So, I'm skipping a good half year from the subject of my last post. This is not to discredit any of the JVC experience that happened between, I sincerely hope that I will be able to revisit it within the next couple of weeks, if not I'm certain I'll revisit it in good time. However, I need to try to tell you what happened when we crossed the border to Mexico.
Working in my office you can't help but become familiar with all sorts of immigration difficulties that were barely on my radar last year, much less two years ago when I began my journey as a Jesuit Volunteer. I answer the phones and one of the most common calls I get is one saying that a relative (husband, wife, brother, sister, son, daughter) is in detention and is in danger of being deported. Oftentimes this means that individual has committed some crime, anything from a minor offense to a larger crime, and is now detained by ICE (Immigration Customs Enforcement) after they've either completed their prison sentence or been acquitted. ICE then detains them in its own jail facilities. Unfortunately, as a very small and very new non-profit, NMILC doesn't have the resources to provide representation or even a consultation in these cases unless the person is able to be let go on bond. So I refer ever single one of those calls on to an agency in El Paso, where New Mexico's Immigration Court is, where they may or may not be able to get assistance. Many individuals in the immigration system aren't even entitled to an attorney as they are in the criminal justice system. So I help them as best I can, wish them luck, wishing with all of my heart that there were words more fit to the occassion, and, usually amid a tearful telephonic farewell of "gracias, muy amable" (thank you, very kind of you) we are disconnected forever.
This past weekend I saw the other side of that story, what happens during and after that deportation.
My three communitymates and I made the trek out to Arizona on Thursday evening after a full day of work. By the time we got in to Tucson at midnight we were all bushed and fell promptly asleep.
The following afternoon, we joined up with the group of Arizona JVs to witness operation streamline, a mass court hearing. Nearly 80 individuals stood before the judge, all in the room with their attorneys, with whom they had met for perhaps 10 - 30 minutes if they were lucky. All the detainees were shackled. All were re-entry cases, which means they had previously been deported and had returned to the United States only to be caught again. All had signed a plea bargain already, agreeing with the state to a specific amount of time in prison. At the beginning of the hearing the judge, one of the more patient ones I've had the pleasure of witnessing, informed them of their rights and how the hearing would proceed. Then she proceeded to call them up in groups of 8 -10, rattling off the same series of questions to verify the facts of their case, that they understood their rights and how they plead. The same questions over and over and, aside from some clarifications for lack of understanding, the same answers "culpable" (guilty). Then the judge would rattle off their individual prison time and would be done with it. Upon one or two occasions, she was petitioned further. One man asked to have his sentence shortened because both he and his son would be serving and his wife had just had her leg amputated. The judge, while she seemed to genuinely sympathize with his situation, was literally unable to do anything; he had already signed his agreement with the government and she could make no amends to it. The most she was able to do was recommend that he and his son serve their time in the same detention facility. And it went on in that manner for an hour and a half . . . 80 people, their lives decided just like that within 14 days of being caught and charged with re-entry.
The following day we crossed the actual border between Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Sonora (Mexico). Having crossed into Juarez earlier in the year with Alex I was not as nervous as some of the fellow crossees, but was anxious for another reason. Two days before I had been asked to translate for the group at the women's shelter, since the majority of my companions don't speak Spanish and the only other fluent individuals were to remain at the Comedor (the dining room of the Kino Border Initiative). We crossed (it's truly amazing how little documentation you need to cross into Mexico; we had to present nothing, no passport no id, nada) and took a bus to the organization. On the way there we learned about the work that KBI does, helping deported immigrants who are deciding whether to try to return to the U.S. The two main programs that we saw were the Comedor and the Women's Shelter. We stayed in the Comedor for our orientation and then the group of 7 of us made our way to the Women's Shelter with our guide, a 22 year old native Mexican volunteer working at KBI, Ale. We made our way up so many stairs to the top floor of an apartment building where the shelter was and then met our leader, one of the sisters. She gave us a presentation about the work of the shelter empowering and supporting the 8 women who live there for 7 days at a time through self-esteem classes, meals, education and a variety of other programming. Then the women came in. From the work I do screening phone calls and hearing so many defeated stories I was prepared for the worst. However, when the women entered the room, they seemed anything but defeated. They were friendly right off the bat and even tried to communicate with my non-Spanish speaking friends. We asked them to share their stories and they did, so openly, willingly, and powerfully that I hated to stop them for me to translate what they'd said. We primarily heard from two or three of the women and others chimed in. They had all faced terrible hardships. One woman after previously having been deported was so determined to get to the United States that she scaled the wall not once, but twice once to the United States side and then when "la Migra" (Immigration) spied her and it was clear they were going to get her, she scaled it again, back to the "safety" of Mexico. She is the same woman who said that she looked at the positive side of her experience and didn't let her negative experiences get in the way of what needed to be done. I looked around at the women in that room after the stories were told, stories of trying to get better jobs, of trying to save their children from danger in Mexico and in turn being separated from them, terrible stories of brutality done to them in the detention centers (one woman who didn't speak Spanish or English had her arm broken because she couldn't understand what the guards wanted her to do). As we neared the end of our conversation, I kept thanking them, on behalf of both myself and the other volunteers, but they just kept thanking us in return. They asked us to change the system and joked about smuggling them in our suitcases. But overall, they persistently thanked us for being there. I wanted to tell them that the privilege was ours, that I had been truly humbled by their experience and that they were some of the strongest women that I've ever met and I did, but I didn't have the words in English or in Spanish to express what came to my heart. After that discussion, we retired to the apartment with some of the women we had just met and watched an Avril Lavigne music video. Then we reunited with the rest of our group. One of my communitymates asked me if I'd cried and I didn't answer him, I just put my arm around him, so grateful to have the presence of my Albuquerque "family" whom I love to death.
After a talk from one of the Jesuit priests, we made our way to our last stop before leaving Mexico, a horrible place on a sidewalk right by the wall where a twelve year old boy was gunned down a year and a half ago for allegedly throwing rocks at the wall. The voice of justice that to this day has been left unheard weeps for him there and for the twenty people that border patrol has killed. With him in mind, we crossed back to the United States.
After lunch of delicious Mexican food at a food truck our band of 15 made our way to a desert location 25 miles from the border. This is where migrants have to walk, because they have to get past the border patrol checkpoint nearby. And then they continue walking through the desert. I will tell you this, late June in Nogales, Arizona is not where you want to walk, not even a person who "likes heat" as much as myself. We trudged along this trail with no shade and remnants of human's crossing (a backpack here, a hat there, a water bottle to the left) for under an hour and by the end of it we were all sweating and ready to get back to the air conditioned car.
A group of us went to the nearby mission for Saturday evening Mass where we sat through a hot, musicless service and then returned to the Tucson house. Having all 15 of us together was truly a privilege; Albuquerque is 6 - 7 hours from Tucson, our nearest JV Community, so we enjoy our time with nuestras compañeras when we can.
Sunday night we arrived late in Albuquerque and the next day I told my Program Coordinator that this had been one of my top 5 experiences for the JVC year and that I'd highly recommend it. And yet, I still feel as though I don't have the words to describe it. Maybe it's because I haven't written deeply in a while. Perhaps it's due to some defect in the English or Spanish language, or the default in myself or in society that always wants to say something was good. Perhaps there's just too much emotion there to put a word on it. For now I shall have to resort to a Richard Rohr saying . . . it was broken and blessed.
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
O Long Awaited Post / O Holy Night
So, I'm once again nearing the end of another year with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps officially I have less than two months left, which is a very scary thought considering I don't have a concrete idea of what I will be doing next, so that'll be the first topic of this post. However, that's, thankfully directly tied to the work I've been doing here so far.
I've begun my job search next year and am essentially looking all over the place. I would prefer not to stay in Albuquerque; although it has been a beautiful experience I don't think I'm cut out for desert living. I miss my water, but more importantly, I miss my family too much to remain here unless I felt a very strong calling to do so. I have been concentrating my search on Houston, TX, Los Angeles, and the midwest, but am now primarily focusing on Chicago for several reasons. It is prime location, less than 3 hours from many people I care about and only about 8 from my parents (not bad considering the several day journey my family will be undertaking to see me next week. (more on this later)). I am flexible as to the positions I'm looking at, but know one thing for sure in order to be truly happy next year I need to be using my Spanish skills. I have a passion for language that will never die and using my Spanish skills every day at NMILC, whether it's just the small task of answering the phones or if it's spending an entire day translating for a client, has been the most life-giving part of my job this year. Even the days that I came home despising the social services part of my job I have felt blessed that I was able to use my skills. That said, my ideal position would either be working with youth or as an immigration paralegal. I've truly thrived in the legal side of my job this year and don't want to be done with the idea of this. I realized this for the first time when I assisted one of our attorneys in preparing for a trial and listened to the asylum applicant's testimony. Watching my supervisor prepare her for what was coming was sincerely empowering and something I want to continue to be a part of.
So, that's the job search bit, but I feel like we skipped a significant amount of the year to get there. Let's go back to Christmas. For the very first time I was not with my family for our biggest holiday celebration. As a group, my community played with the idea of spending the holidays in Albuquerque very early on in the year, but as the time drew closer, four of us decided to commit to staying. This wasn't a forced decision, but one I entered into willingly. As I worked with my clients and my students at the English as a Second Language class I heard so many stories of people who were unable to be reunited with their loved ones: sons, daughters, parents, separated, not just for Christmas, but for who knows how long. One student was unable to visit her family in Mexico for her brother's funeral because then she would risk having no way to return to the United States. To be in solidarity with these clients and with my roommate who had to work on Christmas Eve, I chose to stay despite the fact that the law center was technically on vacation. Christmas Eve dawned very early, more precisely before-dawn. I awoke at 5 in the morning to pick up two of my client from their home in Pajarito Mesa, a neighborhood with no street signs and limited civilization, and bring them to Dental Day, a free dental care day starting at 7 am. As I drove to their house, with nothing more than the directions to their house in hand, I felt like Mary and Joseph voyaging to Bethlehem. It was dark when I entered the pot-hole ridden neighborhood, my two door Chevrolet Cavalier groaning against the uneven terrain. And then I got lost. I hit a dead end and realized I had no idea where these people lived. I called my client and tried to find them and finally worked my way through the dark maze of roads to find them. We made it to the dental clinic with time to spare and then I took them back home; They were so grateful that they'd finally seen a dentist, something many people take for granted, at no cost to them.
The day continued on. Alex had friends in town, so we hung out with them and had a fairly calm evening. Amanda and I watched Love Actually, a movie that my roommate Catherine from last year got me hooked on as a holiday tradition. The time had nearly come for Christmas Eve Mass. Amanda and I were planning on playing music for the morning Mass, so I was super indecisive about going; moreover, my family always goes to Christmas Eve Mass and I wasn't sure how I'd hold up missing them. Long story short I decided to go and, sure enough, I felt more homesick at church than I'd felt up to that point. Wedged comfortably between Alex and Ben's family I felt home enough, though, until the choir started singing "O Holy Night" at communion time. Like it or not, that song has been a familial tradition for the past five years, having listened to someone sing it in a key that was too high for them many times during Christmas Eve Mass and then me insisting on playing it later. I broke down. I hid my head in my folded hands, praying that the boys didn't notice. Afterwards, I dashed back to the house and found Amanda, who had thankfully come back early and we had a girl bonding moment. The rest of the night was awesome. We went over to our support people's house to enjoy cocoa and a hayride seeing the luminaria scenes through Albuquerque. Then we went on to visit one of the board members of Pegasus's house. By the time we returned home it was late, but we stayed up playing games. I was feeling out of it, and played it off as being tired, but one of my housemates saw right through me and called me out on being homesick and, just like he'd done so many times before, pulled me back into the present. We had a heart to heart in the kitchen later that night, talking about being so far away from our families on Christmas and how weird it was. I went to bed that Christmas eve feeling as though it was a truly holy night, even though many of the people I loved were so far away, many of them were nearby too.
The next morning we exchanged gifts. We set a $5.00 maximum and everybody loved it. We then had a huge dinner at our house, making it through the smoke alarm going off several times. The house was full of friends and family.
The following day I made my way up to Los Alamos to spend time with my aunt, uncle, cousin and my relatives who I had only heard stories of before this year. They were so welcoming, I truly felt like I was with family the entire time I was there. The games of pounce and mafia, the watching of Doctor Who and Sherlock for several days gave me the touch of home I needed, not having seen my immediate family in 6 months. Spending time with the wonderful family that I have made me so very humbled and grateful that I have the opportunity to be cared for in such a way. I truly, truly felt blessed this Christmas and I am sorry that it took me so long to write about it.
There is still a lot of the year that has to be covered, but I don't think I have the skill to teleport us from Christmas to June in one evening's worth of writing. There has been a lot to cover and the next two months will take care of themselves. However, I will try to do the rest of the year justice in its own time before the end. It will be a way to give praise for the experiences that have happened and to give closure to the pitfalls.
But, enough for tonight.
I've begun my job search next year and am essentially looking all over the place. I would prefer not to stay in Albuquerque; although it has been a beautiful experience I don't think I'm cut out for desert living. I miss my water, but more importantly, I miss my family too much to remain here unless I felt a very strong calling to do so. I have been concentrating my search on Houston, TX, Los Angeles, and the midwest, but am now primarily focusing on Chicago for several reasons. It is prime location, less than 3 hours from many people I care about and only about 8 from my parents (not bad considering the several day journey my family will be undertaking to see me next week. (more on this later)). I am flexible as to the positions I'm looking at, but know one thing for sure in order to be truly happy next year I need to be using my Spanish skills. I have a passion for language that will never die and using my Spanish skills every day at NMILC, whether it's just the small task of answering the phones or if it's spending an entire day translating for a client, has been the most life-giving part of my job this year. Even the days that I came home despising the social services part of my job I have felt blessed that I was able to use my skills. That said, my ideal position would either be working with youth or as an immigration paralegal. I've truly thrived in the legal side of my job this year and don't want to be done with the idea of this. I realized this for the first time when I assisted one of our attorneys in preparing for a trial and listened to the asylum applicant's testimony. Watching my supervisor prepare her for what was coming was sincerely empowering and something I want to continue to be a part of.
So, that's the job search bit, but I feel like we skipped a significant amount of the year to get there. Let's go back to Christmas. For the very first time I was not with my family for our biggest holiday celebration. As a group, my community played with the idea of spending the holidays in Albuquerque very early on in the year, but as the time drew closer, four of us decided to commit to staying. This wasn't a forced decision, but one I entered into willingly. As I worked with my clients and my students at the English as a Second Language class I heard so many stories of people who were unable to be reunited with their loved ones: sons, daughters, parents, separated, not just for Christmas, but for who knows how long. One student was unable to visit her family in Mexico for her brother's funeral because then she would risk having no way to return to the United States. To be in solidarity with these clients and with my roommate who had to work on Christmas Eve, I chose to stay despite the fact that the law center was technically on vacation. Christmas Eve dawned very early, more precisely before-dawn. I awoke at 5 in the morning to pick up two of my client from their home in Pajarito Mesa, a neighborhood with no street signs and limited civilization, and bring them to Dental Day, a free dental care day starting at 7 am. As I drove to their house, with nothing more than the directions to their house in hand, I felt like Mary and Joseph voyaging to Bethlehem. It was dark when I entered the pot-hole ridden neighborhood, my two door Chevrolet Cavalier groaning against the uneven terrain. And then I got lost. I hit a dead end and realized I had no idea where these people lived. I called my client and tried to find them and finally worked my way through the dark maze of roads to find them. We made it to the dental clinic with time to spare and then I took them back home; They were so grateful that they'd finally seen a dentist, something many people take for granted, at no cost to them.
The day continued on. Alex had friends in town, so we hung out with them and had a fairly calm evening. Amanda and I watched Love Actually, a movie that my roommate Catherine from last year got me hooked on as a holiday tradition. The time had nearly come for Christmas Eve Mass. Amanda and I were planning on playing music for the morning Mass, so I was super indecisive about going; moreover, my family always goes to Christmas Eve Mass and I wasn't sure how I'd hold up missing them. Long story short I decided to go and, sure enough, I felt more homesick at church than I'd felt up to that point. Wedged comfortably between Alex and Ben's family I felt home enough, though, until the choir started singing "O Holy Night" at communion time. Like it or not, that song has been a familial tradition for the past five years, having listened to someone sing it in a key that was too high for them many times during Christmas Eve Mass and then me insisting on playing it later. I broke down. I hid my head in my folded hands, praying that the boys didn't notice. Afterwards, I dashed back to the house and found Amanda, who had thankfully come back early and we had a girl bonding moment. The rest of the night was awesome. We went over to our support people's house to enjoy cocoa and a hayride seeing the luminaria scenes through Albuquerque. Then we went on to visit one of the board members of Pegasus's house. By the time we returned home it was late, but we stayed up playing games. I was feeling out of it, and played it off as being tired, but one of my housemates saw right through me and called me out on being homesick and, just like he'd done so many times before, pulled me back into the present. We had a heart to heart in the kitchen later that night, talking about being so far away from our families on Christmas and how weird it was. I went to bed that Christmas eve feeling as though it was a truly holy night, even though many of the people I loved were so far away, many of them were nearby too.
The next morning we exchanged gifts. We set a $5.00 maximum and everybody loved it. We then had a huge dinner at our house, making it through the smoke alarm going off several times. The house was full of friends and family.
The following day I made my way up to Los Alamos to spend time with my aunt, uncle, cousin and my relatives who I had only heard stories of before this year. They were so welcoming, I truly felt like I was with family the entire time I was there. The games of pounce and mafia, the watching of Doctor Who and Sherlock for several days gave me the touch of home I needed, not having seen my immediate family in 6 months. Spending time with the wonderful family that I have made me so very humbled and grateful that I have the opportunity to be cared for in such a way. I truly, truly felt blessed this Christmas and I am sorry that it took me so long to write about it.
There is still a lot of the year that has to be covered, but I don't think I have the skill to teleport us from Christmas to June in one evening's worth of writing. There has been a lot to cover and the next two months will take care of themselves. However, I will try to do the rest of the year justice in its own time before the end. It will be a way to give praise for the experiences that have happened and to give closure to the pitfalls.
But, enough for tonight.
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