A tall and gangly hair-lipped Nahuat from southern Mexico saunters from the drivers seat of a 20 year old Chevy work van. His shirt and slacks are stained a bile-yellow from la goma del tabaco, pure nicotine which gives him nightmares. On his face his upper lip is more of a beak than a lip, and a jagged scar runs from behind his left nostril to the point of the beak. He speaks a muffled, nasal Spanish which makes him seem younger and more helpless than he is. He is Jaime.
I engage him in conversation and ask if I can speak with him and the rest of the workers. He disappears into an ancient white farm house nestled at the base of a massive silo to speak with the crew boss. He emerges from the house and asks if I have permiso del patron. I haven't spoken with the farmer and haven't gotten permission from him.
Gone are the days of bearded, disease ridden, gleaming demon-gods who gawk at the smoking of rolled chocolate leaves. Downpressing a class of people expendable as fossil fuel and creating an insatiable appetite for imaginary riches and and exotic crops of luxury like sugar and cinnamon and tobacco. And the residue of demon-gods with their war dogs and four legged monster-men? The same residue that stains Jaime's clothes each day. Though it won't come off in the wash. The residue is diluted with alcohol and machismo. It begins to eat away at the fabric of the mind and of the culture so much so that it is eventually ingrained into the two. For some, the thin vitriolic sheen of the old demon-gods is shed, if only for several months, once they return to their homes. For others it is both the construct in which they support their families, and a prison which keeps them separated
Jaime has a jovial nonchalance about him and his own situation. I ask questions about his contact information, telephone number of his house. No tenemos telefono de casa. His cell phone number, si, de hecho el patron me lo desconecto. He goes on to explain that the patron doesn't want him communicating with outsiders, which is why he had his cell phone disconnected. Jaime shakes his head: "son reglas que, no se..."
He looks over my right shoulder at the crops which blanket the rolling piedmont. A look perhaps as disconnected from this world as the phone line in his one hundred year old farm house. "They're rules that, I don't know, I don't agree with them. Pero no quiero meterme en problemas con el patron."
He doesn't want to get in trouble with the boss. Jaime could find no other work. The complexity of the situation is paralyzing and infuriating. I could spin myself into a cyclone of self-righteousness and desire for justice and remind the boss that Jaime is just as free as I am or he is. But is the boss protecting himself or Jaime? If Jaime looses his job how many people will feel the effects?
Jaime's eyes enter back to the world of tobacco and gringos and distance from family, from a place perhaps imaginary and probably from the past. I notice and start asking him more questions.
Y ustedes trabajan en puro tabaco, o algo mas?
No, pues, cortamos estos arboles....he flattens his left hand and pans it across the trees growing in straight lines on the opposite side of the dirt road. They don't just work in tobacco, they work mostly for a tree farm. I ask Jaime what kind of trees they are:
Son arboles de lujo, no se, para la casa.
No dan nada de fruto?
They're trees of luxury he says. And they don't bear fruit.
Gone are the days of bearded, disease ridden, gleaming demon-gods who gawk at the smoking of rolled chocolate leaves; downpressing a class of people expendable as fossil fuel and creating an insatiable appetite for imaginary riches and exotic crops of luxury like sugar and cinnamon and tobacco?
Trees which bear no fruit.
Gone are these days?
Trees which bear no fruit.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Thursday, September 23, 2010
sweet nothingness.
Eyes close. Sigh. Relief. Dark. Sheet pulled up. Sleep falls. That wonderfully comforting falling sensation in the nebulous land of pre-sleep. Sensation of falling in the most delightfully dark nothingness. The falling stops, the voices start. First a soprano sings a high constant beautiful tone. Never faltering. Without vibrato. The owner of the voice never seems to breathe. Steadily more voices are added. Alto, bass, tenor. Until the voices are innumerable yet mesh into one organism. The corporate voice sings open and beautiful major chords, with the perfect dissonance. The tuning is perfect and the overtones stack on top of one another like an image between two mirrors. There is a steady beating rhythm which is positively the heart of the dreamer. The bass life force of all this commands the corporate voice, which ebbs and flows and rises and falls like a fall leaf in a thermal draft. Bass voices gracefully clamber up octaves and sopranos mimic in the opposite direction, while tenors and altos sing a not quite melody of tenuous chords and arpeggios.
Its comfort and nothingness. Sustained and all encompassing, free to do what it will but always tied to the heart beat of the dreamer. Its a long embrace from a woman who loves. The kindest of words spoken outside of the sphere of reciprocation. The care of a father that is neither aloof nor inhibiting. It is...
Heart bass is faster. Pillowy darkness retreating. The corporate voices shatter into a thousand and glissando back to nothingness. Eyes open. Nothingness gone, everythingness....returned. Dreamer's feudal attempt to close eyes. The corporate voice dead, awaiting resurrection.
Its comfort and nothingness. Sustained and all encompassing, free to do what it will but always tied to the heart beat of the dreamer. Its a long embrace from a woman who loves. The kindest of words spoken outside of the sphere of reciprocation. The care of a father that is neither aloof nor inhibiting. It is...
Heart bass is faster. Pillowy darkness retreating. The corporate voices shatter into a thousand and glissando back to nothingness. Eyes open. Nothingness gone, everythingness....returned. Dreamer's feudal attempt to close eyes. The corporate voice dead, awaiting resurrection.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
lost song bird
An anachronistic
song bird
sings in the fall.
She sings some archaic
strange word
that I don't understand at all.
I sit in the maple trees
with the wind
blowin' through her yellow leaves.
I have to wonder who's breath it might be.
You with the raven, dark hair.
You with the cold, blue stare.
You know the hearts of men.
Would you say, on a whim,
Is it the end?
This desert dust,
wont come off my guitar strings.
No matter how I play,
No matter how I sing.
song bird
sings in the fall.
She sings some archaic
strange word
that I don't understand at all.
I sit in the maple trees
with the wind
blowin' through her yellow leaves.
I have to wonder who's breath it might be.
You with the raven, dark hair.
You with the cold, blue stare.
You know the hearts of men.
Would you say, on a whim,
Is it the end?
This desert dust,
wont come off my guitar strings.
No matter how I play,
No matter how I sing.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Ignacio
East of El Paso thunderheads tower ominously as they threaten the vast west Texas landscape. The clerk in the gas station says they haven't had any rain, but everywhere else has. I get on interstate 20 and hit the storm. Long standing oil now hovers over the newly monsoon soaked desert roads. I hit a string of pot holes and my truck fishtails out behind me. I wonder what the hell I'm going to do after I crash in the wet desert. I down shift into fourth gear and right myself and continue on into the heart of the storm. Lightning strikes close by, and as the storm subsides dust covers the odd earth. The sun doesn't set until nine thirty. The land starts getting green and the weather more humid. I cross all of Texas. Louisiana. Mississippi. Alabama. I reach the Appalachian piedmont in Birmingham and start to feel closer to home than I have felt in a long time. In between Birmingham and Atlanta I receive a phone call from a number I don't recognize...
"Soy yo! Soy yo, Ignacio."
"Ignacio, que hay, como andas?"
"Pues, bien. Cuando vas a regresar aqui a Agua Prieta?"
"No se, hombre. Ya estoy en mi tierra..."
The conversation continues with pleasantries until Ignacio tells me the purpose of his call. He is a man from Guerrero that I met my last month of the border. He's wondering if I can make a delivery to his mother in Richmond, Virginia. Ignacio cannot see his mother because he lacks the proper piece of paper required to visit the woman who raised him.
This situation will forever be with me. I will not be able to shake it. I won't be able to forget the faces of Ignacio and the perhaps thousands of other men, women, and children I have met and served in a year.
I arrive home. I meet a church member who hears I spent a year in Mexico and promptly asks me what my favorite tequila is. "You must like that Jose Cuervo stuff." Middle aged awkward man-language designed to throw some humorous facade over his own discomfort on the subject. I eventually find myself sitting in the ocean alone, chest deep in salt water that looks something like sun tea. My mind wonders back to Baboquivari. Looking at the sacred mountain from the north end of the valley we just walked up. One hundred and sixty years ago the surrounding desert was Mexico. Then the United States fought Mexico after a conflict in the borderlands of Texas and Tamaulipas. Mexico lost more than half of its country in the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, for a price of 15 million dollars. Thats Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Utah, Nevada, and parts of Wyoming. Then the United States purchased most of Southern Arizona for 10 million dollars. This includes Tucson, and almost all the way up to Phoenix. 215 years ago the land belonged to Spain. 600 years ago, it was land that no European man had laid eyes on. Baboquivari is a sacred sight for the O'odham people, who were in what we now know as Arizona long before Joe Arpaio's parents immigrated (yep, immigrated) to the United States. Baboquivari watched over us as we walked the seventy five miles from Sasabe to Tucson.
Now remembering the walk its difficult to focus on what it really means, as I sit in a comfortable house with air conditioning and soft couches and cable television and a safe place to sleep. In the desert my hips were bruised from sleeping on hard, rocky, and earthen floor. Now I am consumed by comfort and its a strange relationship. Its easy not to worry. Its easy to be ignorant. But I fear for myself that I will forever fall into that abyss of non-knowing. A place where curiosity does not exist and where nothing that is heard is questioned. This is a dangerous place, but it is not a place dependent upon geography. This place can be anywhere.
The south is hot. It is unrelenting. The humidity is like a wet wool blanket. I can feel it in my shoes and on my skin and I can hear it in the woods. At night sleeping benevolent tree-giants throw shadows on the dark earth. The smell of the night reminds me of memories that I have long forgotten. The smell reaches some where in the caverns of my mind that have been archived for decades now. My mind still wonders in this night how I will bear my burden. How I will shoulder this weight of my brothers and sisters who crossed in a much harsher night; who perhaps crossed successfully to reunite with family members or to work, who perhaps died on a lonely mountain top or in a dry river bed. I musn't forget. I must never forget the comfort and privilege I have simply because of where I was born. Comfort and privilege that others lack and seek, knowingly risking their lives.
Question. Question everything. Question like an inquisitive child and don't settle for bullshit in your answers.
The walk through the desert and my home five miles from the coast now seem like different worlds. I sometimes feel like I am back behind a wall. I want to merge the worlds and smash the wall down to sand.
"Soy yo! Soy yo, Ignacio."
"Ignacio, que hay, como andas?"
"Pues, bien. Cuando vas a regresar aqui a Agua Prieta?"
"No se, hombre. Ya estoy en mi tierra..."
The conversation continues with pleasantries until Ignacio tells me the purpose of his call. He is a man from Guerrero that I met my last month of the border. He's wondering if I can make a delivery to his mother in Richmond, Virginia. Ignacio cannot see his mother because he lacks the proper piece of paper required to visit the woman who raised him.
This situation will forever be with me. I will not be able to shake it. I won't be able to forget the faces of Ignacio and the perhaps thousands of other men, women, and children I have met and served in a year.
I arrive home. I meet a church member who hears I spent a year in Mexico and promptly asks me what my favorite tequila is. "You must like that Jose Cuervo stuff." Middle aged awkward man-language designed to throw some humorous facade over his own discomfort on the subject. I eventually find myself sitting in the ocean alone, chest deep in salt water that looks something like sun tea. My mind wonders back to Baboquivari. Looking at the sacred mountain from the north end of the valley we just walked up. One hundred and sixty years ago the surrounding desert was Mexico. Then the United States fought Mexico after a conflict in the borderlands of Texas and Tamaulipas. Mexico lost more than half of its country in the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, for a price of 15 million dollars. Thats Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Utah, Nevada, and parts of Wyoming. Then the United States purchased most of Southern Arizona for 10 million dollars. This includes Tucson, and almost all the way up to Phoenix. 215 years ago the land belonged to Spain. 600 years ago, it was land that no European man had laid eyes on. Baboquivari is a sacred sight for the O'odham people, who were in what we now know as Arizona long before Joe Arpaio's parents immigrated (yep, immigrated) to the United States. Baboquivari watched over us as we walked the seventy five miles from Sasabe to Tucson.
Now remembering the walk its difficult to focus on what it really means, as I sit in a comfortable house with air conditioning and soft couches and cable television and a safe place to sleep. In the desert my hips were bruised from sleeping on hard, rocky, and earthen floor. Now I am consumed by comfort and its a strange relationship. Its easy not to worry. Its easy to be ignorant. But I fear for myself that I will forever fall into that abyss of non-knowing. A place where curiosity does not exist and where nothing that is heard is questioned. This is a dangerous place, but it is not a place dependent upon geography. This place can be anywhere.
The south is hot. It is unrelenting. The humidity is like a wet wool blanket. I can feel it in my shoes and on my skin and I can hear it in the woods. At night sleeping benevolent tree-giants throw shadows on the dark earth. The smell of the night reminds me of memories that I have long forgotten. The smell reaches some where in the caverns of my mind that have been archived for decades now. My mind still wonders in this night how I will bear my burden. How I will shoulder this weight of my brothers and sisters who crossed in a much harsher night; who perhaps crossed successfully to reunite with family members or to work, who perhaps died on a lonely mountain top or in a dry river bed. I musn't forget. I must never forget the comfort and privilege I have simply because of where I was born. Comfort and privilege that others lack and seek, knowingly risking their lives.
Question. Question everything. Question like an inquisitive child and don't settle for bullshit in your answers.
The walk through the desert and my home five miles from the coast now seem like different worlds. I sometimes feel like I am back behind a wall. I want to merge the worlds and smash the wall down to sand.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Whistling
Its calm and cool outside. Its May and its night. I sit outside with a cup of coffee and wait for life to happen.
Across the way Mexican custom agents are shining a spot light on the building adjacent to the port of entry. Suddenly a waif-ish crackhead gets caught in the light, which through some unseen force pins her against the wall of the building. She scans the area with her nervous eyes. She runs away. The Mexican customs agents laugh and the American agents one hundred yards away are as stoic as rocks. Chins jutting out, hands on their pistols, promenading in the tiny space with the flashlights shining into wheel wells and back seats of minivans.
The border night breaths. The soul of Agua Prieta howls and its heart thumps.
A small group of migrants come through, fourteen, we serve them and they are quickly on their way. Seven men pile into a late 80's Crown Victoria driven by a man with tight jeans, a plaid shirt, and a very unnecessary cowboy hat. The fan belt of the old sedan shrieks and the engine roars as it pulls into the life and chaos of the Agua Prieta night. Victor, the guardia on duty, comes up and starts talking. He is just like any other rent-a-cop you might imagine: vulgar, offensive, and pretty hilarious. He doesn't carry any firearms, only his somewhat keen, albeit offensive, whit and a couple pairs of brass knuckles. He looks down at my hands and sees my coffee.
"Oye," he says in toothless, whistling border Spanish, "me regalas un cafecito?"
I give him a hard time about it but also give him a cup of coffee. Then I sneeze, a lot. Four or five times. He asked me what's wrong and if I'm sick. I make some stupid joke about how its la cocaina and he laughs a raspy laugh with his eyes wide open.
"Créeme," he says, "he probabo esa chingadera y no me gustó para nada. Me hace..." then he locks his knees and his elbows, sticks his lower jaw out as far as he can, and walks around the side walk like the love child of Frankenstein and Pancho Villa.
Victor has some strange Irish last name because his father came down to Acapulco and impregnated his mother and then went back to the United States. Though he is a citizen he doesn't go back, because of some probably cocaine related incident that he doesn't talk about very often. Only sparingly does he refer to when was locked up in Arizona.
Most of his adult life, if he tells the truth, consisted of being a body guard and police man for various and sundry political figures in Mexico. That's how he lost his front teeth. Driving the Governor of Tabasco when they got into an accident and he almost ate the steering wheel.
I take a sip of my cooling coffee.
Victor has one tooth on the left side of his mouth that just hangs. It looks like a miniature version of some prehistoric battle ax, made out of the hip bone of a mastodon. Just lodged into the toothless void of his mouth. He whistles at a friend out in the street. He could never whistle before he lost those teeth.
Beautiful girls walk by on their way to clubs. They hold each others' hands and waddle and waver nervously on heels far too high for the rutted and beat up Mexican streets and sidewalks. Victor whistles his empty, tritone-ish, toothless whistle soft enough so the girls don't hear. He looks at me with his eyebrows high above his eyes. He then talks about how he grew up in the "epoca de las mini-faldas" and then proceeded into a strange drunken dance in the middle of the street imitating the girls of his youth. The border is strange juxtaposition upon juxtaposition: beautiful girls sauntering out to a different country for a good time, hopeless vagrants running from one crowd to another pidiendo limosna and shaking cans with a couple pesos inside, hustlers and thugs and smugglers looking for people to take advantage of, cops and customs agents ignoring some things and looking for a way to make some quick money, on both sides. And me and the migrants.
We hear a sound coming from behind the building. Sort of a constant tick, tick, tick, tick. Then around the corner comes a man on crutches with one leg. His voice is a rough, almost nonhuman, belch: "oye carnal! no tienes pa' una soda?"
"No, amigo. No traigo pesos." He shoots us a glance of sad contempt and keeps moving to beg in the growing line of folks headed back to the States after a solid night of debauchery. He is the closest thing to human tumble weed, at the mercy of the whim of everything around him. He goes where the wind goes and where the gringos will give him a peso or two.
I look at my cup with a small dram of cold coffee and I finish the last bit, though I don't really want too.
Victor looks at me and says through the ghosts of his teeth, "está muy tranquilo. Muy tranquilo."
Across the way Mexican custom agents are shining a spot light on the building adjacent to the port of entry. Suddenly a waif-ish crackhead gets caught in the light, which through some unseen force pins her against the wall of the building. She scans the area with her nervous eyes. She runs away. The Mexican customs agents laugh and the American agents one hundred yards away are as stoic as rocks. Chins jutting out, hands on their pistols, promenading in the tiny space with the flashlights shining into wheel wells and back seats of minivans.
The border night breaths. The soul of Agua Prieta howls and its heart thumps.
A small group of migrants come through, fourteen, we serve them and they are quickly on their way. Seven men pile into a late 80's Crown Victoria driven by a man with tight jeans, a plaid shirt, and a very unnecessary cowboy hat. The fan belt of the old sedan shrieks and the engine roars as it pulls into the life and chaos of the Agua Prieta night. Victor, the guardia on duty, comes up and starts talking. He is just like any other rent-a-cop you might imagine: vulgar, offensive, and pretty hilarious. He doesn't carry any firearms, only his somewhat keen, albeit offensive, whit and a couple pairs of brass knuckles. He looks down at my hands and sees my coffee.
"Oye," he says in toothless, whistling border Spanish, "me regalas un cafecito?"
I give him a hard time about it but also give him a cup of coffee. Then I sneeze, a lot. Four or five times. He asked me what's wrong and if I'm sick. I make some stupid joke about how its la cocaina and he laughs a raspy laugh with his eyes wide open.
"Créeme," he says, "he probabo esa chingadera y no me gustó para nada. Me hace..." then he locks his knees and his elbows, sticks his lower jaw out as far as he can, and walks around the side walk like the love child of Frankenstein and Pancho Villa.
Victor has some strange Irish last name because his father came down to Acapulco and impregnated his mother and then went back to the United States. Though he is a citizen he doesn't go back, because of some probably cocaine related incident that he doesn't talk about very often. Only sparingly does he refer to when was locked up in Arizona.
Most of his adult life, if he tells the truth, consisted of being a body guard and police man for various and sundry political figures in Mexico. That's how he lost his front teeth. Driving the Governor of Tabasco when they got into an accident and he almost ate the steering wheel.
I take a sip of my cooling coffee.
Victor has one tooth on the left side of his mouth that just hangs. It looks like a miniature version of some prehistoric battle ax, made out of the hip bone of a mastodon. Just lodged into the toothless void of his mouth. He whistles at a friend out in the street. He could never whistle before he lost those teeth.
Beautiful girls walk by on their way to clubs. They hold each others' hands and waddle and waver nervously on heels far too high for the rutted and beat up Mexican streets and sidewalks. Victor whistles his empty, tritone-ish, toothless whistle soft enough so the girls don't hear. He looks at me with his eyebrows high above his eyes. He then talks about how he grew up in the "epoca de las mini-faldas" and then proceeded into a strange drunken dance in the middle of the street imitating the girls of his youth. The border is strange juxtaposition upon juxtaposition: beautiful girls sauntering out to a different country for a good time, hopeless vagrants running from one crowd to another pidiendo limosna and shaking cans with a couple pesos inside, hustlers and thugs and smugglers looking for people to take advantage of, cops and customs agents ignoring some things and looking for a way to make some quick money, on both sides. And me and the migrants.
We hear a sound coming from behind the building. Sort of a constant tick, tick, tick, tick. Then around the corner comes a man on crutches with one leg. His voice is a rough, almost nonhuman, belch: "oye carnal! no tienes pa' una soda?"
"No, amigo. No traigo pesos." He shoots us a glance of sad contempt and keeps moving to beg in the growing line of folks headed back to the States after a solid night of debauchery. He is the closest thing to human tumble weed, at the mercy of the whim of everything around him. He goes where the wind goes and where the gringos will give him a peso or two.
I look at my cup with a small dram of cold coffee and I finish the last bit, though I don't really want too.
Victor looks at me and says through the ghosts of his teeth, "está muy tranquilo. Muy tranquilo."
Monday, April 19, 2010
Night Death/Morning Hope
The building is being torn down and the sunset is beautiful. This evening there is a weird dusk. The wind does not blow. The light of the setting sun is refracted by the little particles of dust that stand about the air in the lonely desert night. People have been running for their lives.
A single ignorant moth enters with its joyous dance, seeking light and finds it. Night falls quickly, and a dark calm whelms this place. With the hope of rebirth in the morning as has always been the case....
In my mind Border Control should consist of policies that help keep injurious things out of our country (like drugs and weapons) but ensure the safe passage of people whose only desire is to work and support their family. Right now this is not happening, and here's why: every year United States Immigration has a maximum quota to fill concerning the visas it grants for unskilled laborers. Each year the United States gives out 5,000 work visas for people who are considered "unskilled laborers." I have heard estimates that there are between 11 and 14 million (yep, million) undocumented folks living in the United States. In almost four years we have served close to 60,000 people in Agua Prieta, Sonora who have been deported. That's 15,000 a year. So that means in less than half a year we see, in a small sleepy town on the border, more people trying to go work in the U.S. as there are visas available on a NATIONAL scale for a year.
So there are WAY more than 5,000 people entering the U.S. each year. There are way more than 5,000 people entering each month. This is where human and civil rights come into concern (we're not even at the Bill yet). Rather than really engaging in honest research concerning the economic and social reasons for immigration, walls have been built to try and cut off immigration. What this essentially achieved is that cities on the border (like El Paso and San Diego) saw far fewer people entering through the city, but the same amount of people would just go around the city, crossing through the surrounding desert. Now with people crossing in the desert it becomes far more dangerous. In Cochise County (South Eastern Arizona) 22 people died trying to cross in the U.S in 2009. The number for all of Arizona was over 250 deaths. So now, not only are migrants facing the dangers of the desert itself, they face the dangers of the drug and human traffickers which essentially control the border.
Despite the wall, and big trucks and helicopters and infrared cameras...people are still crossing. Its simple supply and demand. Employers in the U.S. want the cheap labor, and people coming from Mexico, Central America, China, etc, etc, want work. Arizona is in an interesting position of being ground zero for immigration in many ways. Its a state that sees the negative effects of the violence that has happened with drug smuggling (which is also as simple as supply and demand....people in the U.S. like their drugs). Unfortunately it seems that with this new bill Arizona is throwing the baby out with the bath water. This is a bill which has been justified as breaking up smuggling rings in Arizona, but...I think its doing it in a very scary way....
Here are a couple of reasons why this disturbs me. This is taken directly from the bill:
B. FOR ANY LAWFUL CONTACT MADE BY A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR AGENCY
21 OF THIS STATE OR A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS
22 STATE WHERE REASONABLE SUSPICION EXISTS THAT THE PERSON IS AN ALIEN WHO IS
23 UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES, A REASONABLE ATTEMPT SHALL BE MADE,
24 WHEN PRACTICABLE, TO DETERMINE THE IMMIGRATION STATUS OF THE PERSON. THE
25 PERSON'S IMMIGRATION STATUS SHALL BE VERIFIED WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
26 PURSUANT TO 8 UNITED STATES CODE SECTION 1373(c).
E. A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER, WITHOUT A WARRANT, MAY ARREST A PERSON
38 IF THE OFFICER HAS PROBABLE CAUSE TO BELIEVE THAT THE PERSON HAS COMMITTED
39 ANY PUBLIC OFFENSE THAT MAKES THE PERSON REMOVABLE FROM THE UNITED STATES.
This bill is giving local cops the right and the obligation to question the immigration status of any person, WITHOUT a warrant, simply based on the way they look. This is particularly troubling in towns like Phoenix and Tucson, where Latinos/Hispanics consist of between 35-40% of the population. So, its safe to say that when I walk around Phoenix tomorrow morning, I won't be arrested or questioned because I don't look like a migrant. Because I'm not Mexican. Because I'm not brown. So, when I ask have we really progressed since the civil rights movement....well, have we?
Also, my faith as a Christian plays an extremely important role as I approach this issue. In the book of Matthew, chapter 22 Jesus says "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself." Christ did not say love your neighbor on this side of the wall. Or love your neighbor who speaks English. Or love your neighbor who looks like you. Just love your neighbor.
I also read in 1Peter, chapter 4 where it says" above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without complaining."
Do we accomplish these things in our immigration policy? Would Jesus approve of what we do?
This stuff is beyond complicated. But, our immigration system is broken and it needs fixing. There are millions of people in the United States who live in fear, and there are thousands of U.S. citizens each year who are separated from their parents because of raids made in migrant communities and factories where they might be working.
We need change. I think we can all agree to that. Because what is happening right now is ripping our border with Mexico to shreds and is separating families...sometimes forever.
I know this was kind of long. Sorry about that. I could easily write more, probably ten times more.
Thanks again for your curiosity and willingness to learn. I don't think it has anything to do with your political leanings....liberal and conservative, democrat and republican alike are all undereducated about what is going on.
A single ignorant moth enters with its joyous dance, seeking light and finds it. Night falls quickly, and a dark calm whelms this place. With the hope of rebirth in the morning as has always been the case....
In my mind Border Control should consist of policies that help keep injurious things out of our country (like drugs and weapons) but ensure the safe passage of people whose only desire is to work and support their family. Right now this is not happening, and here's why: every year United States Immigration has a maximum quota to fill concerning the visas it grants for unskilled laborers. Each year the United States gives out 5,000 work visas for people who are considered "unskilled laborers." I have heard estimates that there are between 11 and 14 million (yep, million) undocumented folks living in the United States. In almost four years we have served close to 60,000 people in Agua Prieta, Sonora who have been deported. That's 15,000 a year. So that means in less than half a year we see, in a small sleepy town on the border, more people trying to go work in the U.S. as there are visas available on a NATIONAL scale for a year.
So there are WAY more than 5,000 people entering the U.S. each year. There are way more than 5,000 people entering each month. This is where human and civil rights come into concern (we're not even at the Bill yet). Rather than really engaging in honest research concerning the economic and social reasons for immigration, walls have been built to try and cut off immigration. What this essentially achieved is that cities on the border (like El Paso and San Diego) saw far fewer people entering through the city, but the same amount of people would just go around the city, crossing through the surrounding desert. Now with people crossing in the desert it becomes far more dangerous. In Cochise County (South Eastern Arizona) 22 people died trying to cross in the U.S in 2009. The number for all of Arizona was over 250 deaths. So now, not only are migrants facing the dangers of the desert itself, they face the dangers of the drug and human traffickers which essentially control the border.
Despite the wall, and big trucks and helicopters and infrared cameras...people are still crossing. Its simple supply and demand. Employers in the U.S. want the cheap labor, and people coming from Mexico, Central America, China, etc, etc, want work. Arizona is in an interesting position of being ground zero for immigration in many ways. Its a state that sees the negative effects of the violence that has happened with drug smuggling (which is also as simple as supply and demand....people in the U.S. like their drugs). Unfortunately it seems that with this new bill Arizona is throwing the baby out with the bath water. This is a bill which has been justified as breaking up smuggling rings in Arizona, but...I think its doing it in a very scary way....
Here are a couple of reasons why this disturbs me. This is taken directly from the bill:
B. FOR ANY LAWFUL CONTACT MADE BY A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR AGENCY
21 OF THIS STATE OR A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS
22 STATE WHERE REASONABLE SUSPICION EXISTS THAT THE PERSON IS AN ALIEN WHO IS
23 UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES, A REASONABLE ATTEMPT SHALL BE MADE,
24 WHEN PRACTICABLE, TO DETERMINE THE IMMIGRATION STATUS OF THE PERSON. THE
25 PERSON'S IMMIGRATION STATUS SHALL BE VERIFIED WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
26 PURSUANT TO 8 UNITED STATES CODE SECTION 1373(c).
E. A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER, WITHOUT A WARRANT, MAY ARREST A PERSON
38 IF THE OFFICER HAS PROBABLE CAUSE TO BELIEVE THAT THE PERSON HAS COMMITTED
39 ANY PUBLIC OFFENSE THAT MAKES THE PERSON REMOVABLE FROM THE UNITED STATES.
This bill is giving local cops the right and the obligation to question the immigration status of any person, WITHOUT a warrant, simply based on the way they look. This is particularly troubling in towns like Phoenix and Tucson, where Latinos/Hispanics consist of between 35-40% of the population. So, its safe to say that when I walk around Phoenix tomorrow morning, I won't be arrested or questioned because I don't look like a migrant. Because I'm not Mexican. Because I'm not brown. So, when I ask have we really progressed since the civil rights movement....well, have we?
Also, my faith as a Christian plays an extremely important role as I approach this issue. In the book of Matthew, chapter 22 Jesus says "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself." Christ did not say love your neighbor on this side of the wall. Or love your neighbor who speaks English. Or love your neighbor who looks like you. Just love your neighbor.
I also read in 1Peter, chapter 4 where it says" above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without complaining."
Do we accomplish these things in our immigration policy? Would Jesus approve of what we do?
This stuff is beyond complicated. But, our immigration system is broken and it needs fixing. There are millions of people in the United States who live in fear, and there are thousands of U.S. citizens each year who are separated from their parents because of raids made in migrant communities and factories where they might be working.
We need change. I think we can all agree to that. Because what is happening right now is ripping our border with Mexico to shreds and is separating families...sometimes forever.
I know this was kind of long. Sorry about that. I could easily write more, probably ten times more.
Thanks again for your curiosity and willingness to learn. I don't think it has anything to do with your political leanings....liberal and conservative, democrat and republican alike are all undereducated about what is going on.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Joe
I look into the night sky and admire it. The desert stars are vivid and pierce the darkness. It feels like I'm driving on a lonely stretch of pavement suspended some where in the cosmos. As I look into the sky I see a moving star...
The desert night is contaminated with dust and worry. And some where happiness exudes the desert night. But here, close to the border, its a happiness induced by ephemeral things. Through the dust. Through the sounds of the night, a call pierces it all. Its the call of a lonely bird. A desperate bird. Like the call of this bird looking for the last living bird of its kind. The bird's name is Bethany.
She screams in the night: "Joe! Joe where are you?"
With Joe no where to be found, the bird wonders aimlessly through the streets. Continuing her aimless and desperate call for the last of her kind. One cold nights Bethany's emaciated body looks oddly lumpy, on account of layers of sweaters and shirts. Like a potato with thin little waif's legs. The walking potato-bird-woman has a third leg which is a thin cane, too short for her. So she hopelessly galumphs, disregarding centers of streets and cars and potholes and drunks and police men. She is focused only on Joe. She sees me and approaches me. She smiles and her teeth are all there. Mostly rotting, but all there. Her broken smile is far from charming: chapped lips surrounding browning teeth slowly disappearing into no where. I think she bats her eyelashes. All of her clothes are either dirty, or black, or both. On top of her head is a pristine Cuban looking fedora that is made from impeccably clean straw with a black ribbon around it. Surrounding her gray feet, regardless of the temperature, she wears brown sandals. The kind old coffee farmers wear in Southern Mexico.
"Hi," she says. "I look better don't I?"
She does (A while back she was beaten, almost to death. With two massive blueish-greenish-purplish circles around her eyes she yelled: "I'm proof that God lives! I'm alive because of God! God's angels of death came down on me but they didn't take me!." She pointed at the scabs on her neck: "he coulda cut my head off but he didn't!" I rode away on my bike. "God is real!").
"Hey, ha..ha..have you seen Joe?" she asks, with a ridiculous and uncomfortable smile. She has lipstick on.
"No Bethany, I haven't."
"D'you...d'you have like, a couple quarters or some pesos or something you can give me I have to pay rent and I missed a week and I'm behind on my rent and I don't know what I'm gonna do and I'm scared ok can you please help me?"
"I don't Bethany, I'm sorry."
Her eyes dart around the room and focus on a box of donuts. She looks up just past the brim of her immaculate fedora. Some how she looks like a child. A child wasting away in the body of a woman who could blow away with the wind. She actually licks her lips. Her eyes water and she says, "Can I, could I have one of those?"
I grab a donut and a napkin and hand it her.
"Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you."
She turns, donut in one hand, cane in the other and walks out and stop at the door way. She starts singing the Lord's Prayer and twirling around in circle looking up at the sky with her dry, red eyes. The tune is nothing. The rhythm is non existent. She take a bite out of the donut and walks away.
"Joe!"
The desert night is contaminated with dust and worry. And some where happiness exudes the desert night. But here, close to the border, its a happiness induced by ephemeral things. Through the dust. Through the sounds of the night, a call pierces it all. Its the call of a lonely bird. A desperate bird. Like the call of this bird looking for the last living bird of its kind. The bird's name is Bethany.
She screams in the night: "Joe! Joe where are you?"
With Joe no where to be found, the bird wonders aimlessly through the streets. Continuing her aimless and desperate call for the last of her kind. One cold nights Bethany's emaciated body looks oddly lumpy, on account of layers of sweaters and shirts. Like a potato with thin little waif's legs. The walking potato-bird-woman has a third leg which is a thin cane, too short for her. So she hopelessly galumphs, disregarding centers of streets and cars and potholes and drunks and police men. She is focused only on Joe. She sees me and approaches me. She smiles and her teeth are all there. Mostly rotting, but all there. Her broken smile is far from charming: chapped lips surrounding browning teeth slowly disappearing into no where. I think she bats her eyelashes. All of her clothes are either dirty, or black, or both. On top of her head is a pristine Cuban looking fedora that is made from impeccably clean straw with a black ribbon around it. Surrounding her gray feet, regardless of the temperature, she wears brown sandals. The kind old coffee farmers wear in Southern Mexico.
"Hi," she says. "I look better don't I?"
She does (A while back she was beaten, almost to death. With two massive blueish-greenish-purplish circles around her eyes she yelled: "I'm proof that God lives! I'm alive because of God! God's angels of death came down on me but they didn't take me!." She pointed at the scabs on her neck: "he coulda cut my head off but he didn't!" I rode away on my bike. "God is real!").
"Hey, ha..ha..have you seen Joe?" she asks, with a ridiculous and uncomfortable smile. She has lipstick on.
"No Bethany, I haven't."
"D'you...d'you have like, a couple quarters or some pesos or something you can give me I have to pay rent and I missed a week and I'm behind on my rent and I don't know what I'm gonna do and I'm scared ok can you please help me?"
"I don't Bethany, I'm sorry."
Her eyes dart around the room and focus on a box of donuts. She looks up just past the brim of her immaculate fedora. Some how she looks like a child. A child wasting away in the body of a woman who could blow away with the wind. She actually licks her lips. Her eyes water and she says, "Can I, could I have one of those?"
I grab a donut and a napkin and hand it her.
"Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you."
She turns, donut in one hand, cane in the other and walks out and stop at the door way. She starts singing the Lord's Prayer and twirling around in circle looking up at the sky with her dry, red eyes. The tune is nothing. The rhythm is non existent. She take a bite out of the donut and walks away.
"Joe!"
Monday, March 29, 2010
Sunday, a True Story
I walk into church at 9:30 in the morning with my smile on. Whether they love me or hate me they give me a warm welcome. Then I hear the news of the day: a rancher in his fifties was found dead on his land. Some say it was a heart attack.
I start making the rounds, shaking hands. A Border Patrol agent says to another church member, "apparently there were U.D.A.'s in the vicinity."
"What are U.D.A.'s?" I ask.
The agent gets defensive. "What do you call them?" I try to make words but not fast enough.
"Un Documented Alien," he says, and proceeds into his diatribe. Now he explains the word alien by translating into Spanish, like I don't have my Masters and I don't translate almost every day.
"Extranjero. Forastero. Stranger. Foreigner. Not like alien from another planet."
I ask, "Have I done something to make you mad?"
The agent explodes into some uber-border-patrolly man-rage. His words flow down from his mouth like a pyroclastic flow, laying to waste some poor Pacific volcano town, "I had a long day yesterday and you don't know what a fuckin' U.D.A. is?"
My mouth said: "If you're gonna get mad, get mad at some one else."
My brain said: "fuck off asshole."
Then I put on my fake smile and go to teach two middle school girls about Holy Week. My fake smile turns into a real one and forty five minutes later I walk into the sanctuary. You can't bullshit kids.
"Hey Carol, where in the bulletin is my speaking part?"
"Ha," she responds. "You know whats funny? When people's brains don't work."
Hilarious.
She continues: "O its not your fault, its just your culture."
Real smile, defeated. All I hear now is the auditory equivalent of raw sewage seeping from the hole in this woman's face.
You know whats funny? Somewhere in a parallel universe (where we're going we don't need roads) my doppelganger is beating the mess out of an old and ornery church crone. In front of the pastor. In front of the congregation. Yes, I know this is offensive.
But in this universe, I take it like a kick to the balls. From a third grader. Or maybe from a crusty old geriatric.
Church starts. In the pew behind me Gean's dead and strangely endearing voice croaks out hymns that sound more like a duck call than human singing. She's been singing now for ninety six years. I ask God for strength and patience to deal with people who are mean and wounded and unaware of others. But somewhere not so deep down I want to fight back. I want to physically fight. Instead of turning the other cheek after being slapped I want to come back with all my guts and glory and rip these bastards to shreds. I would feel better. Maybe for a little while. But we all know where that kind of mentality get us: sons and grandsons fighting their fathers' and grandfathers' fights, and they don't remember why.
So instead, I lick my wounds, put my fake smile back on, and pretend like I'm the strongest dude on the planet. Inside I want to fight like a wounded street dog. Barking at ghosts.
Hours later I'm in the Migrant Resource Center. It goes from boring to busy in exactly one second. Seventeen men and two women, the majority of which I already know, enter in from the night. Suddenly the center is filled with "hey amigo!" and "buenas noches!" and other pleasantries. Hands are shaken. Faces have smiles. Hopes and dreams are dashed and delayed. I scan the crowd of folks (some people call them U.D.A.'s). Two lines form. One for coffee. One for burritos. My eyes meet with several others, and we start laughing. We laugh. Inexplicable laughter. Several other pair of eyes shift and faces communicate a certain wonder of why this crazy guero is laughing.
"Mejor reir que llorar," I say.
Its better to laugh than to cry.
The not so alien, newly documented crowd laughs corporately. Not because its very funny, but because they understand.
We may not seem like we have much in common. I was born on one side of a line drawn by soldiers and government men. And they were born on the other side of that line.
We look differently.
We speak differently.
I have a life of privilege.
Many of them die for privilege.
But we all laughed.
These people. These humans. These brothers and sisters. Fathers and Mothers. Undocumented Aliens. These people were just denied by my country and the policies that I am responsible for. They see me and the laugh with me. We laugh because we are tired of the bullshit and we want to go home. And thank God we can laugh. Because if we start crying we might not be able to stop.
I start making the rounds, shaking hands. A Border Patrol agent says to another church member, "apparently there were U.D.A.'s in the vicinity."
"What are U.D.A.'s?" I ask.
The agent gets defensive. "What do you call them?" I try to make words but not fast enough.
"Un Documented Alien," he says, and proceeds into his diatribe. Now he explains the word alien by translating into Spanish, like I don't have my Masters and I don't translate almost every day.
"Extranjero. Forastero. Stranger. Foreigner. Not like alien from another planet."
I ask, "Have I done something to make you mad?"
The agent explodes into some uber-border-patrolly man-rage. His words flow down from his mouth like a pyroclastic flow, laying to waste some poor Pacific volcano town, "I had a long day yesterday and you don't know what a fuckin' U.D.A. is?"
My mouth said: "If you're gonna get mad, get mad at some one else."
My brain said: "fuck off asshole."
Then I put on my fake smile and go to teach two middle school girls about Holy Week. My fake smile turns into a real one and forty five minutes later I walk into the sanctuary. You can't bullshit kids.
"Hey Carol, where in the bulletin is my speaking part?"
"Ha," she responds. "You know whats funny? When people's brains don't work."
Hilarious.
She continues: "O its not your fault, its just your culture."
Real smile, defeated. All I hear now is the auditory equivalent of raw sewage seeping from the hole in this woman's face.
You know whats funny? Somewhere in a parallel universe (where we're going we don't need roads) my doppelganger is beating the mess out of an old and ornery church crone. In front of the pastor. In front of the congregation. Yes, I know this is offensive.
But in this universe, I take it like a kick to the balls. From a third grader. Or maybe from a crusty old geriatric.
Church starts. In the pew behind me Gean's dead and strangely endearing voice croaks out hymns that sound more like a duck call than human singing. She's been singing now for ninety six years. I ask God for strength and patience to deal with people who are mean and wounded and unaware of others. But somewhere not so deep down I want to fight back. I want to physically fight. Instead of turning the other cheek after being slapped I want to come back with all my guts and glory and rip these bastards to shreds. I would feel better. Maybe for a little while. But we all know where that kind of mentality get us: sons and grandsons fighting their fathers' and grandfathers' fights, and they don't remember why.
So instead, I lick my wounds, put my fake smile back on, and pretend like I'm the strongest dude on the planet. Inside I want to fight like a wounded street dog. Barking at ghosts.
Hours later I'm in the Migrant Resource Center. It goes from boring to busy in exactly one second. Seventeen men and two women, the majority of which I already know, enter in from the night. Suddenly the center is filled with "hey amigo!" and "buenas noches!" and other pleasantries. Hands are shaken. Faces have smiles. Hopes and dreams are dashed and delayed. I scan the crowd of folks (some people call them U.D.A.'s). Two lines form. One for coffee. One for burritos. My eyes meet with several others, and we start laughing. We laugh. Inexplicable laughter. Several other pair of eyes shift and faces communicate a certain wonder of why this crazy guero is laughing.
"Mejor reir que llorar," I say.
Its better to laugh than to cry.
The not so alien, newly documented crowd laughs corporately. Not because its very funny, but because they understand.
We may not seem like we have much in common. I was born on one side of a line drawn by soldiers and government men. And they were born on the other side of that line.
We look differently.
We speak differently.
I have a life of privilege.
Many of them die for privilege.
But we all laughed.
These people. These humans. These brothers and sisters. Fathers and Mothers. Undocumented Aliens. These people were just denied by my country and the policies that I am responsible for. They see me and the laugh with me. We laugh because we are tired of the bullshit and we want to go home. And thank God we can laugh. Because if we start crying we might not be able to stop.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Daymare.
The bullet, now unrifling, enters backwards between his shoulder blades. All the blood seeps into the shredded mess of his back as the hole closes. Spinal chord mends. Vertebrae puzzlepieces are put back together. Veins and arteries and other little rivers of life force unexplode and are mended. Pieces of rib find one another and are soldered again in the process. Sternum closes back in on itself with no lacking bone. Heart pounds. The bullet is thrown from the chest.
He wakes up.
He wakes up.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
This isn't inspired by the border.....its inspired by lies.
Well in the a.m., when you're leaving me.
And I don't care, because I see clearly.
In the a.m., and I ain't punch drunk on love again.
No. No.
Constantly bombarded by old memories,
Just like the wind howling through the trees.
Some are good, and.
Some ain't so.
So I, must go.
That snake in the grass, has shed it's skin.
It says to me, its new again.
And I know. Its just the same old snake within.
And I'm gone.
Gone, gone in the A.M.
Well in the a.m., when you're leaving me.
And I don't care, because I see clearly.
In the a.m., and I ain't punch drunk on love again.
No. No.
Constantly bombarded by old memories,
Just like the wind howling through the trees.
Some are good, and.
Some ain't so.
So I, must go.
Well that snake and me.
Friends we'll never be.
That snake, and me.
Friends we'll never be.
And I'm gone.
Gone, gone in the A.M.
And I don't care, because I see clearly.
In the a.m., and I ain't punch drunk on love again.
No. No.
Constantly bombarded by old memories,
Just like the wind howling through the trees.
Some are good, and.
Some ain't so.
So I, must go.
That snake in the grass, has shed it's skin.
It says to me, its new again.
And I know. Its just the same old snake within.
And I'm gone.
Gone, gone in the A.M.
Well in the a.m., when you're leaving me.
And I don't care, because I see clearly.
In the a.m., and I ain't punch drunk on love again.
No. No.
Constantly bombarded by old memories,
Just like the wind howling through the trees.
Some are good, and.
Some ain't so.
So I, must go.
Well that snake and me.
Friends we'll never be.
That snake, and me.
Friends we'll never be.
And I'm gone.
Gone, gone in the A.M.
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