Summer days at the Naco Migrant Center have been pretty lonely. While in the spring the center was crowded and full of commotion..the recent days are filled with reflection and most of all, silence.
I always bring a book, but tend to spend most of my days talking with the other volunteers about the center and or exchanging our own theories about whether or not people are still crossing. We've concluded that they are, but that due to the repatriation efforts and new funding/programs, people are either not crossing through Naco or they are crossing but simply being repatriated through Nogales or flown back to Mexico City after being processed in Tucson. According to the volunteers who've been there longer, this summer silence is normal...
The heat is so unbearable that I'd like to convince myself that people stopped crossing but then one or two people come in and you realize this is not the case...people continue to cross...
Unfortunately, their stories are also harsher...one guy today expressed that he had been robbed and no longer had any money to return home or keep trying...he looked defeated...as if he had tried to conquer this huge beast and in his case, he had lost...
He asked me how long this repatriation was going to happen, whether enforcement was this hard all the time or just in the summer...he told me he just wanted to go home..but maybe in the fall, he would return and try again...
It's quite amazing to me..their strength...
I know I may sound like I'm objectifying or romanticizing but I'm not..I really see something truly special about people who migrate...they are not like everyone else...
most all the people i've met, their hearts are filled with hope and strength, lots of strength and perseverance...
amidst the many obstacles they face...they continue to try again...and again.
like a passionate love that doesn't die...their courage motivates me to love too...to love humanity...and our ability to fight so hard for a dream, to maintain hope when it's so hard to keep on
most everyone does it for their family or for the dream of "making it" or whatever that should mean...
And yet like love, hate also co-exists...in the background beautiful mountains and desert landscapes observe with indifference
millions of dollars, nativist hate groups, politicians, media, and innocent folk who buy into the rethoric...work together to ensure that the border, the coveted border will keep out the brown folks who are trying to come in...
Just this last weeked the so called Tea Party held a rally in Hereford, AZ, about 15 minutes away from Bisbee and Sierra Vista. We organized a counter protest in opposition of their rally. It was awesome...Just to make the statement that they weren't welcomed.
Supporters, in their red white and blue gear drove in with their out of town license plates...to claim ownership of a land they hardly know or recognize...to urge enforcement of the "illegals" who are "invading" their country...
It's quite funny, actually.
Land.
People feel so entitled to claim it...and yet..they hardly take the time to really get to know it..to explore it..to imprint their existance upon it...Land. yup. Land.
Migrants spend hours getting familiar with the desert, they walk and walk for days on their journey up north...they risk their lives in that land...their spirit resonates in the air...in the gravel, and the many paths that thousands have walked upon...
and like nothing...strangers to this particular land..arrive in their trucks, and suv's with their clever bumper stickers and american flags...to gather..to talk about how they can make the lives' of migrants so difficult, so unbearable, that they'll want to leave...
little do they realize that if the desert didn't defeat them..their ridiculous laws won't either..
sb1070 has brought so much attention to the immigration issue...and yet the border and militirization continues to be a non-issue for advocates...no instead it's all about racial profiling and getting out the vote...we encourage and lie to ourselves that the next candidate won't be a shmuck, but who are we kidding? i hate politicians..i really do...morons without a conscience...all they care about is winning...and then there's the dream act people...message being..let's give the students a chance...and screw everyone else...truly selfish and individualistic messaging...but oh well...i guess i too would be happy to get something rather than nothing...and i do like the dream act..just dont like the whole "stand alone" bill deal...
in any case im glad sb 1070 happened..its truly about time that these injustices came to the forefront, even if through something as awful as sb1070, perhaps that's my privilege talking, but even friends who are undocumented are truly sick of marching without results...at least this blatant attack can stir some action....i just hope its for the benefit of our people...
And then there's the border patrol...can you believe they are now checking people before going into Mexico? Yes...they are..the US is checking people for papers before they leave the states to go into mexico! is it not our right to effen leave when we freaking want to? damn it...just another sign or illustration of their power...and how much its effen growing...(i have a lot more to say..but i'll come back to this) clearly i'm angry...but how can we avoid it..when people are dying over a childish game of this is mine and that is yours...couldn't we all get the point back in kinder garden? it's okay to s h a r e!
pero bueno...enough of my ranting...my only point is that it's been quite an experience volunteering at the migrant center, even when there's no people to help...there's always so much to reflect upon...the irony of it all...con o sin gente
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