This Lovely Place

guatemala parts FoUr aNd five

2010-09-01T16:55:00.013-07:00

pArt four. Life in the in the mOuntaiNs of guatEmala.

Structurally identical cinderblock homes line the three straight streets of Nuevo San Jose. Each house has a sala, two bedrooms, and a kitchen in the back. The kitchen stove is steadily stoked with wood that has been brought on somebody's back from miles away. Windows and doors are placed appropriately and modestly. Two windows and a door in the front, and one of each in the back. A corrugated tin roof is uniform in the community. These houses in Guatemala indicate privilege, but in the mildest sense of the word, for the families who inhabit them. Each yard is composed of worn soil, pressed by countless bare feet, decorated around the edges with bright and vibrant colors of trash; the pinks and blues of ArcoIris cookies or the shimmering yellow of Tortrix chips. Shining always, but fading slowly in the sun, going continuously unnoticed or simply accepted. Trash becomes part of the landscape.

Chickens wonder aimlessly, cocks fight, and children, with chicharrones in their hands, play tag on the street. Neighbors often pause to chat. Women and daughters walk away from home with corn kernels heaping out of a plastic bucket on their heads and walk back from the mill minutes later with masa for tortillas heaping out of the same bucket on their heads. The monotonous sound of tortillas smacking back and forth on worn hands resonates with precision and stands in place of a clock on the wall.

Never ending workdays seem to function as distraction here, as they often do. Religion flows through every home, sustaining faith, halting alcoholism, or saving people from hell. Smiles are ubiquitous. Laughter is continuous. A bus picks up all the working men at 4:30 in the morning. Once they leave, their wives go back to sleep after having prepared them food. The men pay 10 Quetzales ($1.25) to ride forty-five minutes to San Juan, where they must fight for day labor. If they are lucky, they will receive 50-60 Quetzales ($6.25-$7.50) for a days work. But typically they can only find work 3-4 days a week. Work is never secure. And every week their incomes are varied.

They have to go this far to work because they have no land of their own to cultivate. The small plot of land that they have is just enough for their small homes and a small street. The land that they live on is the result of a long labor struggle with their old farm. For generations these families of Nuevo San Jose had lived and worked on the San Jose banana and coffee farm. One day they didn’t get paid. The next day was the same. After a year and a half of working without salary, eating nothing but unripe bananas, watching their children die of malnutrition, and fighting through tireless legal struggles, this group of families agreed to a settlement with their employer and accepted this small plot of land in place of a year and a half of salary. In place of their lost children. In compensation for their suffering. That was sixteen years ago.

Angelina, a proud twin of the community, was born sixteen years ago too. Now she cooks with her mom, dreams of coming to the US, listens to music on her phone, waits for her hair to grow long and hopes she will find work to help support her family. Her father isn’t around anymore because one day he drank insecticide and puked until his death. That day ended his many years of abusive alcoholism.

The uncertainty of every single meal and the pressure of having to feed more mouths than just your own makes cheap liquor and a forgetting mind seem desirable in a desperate way. Some people in the community say that his wife, Angelina’s mother, is better off without him. She passes her days with the evangelical radio show while she cooks in the kitchen, and passes her nights with telenovelas in her bedroom. She buys phone cards when she can to call her mom and ask, “How are you?” She has fleeting memories of the labor struggle and even less of the revolution. She doesn’t speak of the man that was her husband. Angelina doesn’t speak of him either.

While eating eggs and peppers scrambled perfectly together, Angelina and I began discussing relationships as the afternoon rain played every inch of the roof like a drum. The rest of the family was at church. Earlier that day Angelina’s mom said I should marry Angelina and bring her to the US with me. In the dim light, sitting on the standard plastic stools, Angelina coughed up her casual question, “Do you have a girlfriend?” Naturally with my response of “no” she followed up, “Why not?” Feeling brave, I answered honestly, “Because I am gay.” After clarifying that it was not a joke, her face lit up, and she eagerly asked, “Will you cut my hair?” I laughed.

As I cut her hair the following night, kneeling on the concrete floor with mini scissors squeezed around my fingers, I responded to her mother that, “no I don’t not like cutting hair,” and that “no I am not good at it.” I was out of answers when she asked, “Then why does Angelina want you to cut it so badly?” Rumor in Guatemala will assure you that a gay-man-haircut will make your hair grow faster. I couldn’t fulfill Angelina’s dream of bringing her to the US, but at least her hair might flourish.

On the other end of the street Vilma lives with her husband and four kids, each one's name starts with the letter J (Juan, Jessica, Jacqueline, Jennifer). She told me that the current government is bad because now a pound of tomatoes costs four Quetzales, when it used to cost just two. She told me that the only difference between evangelicals and catholics was that catholics drink. Before her family joined the evangelical church her husband would drink every day, and scarcely go to work. Now he goes to work everyday, and never drinks.

For Vilma, the government—so complex, vast, corrupt, and tireless—comes to her in that simple way: the cost of tomatoes. The current government in Guatemala provides universal access to contraception and pays families to put their kids in school. But sometimes things like that don’t matter when the cost to feed a family doubles. And for Vilma, religion—equally complex, vast, corrupt, and tireless—comes to her in it's own simple way: whether or not her husband drinks. And that is real to her while much of the other ideological rhetoric is not. Stances on social issues are irrelevant. Afterlife, irrelevant. I find it amazing how much these impressive religious or governmental bodies go through working on images, beliefs, and intellectual nuances while for most people it is all simply irrelevant, and what really matter are tomatoes and alcohol (at least in the short term).

Vilma will vote against the current political party for tomatoes, or to be more accurate, for the price of food. And that is not necessarily wrong, but it makes me wonder how a government can function if they are taking hits from the side because the price of tomatoes went up after a storm came and damaged the crop.

Teresa lives halfway down the street and she is always proud to describe her happiness. Chickens will peck your feet in her house that is home to three generations, all under the same roof. One night in candle light, which is the only light in their home, she asked me to send a book to someone she knows in the US and when she gave me the address it read: George Castillo, Los Angeles, California. I smiled, and was worried, and explained that Los Angeles is too big for an address with just a name. After fifteen minutes of running around the village we secured a plan to get it to the right address.

In Nuevo San Jose the native Mayan language is almost all lost and Spanish is spoken with many errors. Literacy is a gift and disillusionment with the government seems as widespread as religion, or even as tortillas. It is beautiful everywhere and the people have joy. But the community represents the painful past of war and oppression while it also exudes the sense of passivity that has spread in the country since the civil war, and even more, existed since its colonization.

¡PART FIVE!: a sHortened histOry of guateMala, with digressivE thought.

The history of Guatemala is mind blowing, but it is not unique. It is the story of violent colonization and conquest, oppression, attempted uprisings, and then one more oppressive hand from the United States CIA, leaving the country vulnerable, hungry, and without social justice once again.

Current Guatemala is situated on what was, and is, the center of the Mayan world. Spanish invasion and conquest of Guatemala in 1542 reduced the Mayan population from 800,000 to 100,000. European diseases were spread, massacres prevailed, and the Mayan population was turned into the oppressed peoples under strict Spanish rule.

1821 is the year that Guatemala earned its independence from the Spanish crown. But it was not an idyllic independence as one might hope. A Mayan man described it to me as a shift in power from the elite class in Spain to the elite class in Guatemala, who were just descendents of those that came from Spain three hundred years earlier. And then he said the new ruling class of Guatemala turned to the indigenous population and said, “Hooray! We got independence,” while they continued living in poverty and oppression not noticing any difference, wondering what independence actually meant. I heard this and thought of my own country’s heroic and romantic revolution. Is it really just the same situation?

A break from the history: I found this idea of independence remarkable: just passage of power from one geographical power to the next, not the acquisition of power from within and from the ground. The essence of the term independence is to my sense when a country achieves autonomy, without foreign rule. In this way, Guatemala did get their independence. And so did the United States of America in 1776. But calling a passage of power from one foreign elite to other foreign elite who just happen to be living in the country itself is almost mockery. It is as if a father steals a car, puts the owner in the trunk, and then ten years later his son takes ownership of the car. He leaves the real owner in the trunk, and calls it independence. I admit, this is radically simplistic, but also painfully close.

What does it mean for the anglo Americans to fight a revolution for independence from their anglo ancestors—all of whom are not native to the land. And then nurturing a continuum of native oppression with the achieved independence. But in fact, the word independence is a simply product of colonization and imperialism. I cannot think of a native population that has ever won “independence” from their colonizers. If you can, let me know. We would instead call that successful resistance of colonization. Has that ever happened? But independence as we know it is not a successful resistance of colonial power, it is merely a passage from a far away geographical power to a more local power. The word independence in this way is imperial vernacular.

Anyway, it seems to me that the revolution and independence in the US is in fact very similar to the independence that was won in Guatemala. But when I learned of Guatemala’s independence I rolled my eyes in disgust, while when I learned of the american revolution I am sure that my eyes lit up with pride and passion. Both were simply a change in foreign power which led to continued oppression of native populations. A true independence in this U.S. land would have been if the native peoples kicked us out. But that still has not happened. The notable difference was that in Guatemala’s independence not a single person died. It was achieved diplomatically.

Back to the history. Independence didn’t change much of Guatemala's governing structure. The country was still ruled by dictators who were not elected by the people. A small group of elite owned the vast majority of the country. And the vast majority of the population owned only a sliver of the country. Anti-Maya culture was bred, and racism sailed on robustly. In these years of authoritarian rule, foreign businesses increasingly chewed the country up. One business in particular, the United Fruit Company, landed a monopoly on Guatemala’s economy, land, and labor force.

In the early 1900’s bananas were “discovered.” At least discovered by the US population. They were imported from Jamaica in a small quantity, but the market soon demanded more, and suddenly thousands were arriving every month to US shores. Eventually, our growing bellies surpassed the supply level, and Jamaica could no longer support our bananaffair. This was the seed that sprouted the United Fruit Company’s dominance in Guatemala.

Guatemala was not chosen for investment by chance. A United Fruit executive once explained the decision. He said, “Guatemala was chosen as the site for the company’s earliest development activities because at the time we entered Central America, Guatemala’s government was the region’s weakest, most corrupt and most pliable.” Therefore, the business plan presumed that a weak government would equate to better business. The Fruit Company quickly bought up miles of land, hired thousands of workers, and exported thousands of bananas. They also monopolized railroad in Guatemala, were the owners of Guatemala’s only industrial port, and eventually they also controlled the postal service. It is widely recognized that the United Fruit Company, in an uneven partnership with the country of Guatemala, was integral in the exploitation of Guatemala’s people and the largest obstacle in the way of Guatemala finding land and labor equality.

Forty years later, in the 1940’s, a small group of middle class teachers and activists began to slowly change the popular mindset of the country. An acquiescent and compliant mass was inspired by the prospect of social change, in part exemplified by the New Deal, which was co-occurring in the US. In 1944 a swift uprising led by two ex-militants overthrew the shocked dictator Ubico. Shortly there after, Juan Arévalo, Guatemala’s first ever democratically elected president, took office. His inaugural address was bursting with US ideology and ideas as shown through FDR’s presidency. It was sprinkled with direct FDR quotes and also decorated with clear anti-communist rhetoric. The new constitution and government were carefully designed in the image of the US’s. All signs showed that the US government would support and rejoice in this new beacon of democratic strength in the struggling region to our south.

In short time, many of Guatemala’s dreams were indeed coming true. Among many other things, President Arévalo legalized trade unions, started literacy programs, made discrimination illegal and created a social security system. The country advanced socially in those years more than in all the other years of its history.

Arévalo’s successor, Jacobo Arbenz, appeared to be even more progressive and motivated then Arévalo, and his first project was the major one that Arévalo had left undone: land reform. Land distribution remained the greatest injustice in the country. When the new government took power in 1944 just 2.2 percent of the population owned over seventy percent of the country's land, while ninety percent of the population owned just ten percent of the land. Meanwhile, millions of peasants worked full days and received very little in return, many living lives in extreme poverty without an inch of land to call their own.

Unfortunately Arbenz’s impressive motivation and execution in land reform may have been the final straw and the reason for an end to the brief years of Guatemalan progress. His comprehensive land reform included buying back all fallow land from large landowners and companies at the price indicated by tax assessments. Unlucky for the United Fruit Company, they had been pulling deals for years to lower their tax assessment, so when the government expropriated their fallow land those harshly low values were used as the amount to repay them. It quickly became clear to the United Fruit Company that the new democracy in Guatemala stood between them and their colossal profits that they had become accustomed to. The weak government that initially attracted them to Guatemala no longer existed, and therein bore their motivation to weaken the Guatemalan government.

Meanwhile, and on another note, Guatemala promoted political freedom and did not prosecute any of the communists; who had formed a small political presence in the country. The country did have laws that prohibited political parties from having official foreign affiliation, and for this reason, communism was contested several times, and similar parties with different names filled the space.

The opportunistic United Fruit Company saw this communism as a means to entice the U.S. government to help them change the government of Guatemala. The Company funded a widespread publicity campaign to illuminate any and all communism in Guatemala to the US public. With time, ignorant articles were published all over, and the US public became informed of the “danger” that the democratic nation, founded on US ideals, presented. Direct connections with the US government amplified the Fruit Company’s plea for help. To mention a few, the Secretary of State John Foster Dulles’ law firm had represented United Fruit. Also, the director of the CIA was his brother Allen Dulles and was a board member of United Fruit. These governmental ties, in addition to the garnered support of the public, allowed for the authorization of the C.I.A. backed coup against Jacobo Arbenz, and put a halt to the mere nine years of progress that Guatemala had experienced.

It shakes me to think that after 400 years of suffering and struggle, when Guatemala had finally built a government that worked, that educated, that was fair, that provided land, and that even represented U.S. ideals, the C.I.A.—backed by corrupt money politics—turned the country once again to its history of oppression.

After multiple military attacks orchestrated by the CIA on land and in air, President Arbenz was forced to resign, giving way to years of struggle which continue today. From the overthrow until 1996 Guatemala went through four decades and 200,000 deaths of civil war. During the civil war the Guatemalan government often referred to a list of 70,000 "questionable individuals" made by the CIA during the coup. The civil war was marked by massacres, rapes, tortures, and destruction. This was all in hopes of restoring what the C.I.A. had dismantled: a government for the people, by the people.
In 1996 the Peace Accords were signed by the revolutionaries and the government, and the revolution came to an end, with no change in governing power. The Peace Accords outlined ideas and hopes for progress and equality in the country, but unfortunately, they carry no legal robustness, and every Guatemalan I asked said that there is little or no change in living conditions since the signing of the Peace Accords.

Coincidentally, the young Che Guevara was traveling in Guatemala when the U.S. overthrew Guatemala’s democracy. Based on letters he wrote, it is clear that this coup he witnessed played a heavy role in the formation of his communist and anti-US perspective. It is not uncommon that US imperialism and racism and arrogance breeds anti-US sentiment around the world. It is obvious that this occurs, but I think it interesting to consider what young activists witness the damage we sometimes do, and I wonder how long it takes until they make it onto our military radar. I wonder what US actions nurtured the views of the 9/11 attackers. I wonder who is watching our current anti-muslim acts, who is watching our protests and violence against mosques in our country.

It seems startling that in 1944 Guatemala’s revolution was inspired by ideals emanating from the US, and on their own will, they shaped their nation after ours. In just ten years, with the CIA backed coup, the US had changed course one hundred and eighty degrees and was then the target of popular and revolutionary energy.

The signing of the Peace Accords is the most recent major event in Guatemala’s history, as it terminated the civil war. With recent shadows and memories of war, the country is still haunted by the violence of conflict, and many suggest that silence and passivity are run of the mill because of widespread fear to resist. Gangs and organized crime, which formed in the wake of the civil war when guns and unemployed ex-militants were on the streets, are growing and gaining control of the country. The violence that was seen in the civil war is living a second life in the form of gangs. I often wonder what political change the energy, weapons, and organization of gangs could create if they focused on social justice.

But as I sit here, shocked by and critical of the actions and influence of the U.S. government, I note the role of the U.S. consumer. of myself. The CIA backed coup in Guatemala, aside from the corruption, greed, and fear involved, is a lot about good old bananas, and our monstrous consumption of them. Like the consumption of drugs which ignites violence and horror along our borders. Like the consumption of fuel, which melts our icecaps, and fuels war. Or like the consumption of plastic which might make our world explode (not based on science, but I would believe it), or which more accurately hastens global warning and disseminates toxic chemicals from sea to oily-shining sea.

Costly consumerism happens to be another mind blowing story, which is habitually involved with war, violence, and corruption. An employee at Shaw’s recently explained to me that one out of three people have bananas in their cart when they check out. I read on NYtimes.com that banana’s are the world’s fourth major food, following rice, wheat, and milk. It appears that our banana consumption has not slowed. You know what they always say..."good economy, bad economy, happy or said, bananas sell." They don’t actually say that. But they could. The point is that consumerism does have the power to kill.

The coup in Guatemala was marketed as ideological, as standing up for democracy in the face of communism. But in truth, it was a resource war, and we wanted the land and resources of Guatemala to keep the businessmen’s big, powerful, bananas coming. It screams out parallels to our most recent war (which just “ended”) in Iraq. It was initially marketed for the search of WMD’s, but has been promoted with ideological arguments. Really though, it also seems to be very much a resource war.

Guatemala’s history is remarkable, and in it there is a lot to learn, but as mentioned, it is not unique. Patterns of scary US behavior in developing nations like Guatemala are prevalent. If you can name a history of a nation like that of Guatemala, post it. And we can count how many times actions like this have occurred. What scares me the most, is if I am not educated enough to know what is actually occurring today. I presume that the US citizens in 1954 didn’t understand what their country was actually doing in Guatemala, for if they did, how could they have stood it.

For a much better history of Guatemala, read Bitter Fruit, an extraordinary book written from the Harvard Latin American Studies department about the US backed coup in Guatemala. If you want to borrow a copy, let me know and I will send you mine!

Thanks to http://www.mayaparadise.com/united_fruit_company.htm, Bitter Fruit, and many friendly Guatemalans for sharing information that helped this post.

Another conflict crop in Guatemala: COFFEE. Once these "fruits" turn red, they are ready to be harvested. Harvesting a 100 lb bag will earn around seven or eight dollars. Once harvested, the bean is extracted from the fruit, dried, roasted, and sold. If you don't already have too many things to do in this life, The Cafecito Story is a great, short, multi-lingual story about coffee, filled with beautiful artwork. It was written by Julia Alvarez.

Lastly, some names have been changed for confidentiality.

Tin Marin De Do Pingüe: Guatemala Parts I-III

2010-08-11T10:36:00.009-07:00

I have southerned myself this summer. First, south to El Paso for a bit, and then further south to Guatemala. A week before I left, my dentist pushed that needly utensil into my gums and asked me if I was going to Guatemala to help people. When my mouth was free, and my gums identified as healthy, I answered no. For me, I envisioned and categorized my trip to Guatemala as purely selfish. I am here at language school spending five hours a day in class, because I became tired of inadequate Spanish communication ability. So I took the time for myself, without "helping people," to simply learn Spanish. But that isn’t to say that everything I do is not also for myself. It is. And drawing lines around doing things for me and doing things for others is misleading, and for that reason, I kind of forgot about that mantra I had until right now, as I am sitting in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, finishing up my time here.

For me, my time here, and all time, is worth sharing. But the lack of computers, time, and internet has kept me from it. But now, I have retrospective tales and introspective thoughts about my time here. It will come in parts.

PART 1: El Pit Stop Paso

I landed in El Paso for the second time since I had left it in December feeling a tad shameful for my frequent visits. I clearly can’t get enough of it. But aside from immense carbon releases from flights, and monetary costs, I suppose there should be no shame in visiting often.

Every time I land in El Paso a good friend and fellow volunteer picks me up from the airport. The twenty minute ride to Annunciation House from the airport has consistently been enough for me to want a ride right back to the airport. I am quickly informed of the updates of the guests; I am reminded of the people that are still incredibly stuck. When I arrived in March to visit, I learned that a close family to the house just lost their mom to incarceration. The kids were left parentless and paperless. When I arrived in June, I learned that these same kids, who had moved into the shelter, just lost their brother who had to be sent back across the border to Juarez, MX. I was reminded that so many of the same people that had been around in October, November, December, were still around, stuck in the blender that migration causes. In the car, which was now more worn by the sun, I became ashamed for reasons besides visiting often, I felt cold that I had let myself escape that reality for so long.

I am forever shocked and afraid by my ability to step away from pain and suffering. Moreover, it is only when I step back in along side situations and stories of pain, suffering, poverty, and oppression that I realize to what extent I allow myself to forget, in order to continue. I spent a semester at college in euphoria. With constant reminders that the world is beautiful. And that people are good. And that systems do work. And to some extent, in order to function in that world, which I too value, I had to let go of the many other realities in the world in some way. I have blatantly done this with the oil spill in the gulf. Feeling incapable and overwhelmed, I choose to resume my life, without letting myself get taken down emotionally by the spill. In other words, I have ignored it. And this is something that we are asked to do everyday. It is what we do well. Adapt and change and learn and forget. And although it may not be wrong or unhealthy to step away from hard things for a bit, stepping back into the realities that permeate through El Paso reminded me of the separation that I quietly built.

But arriving at the house is when the pain gets met with joy. Although I may feel lost and down that some have been stuck in the shelter for months or years, I joyfully hug them and color with them and eat with them and laugh. And we talk about our situations, and my hopes are just like his or hers. And the sun is still the same as before. And so is the food. And the struggle. But now the upstairs bathroom is done. And I have a different haircut. And Luly has new shoes. And the guests tell me they don’t like my haircut, and I laugh. But they do like the extra bathroom upstairs. And Luly likes her shoes.

Unlike all the other time I have spent in El Paso, the week I had before Guatemala was not crammed with to-dos. My only responsibility was one eight hour shift at Casa Vides, one of the houses run by Annunciation House that is geared towards longer term women and families. For me it felt like enough. The kids, whose mother is in jail, and whose brother got sent to Juarez the day I arrived, live in Casa Vides with their smiles and laughs and attitude. Typically at the houses a volunteer never really takes the role of parent, because that job can be referred to the real parent, but with this family, the volunteers share the parental role. So for 8 hours I had to be the best papa I could be.

Perhaps the most difficult part for me was wanting or needing the role model aspect and power of parent, without having done anything, like consummating, or providing food for example, to deserve it. So when I made sure they ate, I felt I had no right. When I begged them to brush their teeth, I felt I had no right. When I pulled them in from the street at ten to go to bed, who was I to do that? These kids have found themselves in a situation where an ignorant boy, with different colored skin, who speaks their language poorly, is trying to get them to brush their teeth, so he can tuck them in, before he goes to bed and leaves to Guatemala the next morning maybe never seeing them again. There was a babysitter I had that I hid from as a child because her curly hair scared me. These children just went to bed late, some with tears moving down their cheeks, dressed in the clothes of their brother, and laying underneath cartoons their mom had made in jail. And I stood there on the other side of the closed door, listening to know they would fall asleep, knowing that I lacked patience and grace, and feeling quite humbled by all those parents who have cared for their children, and by all those children who haven’t had parents to care for them.

PART II: Evangelization in 17D

It wasn’t long until my stomach was full with 5 am diner food and I was on a plane to Guatemala.

I sat next to Joe. Joe sat next to Jeff. Joe asked me to read parts of his Bible out loud. Presumably to make sure I was actually reading it. Joe offered to walk me through the steps to being saved, in seat 17D. Jeff told me he understood my pain, felt sorry for me. My curiosity led me to this peculiar situation.

When I sat down, Joe said, "I’m Joe." Joe was going to Guatemala to build houses and also to evangelize the area "of course." That wasn’t very "of course" to me. I admit to being highly ignorant about evangelicals and the evangelical church. But before this plane ride, I was even more so. I asked what it meant to be "saved." My summary of the answer is this: there are some people that haven’t been baptized and haven’t committed that Jesus is their savior. These people are not saved. And they will go to hell. Except if they are infants, and then they may be exempt, depending on God’s will. But, if somebody who lives in a remote village, who has never heard of Jesus, still hasn’t been "saved", they still will go to hell, according to the word. This was of particular concern to Jeff. And one of the primary reasons to evangelize, in places like Guatemala, is to save these people from that outcome.

Joe and Jeff said that "practicing" gays would go to hell. And lots of other good people too. If you hadn’t been saved, there was no two ways about it. We concluded, the three of us, that this meant I was going to hell. That was part of the reason our conversation continued for the whole flight, and the reason why I read the bible out loud, and took time to reflect in my journal. Because they were eager to save me. And they nearly did.

Jeff liked my arguments. I argued that the human is not something to control, but instead to liberate. And I asked if there is any good reason to believe just to believe. Truth should be found individually,I thought, not compromised by following one idea. There is always a good rebuttal to my thoughts though. It is the word of the Lord up against mine. And Jeff liked my arguments, but not that much. I felt so intellectually bombarded by the word they preached, that I lost my grounding and felt ever so lost. That intensity passed when we landed, exchanged e-mails, and bid farewells.

But the evangelical movement in Guatemala certainly exists beyond North American evagelizers. Joe and Jeff said that they have saved (baptized) hundreds of people in Guatemala within a week. I have heard that around 40 percent of Guatemalans call themselves evangelicals. Yesterday someone told me a common saying in Guatemala. “If you want to get out of poverty you have two choices: become a politician, or an evangelical pastor, who apparently receive major portions of the churches income, and are given multiple modes of transport to help them spread the word. One nearby church is considering buying a helicopter for the pastor to help him move around more quickly.

A common question here is, "are you evangelical or catholic?" I haven’t experienced any animosity amongst the two sectors. And all of my responses to the question have been respected politely. In fact, some families from the countryside have said that there is only one difference: Catholics can drink alcohol and evangelicals can’t. This was told to me by an evangelical family. The catholic family down the road told me that there was no difference. The issue of alcohol though, can be very relevant to families. For example Vilma´s husband was an abusive alcoholic for years, until he was saved, and now she describes him as caring and loving, and he goes out to work everyday and to church on Sundays. With this I feel like saluting Joe and Jeff. Other differences are that evangelicals are not permitted to dance, or wear showy jewelry. In one of the houses I spent time in, evangelical radio played all day, keeping the single mother Teresa company in the kitchen. But even as music played, spontaneous hip movement would not be welcomed.

This is all a brief, limited, and potentially shallow reflection on religion in Guatemala, but it is in this nature that I have experienced it. It is very central to so many lives here, and plays an integral important role in Guatemalan society. To my foreign eye it can appear silly at times, but not different than the way my lack of faith can seem silly to many people here. My views expressed in the earlier post "Relating Religion" still accurately reflect how I relate to religion. It is evident that religion here is historically central, valuable, and also in some cases, destructive.

PART III: Arriving in Isolation

I realized on the plane that my trip to Guatemala was my first time leaving the country alone to travel. I began to think about isolation. There is indeed a human itch to congregate and interact. This may be rooted in our need to distract ourselves from the abstract existence in which we live. Meanwhile, connection, love,and sharing is no doubt part of our communal abstract existence. I often seek isolation to spend time listening and talking to myself. I do this because I think that anything but isolation is in some sense an escape. A mode for us to hide from ourselves. Conversely I would also argue that isolation is an escape from society and from the intrinsic community that every living being experiences.

A funny occurrence for me has been that isolation breeds relation. I had long conversations with my seat neighbors on every leg of the trip, and in transition too. And traveling alone in isolation has lead the way to meeting more and more new people. There is nothing complicated about it, but it suggests to me that sometimes asking ourselves to step in a hard direction often leads us to then float in the more comfortable direction. For me I asked myself to find isolation, and as a result, have floated into community with others.

At the end of my travels, I finally arrived in two small communities an hour Northwest of Quetzaltengango. I stayed there for three weeks. The next parts will hopefully cover my time there, Guatemala´s history of struggle, and some of the struggles that exist today in the countryside.

El Paso, Texas: A City on the Edge and in the Center

2010-06-22T15:23:00.002-07:00

In a few days I will be back in El Paso. Below is a geography minded piece I wrote about the history and development of El Paso...

If you walk ten blocks north from the flat center of downtown El Paso, you begin to ascend the Franklin Mountains. These mountains are the most southerly tendrils of the Rocky Mountains, horizontally spanning the US from the Canadian border to the Mexican border. Part way up your ascent you come across Rim Road which, decorated with a plethora of multi-million dollar homes, snakes around the mountain ridge

If you walk ten blocks south from downtown, you find yourself in Segundo Barrio, in one of the nation’s poorest zip codes. Segundo Barrio is a pattern of crumbling brick churches, homes, schools spotted with brown parks, busy tienditas, and tortilla shops. If you continue walking south through Segundo Barrio you will be intersected by two large walls and the Rio Grande, otherwise known as the US-Mexico border.

Instead of south, if you walk, bike, or drive 50 blocks east from downtown El Paso, you encounter a warning sign to inform you that you are entering the Fort Bliss Military Reservation. To call this reservation vast is an understatement, as it is larger than the state of Rhode Island.

And lastly, if you venture 20 blocks west and a few North from downtown El Paso, you arrive at the Rio Grande flowing southerly away to your left. New Mexico is just on the other side. Depending on where you are in El Paso the Rio Grande could represent one of two borders; between Texas and New Mexico or between the Texas and Mexico. Part way through the city the river bends north and becomes a state border, and the international border formerly on the Rio continues west on a land route to the Pacific Ocean.

If you meander aimlessly through the streets, you will notice the cactuses that speckle the landscape. You will see the sandy earth that indicates a desert climate. You will hear Spanish. You might not hear English. You might not believe that you are in the United States, as the city is incredibly reminiscent of cities in Latin America, and shares little in common with most conceptions of a typical US city.

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El Paso sits at the most western tip of Texas and as its name suggests (meaning the pass) its geographical location was no coincidence in its origin. Its location on the border, and in historically disputed land, has shaped its cultural dynamics and highlighted it as a point of international interest and concern. Also, its proximity to Mexico and its central location has influenced economic growth in ranching, the smelter industry, and in illegal industries. El Paso sits in the center of mountains, borders, military bases, and international conflict, and yet it is still very much at the edge, culturally and geographically speaking.

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The Anglo origin of El Paso dates back to 1598 when Spanish conquistador Don Juan de Oñate crossed the Rio Grande with 400 soldiers and 270 women and children to settle in the mountain pass, which quickly became El Paso del Norte or The Pass to the North (Sandra Sanchez, 25 November, 1991: 8a). The location was ideal because it was at a pass in the mountains, making it easier for Spanish expeditions en route to Santa Fe, and because it was located at a rare water source in the desert, the Rio Grande.

El Paso del Norte was Spanish territory until Mexican independence in 1822. The area was only Mexico’s for a short period when, in 1848, the city once again changed hands. This time to the US as they won the Mexican-American War and set their southern border at the Rio Grande with the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. This made El Paso del Norte the border town that it is today. The new international boundary, the Rio Grande, cut the pre-existing city in half, leaving two dissected pieces legally separated. The city to the south of the river took on the name Ciudad Juárez and the city to the north took the name El Paso.
Although internationally separated since 1848, the cities of Juárez and El Paso have remained intricately connected in changing ways. Originally, the border really was nothing more than the water that flowed easterly in the Rio Grande. Crossing into the United States meant nothing more than a short wade or swim. Even one hundred years after the Mexican-American War it appeared there was still no animosity or synthetic separations. In 1955 an El Paso native wrote, “There is no iron-curtain here. The only occasional curtain between our cities is an occasional curtain of dust, not man-made. Cooperative, friendly relations exist between us and our esteemed Mexican neighbors.” (J. Harold Tillman, 1955: Pg. 1219)

If you jump fifty years forward in time to 2005, there is a physical iron curtain, more than just the desert dust dancing in the wind. In those fifty years El Paso became a major point of geographical interest to the United States relative to so called national security. With the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and rampant fear of future terrorism, government organizations saw the border as a weakness in national security. El Paso is the United State’s largest border town, with 613,190 people in 2008, (2008 US Census) and therefore received ample resources to build fences and hire more border patrol. Now, a mesh fence runs across the city’s southern limits, permeable to sight but not to (legal) travel. Despite the fence, the cities still feel connected in some diminished manner as their populations and cultures relentlessly travel back and forth, legally and illegally, across the border.

The ephemeral and volatile history of El Paso begs the question of whether or not land is something that can even be justly owned. The multiple changes of the city’s ownership taunt the perceived permanence of a border. The unnatural dichotomy of two cities once one illuminates the strength of divisiveness, and the emergence of a literal iron curtain represents a problem-causing solution to a problem dating back to the days when maps were first made and land was first claimed. The historical inequalities that El Paso represents belittle the border to seem like nothing more than an imaginary line of imposed power.

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El Paso’s unique geographical situation has defined its economic development in both the legal and illegal sectors. Connected to both the US and Mexican railroad systems, El Paso became a center for shipping cattle in its early years as a US city. Ranchers from all around the South West and Mexico shipped cattle through El Paso. Also, due to its central and connected location from a transportation standpoint, El Paso was an ideal location to receive ore at a smelter. By the First World War the El Paso smelter employed 3,000 workers. (Mario T. Garcia, 1981: Pg. 3) However, in the late twentieth century, the smelter was shut down following numerous accounts of health issues caused by the smelter. El Paso is also a major point of immigration for Mexicans into the US, and for this reason it has been known for cheap labor. Contractors from the all over the region can count on picking up cheap, undocumented workers in El Paso willing to do the dirty and dangerous jobs. El Paso also became an important location in the US’s realization of manifest destiny. El Paso was a gateway to the west for easterners, and a gateway to the north for southerners.

El Paso’s proximity to Mexico has also influenced much illegal economic activity. Currently, the El Paso border could be seen as a swap shop for guns and drugs. Guns, which are far more difficult to purchase in Mexico, make their way from the US to south of the border. And drugs, which travel from the interior of Mexico as well as from other Latin American nations, make their way north across the border. The dynamics of this swap shop have lead to tumult, and currently, El Paso’s other half, Ciudad Juárez, is the world’s most dangerous city based on homicides per capita.

The city of El Paso has forever changed and flexed in unique ways with different peoples, names, economies, and ways of life. But recently it has become more defined by the borders that surround it and further separated from its other half in Mexico. It has also become a tense environment in US national security efforts. One of the most consistent characteristics though, is its sense of eccentricity, and transcendence of cultural norms in the US. Yet the city remains nobly authentic to itself and to its own undulating identity. El Paso is geographically a city defined by perimeters, but culturally, a city defiant of perimeters.

Works Cited

Charles H. Harris, III and Louis R. Sadler. “The "Underside" of the Mexican Revolution: El Paso, 1912.” The Americas Vol. 39, No. 1 (Jul., 1982), pp. 69-83

Gabbert, Ann. “Prostitution and Moral Reform in the Borderlands: El Paso, 1890-1920.” Journal of the History of Sexuality Vol. 12, No. 4 (Oct., 2003), pp. 575-604
Garcia, Mario. “Desert Immigrants: The Mexicans of El Paso, 1880-1920” Yale University: 1981.

Kuhla, Shan. “Special Report: Drivers Edge, Road Trip.” National Post 17 June 2005: DT 9

Sanchez, Sandra. “Final edition, News.” USA Today, 25 November 1991: Pg. 8a

Tillman, Harold. “El Paso-Juarez Area.” Public Health Reports (1896-1930), Vol. 70 No. 12 (Dec. 1955) pg. 1218-1220

U.S. Geoleogical Survey, 1997. “El Paso, TX,” Scale 1:24,000.

U.S. Geological Survery, 1996. “Smeltertown, TX-NM-CHH” Scale 1:24,000.

When to Think of Death (If You Want to be Free)

2010-06-16T10:39:00.000-07:00

Death isn’t getting the attention it deserves, and I think we need to think about it, talk about, ponder it, get close to it, and prepare for it. On busy streets, in quiet houses, and in dull offices people resist any thoughts on death in their yearning to be free. These people are the possibly subconscious followers of a belief that those who are free don’t spend time thinking of death. But are these people, maybe you and maybe me, correct in their belief that to find freedom one must avoid thoughts of death?

The premise for this belief hinges on the answer to the question of what makes somebody free, and the implied answer here is faulty. This belief assumes that innocence is what makes somebody free, for by avoiding thoughts of death one remains innocent to its existence, and thus free. However, I think that innocence only creates a perception of freedom, and that real freedom lies in understanding and preparation for important life moments, including the moment of death. Later I will consider the objection that death isn’t even important, and therefore not worth preparation and understanding in the search for freedom. The truth though, exists between the argument and the objection: even though death is not important, the way in which its mystique infiltrates our lives is important and therefore if anyone is to be free, it still warrants understanding.

The premise of this commonly held belief is that through innocence by not thinking about death, one is free. But in truth, innocence does not sustain being free. It is easily understood, though, that innocence makes us feel free. The idea of freedom rooted in innocence can be related to youth. Typically childhood evokes memories of freedom because as children we were innocent and do not spend time meditating or understanding the truths of life or the truths of death. However, is freedom through innocence true freedom or simply perceived freedom? In fact it is a perception. In using the word perception I do not intend to take anything away from the feeling of freedom that childhood or innocence creates, for the feeling is real. But although innocence allows one to feel immensely free, that freedom is shallow, as it does not give one the ability to transcend the challenges of life, it merely gives them the ability to avoid them. And then, when difficulties enter a person’s life, the feeling of freedom becomes evidently shallow. For example, in the freedom of childhood, catastrophic moments of tears and anger erupt from minor incidents like spilt juice. Children, or innocent people in general, really are not free in depth if they cannot navigate through life without catastrophes at difficult moments. Tolstoy’s novel, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, stands in agreement as it is suggested that artificial life, an avoidance of the truth, is a deception that leaves one confused at the time of death.

The alternate choice from freedom through innocence is instead freedom through an authentic life of understanding. Understanding forges true freedom because it allows one to approach the challenges of life, such as death, with peace and preparedness. Looking at our daily lives, it is no shock that understanding and preparation are essential to freedom. Prior to every significant moment in our lives we prepare and think and meditate in order to allow ourselves to freely navigate that given moment. Before a test, we study. Before a wedding, we ponder. Before a performance, we practice. It is these moments of preparation and efforts towards understanding that give us freedom and the ability to navigate when we arrive at weighty points of life. Why then would we utterly avoid preparation and pondering for probably the most important moment of our lives? To be free, we must understand, and to understand, we must think. Think of not only life, but of death in the same manner.

But still, you may question whether or not death really is the most important moment of our lives, as is central to the prior argument. And that is a good question. The argument I put forth states that because death is important, and freedom comes through understanding of and preparation for important events, then we must prepare for and understand death. But is death really an important moment of our lives? And could it even be important enough to make preparation worthwhile?
Firstly, no. Death is not the most important moment in our lives. Importance in a moment can be described in different ways, and each will be applied to death in order to understand its relevant importance. One account is that importance in a moment is that moment’s ability to affect the future of one’s life. Death, however, has no affect on the future of a person’s life, because from the moment of death on, there is no future to be affected. Therefore, death is not important because it does not affect the future of one’s life. Another account is that importance in a moment is that moment’s interaction with the senses and feelings of a person. Does a moment hurt, pleasure, overwhelm, or relax the person that it affects? In this case the moment of death, cannot hurt, pleasure, overwhelm or relax a person—it cannot interact with the feelings and senses of a person that no longer exists. Maybe right before death, but not at death. Therefore, in this account, death is also unimportant. If these examples aren’t convincing that death is not important, think of your own application for importance, and apply it to death. This distinction, that death cannot be important, differentiates it from the Olympics, a wedding, or an exam because the latter three will have an affect on a person’s future, and will interact with the feelings and senses of a person, thus making them important, and worth preparing for.

And even if we did accept that death is important, as the original argument states, is it important enough to prepare for while considering the downsides that preparation could have? To determine the worth of preparation, we must compare the difference between the benefits that preparation could make with the downsides that it could cause. Preparing for death could make the whole process more peaceful, whereas lack of preparation could make the process terrifying. The downsides that preparation could cause are that in seeking to understand death one could in fact hinder his or her life. In Jeffrie Murphy’s essay, Rationality and the Fear of Death, he wisely offers the idea that we can care so much about life and death that we lose that which makes life worth living. For example in my fear of death and in my pressure to live life well, I could lose the very things that make life worth it, like spontaneity and presence. Connecting this idea to the comparison of pros and cons of the preparation of death illuminates that in the search to understand death one can easily lose the beauty of life, therefore making it not worth an understanding of death because the risk is too large. Put more simply, one could go crazy in their search to understand death, they could over think it. The suspicion that death may not be so important as the first argument suggests is worthy, but the question is whether it carries enough weight to negate the argument.

Both the argument and the objection give valid points about whether or not one must think about death in order to be free. The argument suggests that understanding and preparing for death is monumental in being free for the reason that death is important, and in life we know that understanding of and preparation for important moments is necessary to be free. This is correct in the idea that understanding and preparation are needed for true freedom, however a clarification needs to be made with the word preparation. Preparation is often understood as for the benefit of a singular event. For example, to practice running is beneficial to the marathon, and to study math is beneficial to the math test. However, in the case of death, and maybe other cases as well, I think preparation has a different nature. Your preparation isn’t to make death better, it is actually to make life better. This distinction negates any question of whether or not death is important, because the focus of understanding death is life, not death.

Moreover, the objection to the initial argument is correct in its statement that death isn’t necessarily important. But it falls short in missing that the fear and uncertainty of death that pervade a human’s life are very important. Death’s effect on life is immense in its capacity to control the course life takes. Also, the objection misses that death’s importance is actually irrelevant in the matter because preparation serves life not death. And lastly, the objection states that the risk of preparation is too large, but I have never seen enlightenment or understanding cause any problems in the long run.

Drawing from the strengths of both the argument and the objection I suggest that death is not important but that preparation is still necessary because in order to have freedom during life (which is important), we must prepare for death. I do not state that by preparing for death, death will be better. It is really that if we prepare for death, life will better. This however rubs against the grain of our nature to consider that preparing for something isn’t to make that moment better, but instead to make us better, before and after the moment. But truly, that is the value of preparation, and therefore, in order to find freedom we must understand death not for the importance of death but for the way in which if affects our important lives. Death isn’t getting the attention it deserves, and I think we need to think about it, talk about, ponder it, get close to it, and prepare for it.

Work Cited
Tolstoy, Leo. The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Bantam Classics). New York: Bantam Classics, 1981. Print.

Murphy, Jeffrie G., Rationality and the Fear of Death, Monist, 59:2 (1976:Apr.)

Lucretius. On the Nature of Things. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1969. Print.

You Can Call Me Akfak

2010-01-25T16:26:00.005-07:00

The Sisohpromatem

When Blatta Polyphagidae awoke from troubled dreams one morning, he found that he had been transformed on his trash into a tiny human. He began to choke. Desperately searching for the correct use of lungs, which were foreign objects to him. Normally Blatta could last without air for about thirty minutes, but he had a feeling that with these lungs he wouldn't last that long. Slowly, Blatta's choking turned to panting, and he got the hang of human breathing. The outside of the Welch's juice box in which he resided began to fluctuate in size with every confused breath Blatta took. Somewhat looking like a lung itself.

Blatta was a baby-boomer. All throughout his youth he and his friends salivated over the prospect of nuclear war. They had once seen on a paper that if humanity destroys itself with nuclear war, cockroaches would inherit the Earth. Blatta was an avid collector of newspaper clippings that mentioned nuclear war. He would collect them, display them, and then get hungry and eat his shrine of nuclear hope. This cycle repeated itself.

"What has happened to me?" Blatta wondered painfully. It was no dream. He thought he could go back to sleep and reawaken as a cockroach again but that was out of the question. And for some reason, sticky grape juice residue didn't feel very comfortable anymore, in fact, it was quite bothersome. Blatta became hungry, even starving. "But I just ate three days ago, how could i be hungry?"

Blatta crawled on all fours through the rip in the juice box. His tender skin was torn on the door and bright red blood ran down his side and onto his double mint doorstep. Blatta had never felt so uncomfortable. Hungry, sticky, and worse—leaking red juice. Blatta remembered where he had seen his favorite snack a year earlier.

He took an enormous bite into the back of the stamp, anticipating that it would end his hunger and satisfy his taste, as stamp glue had always done. Instead, it was disgusting and he promptly disposed of the stamp glue in his mouth and began to rain from his eyes. His thorax, or what he thought was his thorax, began to ache.

Feeling lonely, Blatta followed poop paths in search of his fellow cockroaches. By the time Blatta found another cockroach, his hands and knees were caked with cockroach crap. It was his sister that he found, and when she paused from inhaling banana peels, she looked up at Blatta, screamed, and scurried away as fast as her prothoracic, mesothoracic and metathoracic legs could carry her.

Walking Out the Door

2010-01-25T16:24:00.000-07:00

The good bye party was painfully joyful, drawn out, and chaotic. From six until ten I found myself receiving dancing advice from ten year olds who couldn’t hold it back while they watched me dance, listening to a song that a group of guests had rehearsed about friendship, crying in my room, and standing in the center of a fifty-person group hug that swayed back and forth over the sala floor. I left Annunciation House at six am the next day with my three sisters and my three trash bags packed in Jet, my toyota. We traveled east on 10, heading towards the rising sun.

The sun came up in front of us and went down behind us. We were in big old Texas for all of it. I was surprised that no heavy emotions or separation anxiety came over me. I was just driving, and not thinking about much else. Transitions always seem to be less dramatic than I envision.

At three in the morning, excluding gas fills, we hadn’t stopped driving. A caffeine high sister decided that we would pull off and find a Tennessee state park, sleep for a few hours, and then continue. As we entered the heavily coniferous state park, and drove past signs for “rustic cabins,” we had delusions that we could find them, peacefully enter, and borrow the beds for a night. Instead we pulled off a dirt road and tried to sleep. One sister accidentally opened a window a crack and the clamor of her chattering teeth became background music to the rest of us. The other two tried balancing their heads against each other as they tried to find comfort among the steering wheel, center console, and all the other impediments of the front seats. After two hours of futile fake sleep, I hopped in the drivers wheel, and took us to Nashville. Weary eyed, we entered a starbucks, brushed our teeths, deoderized, face-washed, and rested a bit until we made the final push to Ashville, North Carolina.

We arrived in Ashville at four thirty which put an end to our epic thirty four hour (look at “four” and “hour” next to eachother...it must be easy learning to pronounce english words) drive. Next day’s destination was Reston, Virginia where we spent the night, and then continued to New Hampshire the following snowy morning. It snowed all day, and at some point Jet decided to test my skill. The windshield wiper fluid pump ceased to work, which left me periodically rolling down the window, and reaching around to pour fluid on the windshield, as I steered with my other hand. This seemed to do the trick. Jet didn’t succeed in killing me.

Before I knew it, I was back home. After five months on the border I was back to my parallel universe, feeling funny about how easy it was to jump from one reality to the other. I found myself patiently waiting for something to hit me. Now that it has, I wish I had been more patient.

Annunciation House has left me with some things that I won’t be able to get rid off. A knowledge that the more I have the less others have. A knowledge that my lifestyle has the potential to send others into poverty. A realization that there are things more important than my anal antics. A heavy heart that can’t shake off the tears of humans. A view of the dark world that also exists.

It is a swift farewell to the things little Danny dreamed of and worked towards. Good bye to the ambitions of power, a big house, cars, success, approval, and affirmations. So now, I am back to the world in which those goals ruled my life, but I am left without those goals. I am drunkenly stumbling to splice these parallel worlds together, and really, it is really hard.

Exactly at the same moment everything seems to really matter while nothing seems to matter at all. I am sure I am not the only one who feels this way.
I was always good at limbo growing up. But I can’t get under the bar this time.

I’ll start school in about a week, and I hope and fear equally for distraction.

odds and ends

2009-11-28T08:08:00.009-07:00

Today I am just posting four(4) relatively unrelated things.

1)
Above, a fellow volunteer does some toe nail work on one of the guests in the office. We call this guest welfare. What is she actually working on? Look below for a close up.
Based on the smile, it seems that things are going well for the toe nail.

2) Below is a border inspired piece of writing:

Reality is clobbered by spirit.
Truth is overthrown by emotion.
The mind is held hostage by the heart.

But. Yet. However.

Spirit is the residue on reality.
Emotion is the manifestation of the perception of truth.
The heart obeys the orders of the mind.

A paradox; alive and well.

Green cuticulous clusters. Silence of noise.

A light on the street—light up my world, light up my nighttime childhood room. Protect me from monsters, protect me from those people who look different than I. Protect me from those myths. Protect me from evil.

Javier, dieciocho de Honduras. "Que Malo?" "Si"

Bricks in a row supporting my body with equally spaced lines—to separate or to hold together.

An open trash can. READY. to be filled, to be emptied. Oh futility.

La gente trabajando. otra vez. otra vez. otra vez.

Cars passing. otra vez. otra vez. otra vez.

Sonrisas. otra vez. otra vez. otra vez.

Oppression. otra vez. otra vez.

The dirty floor needing a clean. again and again and again. que mas. que necesitamos hacer.

A man. me. together in the street. no palabras. no connection of the eye. again and again.

Love on a sunday.
hands together just to cross the silent street.

The utterly futile process of life. its magnitude. each moment is every moment. each breath is every breath. each action is all actions.

3) Every weekday morning at 8:15 we have reflection. We rotate among the volunteers who runs each day's reflection. It ranges from yoga, to poetry, to rollerblading, to music listening.
Below, is the product of a writing reflection on what it is like to live at Annunciation House.

Rice, beans, and whatever.
Food without love is almost never.

Giggles, trickles, sighs and highs.
Sometimes in truth, sometimes in lies.

Always fulfilled, but never satisfied.
You couldn't be, unless you were to hide.

Instead we confront, and brace for the pain.
Sometimes wondering if we are sane.

Put me behind bars, force me to sit—
brothers and sisters, we are worth it.

Everyday I wonder, am I up for my roll.
Everyday I wonder, is it taking a toll.

I could go around the world searching for more.
Or I could stay at this house, and let it come to the door.

4)http://annunciationhouse.org/2009/10/annunciation-house-documentary/

If you go to the above link, you will find the Annunciation House video. I just watched it for the first time. I suggest you peep it!

Hasta luego!

wrapping up, turning in, turning out

2009-11-22T08:26:00.003-07:00

I have been thinking that December will be blog free for me. Or at least blog-pressure free.

I was speaking to a women from Boston who has been living and working in Juarez for at least a decade, and I was able to talk out some of my thoughts on connection and isolation, and the balance that should/can/could/may not/may exist between the two.

When you work in a reality so different from your own, or the one that used to be your own, it is very easy to feel isolated. I am not culturally coherent here, but at the same time, as I spend more time here, I become further from acceptance and oneness with the culture of my background. It feels like I become nothing more then a bridge between two fuzzy entities that I try to dually identify with. Which can be hard. But feels important.

There is no way to look at death, rape, poverty, and suffering on the border without at least acknowledging that the US has involvement and has responsibility. The every day work that I do could be considered "band-aid" work, not really changing anything, and more so, a temporary fix to a futile reality. Well, first, I think that the negative connotation of the term "band-aid" is crap. A band-aid is ever so necesarry. We all do use them afterall. In fact, I really admire people who can just do the reactionary (bandaid) work all their lives, because it is so needed, but has little glory, or sense of control involved. It is simply being in the present, and reacting to the realities that swirl through the land like chaos.

Anyway, because the US is involved with the suffering on the border, I feel like my blogging about what is happening here is the only radical (digging to the root) work that I can do. How can I go day in and day out living with people who have been marginalized by systems of my culture, without wondering how I can alter those systems, to take these people out of the conveyer belt to poverty that we mechanised with such care, and carelessness. So, my blog is my answer. It is my personal response, and the only way that I currently know to maybe a change a little, to maybe scrape at the root of the problem.

So, it is holding on and nurturing my connection to my past, that provides me with a hope of changing stuff. It is being the bridge. If I stay here, become isolated, and forget to open my mouth about what is happening, will I be satisfied with the purpose of my being here?

But, the more I connect to my culture and my background, through blogs, letters...the less I am able to be here, and to be fully here in the present.

If I try to connect back, I minimize my ability to remain present here, but if I let myself be fully present here and isolate from my culture, my day's work becomes futile.

It is funny that that sentence above ^ is what I had been getting at this whole time, a ton of writing just to say one obvious sentence.

Well with that in mind, I am back to where I started, December will be blog free, or atleast blog-pressure free. I will let myself isolate a little bit, so that I can absorb all that I have not absorbed before I will drive back home on the 28th of December. Maybe I will post, maybe I won't. I will dedicate my former blog-writing time to sitting with a baby in my arms, or getting greasy gorditas in Juarez, or cleaning our tool room, or staring at the sky in this West-Texas town of El Paso.

But I hope...that the bridge will not be closed. That your thoughts, or my thoughts, on the border won't end.

I also hope...that if you are reading and have a question, that you will ask it (in the comment section). Because most likely it is a question that I have never asked, and one that I would love to explore before I leave.

Here's a piece of writing:

El Paso here we come. Stick my fingers through the fence. Wrap my mind around the arbitrary line that means too much. One inch, weighted down by vast implications. of life and death and racism. of war of greed. A manifestation of fear. One inch, encompassed by the Beech in the woods behind my house. Adios. Cross the border. Green square cap. Green square suit. Black, shiny gun. Black, shiny boots. Death. Power. Wealth. Welcome to 2,000 murders, fueled by us, by there, by the other side, by here, by up and down. Bienvenidos. Calles de Muerto. Gracias Mexico. Adios. Calle de Oro, on our way. Homeward bound.

Here is another:

Super sweeping streaks. A sunset over sand. Millions of tics and tocs, of giggles and groans, of bombs and blasts, of drop, drop, drop. A four leaf clover in the field. The type that absorbed my childhood free time; searching, screaming, kicking, running. For my very own four leaf clover. Silent. Screams of a bird. Power over land. The irony of human dominance punches me blind. the breeching bulge of the swelling contrasts the setting sun on sand. The clover blows in the wind. Gets damaged by the sun. cut by the scythe. resurfaces to stare me in the face. memorizing every bump, shade, and shape of one another. No clover in sight. Not a full entity. Waiting for the orange above to descend upon me. Warmth. Can't forget the clover. Can't remember the clover. How long will the cl(a tree falls)over last with four leaves and all. North. East. West. North.

Relating Religion

2009-11-13T20:06:00.001-07:00

In my experience here the most common response to, “Como estas? How are you?” is “Bien, gracias a Dios! Good, thanks to God!”

Commonly, when I say, “Hasta mañana. See you in the morning.” I hear the response, “Si Dios quiere. If God wants.”

God is thanked and acknowledged frequently. Unlike the communities that I have grown up in, God is very much a part of everyday life. As an organization, we hold masses, and say thanks to God before every meal. This culture of religion is so new to me, and I have spent much time contemplating its role, practicality, and relevance to me.

Religion has been woven into the fabric of my El Paso life, and it has come to my attention that whether or not I have faith in a God, religion does exist and it is indeed a major player in the dynamics of society, and therefore, it is my interest to come to terms with it, and define the role it will take in my life.

I remember, the moments on childhood Sundays, dressed in khakis and a collar, sitting on a bench, when I became too bored, too lost in the events, to continue. I would tap a sister to my side and we would sneak out to the magnolia tree behind the church. Swinging, climbing, and running we enjoyed, as we waited until the service was over and the people shuffled out two by two.

Before meals we would sometimes say, “Thank you God for the food we eat, thank you God for the birds that sing, thank you God for everything!”

Those were the relatively subtle manifestations of religion in my childhood.

As I aged, I slowly acquired a knee-jerk reaction to the word God. I certainly felt a distance from religion, and it seemed to me an incredible force that pulled people from reality, and into a world where energy was boundless. Where people could be captivated and directed so quickly and forcefully, either for the good or for the bad. The intensity of captivated energy and passion frightened me. The reaction that one might have when they hear the term “cult” was similar to the reaction that I had when I heard the word God. Words that came to mind were fear, control, power, violence, and even oppression.

Arguably, these words have been a part of religion in history. And it was these parts, and only these parts, that I cared to recognize. Growing up in mainly white and mainly wealthy communities nurtured my ability to see past the simultaneous beauty and relevance of religion.

It was a change of settings that allowed me to see a different side of religion for the first time. I was in Camoapa, a small agricultural town in Nicaragua, when I asked the director of the organization that I was working with about the reasons for its Catholic affiliation. The organization was a center where kids from the community could come for meals, showers, activities, and help with schoolwork. The director explained to me that some of the kids have no parents, no family, and no home. And that God, and the belief that some greater force is looking out for you, is the last option to keep hope in the lives of these children.

This explanation really resonated with me. It illuminated a good purpose for religion that I hadn’t experienced at home. I was able to recognize that at a level, religion can be the sustenance for those who can’t find other sustenance, and the hope for those that cannot find other hope. With this, I felt very appreciative for the religious structures of the world, but simultaneously still felt no desire to take part in those structures.

Despite the realization, my distrust and fear of religion continued as I once again became isolated from its practical purposes. I was unable to put the word God into terms for myself, so that upon hearing it, it could mean something real to me, and not just immediately turn me away from wherever I heard it.

In deciding to come to Annunciation House, I was forced to consider religion. The organization’s religious roots dig deep. Five young people who were seeking to live out the Gospel and serve the poorest of the poor founded the organization. Believe it or not, it was the visiting Mother Teresa who suggested the name Annunciation House to our current director. Biblically, Annunciation was the revelation of Mary that she would conceive Jesus. In all honesty, the connection of that moment to the work of our house, I have yet to fully understand. I have been meaning to ask Teresa.

At home, living in a community of friends and family who in general, have a critical eye on religion, I received many questions regarding religion and the place I would be living. My response generally went something like this, “Well, I think a lot of the religious activities at the house are in place to make it feel more like home to the guests, of which the majority come from Catholic backgrounds. Also, from what I understand it is good religion, about peace and love, and not killing your neighbor.” Now I chuckle as I remember that I was attempting to define ‘good’ religion in my justification for heading south to the border.

As I was waiting in Boston Logan airport (for seven hours) to board my Texas bound plane, I explained to an El Paso native where I was heading and the work that I would be doing. He said to me beneath his clean cowboy hat and gray splattered beard, “you’re doing the Lord’s work.” I smiled, said “Yes,” and gave a stiff nod. To myself I though, “I am doing the work of the people!” This foreboded the role that the notion of God would play in my El Paso life.

Religion came into my world very quickly in many different ways. I experienced masses that the organization held. I noticed God’s name used in colloquial language. I witnessed people’s lives that were dedicating to following God. Two weeks after my arrival, three Somalian guests invited me to church with them. I decided to go. In four hours of service, I saw people get shoved to the floor. I saw screaming, dancing, crying. I saw our guests pull the only money in their possession out of their pockets, and put it into a velvet bag for the church. I was told to scream hallelujah three hundred times while rolling on the floor, running, and dancing. This was just yet another face of religion to which I was exposed.

Experiencing religion on so many scales, with so many different facets, beliefs, and practices makes the word religion seem diluted in its definition. Religion now seems like such an overarching word that ironically almost means nothing; and yet it is what I am writing specifically about.

Religion, in its nature of belief in a relatively intangible force, does create the space for immense amounts of passion, dedication, energy, and faith. It creates the space by opening a fourth dimension where everything is possible and where realities can be created from one’s own faith. The garnering of the products from this fourth dimension—passion, dedication, energy, and faith—can be used to create such goodness, but equally can be used to create such evil. It is religion’s ability to gather force that makes me nervous, because I do not know where that force will go, what it will do.

One question that I have continually wondered since my arrival in El Paso is how would the religiously active change their lifestyles if one day they found out that in fact there was no God? I see people doing such good work. Dedicating their lives to the poorest of the poor. And when asked what keeps them going, they can point to the book, or point to the sky. But it seems so dangerous to me, that someone’s life could be dedicated to the sky, to the book. What would change if God were pulled out of the picture? Would their actions change?

To be honest I think their actions wouldn’t change. I think that, whether acknowledged or not, personal conviction and the strength of the heart is enough for someone to dedicate their life. I notice that credit is often given to God, but not given to the hands and the hearts and the minds of the people on the ground, doing their thing.

Left over from my years of knee-jerk reactions to the word God, I still struggle getting past that reaction, getting past the disconnection that the word God brings to me. Many times I have been reading or listening to something so beautiful and powerful, and then the end of it reveals that it is based on God and the belief in God. In this, I then become isolated from the expressions. Because if it is based on an idea with which I don’t believe, how can it be relevant to me?

Similarly, many of the people involved with Annuncation House say that God is what carries them through the hard parts of the job and that it is God that keeps them dedicated. Hearing that, I wonder, without a belief in God, how can I get through the hard parts? How can I remain personally dedicated?

Finding my ability to do this without a belief in a God brings me back to a ninth grade World Cultures project to design our own religion. Mine was called Induism, derived from the word individual. It was based on the belief in each person’s infinite dignity, love, and goodness. And simply a belief in the inherent goodness of all things. It is the belief and the hope in goodness that is my motivation…the thing that keeps me going.

The big question to me is how to connect the hope in inherent goodness that keeps me going to the hope in God that keeps so many other people going. This is the biggest struggle and the biggest opportunity in my exploration of religion.

A friend asked me if I had attempted to define God on my terms. I began to think that if I could find a way to make the term God practical to my beliefs, then religion would no longer isolate me, but instead include me.

What if the word God could mean to me the inherent goodness of all? If someone were to say, “God bless you!” It would mean to me, “may the inherent goodness of all bless you.” That to me, does not bring up the uneasiness I have with religion, but instead is something relevant and powerful to my world and my beliefs. With this, God, is on practical terms for the life that I feel comfortable living, and can exist without causing isolation. It is finally a personal peace with the existence of religion in this world.

On the Fence

2009-11-05T12:39:00.011-07:00

From El Paso, Texas to the Gulf of Mexico, the Rio Grande runs (not-so-grandly) through deserts and mountains, forming the US-Mexico border. In El Paso, the river bends north and becomes the border between Texas and New Mexico instead. At that point, the US border continues to travel west across land all the way to the pacific.

If you want to go up to the fence, and see Mexico directly on the other side, you have to go to New Mexico where there is not a river at the border. Every year at the fence in New Mexico, a border mass is held in honor of the struggling migrant and of the deaths and injustices that have occurred on the border. This year, I took some pictures.

Above, you can see Mexico on the left of the fence, and the US on the right of the fence. You'll notice that on the Mexican side, the people are crammed against the fence, and on the US side, there is a significant gap between the fence and the people. Seeing this gap, one of the attendees called it, "fucking scandalous." Apparently, last year border patrol put a line a few feet away from the fence where people could not cross, except for during one part of the ceremony, the sign of peace, where you can go to the fence and embrace, with squeezed fingers through cracks, the people on the other side. It was told to me that after communion last year, the bishop from Juárez said on to the US side, "We are further apart than we have ever been, you would think we have a disease or something, I hope that next year we can be fully united once again." This year however, it was far more than a mere few feet of separation.
Some people blamed this gap on the Border Patrol that stood in between the fence and the US crowd. Based on the line that their bodies formed, it appeared the we were not allowed to pass to the fence. Curious, I went up and asked if we could pass and stand at the fence. With a little hesitation, he said yes. So I walked up and stood by the fence, feeling uncomfortable and as if I was neglecting some unspoken rule.
Many flags and balloons hung high on the Mexican side. After the ceremony, the sky became filled with white balloons floating up and up and up.
Above, friends—separated by the fence—take the time to catch up. Despite the umbrellas, it was not raining. It is a new phenomenon to me that in November umbrellas are widely used as sun protection.
When people say it was swarming with Border Patrol, they mean it. These agents are standing about ten feet from the fence, making sure that no one jumps over or climbs through a hole.
These kids seem more interested in the ceremony, than trying to hop the fence.

One interesting dynamic between the Border Patrol at the ceremony and the partakers and bishops of the mass, is that I bet both parties would claim that they were there for the purpose of justice. But justice with different definitions. Perhaps justice to Border Patrol is making sure that a person who commits a crime (such as crossing the fence) gets the punishment that is necessary. Perhaps to the bishops and the guests at the mass justice means creating fairness and equality for all people. The ambiguity of the word justice, considering it's implications, strikes me. One of the big jails in El Paso, where guests from our house have ended up, is located on the not coincidentally named "Justice Street." When seeing the reasons people have been sent there, and the time that they are to spend there, the word justice doesn't particularly come to mind.

Dying to Live

2009-10-28T09:40:00.003-07:00

Some days the sala is full, others it is empty. This depends on if the guests could find work that day. Sometimes, guests leave the house to rent a place of their own, and sometimes, they leave to go back to their home country. This depends on if the guest could find work. The general mood of the house also fluctuates with the availability of work. On days when work was abundant, people come home in high spirits and ready to go to bed early. It is days when no work was available that people are on edge, and problems arise. Finding work, one day a week, or two days a week, is the make or break for many guests. It determines if their family in Mexico will have food on the table. It determines how long they have to be separate from their families. A day of work means everything.

This week I will try to document the public policy and economic marginalization involved with the displacement of many native Mexicans—necessitating their migration north. I will highlight how the “workers” category at our house exists because of failed public policy.

Although migration north for work has been a phenomenon since the US acquisition of Mexican land in 1848, the recent waves of migration can be traced back to the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on January 1st, 1994.

This agreement, between Canada, Mexico, and the US, was reached in hopes to strengthen all three economies with more cooperation and a more free market. Essentially, NAFTA lowers tariffs on goods between the three countries, including the complete elimination of tariffs on 21 farm products. This would allow US companies to take advantage of the cheap labor in Mexico, without having to pay as much to get the goods back across the border. Also, without tariffs, it put the economies of all three countries in direct competition with each other, meaning that the Mexican corn farmer, the US corn farmer, and the Canadian corn farmer were all put head to head to see who could make corn the cheapest.

Mexico signed the deal hoping that the increased incentive for foreign investment would help to stabilize their economy. On the morning of January 1st, 2004, when NAFTA went into effect, Mexico woke up to the Zapatista Army of National Liberation declaring war on Mexico and using the date of the implementation of NAFTA as a symbol of the greater than one hundred years of oppression of the indigenous people of Mexico.

This immediate resistance to NAFTA could be traced to two main reasons. First, because the rural population of Mexico realized that the decreased tariffs would put them in competition with the US farmers and the huge US farm subsidies, therefore, putting them out of work. Second, a Ejido land system had existed in which land was constitutionally protected for certain communities to live on and cultivate. This land was the livelihood for many indigenous people. George Bush Sr. had given Salinas, the then-President of Mexico, an ultimatum that if he did not make the ejido land available for sale and for factory use, NAFTA would not be signed by the US. Salinas then amended the Mexican Constitution to allow for the sale of ejidos, leaving the land, and the people of the land, victim to wealthy landowners and government officials.

The declared Zapatista revolution had dramatic effects on an international scale. Hundreds of foreign investors pulled money out of Mexico as fast as they could, fearing the tumultuous state of the country. With money rapidly leaving the country, the value of the peso fell to less than half of its prior value. Concerned with the disastrous state of our southern neighbor, and the effect that could have on us, the US offered Mexico bailout money, but only under the condition that Mexico would cut social, educational, and infrastructural spending.

In the first year of the implementation of NAFTA, Mexico had witnessed the birth of a revolution, the value of the peso cut in half, and their freedom to spend where they wanted infringed by debt and dependence on US bailouts. The early days of NAFTA did not bode well.

Before NAFTA, one half of Mexico’s land was dedicated to corn production, with the help of two and a half million farmers. The implementation of NAFTA changed things. The US gives twice the amount of subsidies to its farmers than Mexico does, and therefore, the US farmers can grow corn for a much lower cost. Also, the US has an agreement that they will buy up any excess corn that the farmers produce. With the extra corn that the US buys, they then sell it in Mexico, flooding the market with cheap corn. These systems make it nearly impossible for Mexican corn farmers to continue, putting millions out of work. By 1996, two years after NAFTA began, 2.3 million Mexicans lost their jobs, the average cost of living rose by 80% while the average salary only rose 30%, and 20,000 small-medium size businesses went out of business. The disastrous effects of NAFTA seem very evident when you look at the numbers.

With a seemingly eternal tremulous economy in Mexico, there is a saying that, “When the US sneezes, Mexico catches Pneumonia.” This has been seen in the recent economic downturn. In the three-month period this year between April and June, the Mexican economy contracted 10.3% while the US economy contracted 1%. Currently 60% of the active working population in Mexico is working in the informal sector, trying to squeeze out a livelihood washing cars, selling papitas and so on. Of every 730,000 people that entered the labor market before 2008, only 80,000 found employment. Hearing these numbers, it is no wonder that since 1994 and the implementation of NAFTA, 500,000 Mexicans migrate to the US annually.

It is a portion of these 500,000 each year that show up at our door, in a state of crisis, looking to earn enough money to keep them and their dependents in Mexico alive. These people are the byproduct of disastrous public policy, and are the real, living example, of what went wrong. It certainly does something to see the numerical effects that NAFTA has on Mexico. But it is when you get looked in the eye and told by someone that he lost his job, his family went hungry, and now he is simply dying to live, that you can really absorb the pain, injustice, and errors of this particular public policy.

ICE Cracks

2009-10-21T11:48:00.003-07:00

All of the meals at Annunciation House are eaten with everyone together, around one large table. Niños primero, and then the rest can grab food too. If you look around the table at any given meal, you will see many very unique stories of how each person arrived at that table. There will be kids laughing, crying, and throwing their food. Mamas will be chasing, and trying to eat themselves. There will be lively talk in Spanish, English, Arabic… somehow all making just one large conversation. But if you continue to look, and pay attention to the patterns of the unique stories, you could realize that as different as the stories are, they mostly all fall into just a few categories. These categories are created by gaps in the social structure and errors in public policy. So it turns out that the guests at Annunciation House are to an extent just one byproduct of public policy, and because of that, they provide a unique view of what went wrong and why it didn’t work.

In this sense, Annunciation House is intimately connected with the actions of our government. Receiving no government funds and having no formal government connections, it is an odd relationship to feel so close to governmental policy via the fact that we are doing their dirty work.

This topic was brought up when the board of directors for Texas ACLU met at Annunciation House. Someone asked what our relationship looked like with immigration and the government. We described it as simply anomalous. Here is a less simple explanation…

To generalize, the major categories that we see at our house are: the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) guests, the workers, the single mothers, the refugees from violence in Juárez, and the social security guests

In the next couple of weeks, I will attempt to go category by category and document how public policy and other factors have left each category of people in crisis.

This week I will document the public policy involved with former ICE detainees who become left with no options.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) could be considered the muscle of immigration law enforcement. ICE manages all of the immigration raids, does investigations, and runs the detention system. If Annunciation House were ever to be raided for providing hospitality, ICE would be the ones to do it. But in fact, our relationship with ICE is unique, because they actually rely on us. Every few days or so, we receive a call from ICE asking us if we can take someone from their detentions. These guests are, for lack of a better term, called ICE guests (despite their warm hearts).

The ICE guests are here essentially because of faults in the detention and processing system. I would identify two groups in this category: Those who are seeking asylum, and those who were picked up by immigration officials without proper documents. ICE’s response to dealing with these people has changed drastically in the last few years. Until 2006, the US government used a system known as catch and release. With that system, when a person was identified by immigration as not having proper papers, they would be picked up, given a court date to appear before a judge, and then released on their own recognizance. According to a 2007 hearing from the congressional subcommittee on Border, Maritime, and Global Counterterrorism, more than 90% of these “illegal aliens”* never showed up to their court date. Because of this, in addition to a desire for deterrence and punishment, the US decided to begin detaining people instead of releasing them, under the Secure Border initiative. The new program is referred to as Catch and Return. The implications of this change are immense. In one year after the change, ICE increased its detention capacity by 7,500 beds. Now, more than 34,000 people are in over 500 US detentions each day, at the cost of $141 dollars per night per person. Despite the increase in beds and funding, ICE’s eyes appear to have been too big for their stomach—they simply cannot achieve the vast task in which they set out to do. ICE has to release detainees against their will for three main reasons. They don’t have enough beds, they can’t afford to detain people with medical needs, and because a Supreme Court ruling, Zadvydas, states that every 90 days the detention of each individual must be reviewed and if it does not appear that the person can be deported to their country, they then must be released.

So typically, people are released to our house for one of those three reasons. The oddity is that even though someone may be released from detention, it doesn’t mean that he/she has legal status. Many of them are still in the middle of immigration processing such as appeals on an asylum case, deportation proceedings, or waiting for work papers.

A few examples to make this clear (names and details have been altered for the sake of confidentiality)...Adam, from Somalia, was released to our house after 13 months in detention. While in detention, he won his asylum case, but then it was appealed. Later, he won the appeals. Now, while he is at our house, he is waiting because his case is being appealed, AGAIN, at the taxpayer’s expense. I find it quite silly that we (The US) are appealing his case twice, even though it was decided originally by the strict guidelines in which we put in place. It is interesting to know that 62% of people that apply for asylum in the US are denied relief. Because technically Adam hasn’t gotten asylum yet, he is left without working papers or identification to travel legally in the US. Therefore, in El Paso, where most shelters require legal status for admittance, he was left with no option but Annunciation House. ICE called us and asked if we would take him in. We said yes.

Javier, from Honduras, worked in a Mexican restaurant in North Carolina. One day, ICE raided the restaurant and picked up him and his friends. He was detained for six days in El Paso, but then released because they were running low on beds. ICE gave him a court date, and released him in hopes that he will show up. Unfortunately, he was released in a city he has never been to with no support network. That is how he ended up with no other option except Annunciation House. ICE called us an asked if we would take him in. We said yes.

Gloria, from El Salvador, was 4 months pregnant when Border Patrol picked her up crossing the border with her husband. They separated her and her husband, detained her for a few days, but then decided that they didn’t want anything to do with the medical needs of a pregnant women. They released her, leaving the medical expenses to the public, and gave her a court date. Most likely, once she has her child, she will be deported. ICE called us and asked us if we would take her in. We said yes.

The act of calling us, and asking for our help, is verification by ICE of our necessity and also of problems with the current system of catch and return. It is ICE admitting, “we need you, because we have cracks that people are falling through.” And this is precisely the reason that they show up at our door asking for help, and not ready to raid.

The ICE guests show up at our house because under the current system people are detained and then displaced upon release with no status to either travel back to where they have a support network, or to get a job for survival. They are left in a limbo, and Annunciation House exists to lift the bar and let them get through without breaking their backs.

This current program isn’t one without economic consequences as well. In FY 2010, our detention program will cost us over $1.7. Take Adam for example, who is in the process of getting asylum and who was in detention for 13 months. That means that the taxpayers spent $54,990 to detain someone who would eventually receive asylum. This strikes me as unfair to everyone involved.

One alternative to the detention system that many people in the immigration reform movement support is the switch to electronic ankle bracelet monitoring, which shows a rate of higher than 90% for getting people to actually show up to their immigration appointments. The cost of this is $12 per day per person, and is arguably more humane detention. However, a guest at our house has one of these ankle bracelets and it is not problem-free. He wears pants no matter what to avoid the embarrassment of people seeing the bracelet and assuming that he is some kind of criminal. Playing soccer, looking for jobs, hanging out with friends, he has to be wearing pants. Also, he has to sit by an electrical outlet for hours each day to charge the ankle bracelet. The dignity provided in this situation is certainly questionable.

The current system is overwhelmingly expensive, sadly inhumane, and clearly incomplete, leaving places like Annunciation House to pick up the slack. In 2006, when the catch and release program was visibly ineffective, major congressional changes occurred and created the system we now have. Today, in 2009, as the catch and return program is visibly inefficient and inhumane; it seems time for major changes once again. A ver.

* Governmental organizations and many media sources use the term “illegal aliens” to refer to those who are undocumented within our borders. Because of this, the term “illegal aliens” has become a common term in public use. However, it seems very clear to me that no person is illegal and no person is an alien, they simply don’t have proper documents—they are undocumented.

A Problem of Social InSecurity

2009-10-16T18:58:00.001-07:00

I haven’t posted in a while partially because I have been working on what feels a bit like dead end research for my next blog. Although my research is more or less inconclusive at the moment, I will share what experience and research have taught me so far.

One category of guests at Annunciation House is the social security category. The social security guests come twice a year for one month at a time. They are typically older women and sometimes have kids. They are the survivors of a US resident or citizen who paid into the social security system then passed away. As social security policy goes, the surviving family of a deceased social security contributor can get survivors benefits in the form of a monthly check. The twist; what happens if the family is Mexican, and lives in Mexico? Well, the policy says that in order for them to receive their checks, they have to stay in the US for one month every six months. As I bet you can imagine, this can get problematic.

A feasible scenario illuminates the difficulty and injustice of this policy. Maria, a Mexican national, marries Juan, a US citizen. Mary, a US citizen, marries John, also a US citizen. These married couples live together for years in the US, Juan and John working and paying into social security. One day, John and Juan pass away, leaving and Maria and Mary to support their families alone. Maria, looking for help with her kids, moves back home to Mexico where family and friends can lend a hand. Mary continues to live in the US. Each month, Mary gets her social security checks in the mail, her only source of income, but luckily, just enough to get by. For Maria, things are more difficult to get her only source of income. Each year, the Social Security Administration tells her the two months that she must stay in the US. For at least one of those months, her kids are uprooted from school, as they are required to come with her to the US. She has to pay for transportation, food and housing for each month that they are in the US. But despite these costs, she still makes the trip north, because it gives her access to her only source of income. As Maria gets older, it becomes harder and harder to travel north. Eventually Maria is sick and can’t travel, but unfortunately more dependent than ever on these monthly checks. So, Maria’s health won’t allow her to take the twenty hour bus ride from central Mexico to El Paso, and subsequently, her only source of income gets cut off from her. This tragedy occurs often. If you were Maria, a social security beneficiary, would it be tragic that once you need your monthly checks the most, they are cut off because you can no longer travel? If you were Juan, a US citizen who fell in love with Maria, would you feel your rights were being violated when the money you paid into the system was cut off from your wife when she became too sick to travel to the US twice a year?

Aside from the injustice to the people and the immorality of it, this policy is also explicitly harmful to US taxpayers. On more than one occasion, we have seen elderly women come to the US for their assigned month, get sick, and end up spending the month in a US hospital, leaving the bill for the taxpayers. But what do we expect when we ask elderly women in poverty to spend 16% of every year in the US without family to take care of them?

The situation instinctively seems very clear cut. It is a policy that doesn’t make sense and has the effect of leaving deserving people very desperate. It is a policy that needs to be changed as soon as possible. With that being my goal, I set out to do some research.

Some of my initial questions were: what is the name of the act that put this in place? When did it take effect? Is Mexico the only country to which it applies? Why hasn’t it been challenged?

The first try was with the board of directors of the Texas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, who fortunately for me, held one of their quarterly meetings at Annunciation House. On the topic of civil liberties and constitutional rights, we brought the social security issue to their attention, and to my surprise, they were overwhelmingly uninformed of this issue. They were astonished by the glaring unconstitutionality of it. Their lack of awareness tipped me off that finding information might be difficult.

My next stop was the Internet and the library. Both proved useless. I spent hours on the Social Security website sifting through policies that might contain this piece, but I couldn’t find anything pertinent. And not surprisingly, the El Paso Public Library did not have books about social security policy.

I then decided to go directly to the source. I walked the five blocks to the downtown social security office. As I entered, there was a machine that I pressed to get a ticket. The ticket printed and read, “You will be helped in approximately 450 minutes. Please take a seat and wait for your number to be called.” The hundreds of people sitting and waiting was a daunting site to see, and without 450 minutes to spare, I turned around and walked home. At home I looked up the social security phone number and gave them a ring. 20 minutes after listening to ear piercing on-hold music, I was startled by a real-live voice. This was a breakthrough.

The helpful man on the other end informed me that the policy was part of the 1977 Omnibus Reconciliation Act. With that name, no wonder I couldn’t find it online. He told me that this social security policy applies to every country in the world, not just Mexico. Surprised and unbelieving I asked, “So a women from Australia has to fly to the US and back twice a year to receive her checks?” He replied, “well they actually have a treaty with us to override it, so Australians can receive the checks without traveling.” On to something, I asked, “how many other countries have a treaty like this too?” “A few” he said. “What about France, England, Germany, Italy, Canada, Switzerland, Denmark…” I inquired. The answer was yes, yes, and yes. They all have treaties too. “What about Brazil, Honduras, Peru, Argentina…” The answer was no, no, no. They don’t have treaties. I quickly learned that if a country was primarily white and wealthy, they most likely had the treaty. If they weren’t white or wealthy, they most likely didn’t have the treaty.

This conversation was incredibly helpful and changed my thought path on how the policy might be changed. I had assumed that the policy was discriminatory against a few countries, and therefore could be challenged on the basis of NAFTA, other international agreements, or as unconstitutional. But the fact is that the policy is completely universal, and across the board. It is just isolated treaties that help some countries get around this crippling policy. Can a country be blamed for signing treaties with some countries and not with others? That is a right the government does indeed have.

The questions that this arrangement begs are what does a country need to attain this treaty. Has Mexico really not tried to make the treaty? Or have they just been denied? Is requiring a women from South America to come to the US twice a year to receive her checks essentially denying her her checks, because the travel expenses would make it fiscally useless? Is there a reason for the immense racial divide that tells whether or not a country has the overriding treaty? If we accept that it is necessary for Canada to have a treaty, why isn’t it equally necessary for Mexico to have the treaty?

My next goal is to answer these questions and then write a letter to my Congressmen.

As I have previously written, it is rare that I can feel so one-sided and sure about right and wrong on a particular issue, but this is one of those rare occasions. I know that this policy towards survivors of social security contributors needs to end, and the sooner the better. If you feel outraged, or even just agitated, by the situation Maria finds herself in, or for the citizen whose wife is put through so much just to receive the checks his family deserves, I hope you will help end this. I will post the letter to my congressmen, hoping that anyone interested will alter it accordingly and pay the 44 cents to send it along to his/her congressperson with his/her signature at the bottom.

At the Bottom of the Ladder: Unaccompanied Minors

2009-10-03T19:27:00.003-07:00

An evening in Juárez brought to my attention the tragic struggle for unaccompanied minors on the border, and the odd relationship of power and obligation between different groups that share the same issue but at different levels.

The US Consulate in Juárez, located ten or fifteen miles from el centro de Juárez, looks pristine and tranquil from the outside, surrounded by tall white walls, guards with European looking berets, and decorated with bright, human sized letters identifying itself. A high-fying American flag floats fiercely in the windy desert sky. The busy streets and towering chain hotels around it forebode what is found inside the protective white walls. Once you are in, there is visible truth to the fact that it is the busiest consulate in the world. The paths leading through the rare green grass are busy, and the shiny floors inside sing a constant melody of squeaking leather shoes, tapping high heels, and a bilingual murmur.

In order to get in I had to fax a copy of my passport ahead of time, and then, as verification, present the actual passport when I arrived. That got me into the lobby and screening room. From there an escort took my group through the well-watered lawn and into the glamorous, newly built main building. Upon entry, Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama welcomed me warmly, or at least their large pictures did.

I was at the consulate to attend a symposium about unaccompanied minors on the border. The event was set up with a panel and an anxious audience to ask questions. The crowd mainly consisted of high-level diplomats in suits, and then of course there were four Annunciation House volunteers noticeably under dressed. To my surprise, the event was a potluck. But all that we could have possibly offered was our water bottles and journals, which we each carried in hand. Our lack of contribution didn’t stop us from enjoying homemade tandoori chicken, flan, tortillas, pastries, etc. I was delighted at the idea of a governmental potluck, and of course by the free food (monetarily speaking).

Prior to the event, I knew nothing about the topic and was hoping to take some notes and learn a little bit because the issue of unaccompanied minors is one that affects the work of Annunciation House. The assemblage of information at the consulate was evident, and I was eager to get at some of it, so I had fun asking officers about consulate information. During a side conversation, one of the questions that came up was what happens if a non-US citizen happens to have a baby while visiting the Consulate. Since it is technically US soil, would their child be a US citizen? The answer was no. Apparently, at any time the US can momentarily switch the possession of the land to Mexico, making it a Mexican baby, not a US baby.

As I learned who each of the panel members were, I realized that whoever chose the panel members must have a taste for drama and tension. On the left, was a high up administrator in Desarollo Integral de la Familia (DIF), which is the Mexican version of US Child Protective Services. Her role was to provide information about the services that DIF provides and how it runs. On the right was Ginger, a sharp woman from where she calls, “the boondocks of Pennyslvania,” whose role was to testify to the conditions (reportedly awful) of the DIF facilities in Juaréz. In the middle, maybe designed this way to keep the peace, were two representatives from the Mexican Consulate. Ginger’s presence provided much excitement. She initially became involved with border issues when she volunteered with a DIF shelter in Juárez during college. After graduation, she went back to volunteer with DIF, and wrote and received many grants to help support the struggling shelter where she worked. Ginger put in tremendous time and resources to the DIF shelter, but was dismissed this past June for “administrative reasons.” These reasons are most likely related to her speaking out about corruption in the organization, and neglect of the unaccompanied minors. Remember that on the other side of the panel was an administrator from DIF, potentially responsible for Ginger’s dismissal. As the talks got under way, the tension between the woman on the left and the woman on the right seemed palpable.

Slowly, background information surfaced. The primary issues with unaccompanied minors are who is responsible for them, what that responsibility entails, and where the kids go in the long term. For example, a boy who is fifteen might cross the border, maybe looking for work, or maybe escaping an unsafe situation at home. If border patrol then picks him up, where does he go from there? Sometimes the boy would be deported immediately, other times, he might be detained, and then deported. One of the questions is what responsibility does the US have to provide education and services to the kids who they choose to detain. The responsibility is great, and also has a great cost. It is very expensive to provide schooling, counseling, housing, and meals for someone that they plan to deport anyway. The cheapest thing to do is to deport the kid to Mexico, where he will then be under DIF jurisdiction. Once at DIF, the next goal is to make contact with the child’s family, get an address, and send the kid “home.”

My question was if a kid has traveled all the way from his home by himself and attempted to cross the dangerous border, isn’t it clear that home might not be the best place for him. But then, what is the alternative? What I found out is that in this whole process there is very little, or no part at all, that includes the desire of the kid. Because they are under the discretionary age of 18, their opinion is more or less disregarded, and their plans are made by members of US and Mexican governments. Clearly, this story of an unaccompanied minor navigating the process of crossing the border and being deported is a tragic one. Undocumented minors on the border could very well be the most vulnerable of all, and because of limited funds, limited contacts, and a hot potato attitude to send them back across the border, children on the border are the victims of an international game of politics, money, and jurisdiction.

The discussion went back and forth between Spanish and English, but I thought this to be insignificant as I assumed that every one there would understand both. At one point, in English, Ginger made a very pointed argument that DIF is not using its resources to support the kids that it needs to support, and furthermore, that she has often seen inhumane treatment of kids in DIF custody. She said that the administration of DIF is caught in dirty politics, and more interested in their image than the work that they do. She pointed out that the people who are experiencing the repercussions of this behavior are the stranded unaccompanied minors. As Ginger spoke, I continued to look over at the DIF administrator, trying to read her reaction to the very clear criticism of her work. I thought I saw embarrassment on her face.

At the end of Ginger’s statement, someone from the audience raised their hand and asked the administrator from DIF a question in English. She looked confused and nervous, and finally spit out, “en Español por favor.”

This indicated to everyone that the administrator from DIF didn’t speak English, and therefore had missed Ginger’s entire argument against the administration (her administration) of DIF. An air of disappointment came across the room. The importance of bilingualism on the border, and in general, became glaring. Without it, as we saw that night, Ginger might as well have been talking to a wall.

One thing that continued to frustrate me during the talks was the futility of it all, and the utter lack of options. The problem is clear—unaccompanied minors don’t have a home on either side of the border, have risked lots to flee their family, and neither Mexico nor the US has the resources or creativity to figure out what to do with them. But there seems to be little alternatives to that reality. Dealing with unaccompanied minors on the border is a really difficult task inside and out, and it became clear to me that no potluck symposium was really going to change that fact. So it seems, the problem of handling these kids on the border, is really just a byproduct of a bigger problem, which is the fact that children, for whatever reason, have been handed a situation in which the need to leave their family, in search for something else, exists.

The real root of this problem is the social and economic systems that dictate these people, and put them in positions where escape becomes their only perceivable option. But recognizing the real roots doesn’t feel like much help either, as it just makes me realize the depth of the problem and feel further from a solution.

Similar to many problems, this one has distinct levels. These distinct levels of power and responsibility strike me, and are painful to consider. From the bottom of the food chain to the top the levels go like this: The unaccompanied minor, the shelters (like Annunciation House) who receive the unaccompanied minor, the Mexican and US consulates, and the economic, political, and social structures of our world. I am writing about unaccompanied minors now, but a tier system like this seems to exist with many national and international structures as well. It is painfully ironic that the lowest levels on the power scale seem to be the highest in the knowledge-of-the-issue scale. It is also unfortunate that all of these levels can’t get it together to communicate and send some knowledge up the ladder and some power down the ladder.

It seems too often that the people at the bottom are left to clean up the mess that the decisions and structures above have made. This is a constant occurrence in Annunciation House. It seems that the type of person who walks to our door, is decided by national and international policy. As those policies change, the populations of our houses change in correlation.

Simply put, our house serves as the home for the byproducts of failed governmental policies. Detailing that statement will be saved for another blog.

An uncovered thought

2009-09-30T13:57:00.002-07:00

Today I remembered something that I had written about immigration and borders nearly a half a year ago. I searched my computer and found the document. In reading it again, I was shocked by my radicalism and harsh criticism of United State's roots, and mainly by my overall one sided opinion, which I often try to avoid in my writing. Despite the narrow view of the argument, I think it is worth posting. Here it is...

International border control is an extremely important and under recognized global issue. Since human greed and territorial nature created the idea of a “border” centuries ago, the world as we know it has been defined by borders and the policies that surround them. As natural borders—such as rivers—drastically change environments, artificial borders—such as the US-Mexico border—drastically change human existence. A look at the border policy of the most powerful nation in the world is a good exercise to connect with the vast implications and hypocrisy of border and immigration policy.

When the white man arrived in America, we encountered the native population, who believed that like the air and the water, land was not something that could be “owned.” Exploiting this belief, we swept away other cultures and civilizations from coast to coast, and then drew lines on the land to signify what was ours. As we defined ourselves to be a beacon of hope, the masses arrived, and increasingly, we have looked to those lines on the land to keep them away.

Our southern border, which was once abstract, has come to separate one of the wealthiest nations from one of the poorest nations in the world. Before the border existed, the man two feet north was no better than the man two feet south, but today, that difference of four feet might be the difference between wealth and poverty, food and starvation, hope and desperation. All because of a line and our laws to define its significance.

There is a legislative line of order versus liberty that is hopefully balanced, but more often stumbled over, when defining the rules of our border. As immigration into the U.S. increases, citizens sometimes feel that we are losing order and that “our” land should not be theirs too. This ideology is often rooted in racism and a fear of blending cultures. The notion of protecting “our” land has been given life through much legislation dating back as early as the Chinese Exclusion Act or even as recently as the major immigration reform in 1996 and the USA PATRIOT Act following 9/11. Essentially, this type of legislation makes our borders less permeable, and allows us to send more and more immigrants across that line and back to their “homes.” The irony of this ideology—that has become the centerpiece of US immigration policy—is simply immeasurable.

The U.S. is located on land that we stole through violence in the Mexican American War. The U.S. came to prosperity on the backs of stolen humans from another continent. One of the driving forces of our economy today is the cheap and hardworking undocumented labor force, a product of the line we drew so long ago. But still, despite all this, our policy towards immigrants is self-righteous and overtly seeks to protect “our” land for ourselves.

This hypocrisy expands beyond the line from Tijuana to the Gulf of Mexico. It exists in every border laid out on this earth. Can we truly own land? Can we acquire it fairly? Is the security that we feel from a line in the dirt worth the tremendous divide that it unequivocally creates among humans? The root question that we each must ask ourselves as part of humanity, is whether borders are justified in their existence.

As always, please comment with thoughts or criticism...I am eager to hear it!

A Place We Call Home

2009-09-22T13:54:00.005-07:00

Williams is a Rwandan national, who has been in the US for no more than half a year. John, a Somalian national, is his good friend. Yesterday Williams walked into Annunciation House and asked me, “Is John home yet?” I answered, “I think so” without digesting the significance of this question.

After a moment, I got it. Williams calls this place home. To me, that means a whole lot.

You could call Annunciation House a homeless shelter, but I guess, once the guests are here, they are no longer ‘homeless.’ For that reason, among others, we choose to call Annunciation House a house of hospitality.

Raul snapping shots of himself

It uplifts me to know that my day’s work (and night’s work) sustains a home. A home for thirty, forty, or fifty people, that by some definition, are ‘homeless.’ A home that serves as a refuge from violence, oppression, racism, marginalization, and all else that exists out side of our brick walls.

Because I sleep, eat, and live at the house with all of the guests, and love every moment of it, I sometimes lose sight of the fact that the people living here—who would be deemed by society as the poorest of the poor—might not love living here as much as I do. But even if the guests don’t want to live at Annunciation House forever, it is a testament to something good, that for at least today, the guests call it home.

Max's Despedida

I remember vividly, and shamefully, the confusion of when I visited Annunciation House for the first time last winter. I walked into the main Sala, and didn’t know how to act with the guests. “Should I act sympathetic and understanding?” or “Should I just walk by and do nothing?” I wondered. These thoughts went through my head because at some level I assumed that the people at the house felt bad for themselves, were unhappy, or maybe even lacked hope. Why I assumed these things, I don’t know, because they are quite far from reality.

Victorcito and Miguel spinning the office chair

The guests at Annunciation House, and most likely all people in the world, don’t feel bad for themselves. Nor do they lack hope, dignity, or happiness. They are in fact hopeful, proud, and happy to be alive, despite that they have been thrown hefty challenges to overcome, and great pain along the way. The space of hope, pride, and dignity, thus becomes our mutual space. The space where all people interact on the same level. It is this oasis of communality that we at Annunciation House rely on to sustain a home.

When we see oppression in the world, or anything that we know in our gut is wrong, we can choose to fight it or to take flight from it. The fight that I take is in creating a space within which a community can avoid all those things that lessen us as human beings. I may not be able to give surgery to this woman, or get a job for that man, but I am with them in this communal space, representing the world that we seek. Right now, I can’t change the law, or stop the violence in Juaréz. So I will start small, and work to sustain the microcosm of what I hope to see bigger one day; a place where all people are welcomed warmly, and respected highly. A place where all people can find home.

Please feel free to comment if you any thoughts have been provoked.

Something funny: after writing this I stood up to use the bathroom in the shop where I write. Above the urinal was large sharpy writing, which read, “Find Home”

Independence

2009-09-16T16:22:00.005-07:00

Today is Mexican Independence Day, and this blog is dedicated to support and hope for a day when Mexico can be independent from US drug policy.

Celebrating independence in Juaréz

Although I live on the safe side of the border, the vast implications of the drug violence permeate the border with ease. I, in my short time here, can’t count on my fingers the number of people I have worked with that are refugees of the violence in Juaréz. One family I know became drug war refugees when they coincidentally were witnesses to a homicide, making them the next target. After receiving many shots to the body, and narrowly escaping death, this family fled to El Paso to seek safety. Their case is one of many. In September so far, more than 150 homicides have occurred in Juaréz.

What can be done to stop the drug war on the border? I offer this sequence of thoughts to shape an answer…

One of my jobs here is maintaining the bodega, which is basically our stock room where we keep all of our food, toiletries, and cleaning supplies. This job entails stocking, organizing, and ordering new supplies as needed. From the get go I knew that the ordering part of the job would inflict moral struggles for me.

I consider myself a minimalist, and have grown a harsh dislike to anything that I deem “unnecessary.” Of course unnecessary is incredibly vague and relative, but I use it to determine what I need, consume, and purchase. Unfortunately, I have a tendency to force (or at least try to force) my definition of necessary on others, and I often can’t understand, or at least can’t always sympathize if someone uses anything ‘unnecessary.’ I have learned slowly to get less agitated at the site of ‘unnecessary’ items in use…but having to order 200 lbs of something I consider unnecessary, that is a test of my ability to let go at a whole new level.

Some things that I have come to deem unnecessary are coffee, sugar, sweets, soda, chips, and so on. In my first fifteen days at Annunciation House we went through more than 150 pounds of sugar, which is used each meal to make some sort of sweet juice. In that same amount of time we went through ten jars of instant coffee, which is heavily relied on each morning. Eventually, the time came around when I had to order more of these ‘unnecessary’ items…or did I?

I began to wonder, “Do we really need sugar?” “Do we really need coffee?” And of course I thought that we didn’t need more of anything besides rice and beans. But then I wondered, is it my job to decide what we need, or to just supply the demand of the house, even if it may be unnecessary.

My inclination to deprive the sugar-toothed, caffeine-addicted population of the house must be rooted in some sort of self-righteousness. A belief that because I ‘know’ that coffee and sugar is unnecessary, and therefore wasteful, that I then have the right to control the use of it, by partially forcing my ideas on others through my power exerted as Mr. Bodega. The big question becomes, do I have the right to control anyone else’s consumption but my own, even if I have the power to?

This question gets debated among the volunteers. At one point during my antics of ‘unnecessary,’ another volunteer proclaimed, “give them some damn sugar, they are living in a shelter and you want to deprive them of a basic pleasure for your lofty environmental morals?” I would say that this is a very valid point. But my response is that if I know that sugar and coffee are bad for the body, nutritionally unnecessary, and environmentally destructive in their creation, wouldn’t I be crazy to not control the use of it since I have that power? The counter to that would be that taking someone else’s free choice into your own hands is never helpful or OK. It’s not helpful because people need to learn to make their own decisions, and not OK because each person deserves freedom and responsibility. And then my response to that is; do people still have the right to free choice even if their choices potentially harm other people or our Earth? I hold some belief in both of these opposing views, but struggle to focus on the fine line between free-choice and communal wellbeing.

I outline this argument not for the importance of sugar and coffee. I outline it because it is one conflict that defines life or death on the border.

These contradicting beliefs of free-choice and communal wellbeing also battle in my mind when I ponder national issues. I have spent much time hoping for a prohibition number two and exploring ways that it could work. I have even spent time hoping to make coffee illegal. But I also realize that once you go down that road of deciding what is right for other people, where does it end?

We are lucky to have prohibition, in its complete cycle, as such a clear example of what happens when the government attempts to define morality through legislative might.

It was the ratification of the 18th Amendment in 1919 that culminated a long temperance movement and began a period of prohibition in the US; in which the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol was illegal. Early on there was much public support for prohibition, and people became very confident of its permanence. In fact, one of its creators, Senator Merris Sheppard, suggested that, "there is as much chance of repealing the Eighteenth Amendment as there is for a humming-bird to fly to the planet Mars with the Washington Monument tied to its tail."

As time went by, opposition to prohibition increased. One particular group in opposition to prohibition was physicians, who had commonly used alcohol as a therapeutic prescription. Evoking thoughts of the current debate over medical marijuana, physicians began lobbying for the legalization of “medical liquor.”

The crime caused by the alcohol black market also inspired much opposition. Infamous gangsters such as Al Capone made their wealth through illegal alcohol sales, and committed their crime on its behalf. Much crime, theft, and murder, began to get directly linked to the criminal activities in violation of prohibition.

With increasing momentum in opposition of prohibition, maybe Senator Merris Sheppard began to expect the humming bird to fly to Mars.

Instead, prohibition was repealed. In 1933 Roosevelt proclaimed, “I think this would be a good time for a beer,” as he signed an amendment which legalized small amounts of low percentage alcohol. Later that year, the 18th Amendment was repealed completely with the ratification of the 21st Amendment, which cited that if alcohol is to be prohibited, it is the right of the states to decide.

The repeal provided for many benefits. Alcohol-based organized crime lost nearly all of its profits to low-priced alcohol sales at legal liquor stores, reducing violence drastically. The government and ordinary citizens began collecting revenue from the legal alcohol industry. And from a philosophical standpoint, citizens were provided the liberty that our constitution attempts to provide. Decreased violence, increased freedom. Decreased government expenditures, increased government revenue.

After repeal, some early supporters of prohibition accepted its flaws. John D. Rockefeller Jr., expressed that, “When Prohibition was introduced, I hoped that it would be widely supported by public opinion and the day would soon come when the evil effects of alcohol would be recognized. I have slowly and reluctantly come to believe that this has not been the result. Instead, drinking has generally increased; the speakeasy has replaced the saloon; a vast army of lawbreakers has appeared; many of our best citizens have openly ignored Prohibition; respect for the law has been greatly lessened; and crime has increased to a level never seen before.”

I think the dots could be easily connected to justify looking at the current drug problem through the prism of what prohibition has taught us. Currently humans face tragic and vast deaths from the battle for control of the intensely lucrative illegal drug trade. We face immense government expenditures to fight against drugs including upwards of 7 billion dollars annually for just the arresting and prosecuting of marijuana use offenses. Lastly, constitutionally we may be compromised, as it is often pointed out that drug prohibition is a usurpation of the power to regulate interstate commerce.

With the incredible toll that the illegality of drugs takes on the US identified, the call for legalization rings loudly in my ears. But what would that look like? Is it possible to predict? My guess would be decreased violence, increased freedom. Decreased government expenditures, increased government revenue.

As much as I consider sugar unnecessary, I consider drugs more unnecessary. However, an indicator of where my compass pointed me is that today I ordered 200 pounds of sugar and 20 jars of coffee. I have realized that just because something may be unnecessary, or even harmful, that does not warrant one body’s exertion of forced morals over another body’s right to free choice. People deserve to choose what they use…deserve the right to liberty. The vast amounts of people whose lives are taken each day by the prohibition of drugs deserve to survive…deserve the right to life.

Juaréz at night

Potentially evident from my blogs, I am a person who struggles with choosing a side in many issues. I get caught up in the ambiguities, and the apparent legitimacy of two opposing arguments. This issue however, is one that seems to be straightforward, which is why I am so surprised that the legalization of drugs seems so far out in the realm of feasible public policy. To me, we can achieve both enhanced free choice and enhanced communal wellbeing with one policy change.

Picture this: Obama sits at his desk, with a pen in his hand, and proclaims, “I think this would be a good time for a joint,” as he signs into law the legalization of drugs.

The absurdity of that image proves to me that there is a lot of work to be done and a long road ahead in the efforts to legalize, in the efforts to save thousands of lives, in the efforts to promote free choice, in the efforts to independence. Similar to most movements, this one will only grow with the momentum from public sentiment. That means us.

Neighborhood Relations: El Paso/Ciudad de Juárez

2009-09-09T11:48:00.017-07:00

Around the northern perimeter of El Paso, there is a mountain that looks over all of El Paso and Ciudad de Juárez. Rim Road will take you from downtown, up the mountain, past many mansions, and eventually to a scenic overlook with incredible views of El Paso, Juárez, the border, the border bridges, etc. Rim Road makes for a great bike ride. On my first ride up someone looked at the mansions and remarked, “I bet these houses sell for a lot with such nice views of all the poverty that makes them rich.” Although that is probably not why the residents enjoy the view, it is indeed an intense contrast seeing a mansion in a peaceful neighborhood, with big windows that watch over the slums, the border, and the most dangerous city in the world—Ciudad de Juárez.

One day I biked up the hill and relaxed at the top while the sun was setting and people were coming and going to enjoy the view. One notable part of the view is very large white letters on a mountain in Juárez which read, “La Biblia es la verdad. Leela!” “The Bible is the truth. Read it!” A family showed up and began taking pictures of the overlook. With great emotion one of the younger boys pointed to the writing on the mountain in Juárez and said, “Mommy, look, I think that says Hollywood!” The mother responded, “No honey, I don’t think that says Hollywood, I think it is something about the Bible. It says the Bible is good. Ha! See kids, I told you the Bible was good!”

Juárez is certainly far from Hollywood. It also happens to be very far in many ways from it’s own neighbor, El Paso, despite looking like just one city from the overlook.

A family points out various sites from the overlook

Juárez’s population of 1.6 million is twice El Paso’s population of around 742,000. For a few reasons Juárez’s population has been increasing dramatically as of late. It often goes unnoticed that Juárez is actually the final destination for many migrants. Since NAFTA, many American companies have put factories in Mexico, called “Maquillas,” right along the border, which has created many low wage, but somewhat consistent jobs. Juárez has one of the strongest economies of any Mexican city, and many people travel to Juárez for work with no intention of crossing the border. If they can’t find work in Juárez as they had planned, then they might cross the border.

Taking in the view

Despite having half of Juárez’s population, El Paso has far more active police officers than Juárez (1,728 to 1,300), meaning that the officer per capita rate is at least twice as high in El Paso than in Juárez. For example, if Juarez has one police officer for every 100 people, El Paso has one police officer for every 50 people. However, the Mexican Government recently called on the Mexican Military to serve as the officers in charge, which proved to be a very controversial decision.

Some people may say that El Paso’s higher number of police officers attributes to its incredible safety, but criminologists say it is another factor. El Paso seems like it should be prone to crime for many reasons. First, it is located across the border from what is now considered the most dangerous city in the world where 1,600 people were murdered last year. Second, it has many immigrants—undocumented and documented—whom the media often portrays to be perpetrators of crime. Lastly, El Paso’s poverty rate lingers around 27% (over twice the national average). All of these factors might lead someone to think El Paso is a dangerous place, and in fact, many of my friends expressed great fear for my safety in El Paso. Speaking on the phone, one of them asked me, "Can you walk on the street by yourself ever?" My answer? "Yes."

To the great surprise of many, there were only 18 people killed in El Paso last year, making it the third safest large city in the country in terms of violent crime. But, with all the factors listed above, how could it be so safe…safer than all but two large cities in the US? Many studies done both independently and by the government for the past 100 years have shown that immigrants are actually less likely to commit crimes than native citizens. So it is in fact the immigrant population itself that makes El Paso so safe.

One irony in the relationship between the cities is that the mayor of Juárez lives in El Paso. At first this seems absurd, but I guess if he can, why not?

People wonder about Juárez’s violence spilling North over the border, but I wonder why El Paso’s safeness isn’t spilling South over the border. This year, since January 1st, there have been 1,420 murders in Juarez. It is the single most dangerous city in the world, with 130 killings per 100,000 people. To compare, Baghdad ranks 10th on the same list. But how could it be so dangerous if it is right next to the third safest city in the US?

One reason that Juárez is dangerous is the strong drug cartels, which are fueled with guns from the US, and with money from the vast US narcotics market. Also of concern is the number of criminals that the US deports to Juárez. Just out of jail, dropped in a new city, knowing nothing more than crime to get by, what might one do?

El Paso is safe because of the high immigrant population. Juárez is dangerous because of the cartels, which are essentially employed by the US narcotics market and armed with US guns. It appears to me that the northern counterpart is safe because of what the south gives it (immigrants), and the southern counterpart is dangerous because of what the north gives it (money and guns). This arrangement seems incredibly twisted.

Aside from population, police force, and homicides, there is a lot to describe about the emotions and ethos of the Juárez-El Paso neighbor relations. To begin, it is an unbalanced relationship. If you want to go into Juárez from El Paso, you simply drive, walk, or bike in, with no checkpoint or stops. Coming back to El Paso could require multiple hours in a line and a crossing fee. Any person north of the border can go into Juárez whenever they choose. But only a select few from south of the border can travel north. I often take this ability of mine for granted.

When one of the guests from Mexico left a few days ago to head back home, I said that maybe someday I could visit him. He seemed surprised and asked, “Tienes papeles? Do you have papers?” Immediately I laughed, because it seemed so obvious to me that I could just go into Mexico if and when I pleased. I then realized that he was serious, and justifiably he had assumed that since you need papers to get into the US, you would also need papers to go into Mexico. I was taken aback by my laughter because it exemplified how one-sided the relationship of travel is between these cities and between these countries.

The border is seen above

Also, the ancestral culture here is very different than any place that I have lived. Before I came down here, I would have been hard pressed to list five people I know that migrated to the US in their lifetime, or even five people whose parents had migrated to the US. Here, I would be hard pressed to list five people who don’t fit that criterion. At one point, a boy at the house continued to ask me, “eres gringo?” which, to my knowledge translated to, “are you white?” but because it was so obvious that I was white, I figured their must be something more than the color of skin to the term gringo. While I stood confused, another girl jumped in and said, “Yes, you are a gringo! Because you were born in the US right?” “Yes” I said. “And were yours parents born here to?” She continued. “Yup!” “And not yours parent’s parents too, right?” “yea, they were born here to.” I said. She responded, “wow, that’s like a lot of years, and soo much family. You really are a gringo!” Having grandparents who were born in the US seemed so typical to me, but I have learned that here in El Paso, that is a very rare thing.

Through the comparison of data and ethos between the two cities, and their relationship, it is clear that these cities are very different from each other despite their proximity. I was marveling today that eleven blocks from the peaceful bench where I sit, is the most dangerous city in the world.

I had always viewed the border as being something that separated the two cities. But now that I am here, I am beginning to think that as different as these two cities are, maybe the border is the only thing that holds them together.

Blame and Perpetuation

2009-09-04T20:20:00.005-07:00

I was on shift one night and the doorbell rang as it does every 5-10 minutes. Habitually, I stood up from my chair, walked out of the office, and through the sala towards to the door. As I looked up towards the door, I saw her slap her two year old in the face. My energy and emotions froze, but I continued to take steps toward the door. He balled intensely, his cheeks were wet with tears. She pulled her hand back and slapped his face again. The image of his quivering lips stuck in my mind. I opened the door, but couldn’t tell you who walked in. I turned around back towards the office, and saw her strike his face once more. After this slap blood from his lip emerged and joined his tears to cover his cheek. As I continued to the office, stunned, I could hear his wailing prevail behind me.

I was shocked, stunned, scared, overwhelmed, and not in control of my actions or thoughts. As I stood there, back in the office, I could not believe that I didn’t grab the child and scream at the mother. I didn’t know if I should be ashamed that I kept walking, and allowed her to slap him twice more after the first time…should I be appalled that the other guests in the Sala looked on quietly too?

The Guest Sala

When it occurred to me that I was legally obligated to call Child Protective Services (CPS) and report the incident, more dread, despair, and fear amassed within me. The mother who had hit her kid is a guest that I respect greatly and interact with frequently. She has four kids in the house, all of which are tremendous, and whose company in the house is thoroughly enjoyed. What would it mean if I called CPS I wondered. Would they come take the kids and separate the family? Would they not have time for the report and never follow up? I wondered what the implications would be in this house. Would this family forgive me? Would they think I had disrespected them by calling the authorities on them instead of dealing with it myself? I didn’t even know what I thought would be the better scenario, if CPS ignored it or acted on it. I guess none of these thoughts mattered because I had to call CPS.

I called and they took down all the names, birthdates, and specifics of the situation. They thanked me for the report and said goodbye. At that time, I had heard from people that these days CPS is very short on money and resources, and generally don’t follow up on reports unless they were extremely urgent or dangerous. I expected nothing more to come of it.

An hour later I received a follow up call from CPS asking for more details of the situation. That call ended and it was still unclear what would become the situation.

Thirty minutes later, the doorbell rang as it does every 5-10 minutes. Habitually, I stood up from my chair, walked out of the office, and through the sala towards to the door. I opened the door and she said, “Hi I am from CPS, I need to speak with one of the guests.” My heart sunk and I stepped outside and shut the door behind me. I went into this desperate prattle about how she is a good mother, how she is only doing what she knows, and how her kids should stay with her. The CPS social worker sensed my uneasiness and assured me that I didn’t need to worry.

I stepped inside, found the mother and said, “Hay una mujer a la puerta por usted, There is a women at the door for you,” with a quiver in my voice. Surprised because it was 9:30 at night, she curiously proceeded to the door.

Next, the whole family— four kids, mother and father—were waiting in the office to speak with the women from CPS. I tried to stay busy with dishes and such, but couldn’t get past the idea that they all knew I had caused this. The fear and uncomfortable ness in the room was eminent. They all sat fifteen feet away from me and I was sure they were wondering why I would have done this to them. One by one they walked out of the office, none with any words or positive emotions on their faces. I was anxious know what had happened.

I finally got a chance to talk to the woman from CPS. She had decided to give the family a warning, discuss the nature and patterns of violence and discipline, and sign the mother up for free parenting classes. Hearing this I became incredibly relieved and grateful for the prompt action and sound judgment of CPS. I felt lucky that I am in a country that has structures for organizations such as CPS.

A few kids playing out side the house

But as good as it all sounded, I realized that the mother’s reaction is really what is important when determining if any progress will be made. What message was sent to her by all of this? Was it simply that now she knew she had to ‘discipline’ her kids in private? When the mother walked out of the office and into the crowded sala, she went up to people, and explained what had happened. They all gasped in shock. While they gasped at the fact that CPS had been called, these very same people had not gasped at the site of a two year old getting hit in the face until he bled. In this same nature, the father of the child who got hit complained to another volunteer a few days later, “Now my wife can’t discipline her kids right.” There is a high level of disturbance in all of this, but is there any blame in it?

People do what they know. We live how we have watched other people live. Growing up, the mother and father of that two-year-old boy may well have been disciplined with violence too. But back then, in a different place in a different time, CPS was never called, and the cycle perpetuated to the next generation. Do we blame the loving mother who is disciplining her kids the way she was taught to do so?

On a larger scale, can we blame the perpetuators of harmful tradition, because it is all they know? Do we blame those who are racist, even though they were raised racist? Do we blame those who oppress, even though they were in raised to oppress? Do we blame those who disregard the health of our planet, even though they have never known the implications of their actions? If we do project blame, what will come from it? If we do not project blame, but instead take action against something that we see as unjust, what will be gained from that?

I do not blame or judge that mother for hitting her child. She did what she thought was right.

But neither do I accept a mother hitting her child in the face as anywhere near OK. I consider it very wrong.

I think that if in our reaction to the things that we see as wrong, we can step away from blame, or judgment, and focus on action and non-complacence, perhaps the perpetuating, pernicious traditions of our world will slowly dissipate.

Chile Rellenos con Velia

2009-08-31T21:43:00.001-07:00

A guest named Velia left the house yesterday to stay with a friend; we will miss her for many reasons, one of which being her exquisite cooking. Before she left, she taught me how to make one of her favorite things…Chile Rellenos. Below is the recipe from my memory, in vague quantities as if you were making them for the 50 people Annunciation House. ENJOY!

Chile Rellenos (stuffed peppers):

One dozen eggs
Half a big block of cheese
A few onions
A handful of salt
50 Poblano peppers, or green anaheims
A lot of oil
A big bowl of flour

First take the peppers and cook them directly over the flame on the stove until they become softer and have a burnt outside look. I couldn’t do this properly without burning my fingers, but I wish you luck.

Take each pepper once it is cooked over the stove, and scrape off all of the black burnt parts that you would not want to eat. This step is messy and time consuming. I suggest music and a trash can nearby.

Once the peppers are cleaned of the burnt parts, dig your finger into any part of the pepper and make a small (1/2-3/4 of the pepper) vertical incision. Then clear out the seeds from each pepper.

Now the peppers are ready to be stuffed.

Shred the cheese and chop the onions finely. Mix the cheese and onions together in a bowl.

Now the stuff is ready for the pepper. Make the following assembly line…

From left to right: Peppers, cheese/onion mix, bowl of flour, empty platter or plate.

Take the pepper, fill it with the cheese/onion mix, fold one side of the slice over the other to hold in the cheese, roll it in the flour trying to cover it all, and place it on the platter.

Now, the stuffed peppers are ready to be dipped in batter and fried.

To make the batter, separate twelve egg whites and mix them in a bowl until you can hold the bowl upside down and they won’t fall out. Of course this is much easier if you have some sort of electric mixer. Then, add the yokes to the mixture, a small handful of salt, and mix well.

Heat up a good amount of oil in a pan, take each pepper by the stem, dip it into the batter trying to get as much on as you can, and place it in the oil filled pan. Quickly splash the oil onto the stuffed pepper in order to cook all sides. Flip as necessary. Once each pepper is golden brown, it is complete!

When Velia and I made these I made a small error. I had put leftover peppers, completely unprepared, next to the prepared peppers ready to be fried. In the excitement of the frying process, I by accidentally grabbed an unprepared pepper, dipped it in the batter, and tossed it in the pan. It was until a guest spit it out on his plate, and loudly proclaimed, “there’s nothing in here but seeds,” that I discovered the error. C’est la vie!

Raul is waiting for his Chile Relleno!

Doubt and American Pride

2009-08-29T19:41:00.002-07:00

Doubt in my work here and overbearing American pride are, to my dismay, occasionally alive within me. Often times these thoughts fill me with anger, confusion, and a cynical mindset. It is incredibly difficult for me to ascertain what of my doubt for compassion and what of my immense American pride is legitimate or valid, and what of it is the result of that which I have absorbed from a potentially twisted society in my nineteen years.

When I interact with guests, get to know them, spend hours working with them, receive rare rudeness, disrespect, or lack of appreciation from them, become exhausted on their behalf; a painful mindset of skepticism and cynicism creeps into my energy. Sometimes thoughts begin to circulate in my mind such as, “She doesn’t need this shampoo,” “Why doesn’t he have the respect to say thank you when I open the door?” “Why has it become expected that I will just hand out food?” “Why won’t he do his chore correctly, when that is all we ask of him?” Or even things as bad as, “Why did he come all the way from Honduras just to sit in the sala all day?”

To ground myself and understand how ludicrous these thoughts are, I project them on myself…compare it all to me. Do I really need the shampoo that I use? Do I say thank you every time that I walk into my home? Do I say thank you every time I take food out of the fridge? Do I always do chores around the house fully even though that is the only thing my mom asks of me? Is it OK when I waste days sitting around, even though I have the privilege to take advantage of so many options? The answer to all of these questions is no.

Why then I wonder, is my mind able to resent these qualities in the guests, but accept them in myself? Is it because I somehow feel like I have earned the right to these qualities? Or that because the shampoo I take, the door I open, the food I eat, or the time I spend is more ‘mine’ because my family ‘earned’ it? Is it because I think I have earned what I use?

Above, some guests pose with proudly decorated
zombies who roamed the paths during a 'Music
Under the Stars' event at Chamizal National Park.

To be frank, I have hardly earned the right to anything…I was just born extremely lucky as a citizen of the US and to a loving family that can provide for me.

It seems that the essence of the dynamic that I find myself uncomfortable with is the very dynamic which I strive to build; a power dynamic in which I am not treated like a superior. Why then, am I resentful of this balanced power dynamic once it exists? Why do I take pleasure to being called ‘Mr. Dan,’ while I know the distortion it creates? Who do I think I am to say that anybody doesn’t deserve what we provide, the very basic services? Who am I to cling to power and separation, while at the same time I try offer solidarity. How do I let this ambiguity exist within me?

I write this all because I want it to be known that in me, these thoughts do exist. I too experience moments of doubt and distrust. I too project blame on the immigrants and on the economically marginalized Americans. I do experience these thoughts. They exist in extreme ambiguity, in contradiction with my thoughts and energy of solidarity and compassion. But the thoughts that prevail, and that I know in my gut are right, are the ones that are compassionate, trusting, and rooted in solidarity. The rest, are that of a palimpsest from a society and a childhood filled with privilege, ignorance, and an unhealthy pride and unyielding sense of deserving. I know that the doubt and distrust—manifestations of fear and of privilege—are on the wrong side of truth, and with effort, should be erased from my life and cultural lens’.

This is all so confusing to me, I can only imagine what you are going through trying to sort through my splattered thoughts on this page.

To contradict myself more, I feel an opposite argument…Although disillusioned at times by our government, I constantly find that I am incredibly patriotic, incredibly proud, and incredibly hopeful. Sometimes I wonder how I can remain this way while witnessing so much pain and suffering that the US has caused, but in the end, patriotism, pride, and hope is very much a part of me.

At the bottom of it all exists patriotism, pride, with equal frustration, pain, and compassion. If understood correctly, I think that all people can maintain each of these feelings in a positive way. I finally have learned to cherish this ambiguity and allow my pride, patriotism, and privilege, to interact happily with my compassion, concern, and offerings of solidarity. After all, nothing here is mutually exclusive, as long as I can figure out how to use all of these deeply rooted views and emotions together.

A Parallel I Pick At

2009-08-28T06:50:00.003-07:00

In the blog ‘options,’ I wrote about the need to turn people away at the door. A striking parallel came to my mind today and made me skeptical that I may be in the middle of hypocrisy.

The United States, if you think historically, is a nation of immigrants or refugees. As time has passed, this nation has created structures and laws to provide order and/or prosperity. Because of these structures, we must turn people away at our borders, even if they are in need.

Annunciation House is a house of refugees and immigrants. As time has passed, this house created structures and rules to provide peace and order in the house. Because of these rules, we must turn people away at the door, even if they are in need.

Through thinking about this parallel today I was able to determine for me, what justifies turning people away. I tried to grasp what situations constitute a scenario where it is OK to turn away somebody in need.

At first, I couldn’t think anything but that these were exact parallels between the US border and Annunciation House’s front door. I was shocked. I kept saying to myself, “are we incredibly hypocritical? We turn people away in need and at the same time, are often outraged by the US turning away or deporting people in need.

A view of Mexico from the roof of Annunciation House, which is eleven blocks from the border. A guest's shoes are included drying on the roof, where laundry is routinely washed and dried.

But as a sifted through it more, I was able to ascertain differences between the natures of turning people away. Annunciation house and the US both have structures in place. The difference is what the structures are designed to do. At annunciation House, all of our rules exist to keep the house safe and comfortable for the guests. In the US, do all of our laws exist to keep the citizens safe and comfortable? Maybe. But there might be more.

Are our laws also in existence to make us prosperous? To give us advantages over other nations? Do some of them have roots in a fear of another race and culture taking over ‘our’ land? I think it is safe to say, that the answer is yes, which is OK, and very natural for a nation. But then my question is, is it justifiable to turn away people in need in order to continue our agenda of being prosperous and richer and stronger than the rest? I personally think not.

I finally arrived at this: It is not that turning people away, even if in need, is inherently bad or unacceptable. Instead, it all depends on the way that people are turned away, and the reasons they are.

Thankfully, our immigrant rich history has shown that we can achieve both compassion at our borders and the prosperity that we seek.

Dreaming American

2009-08-25T10:16:00.001-07:00

Today when I sat down with a guest, he began explaining to me his process to make a life for himself in the US. He said it is all about, “waking up each day one step further than you were the day before.” He explained that, “everyday I try to improve. I try to be a better person. I also try to get closer to my working permit, closer to a state ID. I try to get closer to the day that they will take this tracking monitor off of my ankle. Everyday, I think, I am getting closer to being successful,” he continued confidently, “right now, things are hard, but you have to squeeze the fruit to get the juice, and one day, I will have the juice.” All of this is intensely hopeful and positive, and it does indeed seem like he is taking steps forward each day. But a grave question was echoing in my mind as he spoke these words. How long can this productive pattern continue for a black man in America with deportation orders, no money, no family, and limited English? Will there eventually be a wall that he hits, where the opportunity he came for in America is no longer available? Can he achieve the potentially fabled American Dream? I simply don’t know.

The American Dream is one idea that many people in this country appreciate. Our culture seems to hold its notion close to our hearts and carry it high with pride. It is the American Dream, that hastened—if not caused—the white settlement of America, and it is that same American Dream that inspires people from all over the world to uproot from there home and seek a better life today. The American Dream manifests ideas of opportunity, freedom, and to some, relief from suffering. Whether this manifestation is accurate, I simply don’t know.

What is it about our nation that allows for the American Dream to occur, if it does indeed? What structures exist to ensure its possibility? What actions do we need to take to maintain or improve these structures? It seems to me that the idea of the American Dream is dependent upon a scenario in which race, class, and family connections are not of central importance to ‘success.’ Meaning that someone of a minority race, from a poor family, and with little connections can find ‘success.’ To what extent does that scenario actually exist? To me, the American Dream is all about acceptance. More than just the acceptance of people that are different from ourselves, but also the acceptance that people with ‘less’ have a right to ‘more,’ that people who suffer have a right pursue happiness, that people who are starving, have a right to find food, that people who are dying to live, deserve a fair chance. The idea of the American Dream is what could provide that chance.

But there is a sobering catch, a contradiction, and an assumption built into the American Dream that has become rooted deeply in my views during my life as a citizen. The notion of the American Dream includes projected views of the poor and of poverty. If we say that, “In this country anybody, if they try hard enough, can create a better, richer, and happier life,” what then are we inherently saying about those who are not making it, those who live in shelters, those who can’t make their lives better, happier, or richer? Through the prism of the American Dream, we are spinning blame on those in society that aren’t making it, because after all, anybody can make it if they really try, so those that don’t, must not be trying. Right? I feel strong traces of these thoughts engrained in my mind, and I am constantly trying to understand them and move away from them. Just because the opportunity to rise from poverty may exist in some small way, does not mean that those who do not find that some small way are failures or have anything less than the dignity of all people. For most people it seems, and to no fault of their own, the American dream will remain that way, just a dream.

If we as a nation were committed to the American Dream, the idea that anybody can make it, then we would not accept the idea of homelessness and poverty in our country. But we explicitly do accept homelessness and poverty as OK and as a seemingly eternal part of our system. By including money for shelters, food stamps, etc. in our federal budget, we are thereby admitting that we don’t have a system that works, or a system that can keep people out of poverty and away from hunger. It is in fact being complacent, and accepting of the fact that our system cannot support our people.

Above, three guests pose on a couch in the sala on the first day of school.

Immigrants don’t come to the US asking for food, a better job, housing, or anything else, they come asking for a chance to find these things within our system. I think they deserve the chance. We as citizens must not forget our roots in this country, and what allowed us to be here, we must not deny the very notion of the American Dream that brought us here, for those that are seeking it today. If we can’t know that the guest that I sat down with today can find a good life, and get the juice he dreams of from the US if he continues to take steps ahead each day, then I think we have lost the spirit of that idea which we keep close to our hearts, and boast high in the air; the fabled American Dream.

I am one American, one of many, that is dreaming of an American Dream that can become an American reality. Am I being unrealistic in this hope? I simply don’t know.

My Somalian Brother Salomon

2009-08-20T16:51:00.002-07:00

The Statue of Liberty, the widely known symbol of US Immigration, reads:

"Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

A week ago today we received a call and learned that a Somalian man had been dropped off by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and was stranded at a gas station. We called the pay phone at the gas station, reached Salomon, and told him that Sarah (a fellow volunteer) and I would pick him up soon. At the Chevron, when we found Salomon, a gigantic smile emerged from his thin face. As he extended his arms for hugs he said, “Hello! Thank you so much, thank you so very much! I am Salomon.”

On the drive home, Salomon explained to us part of his story. When he was in Mexico trying to cross and seek asylum, he was scammed into buying a fake ID that he was told, “always works.” Salomon spent his last $100 on an ID that he believed would complete his long journey from Africa. With the ID he walked on to the crossing bridge, waited in a long line, and eventually he nervously presented his clearly fake ID to US customs officer. Salomon spent a few weeks in jail for false documents, and then six months in immigration detention. The night we picked him up was his first taste of the United States outside of detention.

We began to tell Salomon a bit about Annunciation House. He asked curiously, “Is this place that you will take me…like detention? Will I be able to leave?” Surprised by this question Sarah answered, “no way Jose!” After we told him a bit more he humbly asked, “Well what is the cost, because I do not think that I can afford all of that.” He exuded gratefulness when we told him it was all free.

Breaking a moment of silence Salomon asked, “Excuse me, I have a question…what is it that I can do to be a productive member of this great society? I do not want to be a nuisance…I want to be helpful. When I was in detention I promised myself that never again would I be in a place like that.” Chills went up my back when I heard these words. Here is a man who has spent 6 months in detention for the ‘crime’ of escaping violence in Somalia, and somehow he holds no resentment to the US, but simply wants to be helpful. We explained to Salomon the process of acquiring a work permit, then social security, and then a state ID. He wanted to start the process when we got home that night at ten, but I said we should get some rest and start in the morning.

Since then, Salomon and I have gotten to know each other better. To my surprise one morning, Salomon began speaking Spanish with other guests in the house. When I asked him where he learned he explained, “Brother Dan, you see, when I was in detention I lived in a room with many many Mexicans. Each day I asked them to help me, and I would write Spanish and try to speak it. After a few months, I could speak with them. They were very very good people.”

Salomon later explained to me why he came to the US. In Somalia, his dad died when he was really young, and his mom died a few years ago. He was living on his own when his friends became involved with piracy. They kept encouraging him to “come on and make money with us” and he continued to refuse because he says, “ I didn’t want to be a part of any crime.” It was when Salomon got shot in the arm that he decided he needed to leave Somalia to save his life. First he took a boat for two months to South Africa. Then he flew to Bolivia, then to Guatemala. From Guatemala, he crossed the border into Chiapas, the southern state of Mexico, and took busses north until he reached Ciudad de Juaréz, El Paso’s neighbor city. Then he crossed with the fake ID.

Once in detention, Salomon lost his asylum case even though he said, “I showed them my bullet wound and told them everything, but maybe they don’t believe me.”

This story seems to be painfully ironic. Salomon could have chosen to join the pirates, and may well have been a part of an attack on a US ship. Instead, he chose to uproot his life and journey to the US, to become a “productive member of this great society.” As a nation our response was to react to his decision with six months in detention, denied asylum, and a deportation order. The irony is intensified when you compare the way Salomon was treated upon his arrival to this country to the ideals that we as a nation hoped to stand by stated on the Statue of Liberty.

Salomon only remains in the US because Somalia will not accept deportees. However, the deportation order will forever loom over him, and if things change in Somalia someday, he will be put on a plane and sent back. For now though, Salomon is working hard and smiling lots. I am incredibly humbled, inspired, and grateful to have somebody like him in this country.

Here is an interesting link to an article about a current asylum case very similar to Salomons which will have tremendous implications on future asylum seekers. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125081039222347885.html

options.

2009-08-16T13:05:00.001-07:00

The difference between rich and poor can be defined as the difference between having many options and having little options. Furthermore, poverty can be described as a state in which a person has very little options in their life.

Annunciation house was started in 1978 to serve the poorest of the poor, to serve the people who have no other options. Essentially it was created to be able to say “yes” to the person at the door looking for somewhere to stay and a place to rest but that had been continually hearing “no”. Inherently, and unfortunately, there is often a need for us to say “no” as well. For me, this is a hard part of the job.

Yesterday when I was on my morning shift from 6am-2pm, I had to turn away 4 people seeking a place to stay. One I could smell alcohol on his breath, one was clearly lying, and two had other options. By looking at whom we have to turn away, and who we can welcome in I can better understand what our goal is as an organization and what it is that we try to do.

When somebody comes to our door, our goal is to help them find another option, and do it with love and compassion. This goal can be very short term or very long term. If they have other options when they knock on the door for the first time, we will make a phone call if necessary, or give them a map to wherever they need to go. Sometimes, even though people have other options, they prefer Annunciation House, and this is where it gets really hard. A man came to the door yesterday and after a long conversation it was clear to me that he was lying and potentially drunk, I went to grab a map that would take him to the Opportunity Center, another nearby shelter. When I handed the map to him, he quickly tore it into pieces out of anger, and threw it onto the ground in front of me. Seeing that, I said two things two myself; the first was, “I wish we could have taken him” and the second was, “Well, that is why we couldn’t.” If through a conversation at the door we learn that a person really doesn’t have any other options, then we invite them into the house, get to know them better, share the house, share the food, and do what we can to help them find or acquire more options. This point is where the real, tiring, heavy, challenging, and rewarding work begins with each guest. It may take a day, a week, or three years, but it ends when a guest can leave the house because they have made or found for themselves a better option.

Absorbing the heat

2009-08-09T14:53:00.005-07:00

I walked out of the airport a week ago squinting my blue eyes against the sun, wearing a long sleeve flannel shirt, and thinking about the next five months—excited to experience the relationship between the politics and the people of immigration. After a quick drive through the sun-soaked streets of El Paso, I arrived at a two-story brick building, wedged like a "V" in a fork in the road, called Annunciation House. It has been the home to thousands of migrants in the past 30 years, and will be my home for the next five months. In my first week here, I sought to absorb all that I could...the rules, the stories, the names, the times, and of course, the heat.
The first thing I realized was that Texas in August is not the time or place for long sleeves, but instead, a place where pale skin and light eyes (not native to the land) need modern adaptations like sun screen and sun glasses to get by. And then I began to realize that the relationship that I had anticipated between the politics and the people is far from how I imagined.
I expected that the people would be constantly, and overtly, connected and aware of the politics. I pictured a relationship where the people would be angry, glad, or at least aware of the policies in place, because for many migrants the policies control their day-to-day lives. But what I have observed is that people are generally more confused than aware of the policies. I for one certainly am.
There is clear ambiguity in the relationship between a typical immigrant and immigration policy. An immigrant is so close to immigration policy in the way that it controls them, but so distant from immigration policy in the way that they might have an effect on the process.
For example one guest at Annunciation House, who took a boat from Somalia to Spain, Spain to Brazil, Brazil to Mexico, and then arrived in the US in January, has witnessed this ambiguity very directly. At what seemed like the end of a long journey, he arrived at the US border and asked for asylum. That moment, a new journey began. Without asylum, he was kept in a detention center until June, at which point he was ordered deported, but because Somalia will not accept deportees, he found himself arriving at a two story brick building, wedged like a "V" in a fork in the road, called Annunciation House, in a situation of immigration limbo. Since he has been here, he has been wrestling within the constraints of immigration policy. He has applied for a work permit, and now, can do nothing more than wait, follow the orders given to him, and continue to charge the tracking device that has been secured to his ankle. The extremity of ambivalence in the situation is palpable. I try to imagine having my life dictated, to the extent of day to day operation, by a system that is so far out of reach and so mysterious to me. Herein lies the reason why immigrants might not care to know about the details of or even general information of immigration policy; because whether they know about it or not, they will still be at its mercy. This ambiguity of an immigrant's incredible mercy yet vast distance to immigration policy took me by surprise.

A view from the roof of the house of the Mexican flag hanging over Chamizal Park in Juaréz, MX.

The sensation of surprise happens often here. I encountered a great surprise yesterday when I was making banana bread with some niños from the house. A grocery store in the area lets us do a pick up once a week of produce that they can no longer sell. This week, there was a lot…particularly a lot of brown bananas. The kids picked out 12 brown bananas, peeled them, and smashed them through their fingers into the mixing bowl. Next came the salt, then the sugar, then came the flour. I carefully looked through all the choices in the house bodega and came out proud with a bag of whole-wheat flour. We measured 3 cups and poured them into the mixing bowl. As the kids began to mix and I went to grab the eggs I heard, “ahhhhh! Hay animales!” I turned back, looked in the bowl, and sure enough there were tons of “animales” or little black insects in our banana bread efforts. Quickly the kids began scooping through the mix and pulling out handfuls of sugar, salt, flour, and animales. Although this helped lessen the insect ratio, it ruined the other ratios, and we were left with a random mixture of flour, insects, sugar, salt, and bananas. As a team we decided to start over, which other than wasted ingredients, had few implications.

Other things that have surprised me in my week here contain far greater implications. I was surprised to learn that just since the beginning of this year there have been more than 1,000 homicides in Juarez (El Paso city’s counterpart south of the border). That’s compared to 17 homicides in El Paso this year. These numbers can be compared to the total US military deaths in the Iraq War: 4,331 or the total US military deaths in Afghanistan: 694. If you have read these numbers quickly, I would say take a moment to recognize the disparities.

The weight of stories, numbers, and deaths on the border is immense. I will end today’s blog with what will probably be in my mind as I fall asleep tonight.

A guest looked me in the eyes today, and said to me that in his homeland of Honduras, “they kill people like they kill chickens. There is no difference to them.”

Where your mind takes you from there is unknown to me, but I bet it will be active for some time.

Please comment if you have any questions or thoughts.
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