Here is an assortment of a few photos from our week long immersion!
UP Border Immersion
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Reflection and Goodbyes
Our last couple of hours
here in San Diego have been spent in reflection led by Pat Ell who guided us in
an exercise entitled "ver, pensar, y actuar" or "see, think,
act". We decided to share this reflection with Juan, Rigo,
Gabe, and Sara, all members of Via who helped us this week and made our
experience what is was. This exercise required us to imagine images or feelings
that stuck out to us from the trip Then we had to dig deeper and think about
why these images stuck out to us and why. Finally, we brainstormed a list
of small, yet important and achievable actions that we could complete within a
week of returning to campus. Pat explained that as we continue to process
our week, we may find it difficult to understand everything, and we may feel
helpless, but by completing small actions, we will slowly work through this and
make large differences in our communities. We all vowed to achieve at
least two of these actions within our first week of returning to campus, and
that we would hold each other accountable.
After reflection we did
another activity linked to all that we had learned that week. The first
day we arrived, we took a paper out of a hat that had the name of another group
member and our goal was to get to know that person better during that week. At
this time, we each shared who our secret buddies were and the qualities,
dreams, or stories that we discovered about them. It was a truly a
learning experience to be able to grow with each one of the people on this trip
and sharing our admiration for each other and our secret buddies solidified the
family that we have all gained after this week.
As we begin to the load the plane and head back to the northwest, and
back to what we are used to, we will never forget the stories, faces, and
feelings that were shared with us this week. Each person we met shared a little
bit of themselves with us and in meeting them, we discovered another brother or
sister in our human family. Their struggles will always be our struggles
as we try to dissolve the borders that are both seen and unseen.
Last Full Day
Today was our last full
day in California and it was spent very simply and wholly. On the way
back from our powerful trip to the desert yesterday, we stopped at a the local
panaderĆa near Chicano Park and picked up a couple dozen postres or
pastries. Then, this morning, we met our friend, Nelson, who works as a
day-laborer commonly referred to as jornaleros. Those who are day-laborers
often come to San Diego everyday, with and without papers, to stand outside
Home Depots and other construction wholesales waiting to possibly be picked up
for work. To support their families, they must risk this each and
everyday. As we approached, it was clear how suspicious many of the men
were and they began moving away from our group. We soon realized many of
them were moving away because of nearby camera. The cameraman and
reporter, we soon learned, worked for Dan Rather and were doing a report on
immigration reform. Nelson and Rodrigo, a member of our group, agreed to
wear microphones as we asked Nelson questions and he shared is story to the
camera.
We were all so incredibly
grateful to hear Nelson's story. After loosing his business in Miami, he
was forced to come back since there was no work in his native PerĆŗ, leaving his
wife and daughters behind. Since then, he has never been able to go back, nor
has he seen his family in over 12 years. Nelson went on to share the very
harsh and unjust reality of the life that he and many others live, the
exploitation and abuse they receive. Over 50% of the time, Nelson shared,
the day-laborers are not paid for their work, but are unable to fight back
against their employers because many of them did not have legal papers.
Exploitation of the workers is not a new thing, and many of the other men we
met had stories of abuse, harassment, and cruelty that they had
experienced. To think that this cruelty is going unnoticed and
unaddressed as we speak is a sickening thought, especially since it seems that
very little can be done for the victims, but Nelson explained their desire to
organize and change this pattern of injustice. By organizing, they can
help to ensure the fair and equal payment and treatment of workers, and it is
still a work in progress to do so.
After this experience, we
all shared lunch in Balboa park, a park which spans nearly two miles of parks
and gardens, containing over a dozen museums to visit inside the park
boundaries. Although a very beautiful site to visit, it was clearly a
much more affluent area than where we had just been speaking with Nelson and
other day-laborers. We had a relaxing lunch and heading to are final
site: Southwest Key, a home for children in limbo.
When there are children
that cross the border with a parent or guardian but are caught, their guardian
is often detained awaiting deportation or other legal trial, but the children
cannot always be immediately returned to their home country as they may
have no one to go back to, nor can they legally reside in the U.S. without
legal papers, so they become a child in limbo and live in homes such as
Southwest Key. Many of these children stay for about a month until a
sponsor, another guardian or trusted member of their home community, can be
validated and they can be safely taken home. If a sponsor cannot be found, then
the children are simply sent to other homes such as Southwest Key throughout
the United States until things can be worked out. Some children even pursue
legal cases and so must reside a little longer in order to complete them.
Either way, these children lose much of their identity as they are forced to
stay, unwelcome, in a country that is not their home country. Many have
siblings in other homes across the U.S. while some were with their siblings at
Southwest Key. During our time their, we did arts and crafts and played
soccer with the kids, and it was one of the highlights of our trip, to be able
to be kids and forget some of the borders that exist in our lives that separate
us unnecessarily.
There was one girl that we struck up a conversation with as we sat in
the shade next to the soccer net making pulseras, or bracelets. She began
to ask us about our own homes and the places that we came from. Then she began
to asked something I will never forget. She asked if we saw her home
country and her land as different. She was not asking if we saw her
people or the cultures as different, but the land itself, the earth as
different because it happened to be on one side of a line that we decided to
put down. I honestly could not see any difference between the two, which
also echoed similar feelings of being on the border, at the fence, and looking
through to see a world that was different in many ways and yet the same.
Erica, the young girl, shared these thoughts with me and I will never forget
them, and the most amazing part, was that to this young woman, it was so clear
and obvious that land is land is land and that we are no different because we
were born on one side of a line in the sand. This is so often forgotten,
but I, and all of us really, will try our best to not forget that, but
rather, think of the people on either side first.
Getting to Know Sara and Visiting "Turning Hearts"
Today was a very special
day for our group. Today we had the privilege to sit down and hear a bit
more about Sara's story and experience the work she does everyday in
Tijuana. Sara is a promotora for Via International, the group that
allowed us to come to San Diego this week. Being a promotora, Sara is
very highly respected in her community because becoming a promotora is no easy
task, and she shared a little of that with us today. As a promotora, Sara
has gone through hours of nutrition and cooking classes along with community
leadership training to become a nutrition authority and guru in her own
community. Sara and other promotoras, after completely their intensive
program, go out into their community and share their knowledge of healthy, and
more affordable, cuisine with other women, and the occasional man.
To begin our time with
her, Sara opened with an activity that she uses as a promotora to begin new
sessions. It was called teleraƱa or cobweb in Spanish and it begins with
Sara holding one end of a ball of yarn and introducing herself by sharing
something important to her in her life before passing the ball to someone else
in the group who would do the same. Each person, as their turn comes,
holds onto a piece of yarn before passing the ball to the next person across
the circle. In the end, we learn a little more about one another and
realize that we are all connected and without one of the members, the whole web
fails. Following this interactive and fun introduction, we learned a
little more about how Sara teaches her classes before heading to the kitchen to
prepare some ceviche with soya or soy ceviche, a traditionally seafood dish
that is cooked in the acidic juices of lime, tomato, and onion along with
cilantro, and cucumber. It was not only fun and informational, but
delicious! And now, we all have a little bit of Sara that we can bring
home with us!
Later that afternoon, we
traveled to the "Turning the Hearts" Center, which is a local center
dedicated to youth and adult empowerment in the local community. The
programs offered by "Turning the Hearts" address issues of teen
pregnancy prevention, career-minded and work-readiness programs, mentorship
connections, G.E.D. and educational assistance, anger management and substance
abuse sessions, and their most famous "G.A.M.E" program which stands
for "Gang Awareness through Mentoring and Education. All of the members
of the Turning Hearts staff are dedicated to these programs but do not offer a
service or program unless their heart is in it, in order to offer the best
results for those in need. One of the highlights of the visit was our
participation in a specially designed game that the staff had created for their
youth. In the game, there is a 54-square mat on the ground and the goal
is to go from the start side to the finish side by stepping in the correct
squares. If the correct sequence is not employed, then the player must
start over. Players can only step one square at a time but may go in any
direction and will be signaled if they have not chosen the right square.
There is no talking to or touching of the participant by the rest of the group,
but they can offer advice in any other way they wish. The game,
admittedly, was very difficult, but the point was to show the difficulty in
making important or even just daily life decisions. There may be an
innumerable amount of advice or pressure from the outside but it ultimately up
to the player to make a decision and live with the consequences.
Additionally, there comes a point when no one in the group had come to the next
step or next square in the sequence and so had no sure ideas on which way to
direct the player, which simulates life in many ways. Another goal of
this was to emphasize the importance of back-tracking and trying again, never
giving up, which was done many a time for our groups that played.
Another highlight was hearing the personal story of Manny Castro, the
adviser of the G.A.M.E. program, who himself had to leave a life of gang
violence and drug addiction to find himself in the place he was today.
He, and the rest of the staff members and volunteers, have strong convictions
and deep passions for the people that they serve, and it was refreshing and
inspiring to experience the vision of their program.
A Visit to the Desert
Today, we met some
larger-than-life characters who inspired each and every one of us. We started,
as always, with a delicious breakfast made by the lovely Sara. We then made our
way to the Sherman Heights Community Center, where we met the first
inspiration. Enrique Morones, founder of Border Angels, spoke with us for a
while about individuals who have lost their lives crossing the desert areas of
the border, about the work that Border Angels does to prevent those deaths, and
what he continues to do to change public policy. He name-dropped the entire
time, but it gave us all the more respect for him; by working with such
important figures, he has found a way to make a tangible difference in his
community.
After our talk, Enrique took us out to the desert.
We stopped at a strip of fence that marked the border. For those of us from UP,
we had seen a similar sight only two days before on our Border Patrol tour, but
to be able to reach across at this particular stretch, to see the boy herding
sheep on the other side, and to see the enormous gap in the fence just over the
mountains, we all realized exactly how ludicrous the issue has become. Only 5
feet would have changed our citizenship, and yet these 5 feet are causing
people to die every
day.
Enrique took us farther into the desert, to a place
with fewer houses on either side and more open space. Under the bushes, we
placed gallon jugs of water, not necessarily hidden from view. This is one of
the Border Angels main projects. Our guide told us that approximately two
people die every day from dehydration while crossing the border. The wall isn’t
necessarily making it harder to cross; it’s only making things more dangerous.
This morning, we had the ability to make a difference. While we might not have
saved every life, at least we were able to help one person, and that meant the
world.
This evening, after a quick dinner, we were whisked
away to the University of San Diego. There we met professor Alberto Pulido, who
teaches a course on ethnic relations at the university. We discussed the border
and what that word really means. We discussed borders in our own lives and
examined their value: are we really building walls to keep ourselves safe, or is
there a deeper motivation? Are we really benefitting anyone by building these
borders?
We then watched Rory Kennedy’s short documentary The
Fence, in which she discusses the merits (or lack thereof) of the fence and
the history of the border as it exists today. She examines various groups that
claim to keep the border “safe,” including Border Patrol and the Minutemen. In
one particularly interesting segment, she looks at the incidents of terrorism
in the United States since the fence went up. It is interesting to realize that
not a single one of those incidents have occurred due to an immigrant crossing
the U.S.-Mexico border. And yet we take such precautions to distance ourselves
from those people that are supposedly trying to harm
us.
In the end, today was a great day. We all learned so much about the real
issues surrounding immigration. Yet it’s interesting to think about how much we
still don’t know. We hear things all the time on the news, read headlines in
the newspaper, but do we really have an understanding of what’s going on at our
southern border? Today was another reminder of how important it is for us to
keep learning, especially once we get back to the Pacific Northwest, and how
even 22 of us can make a dramatic change, if only for one person. But one
person is worth it.
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