Tucson Treasures, Part Three

I am really grateful to have the time to reflect on all that I did, saw and learned in Tucson.  We are spending the week with our friends Marilyn and Dale in Desert Edge, California.  I think that everyone at Healing Waters Park, where they live, who sees me working away every morning on my laptop probably wonder what that woman is working on that keeps her away from the desert.  It is lovely at the end of my work to take a break and enjoy the area.  This morning I am working outside and hummingbirds are visiting me on their way to and from the orange tree that is in blossom.  The smell of the orange blossoms is so sweet that I am lulled into a sense of peace and well being.  Mike has been hiking, biking and enjoying life in the desert while I work.  I think it has been a good trip for him and he is taking full advantage of having his bike on the trip.  He has been riding a 31 mile loop up and down hills and is quite happy to be warm!

Orange blossom

Baby hummers

So, back to reflecting on Tucson.  The day after I visited with Anna and her class on migration, I drive into town to interview Emrys Staton in depth. I met him at the Borderlinks facility where he is a board member and where I had originally met him during our Immigration Justice experience.  Emrys is an social justice activist, theology student and a person with a great deal of integrity who grew up in Arizona.  He came to Tucson from Northern Arizona and was raised as a Unitarian Universalist.  He was exposed to the concepts of suffering and political engagement as a means to alleviate suffering as a child, both through his religious education and by the examples set by his politically involved parents.  It seems to have stuck with him.  He majored in geography with an emphasis on social justice at the University of Arizona.  He told me that he was a sophomore in college on September 11, 2001.  He reported alot of hate being present on campus immediately following the attacks.  He joined Beyond Tolerance, a campus group formed to help mitigate the climate of hate.  His journey towards the activism he now engages in continued by befriending a group of Sudanese refugees who had been settled in Tucson by the UN High Commission on Refugees to attend the university.  He learned from them what it personally meant to be a refugee.  These young men had left their homes at the ages of 9 and 10 to travel safety and it took years of struggle and horrible treatment to arrive in Tucson.  Emrys was horrified by the stories they told.

Emrys

By the end of college he was working in independent media on food and justice issues and would attend protests and actions and be beaten up and then report the experience. This preceded the blog and other social media era.  It was the only way to get the truth out about how demonstrators were being treated.

Emrys became in involved in No More Deaths(NMD) from the beginning.  He attended the inaugural event, a Memorial Day 2004 cross border march between Nogales Arizona, and Nogales, Sonora.  He went first as an independent/citizen news reporter and later as a core member of the organization.  A year later he was fully involved and living with a group of activists who were all dedicated to NMD. He spent time at the first encampment NMD in the desert in the summer months of 2004. The encampment provides first aid, water and respite for migrants crossing the desert in the hottest months of the year.  It still operates and is now sanctioned by the International Red Cross which makes it a little safer than some other humanitarian operations from being raided by law enforcement and anti-immigrant vigilantes.  

I asked Emrys what victories he has seen in his 10 years of work with NMD.  He shared the following:

• There are a lot of people we have kept alive.  We have countered the policies of the US Border Patrol that includes enforcement through deterrence, even if death is a "collateral."
• There many immigrant groups who are now fighting to make the political change,  and they had to survive in order to be activists.
•  They (NMD) are one of the only groups that can call out the Border Patrol.  He believes that we should defund Border Patrol.  The theme that I saw in the office of Borderlinks in posters is Revitalize Not Militarize Border Communities.  He believes this should be the message for all of our borders.  All land 100 miles in from the border is now under the purview of the Border Control.    He stated that we need to be very alert to the role the Border Patrol is playing.  Even as they become integrated into the community the enforcement aspect becomes subtly integrated into the community.  What if a border patrol dad becomes assistant boy scout leader - will he be welcoming to undocumented boys and/or families.  Or a soccer coach or 4-H leader (I add this because that is the youth development program in my world)?
• The revision of police policy in how immigrants are treated for routine infractions of the law.  Immigration papers will no longer be sought.  The policy was big news in Tucson and upsetting to the crafters of the infamous SB 1070.  It is good to know that one significant community is fighting back.  It follows revisions of policies that will no longer check school children for immigration papers in the Tucson area.  
• Emrys wholeheartedly endorsed Border Patrol Nation: Dispatches from the Frontlines of Homeland by Todd Miller.  Todd has a really informative blog.  I intend to order it from my independent bookseller!

I asked Emrys what he sees as future needs for both NMD and all of us who are concerned with immigrant justice.  His answers were not always easy to hear.  He said that the work for the future for NMD is solidarity with immigrant-led groups and movements.  Allegiance with black-lives matter.  Prison industry targets both black and brown skins.  He shared that the International Red Cross endorses the work of NMD.  "We work within international humanitarian guidelines.    We need to keep on message that we are doing that here.  We (our society) need to think about decolonizing the concept of humanitarianism.  It is seen as something that people of privilege do.

We need to look at people most effected by conditions taking leadership for making the change.  We have to hear and believe their voices.  We need to use language that tells the facts and avoid the use of language that creates veneer of legitimacy.  We need to hear what they are saying: They (the US government immigration agents and policies) are “terrorizing and kidnapping” us and our children.  Then we need to take the voices seriously.

Lots to think about from our conversation.  

Thanks for reading.

Respite in Portal, Arizona

We had a respite last weekend in the Chiricahua Mountains.  We spend two full days with our friends Barbara and Ron in their home in Portal, Arizona.  Portal sits right on the edge of the Chiricahua Mountains on the far eastern side, just a few miles from the New Mexico border. It is the nearest town to Cave Creek Canyon.  Cave Creek runs through Portal.  I was incredibly surprised by the lush canyon and the resources the small town has in human and social capital and community spirit.  We arrived just at dusk last Friday and settled into dinner and our visit.  One of the things we learned the first night was that the area around Portal and the peaks just outside our friends kitchen windows were common routes for drug smugglers to use.  According to our hosts, it was common knowledge that the narcos post sentries in the mountains to watch the area for safe passage for their mules.  Barbara and Ron have suffered two burglaries in recent years and have taken to improving their security measures.  Mike tried to spot the spotters with his binoculars that weekend but saw no signs.  The Border Patrol was holding a community meeting the day we left to update the residents about recent events and to stay in communication.

Barbara and I visited some of the highlights of the area on Saturday.  I was totally delighted to go to the "town center" of about 3 buildings and to visit the library and the post office.  The library is open 6 mornings a week, usually the same time the post office is open so people can get their mail and visit the library in one errand.  Both were charming.  The library is housed in the former one room school house.

Portal Library

One of the many charming things I found in this library was the mural in the children's area, hand painted by a local artist.  I wanted to share the overall mural and a close-up of the little owl peeping our of a hole in the sycamore tree.

 

What a welcoming space for all ages!  I love libraries and have been driving on this trip with my I Love My Library bumper sticker on my car!  I was so pleased to find this library tucked away in a remote area of Arizona!

Barbara and I also visited the Chiricahua Desert Museum and gift store, a funky consignment store withe great bargains and an artist's cooperative gallery in Rodeo NM, just a whisper away from Portal!  We also drove to the National Forest Service Visitors Center for Cave Creek Canyon and the surrounding areas and had a preview of what we would see the following day.

Pictures do not do justice to the lush canyon lands that make up the North and South Fork of Cave Creek.  I will share a couple but your imagination will have to fill in the gaps.  These canyons are where Cochise and Geronimo, leaders of the bands within the Chiricahua Apache people roamed and sought refuge.  It was easy to see the Apaches finding safety and abundant food in these canyons.

Cathedral Rock

Rocks viewed across the canyon from Cathedral Rock.

Looking up the canyon

Barbara, Mike and I drove up to Rustler Park, a high country campground in the Coronado National Forest.  The area had been devastated by fire in 2012.  Barbara said that it was renowned for its beauty and that many who came every year to relax and enjoy that beauty would not see it recovered in their lifetimes.  The forest takes its time.  We walked around and then hiked up a ridge to look out over the western side of the sky island that the Chiricahua Mountains are.  It was a windy, brisk and sunny day.  We were the only visitors to the campground when we were there.

Mike and Barbara descending through the burn zone.

It was bright!

Looking up near the crest.

Mike's comment:
I wonder what they did up here?

Barbara was an able guide, driving us in her all wheel drive around numerous switchbacks and over creeks up and down the mountainside.  We stopped at the Southwestern Research Station run by the American Museum of Natural History where she and Ron both worked and where Barbara first came from NY as a student and then later to do her PhD research.  It was an amazing place.  Ron and Barbara were married on the grounds of the station.  Clearly, this area is home for them, personally and professionally and we are grateful that they shared it with us.

Our hosts in front of Haystack Heights, their beautiful straw bale home.

I was really pleased that a quilt I made for their house, originally thought to be a table runner, they decided to hang on the wall.

Ron wrote me this week to say the quilt is now hanging on the wall.  Always a compliment to the maker!

We spent Sunday evening watching the penultimate episode of Downton Abbey with our friends and set off the next morning for Tucson, grateful for the time away from the city and rented rooms, refreshed and ready for more great learning experiences.

It is good to start to catch up on my journey.  Next time I will share some of what I learned in Tucson.

Thanks for reading.

A Short Debrief on our Borderlinks Experience

We finished our time with the Borderlinks delegation.  Since I last posted, we did a great deal of processing with the group and within ourselves about what we really learned from the experience.   Yesterday I wrote about the harsh reality of the border for the undocumented men, women and children and about heroic deeds of women and men in Tucson who are keeping the faith with the folks who attempt this perilous journey.

Today I want to share some of the takeaways for myself and others.  We did a reflection activity today that really made it easy for each of us to think about our time and experiences these past few days.  We were asked to imagine the experience was an animal and to relate pieces of our journey to parts of the animal.  HEAD- What we learned.  HEART- What we felt.  EYES - What images will we remember. NOSE- Smells that caught our attention.  EARS - What we continue to hear - the stories or words that stuck. HANDS- What individual action will be take? FEET - What will we do with others?  TAIL - What do we leave behind?

Here are some of my responses and a bit of what I remember shared by others.

HEAD - Reality of the horrors of the current immigration system for those coming from Mexico and Central America.  Good, courageous and faithful people and groups who live near the border, at least in the Tucson and Nogales sectors on both sides of the border, are working to save lives by any means possible. The system is broken.

EARS - The stories from helpers, migrants, lawyers, priests, community activists.

EYES - The faces of the people we met along the way. The artifacts found in the desert, abandoned in an attempt to survive or with death. Bullet holes shot into a wall in Nogales, Mexico that were part of an incident in which a boy was killed with 26 bullets.  He was on his way to pick up his sister at school.  The Nogales community is trying to get justice for the death of Jose Antonio, aged 16 at his death.  The WALL on the border.  Steel in sand.

Street memorial where Jose Antonio was killed.  Notice the bullet holes.

HEART- Shocked, compassion, sadness, deep concern, hope, outrage, hopeless, stunned.

NOSE - The posole at the Kino Center.

HAND - Blogging, my sabbatical work, finding others in the community who are concerned, volunteering, vigils at detention centers.

FEET - Mike and I will collaborate on a service at our church, Bellingham Unitarian Fellowship, on May 3, about our experience on this journey.  We will gather others in our area who have done work with groups like No Mas Muertes to plan a forum.  We will see if we can get interest in showing some of the documentaries at the annual "Doctober Film Festival" at the Pickford Cinema in Bellingham.  I like the idea of a Border to Border Solidarity theme.

TAIL - Ignorance about what our government policies are destroying the lives of families and impacting children for their whole lives.  We left our presence as a sign that others care and are paying attention.

There were many other wonderful things said by my group members that I have not captured in today's post.  In our closing ceremony we were asked to take a stone and share with the group what it represents that we will be taking home.  I have my stone in my pocket.  It represents a new piece of the foundation of my sabbatical learning and how I will view the impact of the immigration experience on the families we have the privilege of serving in our state and region.

Thanks for reading.

Borders and Heroes

 Dear Readers,

We are in the third day of Borderlinks experience and have more to come.  I am quite overcome with feelings and had a difficult time getting to sleep last night.  We have been witness to the following.  I will likely write more later about each of these pieces but I wanted to write something while my images are fresh.  In the past three days we have -

*Witnessed people whose only crime was entering the country without documents for the purpose of working and surviving brought before a judge in a Federal immigration court in leg and hand shackles to be sentenced in groups of 8-10 to time in one of our private prisons, aka Detention Centers, some for up to 6 months.  All were plea bargains.  No pictures were allowed.

*Spend time with recent deportees in a community kitchens run by the Jesuits in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico.  We have seen radical hospitality in the setting and people with very little hope and much determination treated to a Valentine's Day meal of posole, tortillas and more with balloons all around and brought to tears with the gift of music and love.

Outside the Kino Center where the meal was served.  

Pre-meal agreements and fun!

Valentine's Day Breakfast: Posole and torillas.  Horchata to drink!

Reproductions of murals and balloons decorate the wall.  Every effort is made to create hospitality and dignity in this setting.  I sensed that the memory of this  meal would help these folks at least for this day.  

*Met with women in a shelter who were all separated from their children, several had just completed 75 days in a cruel detention center before being returned from the detention center to Mexico and being dropped off to find that their money was stolen from someone within the system.  While in prison they suffered sexual abuse from prisoners and horrible treatment.  As one of the women said, "we are not criminals, we want to return to our children who are citizens and to work honestly."  There were so many tears from these beautiful young women and those of us who were privileged to hear their stories.  I lay awake last night thinking about them and hoping they will live to see their children and not be either incarcerated again, sexually exploited by narco terrorists or killed or neglected by coyotes, drug cartels or even our own border patrol or left to die in the desert.  We did not take pictures of the women but we listened and the stories and their faces live in my memory.

Some of the artifacts she shared with us. 

Shura with children's clothing.

*Heard stories from heroic Tucson area residents.  I do not think any of these folks would identify themselves as heroes but in my mind they are.  We heard from Emrys Staton who is a minister in training and one of the founders of the No More Deaths/No Mas Muertes organization that began leaving water in the desert 10 years ago to help save lives.  I hope to interview him in more depth next week.

Emrys, No More Deaths or No Mas Muertes

This morning we visited the co-organizer of the Green Valley Sahuarita Arizona Samaritans.  She is an amazing woman who moved to Green Valley from Berkeley CA and found that people were dying in the desert near her home.  She has organized a group of over 200 Samaritans in her area to help stop deaths in the desert.  Our group gathered in her hope around a table of artifacts that she had found in the desert near Green Valley.  She told the stories of what happens through the artifacts.  It was sobering.  She would not consider herself a heroine.  She told us that she is burdened every day with this work and she never gets away from it.  She is a powerful advocate for change.  She shared with us a powerful book of images by photographer Michael Hyatt: Migrant Artifacts; Magic and Loss in the Sonoran Desert published by Great Circle Books, Los Angeles.

This afternoon we spent time hearing stories of the sanctuary movement from Central American refugees that began in Tucson in the 1980's.  Rev. John Fife, one of the principals of the movement who was arrested with 15 others on a number of charges and later given 5 years probation, told the story of the movement from his experience.  He summarized the current US policy on the border of excluding the poorest of the poor from entering our country through a safe border as a gross violation of human rights and international law.  Strong words and strong convictions backed up by a deep faith in what should be done to protect all people and for the children who are now suffering as they are separated from their parents for a number of reasons.  He urged that our country develop a much broader view of what being a refugee means and how we can broaden the new sanctuary movement to protect children and their families.

I have been riding a roller coaster of despair, worry and hope over these last few days.  I think this experience will influence the rest of my sabbatical and my life for sometime to come.  I will not forget.

We finish here tomorrow and move a bit south where will be visiting agencies that serve families in Santa Cruz County, Arizona, including some in Nogales, Arizona.

Thanks for reading.