Tucson Treasures, Part Two

In my last post I wrote about my conversation with Jose Rodas.  He was so generous in connecting me with Dr. Anna Ochoa O'Leary.  Anna is an Associate Professor in the Department of  Mexican American Studies in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Arizona.   Jose walked me across campus to the Cesar Chavez Building where the department is housed.  He let me know that the Department Chair, Dr. Richard Ruiz, had died suddenly on February 6.  The department was reeling from the loss of its beloved leader.  An article in the UA Campus news shares the story of this remarkable man.  As we walked into the building we came to an altar dedicated to Dr. Ruiz.  It was beautiful.

Altar in Cesar Chavez Building

I took a moment to appreciate the memorial to a man who I never met, who was very close to me in age and whom has had lasting impact in his life and work.  I was so moved and am still by beauty of the altar and how the very public expression of grief can be healing for everyone.

Having witnessed this I found Anna waiting in her office for me.  She is a gracious, warm person who is very easy to speak with about difficult subjects.  She had invited me to attend her seminar the following week on the Feminization of Migration so I knew this was a chance to visit with her one on one and get her perspective on issues that were not related to the course.  We spoke about the plight of the undocumented immigrants who (as she put it) "are our neighbors who are living in the shadows."  When I asked for her thoughts on what we can do she shared the following:

• The problem is not going away by doing what we are doing.
• Sealing the border will not work.  The solution needs to be humane.
• The Mexican government does not have the will to fix the problem.
• We have to support organizations that do the work.
• We need to get people to understand that US economic policies have created the problem, especially NAFTA that lowered the price of corn and put Mexican farmers out of business.
• The problem needs thorough understanding.  We need to move away from the "Reader's Digest" version of information about the issue.
• Support ongoing work like that she is doing with the Binational Migration Institute (BMI).  Dr. O'Leary and her colleagues published a book, Uncharted Terrain, that is helping support the work of the institute.  Part of what the institute does is take students across into Mexico to learn first hand about migration and the impacts it has on human lives.  She was preparing to take her graduate class to Nogales, Sonora, that evening to visit the San Juan Bosco Albergue shelter and to interview people who were staying there.  Mike and I had the opportunity to visit the shelter on our Borderlinks delegation so I knew what the space looked like.

Anna spoke to me about some of her current work and some of the pressing issues she sees.  She is concerned about the lack of protocol for disposing of the remains of Undocumented Border Crossers (UBC).  She and her colleagues are working with NGO and government officials to work more diligently to identify the remains before disposing of them.  It sounds harsh to write about disposing of remains of UBC victims but it is what is standard practice.  The dead and the families of the deceased are some of the casualities in the undeclared war on migrants and we see this happening in not just the US but also in Mexico and other dangerous areas of Central America that are crossed.  The ambiguous loss I wrote about yesterday is a fact of life for the survivors.  Many never know the fates of where, when, how their loved ones die on the perilous journey.

She is also very concerned about the post-migration trauma that is impacting both women and children.  She echoed the sentiments of Rev. John Fife that we are destroying the fabric of more than one generation of families.  Anna later sent me an article she published in The Conversation, in November of 2014, Family Values and Deportation don't go together.  I highly recommend it to you.

Anna in her office with Cesar in the background

Anna gave me a list of pertinent documentaries that we hope to use to encourage our local film society and/or human right film festival to show.

Mike and I were fortunate to visit the Feminization of Migration class the following Monday.  The class was an intimate group of graduate students who had taken the trip to the border shelter the previous week.  We were able to listen to the debrief.  We learned about more of the challenges the migrants face.  

We also listened the discussion about two articles the students read for that night's class.  Anna later shared copies of both with me.  Some of the discussion focused on understanding the migrants from Chiapas and Oaxaca may not even speak Spanish.  There are over 17 indigenous languages in each of the states and the right to a "fair trial" in the Operation Streamline courtroom is often compromised by not having interpreters in the language.  Although some attempt is made to remove the non-Spanish speakers from the "line-up" it does not always work well.  The court is facing legal challenges brought forth by public defenders.

Here are a couple of comments I heard during the class:

• "Migration is disrupting the integrity of the family - much like it did in when Africans were imported as slaves and their families were broken up (all the time, before, during and after their arrival in this country)."
• "We (United States) dismantle the humanity of people historically.  First American Indians, then African slaves and now Mexican and Central American Immigrants."

The class watched half of a powerful film - Maria in Nobody's Land.  The class would watch part two this week.  We will hopefully watch it ourselves.  The pictures of the train, "the beast," that carries migrants through Mexico are unforgettable. The stories and faces of the El Salvadorian families searching for words of their loved ones brought tears to my eyes.  I am hoping we can watch it in Bellingham with others who care to learn more about this issue.

We left Anna's class grateful for being able to share the experience and for knowing that the issue is being thoughtfully and rigorously examined.

I hope to keep in touch with Anna and am grateful for her generosity in sharing her work and her students with me!

Thanks for reading!

Tucson Treasures, Part One

Tucson held many treasures for my sabbatical experience.  I was able to have conversations with two professors at University of Arizona, attend a graduate seminar on the Feminization of Migration, interview a wonderful graduate student who helped me get connected with UA folks, have an in-depth conversation with a social justice activist and visit the Arizona State Museum where we were treated to a tour by "the best docent" they have (the lady at the front desk informed us).  I believe it after having had him take us through the native peoples' exhibit.

I am in awe of the work I saw happening at the University of Arizona.  I think I will start this post with a shout-out to Jose Miguel Rodas, a graduate student at the John and Doris Norton School of Family and Consumer Sciences.  He and I met for tea at a wonderful shop just across the street from the University, The Scented Leaf Tea House and Lounge.  As a tea drinker I was thrilled.  He picked it out as a place to meet having never been there.  I am sipping a cup of one of their herbal blends as I write.  I went back the following week and even dragged my coffee drinking husband in to just see it.

Jose

Jose is a graduate student in PhD Program in Family and Consumer Sciences with emphasis on Family Studies and Human Development.  He hails from Montclair, NJ and attended Montclair State University for his BA.  He also was an Americorps member and received a National Science Foundation Fellowship to go to University of Arizona.  He has never been to the state before he packed his car and drive out to begin his graduate program.  Jose and I met at the National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) meeting in November 2014.  We were part of a poster session on Saturday morning, a time when many folks had already left for home.  We had lots of time to talk.  We exchanged information.  He offered to help get connected with some folks in Tucson and he did!  I was so glad to see him again and to learn more about him and the work he is doing.

His career goal is to teach in a college setting.  His research focuses on mental health disparities, especially with Latino adolescent youth, adolescent development.  He is also very interested in family dynamics and parent- child dynamics.

His own story is that he is the son of immigrant parents who came from El Salvador.  He was born in the US and his father is a citizen.  His mother has a work permit and is legal.  He is working to get her more permanent status.  He has cousins who had to flee from El Salvador because they were being forced into gangs.  He said that the gangs in El Salvador feed on poverty.  He knows personally the impact of the politics and conditions in Central America on young people and their families.  He has recently been looking at what causes people to leave their homes and travel so far in such dangerous circumstances.  His own experiences in the SW have changed his world view.  Growing up in New Jersey he never heard the term "brown people."

He is currently working on his Master's thesis (1st step on the journey to the PhD).  He uses the theory of ambiguous loss to examine Latino caregivers - parents of youth and how the bi-culturalism that emerges causes loss for parents.  He is focusing on the loss of traditional values and beliefs that is more typical for the youth.  The children are being raised in dominant culture.  He is examining depressive symptoms caused by this loss and how we can mitigate it.  

Dr. Pauline Boss is the leading expert on the topic of ambiguous loss.  I heard her speak several times at NCFR. Her work helped me understand and work through some of my own grief and loss after my daughter Kate died in 2002.  We never had closure or the chance to say goodbye. I recommend looking into her work if you or anyone you know is struggling with unresolved loss.

Back to Jose's work.  He is currently working with the community in South Tucson to pilot a program to teach parents how to understand the process of adolescent development.  We did not have a chance to talk more about this because he had to rush off to class but I am guessing some of the challenge is that the cultural milieu in which these young people are developing is very different than what their parents experienced.  I invited him to come visit us in Washington and hope he does after his thesis is completed.  I would love to pay back some of the connecting he did for me by introducing him to colleagues and community members in my state.

I so enjoyed my time with Jose.  I am so hopeful for the future when I meet young scholars like Jose. I hope we can be connected for many years to come!

I will close this post with a couple of pictures I took as I visited campus that beautiful Friday in February.  My next post will connect you with Dr. Anna Ochoa O'Leary.

Orange trees on campus!

Waiting for Grandfather

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.

Santa Cruz County Part Two

It is gorgeous today in Portal.  We are going up Cave Creek Canyon today with Barbara and will see amazing things - birds, wildlife, views that people come from around the world to see.  I am excited.

I wanted to give a second glimpse into what I saw and heard in Santa Cruz County.  Yesterday I focused on the issue of teens having children and the concerns and norms in the community around these young moms and their children.  Interestingly, no one spoke to the issues of the fathers of these children except Delia who said that the father of her grandchild has now impregnated a second young woman whose parents have delivered her and her belongings to his door.  A different reaction to Delia's.

I want to focus this post on some of the things that are going well in the programs offered by Santa Cruz Cooperative Extension (I do not have the time or space to document all of them).

Family Resource Centers

Darcy Dixon has done a superb job of securing partnerships and funding to support early childhood initiatives.  Arizona funds these programs through a tax on tobacco products.  The First Things First Initiative funds all three Family Resource Centers in Santa Cruz County.  Two of the centers are full centers and the third is a "part-time center" in a remote area of the county.  Each Resource Center is staffed in partnership with the school district and hosts a number of options for families with young children.  I visited the Rio Rico Family Resource Center and the Nogales Family Resource Center.  I saw two programs in action and had an opportunity to interview parents and staff at both centers.

Family Resource Center Logo, so bright and welcoming!

The first program I visited was the Strengthening Families Program for parents and 3-5 year old children.  It was held at night at the Rio Rico Center, just down the hill from where we were staying.  I spend some time interviewing staff and parents earlier in the afternoon and I will share some of those impressions later in this post.  Mike and I both went to the SFP program and were treated to a delicious taco dinner with the families.  We sat with Victor, his mom and baby sister.  Victor, aged 4, was very  happy to have his picture taken eating beans, his favorite food.  He was a pleasure to meet as was his mom and infant sister, Victoria.

Victor eating his beans!

We were part of the parents' program.  Thanks to Vanessa, Yada and the whole team who graciously allowed us to participate with the 13 parents who attended that night.  I added a little piece of parenting education in response to a parent who was concerned because time out did not work with her four year old.  I had the same experience with our son.  I highly recommend the book, Time In, When Time Out Doesn't Work by Jean Illsley Clarke. Sometimes, I just can't help myself.  I guess that is what comes of being involved in the parenting education field for so many years.

Rio Rico families at their SFP class

Some of the other programs the centers offer are Positive Discipline, Kinder Readiness, Play and Learn, Partners in Parent Education (PIPE), Strengthening Families and more.  They have two tracks, a parent support track and a child development track.  I was awed.  And more than a little envious.  I wish there were resources this comprehensive for the families in my community.  I think there are some but not to this extent.

I visited the PIPE class in Nogales the following day where I met with Arlene, Delia, Armida, teacher Maria and Darcy after the class ended.

Maria demonstrating how to be playful with toddlers!  Play and learn!

I spend time with parents and staff in Rio Rico talking about their experiences at the Center and what the successes are.  These are some of my summaries of the comments from that interview.

• It helped my second child have a healthier adjustment to Head Start.  
• My children are socialized and comfortable and he/she is able to separate easily from me when we are here.
• I have taken all the classes and I am waiting for more.

When I asked them about their hopes and dreams for their children they shared:

• I want my children to grow up to respect others, to earn respect and to respect and get an education.
• I want them to be healthy, productive members of society.
• My (older) son has role models in the community.  I want him to have deep roots here in Santa Cruz County and to have hopes and dreams here for his future (even if he leaves for college).  I want them to contribute to the community.

When I asked them to talk about their relationship to the community and the center parents and staff shared the following:

• They hope the programs continue.
• They like being relevant to community needs.
• They hope they are making a difference and will continue to do so.
• They notice the ripple effect - that what they are teaching and learning goes beyond themselves into the community.
• They enjoy having people come back for many of the programs.
• They parents know they can come for different resources. 
• SFP teaches a lot of life skills.

I asked both staff and parents and grandparents during my two days in Santa Cruz County what they would like to see added to the programming they already have.  More sessions, more time, both one on one and in groups, a second SFP (already 14 weeks long), more funds to do all the above were some of the answers that I received.  In addition, there were conversations at almost every stop about the need for sexuality education.

I am so grateful that I was able to travel from my border to another border and see the wealth of programs for families, all of which were delivered in either Spanish or a mix of Spanish and English. I have a new appreciation for family resource centers and for work that is being done through Cooperative Extension in Arizona.

Thanks for reading!

Santa Cruz County Visit - Part One

Greetings from Portal Arizona!  We are staying with friends Barbara and Ron who live in an amazing straw bale home very near Cave Creek Canyon in the Chiricahua Mountains.  It is beautiful here.  We are about seven miles from the New Mexico state line.   It is a wonderful respite after a very busy week in Arizona.

After we left Borderlinks we drove to Rio Rico, a town near the Nogales border where we spent three nights at the Esplendor Resort.  The resort had a great pool, comfortable room and really poor internet connection.  I am spoiled and it cost us a pretty penny on extra data from our carrier to create a hotspot.  We moved back to Tucson a day earlier.

I had a wonderful visit with staff and programs of University of Arizona Santa Cruz County Cooperative Extension.  The irony is that I came from the border county of Whatcom in Washington to the border county of Santa Cruz.  Many thanks to Darcy Dixon and her fine staff for hosting me and for inviting me into their programs.  I had really good conversations with Darcy, her staff and some of the parents they serve in their Family Resource Centers.

Darcy and Drew, Border to Border County Directors

The first folks I met with were the nutrition educators, all of whom are deeply connected to the community.

Sonia, Alma and Melody

We had a wonderful conversation and I was able to get their insights into what they perceived as the needs in their community.  They told me that there was a great need for education about domestic and sexual violence.  The border can be very unsafe for women, especially those trapped by being undocumented, whether they are in transit or long term residents.  They told me that many of the undocumented women with whom they are familiar, come in a with a day pass and just do not return.  They have babies here and so qualify for housing and other benefits through their children.   One of the concerns from our parents in Washington is being able to address teen sexuality and prevention of early pregnancy.  I feel like I opened a Pandora's box with that topic on my two days of visits.  I heard many different opinions about teen pregnancy in the Nogales area and what needs to be done to help reduce the rates of 15-16 year olds who are having babies.  (Some of what I heard reminded me of work I had done over 20 years ago in Thurston County.  I was involved in a Teen Pregnancy Prevention Coalition.  The big concern then was that girl from a rural town saw pregnancy as socially desirable and an end goal for the future.)  More than one person stated that no sex education is being taught in the schools and they perceived that the young people do not even understand the simple biology.  Many said that it is not part of the traditional culture to speak of sex, reproduction or sexuality and that parents feel that if they bring the topic up, their youth will want to experiment.  Others reported that there are some folk superstitions that people invoke that make them believe they cannot get pregnant.  I heard from more than one person that it is very socially acceptable to have babies early and that it is viewed as an acceptable aspiration both by the youth peer culture and by some of the parents.  We met a young woman who is a single mom at one of the family resource centers who had two children and one on the way.  She lives at home and her parents are very supportive and involved in raising her children.  It seems very normalized in some of the Latino families.

I also had the opportunity to meet and speak with an Abuela (grandmother) at a Family Resource Center who is helping raise her 16 month old granddaughter.

Arlene, Delia and Armida
Nogales Family Resource Center

Delia had very strong values and expectations for her daughter.  She agreed to have the daughter  and granddaughter live with her as long as her daughter stays in school, works to support her daughter and (I think) does not have any more children until she is through with school.  The daughter is a junior in high school and was just short of her 16th birthday when she gave birth.  Delia reported that she is not happy about the high expectations her mother has because most of her friends who are also young parents are allowed to "be kids" while their parents take over the raising of their children.  Delia was taking a class for parents of toddlers and was taking home the information and teaching her daughter, daughter-in-law and other abuelas she knows.  She is a multiplier of the best kind.  She meets on Wednesdays and Sundays to transmit what she has learned to her family members.  She is very serious about impacting her community and the lives of the parents, grandparents and the young children in their lives.

Arlene in the picture above was raised in Nogales, went to university and earned two degrees.  She is a stay at home mom and comes to the center for intellectual stimulation and companionship.  Armida is a dedicated foster parent who is enhancing her skill set to better serve the high needs and challenging children she has placed in her home and is helping other foster parents develop skills they can use.  All of them spoke of the need for young people to develop a vision for the future.  It was my honor to meet with these women and the staff.

I have more stories to tell about my visit to Santa Cruz County but will stop for today.  It is Saturday evening and I am ready for rest.

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.