Dwight's question and its cousin: Why are migrants leaving their homes? With the power of movement, we will be able to address these questions that currently haunt our efforts as ghosts, questions seemingly too big, too distant, too political, too global. These questions will become the sustaining provocateur of the Borderlands Movement.
At first Dwight's questions are seen as a threat. They should not be. Why? Because his last statement, his true worry—"You've got to worry whether they're honest or not"—is a worry shared by many in the United States. And it is so easily confronted. Migrants need only be honest. Absolutely honest. Bravely honest. Determinedly honest. Provocatively honest. Forcibly honest.
Gandhi spoke and lived that the point must never be to defeat the adversary but to recruit the adversary to the side of justice, goodwill, right-livelihood, and peace. The point, as Freire puts it, is not to reverse the structure of oppression, making the oppressed the oppressor, but to eliminate this dynamic, thus creating a better world for all. The point is for the oppressed to rise with subsistence to dignity and to redeem the oppressor from the state of mere having to the point of being. In the end, the adversary, whether active or passive, becomes the greatest alley to the cause of justice because the energy of worry and calculation is liberated through understanding to the energy, the great power of love.
I have myself been so converted.
So many that Dwight represents worry that the migrants come to the USA to steal jobs, to rob their homes, to prey on American children. They fear concealment of weapons, drug smuggling, and sneaking. They fear the lack of papers and the use of false papers. They fear migrants may not be honest.
What it comes down to is that they fear dishonesty.
I suggest we confront their fears with honesty. Absolute honesty. Brave honesty. Determined honesty. Provocative honesty. Forceful honesty.
I have an idea. It is full of flaws, I am sure, but I'd like to share it with you.
Let us, migrant and resident, march to the United States' ports of entry with simple hand-written papers which display our name, place of origin, intent and probable destination in the USA, signed by clergy or family members for legitimacy. Let us march—Brown, Black, and White; Indian, Mestizo, and Anglo—together with papers written in honest handwriting, sealed with the sweat of good work and the intent of justice. Guatemalan, Nicaraguan, El Salvadoran, Honduran, Mexican and American together. Let us walk through the ports of entry as honest travelers. Let us walk to cause a response. And let our numbers be such that we will continue marching through the ports of entry until we cause a response or until the laws restricting the free flow of migrants are repealed, nil and void, and the walls that divide us, like Jericho, like Berlin, "come a tumbling down."
The social momentum that, like a wave, like a freight train, is soon to rise and pass us by began decades ago. It picked up steam in 1994 with the passage of NAFTA, its great counter force. It encountered an ocean shelf and so rose a bit higher in 2004 with a tide of migrants. The momentum extends through Mexico, throughout Central America. It is a wave growing larger, a train that cannot be derailed. It is quickly transforming from social momentum into the Social Movement Express, the Borderlands Wave of Change.
Our job is not to create the wave or push the train. Our job is to foreworn and organize for its coming. Yet unlike the prophets of old who were ignored and rejected, we will share the story to be heard. We will ask the questions that cause deep breaths. We will create, transform, and support the organizations that will provide collective strength, coordinate non-violent action, and organize to create a better world.
We will not, should not, shall not let this movement—this moment—pass us by.
May grace blossom in the desert as love shines from the heavens. May people walk with the non-violent determination and joy carried by those who hold the possible in their hearts.
My friends, we,
We have a story.
Unlike a tale,
Our story has an unclear beginning,
And it will never end.
Ours is the story of things not as they should be.
Ours is the story of a people,
of a world,
hungry and thirsty for Shalom.
And ours is the story of the weary glance
we cast at the unimaginable mountain of Shalom
And yet,
Ours is the story of how we rose to the challenge.
Yes, my friends.
We.
We have a story.
We will do our great work.
We will grow weary,
But, ah: We will rise.
Nathan
From the messages I've been receiving, I seems as though, perhaps, folks think that I'm struggling. Well, I've be wressling, yeah, but hardly struggling. I've been synthesizing. I've been strategizing, planning, imagining, instigating, trying like hell to learn spanish, reading, remembering, writing, chatting, walking, seeing, reflecting.
Pending the department's approval, I'll be compiling a senior thesis next spring of personal writings and research on social movements. In that light, you could say, I'm in my element here on the border. I suppose the best way to illustrate this is to cut short the description and share with you an open letter I just composed addressed to "organizers and activists of the Borderlands Movement."
An open letter to the Organizers and Activists of the Borderlands Movement:
Several things have occurred to me regarding the potential Borderlands Movement.
But first, to root myself in experience, I must share with you about a young man I met last week at the Quaker meeting. I'll call him Dwight. Having recently completed his commitment to the Navy in Afghanistan, accepted a job with Homeland Security here in the Boderlands, and began his civilian life in Tucson; he was not the man I expected to meet at the Quaker meeting. It was his second time attending.
"I took care of getting a job," he told me. "So then I knew—my wife and I knew—we had to attend to our spiritual lives." He took a spiritual/religious survey online, he told me, and it told him that he was just about one-hundred percent Quaker. Or one-hundred percent Buddhist. "I don't mean them any disrespect, but I'm not Buddhist," he explained. He made a point to meet me because during visitor self-introductions, —a Quaker tradition—I said I went to school just outside of Asheville, NC.
He asked me if I'd "ever heard of a little place named Swannanoa?" His interest was rooted in his roots: he grew up there. (Warren Wilson College, my school is in the heart of the Swannanoa Valley.) Dwight's father and grandfather worked at the Beacon plant, the textile mill that was the primary employer, life-blood and exploiter of the valley for around 100 years until it closed shop in 2004 to move to Central America for cheaper wage-labor.
He asked what I was doing in Tucson, so I gave him my worn out summary: "BorderLinks semester on the Border… a few months in Tucson… Nogales… travel on both sides of the border… Magdalena… Altar, the place where migrants meet up with their guides to travel through the desert—"
He interrupted me. "Now that's," he began, looking around at the other Quakers, "Something I just don't understand around here," referencing the meetinghouse. "My job is to stop those people sneaking in."
He mentioned something about Muslim terrorists posing as Mexicans seeking to harm us because of the freedoms we enjoy.
"Huh," I said. "Is that right? How about that?" I suppose it was my mother who taught me to listen and wait, listening through initial disagreement in order to hear what otherwise would be missed, trusting the conversation and the relationship to push beyond sound bites and rehearsed phrases; to listen and wait enabling people the chance to offer each other something not previously considered, the chance to share from beyond one another's places of comfort. I waited. He continued.
He said a few things that I now forget, and I replied, "Yeah, huh, well, yeah, I hadn't thought of that before. I'm just down here trying to learn more about the Border, so I don't have to rely on the TV to tell me what's going on. You just can't trust it a lot of the time." I told him about a few of our stops along our travel seminar: Border Patrol, Grupo Beta, and a few other stops in the Borderlands.
"I just don't get it," he said. "If they'd just come in legal like the Europeans and Asians…"
"Huh. Yeah. I wonder what that process is," I said.
"It's just all this sneaking…. Besides. They're poor. So why don't they just plant themselves some food? Take care of themselves? I still don't see why—The Europeans, the Asians. They come in legal. It's just all this sneaking."
"Hm," I responded. "That's a good question."
Off hand, I mentioned land speculators pushing people off their land, bad economies, the lack of options and the coyote organizations that include recruiters "all the way down in South Mexico—and even Central America." And then I mentioned quotas, long waits.
"Then, why don't they just wait?" he asked. Frustration looking for an answer. But a question. They weren't fighting words. It was a question.
"That's a good question. I, I don't really know. I think maybe it was something to do with being hungry. But the truth is, I, I don't really know."
"Yeah, well," he responded. "Coming in illegal makes you question a person's core values. You've gotta wonder whether they're honest or not."
Like I mentioned, several things occurred to me this past week concerning the potential Borderlands Movement. First, inspired by Freire, I realized that Americans cannot give the migrants their liberation. It is something Americans can support and aid, but they cannot lead the way. Migrants must lead their own liberation. Perhaps Americans have a role in dramatically illustrating their support, rolling out a red carpet of sorts. In the end, Americans can walk along side, but the explicit movement—like the great migration, the continental momentum—must be initiated from beyond the United States' borders, which leads me to another point.
The Populist, the Labor, and Civil Rights Movement I have previously claimed as strictly American movements. But now I see, they neither were nor are American movements. They were and are the movements of people. And this Borderlands Movement, if there is to be one, will also be a movement of people.
In addition, this movement must be international. It must transcend the border. It must bridge and defy the border that is only as historical as 1848 and only real on paper and temporarily real in wire, fences, and search towers. Ultimately, the movement must be more than bi-national, though it will start here.
It also occurred to me that Dwight is not an enemy of the migrants. He spoke many of the questions and concerns that we should daily ask ourselves. "Why don't they just plant something, take care of themselves?" Indeed. Why do they not? Why can they not? If we coordinate and influence the Borderlands Movement well, we will return to Dwight's question and its cousin: Why are migrants leaving their homes? With the power of movement, we will be able to address these questions that currently haunt our efforts as ghosts, questions seemingly too big, too distant, too political, too global. These questions will become the sustaining provocateur of the Borderlands Movement.
At first Dwight's questions are seen as a threat. They should not be. Why? Because his last statement, his true worry—"You've got to worry whether they're honest or not"—is a worry shared by many in the United States. And it is so easily confronted. Migrants need only be honest. Absolutely honest. Bravely honest. Determinedly honest. Provocatively honest. Forcibly honest.
Gandhi spoke and lived that the point must never be to defeat the adversary but to recruit the adversary to the side of justice, goodwill, right-livelihood, and peace. The point, as Freire puts it, is not to reverse the structure of oppression, making the oppressed the oppressor, but to eliminate this dynamic, thus creating a better world for all. The point is for the oppressed to rise with subsistence to dignity and to redeem the oppressor from the state of mere having to the point of being. In the end, the adversary, whether active or passive, becomes the greatest alley to the cause of justice because the energy of worry and calculation is liberated through understanding to the energy, the great power of love.
I have myself been so converted.
So many that Dwight represents worry that the migrants come to the USA to steal jobs, to rob their homes, to prey on American children. They fear concealment of weapons, drug smuggling, and sneaking. They fear the lack of papers and the use of false papers. They fear migrants may not be honest.
What it comes down to is that they fear dishonesty.
I suggest we confront their fears with honesty. Absolute honesty. Brave honesty. Determined honesty. Provocative honesty. Forceful honesty.
I have an idea. It is full of flaws, I am sure, but I'd like to share it with you.
Let us, migrant and resident, march to the United States' ports of entry with simple hand-written papers which display our name, place of origin, intent and probable destination in the USA, signed by clergy or family members for legitimacy. Let us march—Brown, Black, and White; Indian, Mestizo, and Anglo—together with papers written in honest handwriting, sealed with the sweat of good work and the intent of justice. Guatemalan, Nicaraguan, El Salvadoran, Honduran, Mexican and American together. Let us walk through the ports of entry as honest travelers. Let us walk to cause a response. And let our numbers be such that we will continue marching through the ports of entry until we cause a response or until the laws restricting the free flow of migrants are repealed, nil and void, and the walls that divide us, like Jericho, like Berlin, "come a tumbling down."
The social momentum that, like a wave, like a freight train, is soon to rise and pass us by began decades ago. It picked up steam in 1994 with the passage of NAFTA, its great counter force. It encountered an ocean shelf and so rose a bit higher in 2004 with a tide of migrants. The momentum extends through Mexico, throughout Central America. It is a wave growing larger, a train that cannot be derailed. It is quickly transforming from social momentum into the Social Movement Express, the Borderlands Wave of Change.
Our job is not to create the wave or push the train. Our job is to foreworn and organize for its coming. Yet unlike the prophets of old who were ignored and rejected, we will share the story to be heard. We will ask the questions that cause deep breaths. We will create, transform, and support the organizations that will provide collective strength, coordinate non-violent action, and organize to create a better world.
We will not, should not, shall not let this movement—this moment—pass us by.
May grace blossom in the desert as love shines from the heavens. May people walk with the non-violent determination and joy carried by those who hold the possible in their hearts.
My friends, we,
We have a story.
Unlike a tale,
Our story has an unclear beginning,
And it will never end.
Ours is the story of things not as they should be.
Ours is the story of a people,
of a world,
hungry and thirsty for Shalom.
And ours is the story of the weary glance
we cast at the unimaginable mountain of Shalom
And yet,
Ours is the story of how we rose to the challenge.
Yes, my friends.
We.
We have a story.
We will do our great work.
We will grow weary,
But, ah: We will rise.
Nathan
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Where's movement gonna come from?
The populist movement was founded upon and emerged from the granges and cooperatives. The labor movement was founded upon and emerged from the labor unions. The civil rights movement was founded upon and emerged from the black churches of the south.
And so, if we are to engage our own movement, of our day, we must ask ourselves: from what organizations will our movement emerge? What organizations will serve as our structural and communal foundation? To think it will be the same organizations—whether cooperatives, unions, or churches—is probably folly. Most likely, our movement will emerge from organizations that seemingly have no power, that have limited political involvement, or—even—is yet to be founded, like the cooperatives of the populist movement. Or, perhaps, like the industrial labor union (like the CIO), the organization will be a radical new twist on an older form that suddenly throws open the doors of possibility.
What will our organizational base be? Well, what is our movement? Will it be relocalization, recommunalization, simplification? A bi-national movement of migrants? Is it possible that the neighborhood associations will rise in strength and prestige? Is it possible that mini-regions will organize?
Or, on another interest, can the high school students organize? Although they cannot vote, and more-often-than-not do not own property, they are minors and so are not legally accountable for their actions. They can make demands based upon creative—but still effective (which is a must)—culture jamming. Perhaps through the demanded reformation of their schools, youth could gain a sense of their power. If one person, one student doesn’t go to school, that student has problems. But, if the whole school refuses to attend classes based upon school’s demeaningness, because of the poor education, the irrelevant education they are receiving, then, in that case, the school has an issue. The school is in a tight spot based upon their school grade. What if everyone—16 to 18—hung the threat of dropping out over the heads of the administration? And, if need be, pursue their GED’s through collective education?
“School’s that bad, huh? Well, what would you change?” As the students began to realize their power, they could offer some constructive solutions to such questions because suddenly they would be afforded the privilege of answering such policy decisions. Furthermore, they would be held accountable by their own lives. They’d have to live the policy they demand. If they didn’t like it, they could change it again.
There’s potential with high schoolers to revamp the educational system in America.
And so, if we are to engage our own movement, of our day, we must ask ourselves: from what organizations will our movement emerge? What organizations will serve as our structural and communal foundation? To think it will be the same organizations—whether cooperatives, unions, or churches—is probably folly. Most likely, our movement will emerge from organizations that seemingly have no power, that have limited political involvement, or—even—is yet to be founded, like the cooperatives of the populist movement. Or, perhaps, like the industrial labor union (like the CIO), the organization will be a radical new twist on an older form that suddenly throws open the doors of possibility.
What will our organizational base be? Well, what is our movement? Will it be relocalization, recommunalization, simplification? A bi-national movement of migrants? Is it possible that the neighborhood associations will rise in strength and prestige? Is it possible that mini-regions will organize?
Or, on another interest, can the high school students organize? Although they cannot vote, and more-often-than-not do not own property, they are minors and so are not legally accountable for their actions. They can make demands based upon creative—but still effective (which is a must)—culture jamming. Perhaps through the demanded reformation of their schools, youth could gain a sense of their power. If one person, one student doesn’t go to school, that student has problems. But, if the whole school refuses to attend classes based upon school’s demeaningness, because of the poor education, the irrelevant education they are receiving, then, in that case, the school has an issue. The school is in a tight spot based upon their school grade. What if everyone—16 to 18—hung the threat of dropping out over the heads of the administration? And, if need be, pursue their GED’s through collective education?
“School’s that bad, huh? Well, what would you change?” As the students began to realize their power, they could offer some constructive solutions to such questions because suddenly they would be afforded the privilege of answering such policy decisions. Furthermore, they would be held accountable by their own lives. They’d have to live the policy they demand. If they didn’t like it, they could change it again.
There’s potential with high schoolers to revamp the educational system in America.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Update from the Border: Prophets and Mvt, VOL VI
To Those Good Folks With Whom I Like To Exchange Stories, share ideas, and mutually engage in real work, visit and generally keep up to date:
Immigration Court.
One prosecuting attorney. Nine or ten public defenders. One interpreter. One court reporter. One "judge." Two marshalls. Nine men in organge. Eight women in red. Seventeen, all of them, in leg chains, hand cuffs anchored to a chain around their waist, with an interpreter's headset pluged into their ears. All for misdemenors.
Three to five of the criminals come forward at a time, beckoned by the judge, "innocent until proven" only in the movies.
Shuffle, shuffle.
"I may be addressing you individually or as a group. Please respond when requested." The judge told them. He tirelessly explained their rights to them: Right to remain silent. Right to a trial. Right to a lawyer. Right to present evidence.
"Please answer out loud, each and everyone of you. I need to hear from each and everyone of you. And please let me hear that you understand. If you plea guilty, you are giving up all these rights. Do you understand? Please answer out loud."
"Do you all plea guilty?"
"Do you feel that you are thinking clearly today? Do you feel there is anyone or anything influencing your decision today? Do you feel that anyone or anything has pressured you into a decision? Please let me know that you have made this decision upon your own free will? Out loud please."
"When you signed your plea agreement and your attorney explained it to you, did you have any problem understanding it? Please answer out loud. Do you understand? Do you feel you are thinking clearly today?"
"Then you agree to give up your right to appeal your 180 day sentence? Is that how you understood it? Please, I need to hear from each and every one of you."
Shuffle out.
"I will be asking you questions either as a group or as individuals. Either way, I need you to answer out loud. No. Nodding the head is not enough. I need you to answer out loud. Do you understand."
Finally the monotony of the judge's speach was interrupted: "Sir," said an organge clad man in accent-laden english, "I'm hardly understanding you."
"Well, if you are having trouble hearing from your apparatus, please inform us, and we'll assist you."
"Do any of you have any questions of me or your attorney at this time? Please answer out loud. Do you understand."
~ ~ ~
"I will be addressing you either as a group or as an individual..."
"Is that what you desire today? To appear before me today? To plea guilty and to be sentenced?"
"Well. Good luck to you all."
"Court adjorned."
~ ~ ~
It's places like this where the prophets were born. It's places like this where Jeremiah heard the Lord call him to, "uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow." It's where Micah asked, "What does the Lord require of you?" It was here that Isaiah wrote of the acceptible sacrifice and fast: "To loose the chains of injustice, untie the cords of the yoke, and to set the oppressed free." And, it's what caused Amos to shout: "Let justice roll on like a river, rigteousness like a never-failing stream."
And, when the prophets left the courtroom, the despicable and returned to the people, it was Ezekiel who spoke of the valley of the dry bones, the people seemingly unable to rise up, to fight, to create a better world: "I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. And the Lord asked me, 'Can these bones live?' And I responded, 'Only you know Lord, only you know.' Then God said to me, 'Tell the truth to these bones, raise them up with your words. Tell them, 'Oh ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life.' So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was speaking, there was a noice, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. Then God said to me, 'Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, young man, and say to it, 'This is what the Lord says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these bones that they may live.'' So I called to the wind as God had commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet-- a vast army."
~ ~ ~
Here's a little lesson from the Civil Rights Movement. From Gandhi. From Saul Alinsky, the Chicago organizer. When the authorities tell you, "Look. I'm sorry. But these are the rules. They exist for a reason." When they don't specify what that reason is, but they submittingly tell you that "They have to uphold the law," you shouldn't begrudge them. In fact, make authority stick to its rules. They have to arrest you? Okay. Fine you? Beat you? Put dogs on you? Don't begrudge them or hate them. It's their job, usually. Don't begrudge them. Overwhelm them. "Rise to the majestic heights of meeting phsyical force with soul force."
In Albany, Georgia, in Tallahassee, FL, in Rochester, NY, in Montgomery, in Harlem, in Lawrenceville, MA, Seattle, San Francisco, in West Virginia, in Swanannoa, NC, when the authorities told people trying to assert labor rights, racial, religious, class rights that they couldn't protest, sing, march, sit, stand, sleep, picket, whatever. When the authorities told them, "You can't do that. We'll have to arrest you" that's when the organizers said, "Really? Okay. Arrest 10,000 of us. Arrest our children. Arrest our grand mothers and grand fathers. While you're at it, arrest the black-folk in the next county over." And suddenly, Albany, GA's cells are filled up. Everyone's family in the world is sending letters to the Mayor's office. They're swimming in them. The economy of little Albany is about to go capoot because-- aside from the fact that everyone's employees, plus a nice selection of managers and store owners, are in jail-- anything from or headed to Albany just got put on the economic black list.
The rank and file cops didn't read the memo, so they arrested Martin Luther King, Jr while they were at it, so now little Albany's got the President of the United states breathing down its back. The judges realize, upon their frist trial with a person who's been trained in willful-ignorance and misunderstanding, that they're going to be hearing cases for people who walked on the wrong side of the street, the wrong side of a line (the wrong side of a border?) for the next 420 years. And about that time, somewhere about that time, as the rules ease over to make room for justice, a movement is born because the people realize they can achieve more than the pittance they set out to bargain for.
~ ~ ~
Like a seed waiting for spring, movement is brewing on the border.
Nathan
Immigration Court.
One prosecuting attorney. Nine or ten public defenders. One interpreter. One court reporter. One "judge." Two marshalls. Nine men in organge. Eight women in red. Seventeen, all of them, in leg chains, hand cuffs anchored to a chain around their waist, with an interpreter's headset pluged into their ears. All for misdemenors.
Three to five of the criminals come forward at a time, beckoned by the judge, "innocent until proven" only in the movies.
Shuffle, shuffle.
"I may be addressing you individually or as a group. Please respond when requested." The judge told them. He tirelessly explained their rights to them: Right to remain silent. Right to a trial. Right to a lawyer. Right to present evidence.
"Please answer out loud, each and everyone of you. I need to hear from each and everyone of you. And please let me hear that you understand. If you plea guilty, you are giving up all these rights. Do you understand? Please answer out loud."
"Do you all plea guilty?"
"Do you feel that you are thinking clearly today? Do you feel there is anyone or anything influencing your decision today? Do you feel that anyone or anything has pressured you into a decision? Please let me know that you have made this decision upon your own free will? Out loud please."
"When you signed your plea agreement and your attorney explained it to you, did you have any problem understanding it? Please answer out loud. Do you understand? Do you feel you are thinking clearly today?"
"Then you agree to give up your right to appeal your 180 day sentence? Is that how you understood it? Please, I need to hear from each and every one of you."
Shuffle out.
"I will be asking you questions either as a group or as individuals. Either way, I need you to answer out loud. No. Nodding the head is not enough. I need you to answer out loud. Do you understand."
Finally the monotony of the judge's speach was interrupted: "Sir," said an organge clad man in accent-laden english, "I'm hardly understanding you."
"Well, if you are having trouble hearing from your apparatus, please inform us, and we'll assist you."
"Do any of you have any questions of me or your attorney at this time? Please answer out loud. Do you understand."
~ ~ ~
"I will be addressing you either as a group or as an individual..."
"Is that what you desire today? To appear before me today? To plea guilty and to be sentenced?"
"Well. Good luck to you all."
"Court adjorned."
~ ~ ~
It's places like this where the prophets were born. It's places like this where Jeremiah heard the Lord call him to, "uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow." It's where Micah asked, "What does the Lord require of you?" It was here that Isaiah wrote of the acceptible sacrifice and fast: "To loose the chains of injustice, untie the cords of the yoke, and to set the oppressed free." And, it's what caused Amos to shout: "Let justice roll on like a river, rigteousness like a never-failing stream."
And, when the prophets left the courtroom, the despicable and returned to the people, it was Ezekiel who spoke of the valley of the dry bones, the people seemingly unable to rise up, to fight, to create a better world: "I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. And the Lord asked me, 'Can these bones live?' And I responded, 'Only you know Lord, only you know.' Then God said to me, 'Tell the truth to these bones, raise them up with your words. Tell them, 'Oh ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life.' So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was speaking, there was a noice, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. Then God said to me, 'Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, young man, and say to it, 'This is what the Lord says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these bones that they may live.'' So I called to the wind as God had commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet-- a vast army."
~ ~ ~
Here's a little lesson from the Civil Rights Movement. From Gandhi. From Saul Alinsky, the Chicago organizer. When the authorities tell you, "Look. I'm sorry. But these are the rules. They exist for a reason." When they don't specify what that reason is, but they submittingly tell you that "They have to uphold the law," you shouldn't begrudge them. In fact, make authority stick to its rules. They have to arrest you? Okay. Fine you? Beat you? Put dogs on you? Don't begrudge them or hate them. It's their job, usually. Don't begrudge them. Overwhelm them. "Rise to the majestic heights of meeting phsyical force with soul force."
In Albany, Georgia, in Tallahassee, FL, in Rochester, NY, in Montgomery, in Harlem, in Lawrenceville, MA, Seattle, San Francisco, in West Virginia, in Swanannoa, NC, when the authorities told people trying to assert labor rights, racial, religious, class rights that they couldn't protest, sing, march, sit, stand, sleep, picket, whatever. When the authorities told them, "You can't do that. We'll have to arrest you" that's when the organizers said, "Really? Okay. Arrest 10,000 of us. Arrest our children. Arrest our grand mothers and grand fathers. While you're at it, arrest the black-folk in the next county over." And suddenly, Albany, GA's cells are filled up. Everyone's family in the world is sending letters to the Mayor's office. They're swimming in them. The economy of little Albany is about to go capoot because-- aside from the fact that everyone's employees, plus a nice selection of managers and store owners, are in jail-- anything from or headed to Albany just got put on the economic black list.
The rank and file cops didn't read the memo, so they arrested Martin Luther King, Jr while they were at it, so now little Albany's got the President of the United states breathing down its back. The judges realize, upon their frist trial with a person who's been trained in willful-ignorance and misunderstanding, that they're going to be hearing cases for people who walked on the wrong side of the street, the wrong side of a line (the wrong side of a border?) for the next 420 years. And about that time, somewhere about that time, as the rules ease over to make room for justice, a movement is born because the people realize they can achieve more than the pittance they set out to bargain for.
~ ~ ~
Like a seed waiting for spring, movement is brewing on the border.
Nathan
Update from the Border: Why'r they coming?, VOL V
To Those Good Folks With Whom I Like To Exchange Stories, share ideas, and mutually engage in real work, visit and generally keep up to date:
The question that nobody is asking, the question that everyone should
be asking, the question that I haven't answered, the question hanging
over all the border, national and international policy, transport,
trade, economics, immigration, emigration, migration, Mexicans,
Americans, Guatemalans, El Salvadorans, Nicaraguans, rich, poor,
middle class...
The question is this: Why are they coming? Border Patrol apprehended
350,000 people last year in the Tucson sector (about 2/3 of AZ) alone.
Probably that many folks made it through. Nobody knows for sure.
220 people have died in the desert this year trying to get through.
And still they come.
We asked our Border Patrol tour guide last Monday whether he ever got
frustrated with the apparent futility of his job. "Do you ever get
frustrated because nobody seems to be doing anything about why people
are coming?" He said, "It used to bother me. But now, I just try not
to let it get to me."
Last weekend, we visited an artist's house in the desert. Every
morning when she takes her dog on a walk, she discovers items dropped,
discarded, lost by the migrants. Back packs, jackets, water jugs,
children's shoes, electrolyte packets, Tylenol, notebooks, love notes,
cloth tortilla napkins, Disney backpacks with the likes of "A Bug's
Life" and "Monster's Inc" displayed in shiny plastic (the straps
pulled up tight to fit an eight-year-old), tooth brushes, diaries,
bibles, blankets, meds, socks, blister first-aid, hats. With all the
items, she creates art pieces. One display I will remember for a long
time.
It was a simple black frame holding sun-bleach photos of a Young
woman, a sweat-stained, white bra, and a half-taken packet of birth
control. The caption told about the story of woman migrants. It said:
Most women are recommended to begin taking birth control several weeks
before their departure for the US because: the chances are they'll get
raped on the way. And, if you don't want to carry the child of your
desert crossing, then...
And, yet they come? Why on earth? What would cause people to come
knowing, anticipating rape? What force drives them north? What would
it take?
~ ~ ~
Last Tuesday, we met with the director of BorderLinks in Mexico: Kiko,
or Francisco. I didn't realize the nickname until yesterday. He was
just "Kiko."
"I hear the same story over and over again," he told us. "They keep
coming from Oaxaca, Chiapas. Everyone is from Chiapas," he
exaggerated. "It's always the same story." He tried to jump forward
to the maquilas (factories) of Nogales. But, we held him back.
"What's the story? You keep mentioning it. What is it?" we asked.
~ ~ ~
The story:
People have been struggling for generations. Some up and some downs.
But enough. Most folks in Mexico were able to live a dignified life.
They were able to feed their kids, especially the farmers. They were
able to grow enough during the growing season to last through the dry
season. On a whole, "The were pretty happy," Kiko described.
As modernity crept in, folks didn't necessarily grind their own corn
and make their own tortillas any more, but it worked out. There were
two major tortilla producers in Mexico, and the tortilla producers
were required to buy the majority of their corn from local producers.
Local. Some could come from broader Mexico. In other words, a small
portion of the corn input could be purchased from Mexican
agri-business, but most had to be bought from small, local,
(Indigenous) farmers. And even less could be purchased from the
international market. The farmers adapted to modernity, sold to the
tortilla producers, and grew dependent on this market.
Then, thing began to change rather dramatically, especially after the
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. They lost their
market share to the international market. The tortilla producers were
no longer required to purchase any of their input corn from local
producers. All Mexican farm subsidies were eliminated prior to the
ratification of NAFTA while all the US farm subsidies weren't reduced
at all. (I think this year US farm subsidies amounted to over 30
billion dollars. But, maybe I have my facts wrong.) Cheap corn
flooded the Mexican market. There's an economic word for this: it's
called "Dumping." Selling products in a foreign market below the cost
of production. It's supposedly illegal under global economic
agreements. Not under NAFTA.
"For generations," Kiko told us, "farming communities grew corn, saved
for themselves, and sold a little." Under NAFTA, they had no market.
"They couldn't compete with the big guys." Good ole economic
efficiency. Plus, prior to the ratification of NAFTA, all communally
held land (tribal land), was individualized by national decree.
"Private Property," declare the neo-classical economists, "is best for
everyone."
Speculators moved in, taxes went up. It's a story middle class
Americans are growing to dislike.
With no other option, the farmers put up their land for sale, hoping
the money would be enough for their migration to the United States.
Plus, of course, there are all those who subsisted as mechanics,
plumbers, store clerks, office workers, mule-trainers, all dependent
upon the farm economy as the foundation for their livelihood.
That's the story.
~ ~ ~
Is it a good enough reason? Well. Who's to say? There's probably a
whole lot more to it as there's a whole lot more between the lines of
that story.
Nathan
The question that nobody is asking, the question that everyone should
be asking, the question that I haven't answered, the question hanging
over all the border, national and international policy, transport,
trade, economics, immigration, emigration, migration, Mexicans,
Americans, Guatemalans, El Salvadorans, Nicaraguans, rich, poor,
middle class...
The question is this: Why are they coming? Border Patrol apprehended
350,000 people last year in the Tucson sector (about 2/3 of AZ) alone.
Probably that many folks made it through. Nobody knows for sure.
220 people have died in the desert this year trying to get through.
And still they come.
We asked our Border Patrol tour guide last Monday whether he ever got
frustrated with the apparent futility of his job. "Do you ever get
frustrated because nobody seems to be doing anything about why people
are coming?" He said, "It used to bother me. But now, I just try not
to let it get to me."
Last weekend, we visited an artist's house in the desert. Every
morning when she takes her dog on a walk, she discovers items dropped,
discarded, lost by the migrants. Back packs, jackets, water jugs,
children's shoes, electrolyte packets, Tylenol, notebooks, love notes,
cloth tortilla napkins, Disney backpacks with the likes of "A Bug's
Life" and "Monster's Inc" displayed in shiny plastic (the straps
pulled up tight to fit an eight-year-old), tooth brushes, diaries,
bibles, blankets, meds, socks, blister first-aid, hats. With all the
items, she creates art pieces. One display I will remember for a long
time.
It was a simple black frame holding sun-bleach photos of a Young
woman, a sweat-stained, white bra, and a half-taken packet of birth
control. The caption told about the story of woman migrants. It said:
Most women are recommended to begin taking birth control several weeks
before their departure for the US because: the chances are they'll get
raped on the way. And, if you don't want to carry the child of your
desert crossing, then...
And, yet they come? Why on earth? What would cause people to come
knowing, anticipating rape? What force drives them north? What would
it take?
~ ~ ~
Last Tuesday, we met with the director of BorderLinks in Mexico: Kiko,
or Francisco. I didn't realize the nickname until yesterday. He was
just "Kiko."
"I hear the same story over and over again," he told us. "They keep
coming from Oaxaca, Chiapas. Everyone is from Chiapas," he
exaggerated. "It's always the same story." He tried to jump forward
to the maquilas (factories) of Nogales. But, we held him back.
"What's the story? You keep mentioning it. What is it?" we asked.
~ ~ ~
The story:
People have been struggling for generations. Some up and some downs.
But enough. Most folks in Mexico were able to live a dignified life.
They were able to feed their kids, especially the farmers. They were
able to grow enough during the growing season to last through the dry
season. On a whole, "The were pretty happy," Kiko described.
As modernity crept in, folks didn't necessarily grind their own corn
and make their own tortillas any more, but it worked out. There were
two major tortilla producers in Mexico, and the tortilla producers
were required to buy the majority of their corn from local producers.
Local. Some could come from broader Mexico. In other words, a small
portion of the corn input could be purchased from Mexican
agri-business, but most had to be bought from small, local,
(Indigenous) farmers. And even less could be purchased from the
international market. The farmers adapted to modernity, sold to the
tortilla producers, and grew dependent on this market.
Then, thing began to change rather dramatically, especially after the
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. They lost their
market share to the international market. The tortilla producers were
no longer required to purchase any of their input corn from local
producers. All Mexican farm subsidies were eliminated prior to the
ratification of NAFTA while all the US farm subsidies weren't reduced
at all. (I think this year US farm subsidies amounted to over 30
billion dollars. But, maybe I have my facts wrong.) Cheap corn
flooded the Mexican market. There's an economic word for this: it's
called "Dumping." Selling products in a foreign market below the cost
of production. It's supposedly illegal under global economic
agreements. Not under NAFTA.
"For generations," Kiko told us, "farming communities grew corn, saved
for themselves, and sold a little." Under NAFTA, they had no market.
"They couldn't compete with the big guys." Good ole economic
efficiency. Plus, prior to the ratification of NAFTA, all communally
held land (tribal land), was individualized by national decree.
"Private Property," declare the neo-classical economists, "is best for
everyone."
Speculators moved in, taxes went up. It's a story middle class
Americans are growing to dislike.
With no other option, the farmers put up their land for sale, hoping
the money would be enough for their migration to the United States.
Plus, of course, there are all those who subsisted as mechanics,
plumbers, store clerks, office workers, mule-trainers, all dependent
upon the farm economy as the foundation for their livelihood.
That's the story.
~ ~ ~
Is it a good enough reason? Well. Who's to say? There's probably a
whole lot more to it as there's a whole lot more between the lines of
that story.
Nathan
Update from the Border: How's life?, VOL IV
To Those Good Folks With Whom I Like To Exchange Stories, share ideas, and mutually engage in real work, visit and generally keep up to date:
This past summer, I started talking with Travis, a twelve-year-old at our neighborhood block party. He lives just down the street from me. I'd been speaking with loads of adults from the neighborhood. Having seen me grow up over the years-- they didn't necessarily know my name, but they knew or knew of me because I'd had a garden in my front yard since I was eight-- they all wanted to know how I was doing. Seemed like everyone wanted a two minute summation of my life. I was worn down by the time I started talking with Travis.
"Whew, Travis," I said. "I'm wiped out. All these folks keep asking me the hardest question in the world." "Yeah? What's that?" he asked. "Oh. You know. Some form of 'How's it going? What have you been up to? How are you? What's new? How's life?'" I responded. The problem is, what folks actually mean when they ask these questions is: "It's good to see you." But I always get sidetracked by the question mark at the end, and so I try to give them an answer. All those, "How's life's" will ware you out.
"Oh, that's-" he looked down, squinted his eyebrows in dismissal. He shook his head and looked up at me smiling. "That's not a hard question. Here's what you say. Just tell them: 'Well. Hm. My family and I all ate three meals yesterday and had a couple of snacks. Each one of us got around eight hours sleep, and," he added with gusto: "And, we crapped two times. Life is good.'" The kid's right. My life is great.
~ ~ ~
In 2004, the spring of my senior year in high school, I worked in a Mexican Restaurant. The first day of work, "the guys" (the servers) assembled at the host stand-- where the cash registers were also at-- to roll silverware into napkins. I was a host. They asked me, "Tienes hermanas?" Do you have any sisters? When I told them I did, they all began smiling. "Si guey?" (pronounced like the english word "weigh.") Really? They asked me. They asked me if I had a picture of Kelley or Karen, my sisters, in my wallet. No, I told them. "No guey? No? No?!" Really? Common? Really?
The second day, they began calling me, "Cunado," brother-in-law. Everyday, they asked me for a "foto." "Que Pasa, guey. When you going to bring me a foto guey?" "Watch out man. I've got this big tray, guey. Move over guey. You have a foto guey?" "Que Pasa piche guey? Que vas hacer este noche guey? Muevete guey." What's up, guey. What are you going to do tonigh, man? Get out of my way, man. "When you going to bring me a foto of my spouse, man?" And on it went.
As it turned out, they taught me all the bad words without my knowing it. "Guey," they used like like folks say, "man" or like how California surfers use "Dude." It's a filler word, a word of affection. Imagine the teenage males in your life talking about "my boys." It's kind of like that, or at least, they used it like that. They told me it meant "Man." "Guey" actually means "castrated bull." "Hey nutless. How's it going nutless? Yeah? Eunich. Watch out, Eunich. Get out of my way, no-balls." But I didn't know it, so I blundered through spanglish throwing profanities around like a sailor. I guess I should have figured things out when they kept insisting that I not speak spanish when there were spanish patrons in the restaurant.
I didn't figure it out until I visited church friends in Puerto Rico. Another thing I learned: Don't say, "I want meat!" with gusto in Puerto Rico. It doesn't quite carry the literal translation. I'll leave that for you to chew on.
~ ~ ~
So, this story about my days in the Mexican Restaurant, La Fiesta, back in Tallahassee-- I told to a handful of guys gathered in a Casa de huespedes. Literally translated, it means, "House of Guests." Casa de Huespedes are all over Altar, Sonora- just a few miles from the Border. It's fancy name for an expensive homeless shelter. Homeless shelter by design; expensive by price. The bunks are made of wood framing and plywood. Matresses? Forget it. Count your lucky stars there's quarter inch carpet padding your backside. The cielings were 8-10 feet up. Bunks: there were four to six beds vertically, stacked like sardines.
The Casas de Huespedes of Altar, Sonora are the last resting point in Mexico for the Migrants on their journey north to the states. The Coyotes, human smugglers, recruit clients telling them their walk through the desert will only last "Five, six hours, max. We'll start tomorrow morning. You'll be in Phoenix before tomorrow evening."
It always takes three days. Increasingly, it's taking five, six, seven, eight days because of increasing Border Patrol presence,
digital surveillance, and "patriot" vigilantes along the "short" routes necessitating longer trips through the "Devil's Highway" as it's known. Migrants start with two gallons of water, which is really "too much" for their short walk in the desert.
Sweet dreams in the Casa de Huespedes. Get some rest. After all, the tired are the first to succomb to dehydration and heat exhaution in the desert.
So, I told these guys my story of the Mexican restaurant in horrendous spanish. I told them about the guys that called me "Brother-in-Law" with a wink and a request for a "foto." We laughed some more.
"How old are you?" I asked the guys. Cuantos anos tienes, guey? 22, 19, 20, 17. "Where are you going?" "New York," one guy told me. "Alabama." "Dever." "I don't know." They've got no concept of the distance. Denver, they've been convinced, is "just up the road." Florida? No problem. New York. Not too far. One of the guys, a guy from Guatemala that had tried to cross once before but was picked up by the Border Patrol, he asked me-- his name was Juan, I'm pretty sure-- "If you see a migrant in the desert, you'll call the Border Patrol?" "Yeah. Would you?" asked the 17 year old, now with scared eyes that betrayed his mexican machoism.
Seventeen. God. Kids that young aren't even in college. Not out of high school. If he weren't the one headed for the border, I'd be his role model, his protector, his big-college-aged-buddy. I'd be tutoring him, or advising him on girls at church camp. But, in this case, I've got nothing to offer. He's the one carrying his family's dreams on his back, and all I've got to offer are distances: "You know New York, it's very far. I traveled from Florida on the bus, and it took two whole days. And New York is very far. At least three, four, five days on the bus. Walking? No. No puedes. You can't. Never. Alabama? Very far. It's right next to Florida..."
The seventeen year old looked me in the face: "I could get a ride with you?" he asked. The kid had only just gotten a moustache. "No man," I told him, "we can't because of the Migra, the Border Patrol." He kept going: "I could fit under your seat? How about that? Or, how about under your van? With ropes?" "Or," someone else added, "you could paint him, so he'll be lighter skinned?"
And, to my other side, was the 22-year-old from Guatemala. He only made it one hour across the border last time before being caught. Because of the Guatemalan passport he was carrying, he wsa returned all the way home. The journey from Guatemala to Altar is three to five days on the bus. For the past two years-- since his deportation-- he'd been saving moeny to make the trip again. He knew of the Coyote fees, the required brides, the roberries, the overpriced food and lodging required of the migrants. He was among the lucky. He knew what he was getting into.
That night, at the migrant shelter, we met Angel. He's 40. He's got two little girls. Eight and 12 years-old. His family lives in Sonora. He just returned from the US three months ago after finishing a summer landscaping job in Denver. After a visit to his family, he's heading back, this time for a job working on snow removal in rich neighborhoods. He's going to go alone, he told us. People don't go alone. Being left alone in the desert is the death sentence where the devil and his demons handle the appeals. Alone with desolation, the devil, and the heat, on the way to the promised land. Though he smiles to earn his name, with the dimple-wrinkles of a wise elder, this is not a man in need of pity.
~ ~ ~
I stayed up late last Wednesday night. In the last moments before sleep, I scribbled out a few words: "Who will be caught by the Bordder Patrol? Made to show their anus? Who will be robbed? Beaten? Jailed? Abandoned in the desert? Who among those I met today will die in the crossing? Could be any of them. Ay Guey!"
~ ~ ~
Do you know what a migrant says when you ask her how's she doing? How's life? What's new?
No?
Me either. What if she actually tried to answer?
Hell, the question wares me out, and the first to succomb to heat exhaustion in the desert crossing are those who...
Nathan
This past summer, I started talking with Travis, a twelve-year-old at our neighborhood block party. He lives just down the street from me. I'd been speaking with loads of adults from the neighborhood. Having seen me grow up over the years-- they didn't necessarily know my name, but they knew or knew of me because I'd had a garden in my front yard since I was eight-- they all wanted to know how I was doing. Seemed like everyone wanted a two minute summation of my life. I was worn down by the time I started talking with Travis.
"Whew, Travis," I said. "I'm wiped out. All these folks keep asking me the hardest question in the world." "Yeah? What's that?" he asked. "Oh. You know. Some form of 'How's it going? What have you been up to? How are you? What's new? How's life?'" I responded. The problem is, what folks actually mean when they ask these questions is: "It's good to see you." But I always get sidetracked by the question mark at the end, and so I try to give them an answer. All those, "How's life's" will ware you out.
"Oh, that's-" he looked down, squinted his eyebrows in dismissal. He shook his head and looked up at me smiling. "That's not a hard question. Here's what you say. Just tell them: 'Well. Hm. My family and I all ate three meals yesterday and had a couple of snacks. Each one of us got around eight hours sleep, and," he added with gusto: "And, we crapped two times. Life is good.'" The kid's right. My life is great.
~ ~ ~
In 2004, the spring of my senior year in high school, I worked in a Mexican Restaurant. The first day of work, "the guys" (the servers) assembled at the host stand-- where the cash registers were also at-- to roll silverware into napkins. I was a host. They asked me, "Tienes hermanas?" Do you have any sisters? When I told them I did, they all began smiling. "Si guey?" (pronounced like the english word "weigh.") Really? They asked me. They asked me if I had a picture of Kelley or Karen, my sisters, in my wallet. No, I told them. "No guey? No? No?!" Really? Common? Really?
The second day, they began calling me, "Cunado," brother-in-law. Everyday, they asked me for a "foto." "Que Pasa, guey. When you going to bring me a foto guey?" "Watch out man. I've got this big tray, guey. Move over guey. You have a foto guey?" "Que Pasa piche guey? Que vas hacer este noche guey? Muevete guey." What's up, guey. What are you going to do tonigh, man? Get out of my way, man. "When you going to bring me a foto of my spouse, man?" And on it went.
As it turned out, they taught me all the bad words without my knowing it. "Guey," they used like like folks say, "man" or like how California surfers use "Dude." It's a filler word, a word of affection. Imagine the teenage males in your life talking about "my boys." It's kind of like that, or at least, they used it like that. They told me it meant "Man." "Guey" actually means "castrated bull." "Hey nutless. How's it going nutless? Yeah? Eunich. Watch out, Eunich. Get out of my way, no-balls." But I didn't know it, so I blundered through spanglish throwing profanities around like a sailor. I guess I should have figured things out when they kept insisting that I not speak spanish when there were spanish patrons in the restaurant.
I didn't figure it out until I visited church friends in Puerto Rico. Another thing I learned: Don't say, "I want meat!" with gusto in Puerto Rico. It doesn't quite carry the literal translation. I'll leave that for you to chew on.
~ ~ ~
So, this story about my days in the Mexican Restaurant, La Fiesta, back in Tallahassee-- I told to a handful of guys gathered in a Casa de huespedes. Literally translated, it means, "House of Guests." Casa de Huespedes are all over Altar, Sonora- just a few miles from the Border. It's fancy name for an expensive homeless shelter. Homeless shelter by design; expensive by price. The bunks are made of wood framing and plywood. Matresses? Forget it. Count your lucky stars there's quarter inch carpet padding your backside. The cielings were 8-10 feet up. Bunks: there were four to six beds vertically, stacked like sardines.
The Casas de Huespedes of Altar, Sonora are the last resting point in Mexico for the Migrants on their journey north to the states. The Coyotes, human smugglers, recruit clients telling them their walk through the desert will only last "Five, six hours, max. We'll start tomorrow morning. You'll be in Phoenix before tomorrow evening."
It always takes three days. Increasingly, it's taking five, six, seven, eight days because of increasing Border Patrol presence,
digital surveillance, and "patriot" vigilantes along the "short" routes necessitating longer trips through the "Devil's Highway" as it's known. Migrants start with two gallons of water, which is really "too much" for their short walk in the desert.
Sweet dreams in the Casa de Huespedes. Get some rest. After all, the tired are the first to succomb to dehydration and heat exhaution in the desert.
So, I told these guys my story of the Mexican restaurant in horrendous spanish. I told them about the guys that called me "Brother-in-Law" with a wink and a request for a "foto." We laughed some more.
"How old are you?" I asked the guys. Cuantos anos tienes, guey? 22, 19, 20, 17. "Where are you going?" "New York," one guy told me. "Alabama." "Dever." "I don't know." They've got no concept of the distance. Denver, they've been convinced, is "just up the road." Florida? No problem. New York. Not too far. One of the guys, a guy from Guatemala that had tried to cross once before but was picked up by the Border Patrol, he asked me-- his name was Juan, I'm pretty sure-- "If you see a migrant in the desert, you'll call the Border Patrol?" "Yeah. Would you?" asked the 17 year old, now with scared eyes that betrayed his mexican machoism.
Seventeen. God. Kids that young aren't even in college. Not out of high school. If he weren't the one headed for the border, I'd be his role model, his protector, his big-college-aged-buddy. I'd be tutoring him, or advising him on girls at church camp. But, in this case, I've got nothing to offer. He's the one carrying his family's dreams on his back, and all I've got to offer are distances: "You know New York, it's very far. I traveled from Florida on the bus, and it took two whole days. And New York is very far. At least three, four, five days on the bus. Walking? No. No puedes. You can't. Never. Alabama? Very far. It's right next to Florida..."
The seventeen year old looked me in the face: "I could get a ride with you?" he asked. The kid had only just gotten a moustache. "No man," I told him, "we can't because of the Migra, the Border Patrol." He kept going: "I could fit under your seat? How about that? Or, how about under your van? With ropes?" "Or," someone else added, "you could paint him, so he'll be lighter skinned?"
And, to my other side, was the 22-year-old from Guatemala. He only made it one hour across the border last time before being caught. Because of the Guatemalan passport he was carrying, he wsa returned all the way home. The journey from Guatemala to Altar is three to five days on the bus. For the past two years-- since his deportation-- he'd been saving moeny to make the trip again. He knew of the Coyote fees, the required brides, the roberries, the overpriced food and lodging required of the migrants. He was among the lucky. He knew what he was getting into.
That night, at the migrant shelter, we met Angel. He's 40. He's got two little girls. Eight and 12 years-old. His family lives in Sonora. He just returned from the US three months ago after finishing a summer landscaping job in Denver. After a visit to his family, he's heading back, this time for a job working on snow removal in rich neighborhoods. He's going to go alone, he told us. People don't go alone. Being left alone in the desert is the death sentence where the devil and his demons handle the appeals. Alone with desolation, the devil, and the heat, on the way to the promised land. Though he smiles to earn his name, with the dimple-wrinkles of a wise elder, this is not a man in need of pity.
~ ~ ~
I stayed up late last Wednesday night. In the last moments before sleep, I scribbled out a few words: "Who will be caught by the Bordder Patrol? Made to show their anus? Who will be robbed? Beaten? Jailed? Abandoned in the desert? Who among those I met today will die in the crossing? Could be any of them. Ay Guey!"
~ ~ ~
Do you know what a migrant says when you ask her how's she doing? How's life? What's new?
No?
Me either. What if she actually tried to answer?
Hell, the question wares me out, and the first to succomb to heat exhaustion in the desert crossing are those who...
Nathan
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