This is a blog I've set up to document the week I spent on the U.S.-Mexican border in August 2009, as a volunteer with No More Deaths, a humanitarian aide group that provides services to migrants who are crossing the border through the Sonoran desert in Arizona. To start off, this is not a normal blog. I was camping in the desert the week I was there, so I didn't have access to a toilet, much less the internet. This blog is basically a transcript of the journal I kept while I was there, with a little editing and linkage thrown in later on. Because I wanted this to be read from beginning to end, I've messed with the dates on here so that the oldest entry appears at the top, and the newest one at the end. On the posts you will see a bunch of weird numbers that say something like "20091224". Ignore these. The real dates appear in the title of each post.
This isn't a blog I plan to continue updating, it's just to share my experience from my trip. I might add another post of two if something comes up that's relevant, but for the most part the bulk of the blog is right here. If you want to read my regular blog, it's linked to the right, but it's not incredibly interesting and I update it very, very rarely. Maybe someday I'll be a good blogger, but I haven't so far.
Since this blog is basically just a transcript of my journal, it relies heavily on my own experiences. There's some pontificating about broader issues going on, but I may have skipped over some deeper analysis or history of the situation. If you have any questions, please leave them as a comment and I'd be happy to have a dialogue with you or point you to some other reading. I've also included some links to the right of some other great websites you can check out.
But just to give a brief overview of what the hell caused me to pick up and go to the desert in Southern Arizona in August: Since the mid-1990s, U.S. immigration policy has been pushing undocumented migrants crossing over to the U.S. further away from the cities and safer areas to cross, and more and more into difficult and dangerous terrain in the desert. Officials have openly stated that they are using "death as a deterrent" to people crossing the border illegally. Every year, hundreds of bodies are found of people who died trying to cross the border from Mexico. Hundreds or thousands more are probably never found. No More Deaths was created several years ago by activists of conscience and people of faith who realized death should never be the penalty for someone trying to find a better life. They maintain a desert aide camp for about 8 months of the year, staffed primarily by volunteers, some from Arizona, and many others from all over the country. They provide water, food, and medical attention for people hiking the desert trails that lead up from Mexico. For more information about No More Deaths, visit their website at www.nomoredeaths.org.
20090903
20090101
Friday 8.21.09: somewhere in Southern California
...or at least further South than I'm used to. The landscape is brown grass, or is it dirt? Brown hills, some kind of green crops growing to the left, some trees shading cars and farm equipment to the right. Wendy just said the thermostat is reading 102 outside, but in the car it's cool, air conditioned and comfortable.
We left at about 10 this morning. I packed my duffel bag and sleeping bag into the roof bag on my friend's car, which they had altered to say "Poof Fag" on the back. Last night was surreal. My normal weekday work exhaustion, brain full of self-preoccupying thoughts, body seeming to expect me to get up and go to work today.
I've been reading The Devil's Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea, a horrifying account of a bunch of men who died near the area I'm going to. Yesterday on the bus I got to the section that describes death by heat stroke. Each stage, in great detail.
I don't know what I'm getting into.
We left at about 10 this morning. I packed my duffel bag and sleeping bag into the roof bag on my friend's car, which they had altered to say "Poof Fag" on the back. Last night was surreal. My normal weekday work exhaustion, brain full of self-preoccupying thoughts, body seeming to expect me to get up and go to work today.
I've been reading The Devil's Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea, a horrifying account of a bunch of men who died near the area I'm going to. Yesterday on the bus I got to the section that describes death by heat stroke. Each stage, in great detail.
Your blood is as low as it can get. Dehydration has reduced all your inner streams to sluggish mudholes. Your heart pumps harder and harder to get fluid and oxygen to your organs. Empty vessels within you collapse. Your sweat runs out.
With no sweat, your body's swamp-coolor breaks. The thermostat goes haywire. You are having a core meltdown.
Your temperature redlines--you hit 105, 106, 108 degrees. Your body panics and dilates all blood capillaries near the surface, hoping to flood your skin with blood to cool it off. You blush. Your eyes turn red: blood vessels burst, and later, the tissue of the whites literally cooks until it goes pink, then a well-done crimson.
Your skin gets terribly sensitive. It hurts, it burns. Your nerves flame. Your blood heats under your skin. Clothing feels like sandpaper.
Some walkers at this point strip nude. Originally, BORSTAR rescuers thought this stripping was a delirious panic, an attempt to cool off at the last minute. But often, the clothing was eerily neat, carefully folded and left in nice little piles beside the corpses. They realized that walkers couldn't stand their nerve-endings being chafed by their clothes. The walkers stripped to get free of the irritation.
Once they're naked, they're surely hallucinating. They dig burrows in the soil, apparently thinking they'll escape the sun. Once underground, of course, they bake like a pig at a luau. Some dive into sand, thinking it's water, and they swim in it until they pass out. They choke to death, their throats filled with rocks and dirt. Cutters can only assume they think they're drinking water.
Your muscles, lacking water, feed on themselves. They break down and start to rot. Once rotting in you, they dump rafts of dying cells into your already sludgy bloodstream.
Proteins are peeling off your dying muscles. Chunks of cooked meat are falling out of your organs, to clog your other organs. The system closes down in a series. your kidneys, your bladder, your heart. They jam shut. Stop. Your brain sparks. Out. You're gone.
I don't know what I'm getting into.
20081230
Sunday 8.23.09: The Desert
After two days of training in Tucson, we caravan to the desert. An hour on the freeway, then we pull into the little town of Arivaca. We pull into the Red Rooster Inn and Universal Ranch Cafe. A big red building with roosters on the doors. A sign advertising cocktails. It is closed for the summer.
A blue station wagon pulls up. A tall skinny guy in an I (heart) New Jersey t-shirt steps out. We pile our stuff into a four wheel drive suburban and pickup truck, and head to camp.
I didn't expect everything to be so green. Everywhere there is cacti growing in a cylinder, flower-shaped. In the car, we chat about where we're from--San Francisco, Western Massachusetts, Chicago, New Jersey. Out the window is a mass of desert under a refreshing cloud cover. It's not yet as hot as they say it'll be. On the ground, red ants everywhere. There's a really cool looking grasshopper on the windshield, bright green and yellow. Josh, the guy in the New Jersey shirt, says they're everywhere around here. In the car, I feel my fears about the week start to melt away. After all, most of this is just camping and hiking, two of my favorite activities.
Camp is a mass of tents and tarps, blue and black crates next to a mountain of empty water jugs. A bunch of chairs and crates in a circle next to the kitchen tent, some free standing cots under a tarp, a medical tent, an RV/office, a long trail leading to a toilet seat over a bucket, another long trail leading to a sun shower.
It rains off and on our first night. A rainbow appears on the horizon after dinner. The camp is mostly made up of church people and queers, and interesting mix. Everything is hard-packed sand, rocks, lightning in the distance, big sky. Crickets and birds and some kind of horn-like cry coming from the bushes. I'm starting to feel like this is where I'm supposed to be.
A blue station wagon pulls up. A tall skinny guy in an I (heart) New Jersey t-shirt steps out. We pile our stuff into a four wheel drive suburban and pickup truck, and head to camp.
I didn't expect everything to be so green. Everywhere there is cacti growing in a cylinder, flower-shaped. In the car, we chat about where we're from--San Francisco, Western Massachusetts, Chicago, New Jersey. Out the window is a mass of desert under a refreshing cloud cover. It's not yet as hot as they say it'll be. On the ground, red ants everywhere. There's a really cool looking grasshopper on the windshield, bright green and yellow. Josh, the guy in the New Jersey shirt, says they're everywhere around here. In the car, I feel my fears about the week start to melt away. After all, most of this is just camping and hiking, two of my favorite activities.
Camp is a mass of tents and tarps, blue and black crates next to a mountain of empty water jugs. A bunch of chairs and crates in a circle next to the kitchen tent, some free standing cots under a tarp, a medical tent, an RV/office, a long trail leading to a toilet seat over a bucket, another long trail leading to a sun shower.
It rains off and on our first night. A rainbow appears on the horizon after dinner. The camp is mostly made up of church people and queers, and interesting mix. Everything is hard-packed sand, rocks, lightning in the distance, big sky. Crickets and birds and some kind of horn-like cry coming from the bushes. I'm starting to feel like this is where I'm supposed to be.
Sunday 8.23.09: The Desert (Night time)
Pulled a tarot card from the deck--Contemplation. A woman in the desert gazing at a hare, who is gazing back at her, under a starry nighttime sky. Footprints everywhere. I just burned some sage with Wendy, Vivian, Sofia, Robert and Kendra. At the entrance to the camp the sky felt so big.
There are migrants running all around us. Even though we can't see them, they are there. Sofia said she thought she heard singing in the desert. Marching songs, like the slaves used to sing when they traveled North, these people are traveling, North. They don't have time for tarot cards, Coleman tents, sage and duffel bags and pillows. They are right here, listening to the same thunder, the same coyote's cry, enjoying the same cool weather, under the same giant starry sky. Walking to Tucson, a land it will take them days to reach, that some of them will never reach. They'll collapse from dehydration or they'll get picked up by the border patrol or they'll twist they're ankle and have to stop, or they'll make it, to Tucson, Chicago, San Francisco, Detroit, or Lansing, Michigan. They'll suffer through their first Northern winter, or maybe their second or their tenth. Or they'll wash dishes or make tortillas in San Francisco, in Arizona, in Michigan. They'll send money to their families or they'll make new families. They'll miss home or they'll create new ones where they're at. They'll call their moms and tell them not to worry, they'll hide out from La Migra, they'll worry about their kids and they'll pray and they'll come out and they'll go to bars and they'll live.
I've done a lot of those things. I've been a migrant, I've traveled thousands of miles alone to find new opportunities for myself, to carve out a better life. The people I organize with in San Francisco always talk about the connections between queers and migrants, how many of us are driven from our homes and sent off to create new homes elsewhere. How we seek out "sanctuary cities" too. I've missed my home and made a new one, missed my family and started building a new one. I've found my sanctuary city and grown comfortable there. This is my privilege. I was allowed to do these things, these thing that are so natural, that felt so necessary at the time. Artificial borders, built by humans, didn't stand between me and where I knew I needed to be. Who is anyone to impede the movement of another? When I was a kid it used to drive me crazy, the idea that there were places I couldn't go, places I wasn't allowed. Who are we to create these boundaries?
That's all for tonight. I'm sleepy. Tomorrow: 5am wakeup, more training, lunch, and our first patrol.
There are migrants running all around us. Even though we can't see them, they are there. Sofia said she thought she heard singing in the desert. Marching songs, like the slaves used to sing when they traveled North, these people are traveling, North. They don't have time for tarot cards, Coleman tents, sage and duffel bags and pillows. They are right here, listening to the same thunder, the same coyote's cry, enjoying the same cool weather, under the same giant starry sky. Walking to Tucson, a land it will take them days to reach, that some of them will never reach. They'll collapse from dehydration or they'll get picked up by the border patrol or they'll twist they're ankle and have to stop, or they'll make it, to Tucson, Chicago, San Francisco, Detroit, or Lansing, Michigan. They'll suffer through their first Northern winter, or maybe their second or their tenth. Or they'll wash dishes or make tortillas in San Francisco, in Arizona, in Michigan. They'll send money to their families or they'll make new families. They'll miss home or they'll create new ones where they're at. They'll call their moms and tell them not to worry, they'll hide out from La Migra, they'll worry about their kids and they'll pray and they'll come out and they'll go to bars and they'll live.
I've done a lot of those things. I've been a migrant, I've traveled thousands of miles alone to find new opportunities for myself, to carve out a better life. The people I organize with in San Francisco always talk about the connections between queers and migrants, how many of us are driven from our homes and sent off to create new homes elsewhere. How we seek out "sanctuary cities" too. I've missed my home and made a new one, missed my family and started building a new one. I've found my sanctuary city and grown comfortable there. This is my privilege. I was allowed to do these things, these thing that are so natural, that felt so necessary at the time. Artificial borders, built by humans, didn't stand between me and where I knew I needed to be. Who is anyone to impede the movement of another? When I was a kid it used to drive me crazy, the idea that there were places I couldn't go, places I wasn't allowed. Who are we to create these boundaries?
That's all for tonight. I'm sleepy. Tomorrow: 5am wakeup, more training, lunch, and our first patrol.
20081229
Monday 8.24.09: The Desert, 5am
Woke up to singing, after a night of fitful sleep, and a Tupac song from the ride here stuck in my head.
"Make me an angel that flies from Montgomery
Make me a poster of an old rodeo
Just give me one thing that I can hold onto
To believe in this livin' is just a hard way to go"
"How many brothers fell victim to the streets?
Rest in peace, young ---, there's a heaven for a G
Be a lie if I told you that I never thought of death
My ---, we the last ones left"
20081228
Monday 8.24.09: The Desert
A long, mellow day. We had an early morning training in GPS navigation, which is hella cool, and talked about safety in the field and at camp, what to do if you get lost. Our evening patrol was mostly water drops, driving over bumpy-as-hell roads to spots near heavily-trafficked trails, marked as a "waypoint" on our GPS navigators. We didn't run into any migrants, but one of the water drops was pretty well-drained. We walked back and forth between the car and the trail, carrying jugs of water in both hands. Toward the end we split up in two groups and hiked through a canyon lined with cacti that had huge stems growing out of the top. Every few feet, Sofia cried out:
"¡Amigos y amigas! ¡Nosotros voluntarios de un grupo asesor humanitaria! ¡Tenemos agua, comida, y atención médica! ¡Gritas si necesita ayuda!" (Friends! we are volunteers with a humanitarian aide group! We have water, food, and medical attention! Yell if you need help!)But nobody answered. I saw a sock, some bottle caps, a backpack and sweatpants next to a water drop. No people. Late morning and noon was hot, but an afternoon monsoon cooled things off. It was lovely by the time we went on our hike. Tomorrow: 6am patrol.
20081227
Tuesday 8.25.09: The Desert
I'm surprised nobody has come across any migrants yet. Some people who've been here a while say it might be because of the moon. Most migrants travel at night, rest during the day when it's hot. During a full moon the desert gets so bright you can see your shadow. On the new moon, everything is black. We're closer to the new moon, but it's waxing, coming back. This morning on patrol we hiked through a pretty active trail, there were clothes and empty water bottles and food containers strewn along the landscape. An empty backpack, a pair of jeans hung up in a tree to dry, as though their inhabitant was about to come back to claim them.
In training, they told us when we call out to migrants along the trail, we should say "Somos de la iglesia," or "we are from the church". The reasoning is that most migrants will relate to this, and trust us enough to ask for help. That makes sense, but for those of us who aren't "from the church", this feels a little uncomfortable. Wendy found some kind of compromise on our patrol this morning, calling out:
In training, they told us when we call out to migrants along the trail, we should say "Somos de la iglesia," or "we are from the church". The reasoning is that most migrants will relate to this, and trust us enough to ask for help. That makes sense, but for those of us who aren't "from the church", this feels a little uncomfortable. Wendy found some kind of compromise on our patrol this morning, calling out:
¡Somos homosexuales de la iglesia!"I wonder if anyone will make it to their homes in the United States with stories about the homos from the church who left them water on the trail.
20081226
Wednesday 8.26.09: The Desert. Josseline's Shrine
I'm so tired I don't know how long I can stay up to write. I feel like my body has gotten heavier, or my joints weaker, like I'm walking through sand. This is after only 2 hikes today, maybe a few hours total. There are people, right now, walking those trails all night. Probably less equipped than I am, maybe in worse shape, maybe with medical conditions or poor nutrition or a whole lot of stress.
Today we went to Josseline's Shrine. Josseline was a 14 year old girl who got sick when her group was being led through the desert last February. She was traveling with her little brother, and she made him go on without her because she knew she couldn't keep up with the group. No More Deaths found out she was missing from her family after her little brother got to his parents. They searched for her, but they didn't find her in time. They found her body.
She wandered alone in the desert a week before she died. Her shrine said something about persevering when you are lost, and having faith in god. A group went to her shrine yesterday, and during check-ins last night Anna talked about how she has a granddaughter that age. They left water bottles and a can of beans, wrote "¡Suerte!" (Good luck!) on the bottles.
Today someone had desecrated her shrine. They slashed all the water bottles, crossed out "¡Suerte!", and dumped the beans all over the shrine. We saw slashed water bottles this morning too. I was down the trail about an hour with Wendy and Claire when we found two.
I don't understand what it takes to destroy other people's sustenance in an unforgiving desert, to deface a 14 year old girl's grave. It's one thing to disagree with the fact that they are coming here, but to say that they should die for it, that they deserve to die? I'm so angry I can hardly find the words. I just don't understand. It's got to take a whole lot of anger at the world to do something like this. Sometimes I feel like I have too much anger in my life that I need to let go of. But nothing could make me that angry.
Other parts of the day were good. We went swimming in a ghost town named Ruby. The hike this morning was gorgeous, though the terrain was rough on my borrowed sneakers. Yesterday we went on a tougher hike, and the shoes I bought with me completely fell apart. I borrowed some shoes from the donations meant for migrants. I saw a turtle and another dam. We had chicken and beer for dinner, ice cold Coronas brought in by volunteers from town, when I've been accustomed to drinking hot water from my bag. The stars tonight are gorgeous. Michelle pointed out that you can see the Milky Way. We talked about the shrine a lot in our check-ins tonight. About how people are going to try to stop you in your work, but all you can do is keep doing it. If they deface a shrine, we'll clean it. If they slash our water bottles, we'll leave more. It's really all we can do. So I'm trying to hold that.
20081225
Thursday 8.27.09: The Desert
It's so hard to process the fact that I'm leaving tomorrow. Packing up in the morning, going on one last patrol, then being at the Streamline hearings in Tucson at 1. I've been so tired whenever I have time to write, I feel like I'll have to sit down and gather all my thoughts later. We saw people on the trail today. They kept going when they saw us, then stopped and looked back, waited to see what we would do. We called out to them that we had food and water if they needed it, and could offer medical attention. We shouted this a couple times, then went back to the truck to get more water.
When we got to the truck, Border Patrol was there. Two trucks, pulled up near our car. I felt something hard in my throat drop to the pit of my stomach. Oh fuck. Had they heard us calling out? We always called out on trails, whether we saw people or not, but maybe we had called out too many times, drawn their attention. How could I be that person, that stupid naive american gringo bringing more harm than good, getting people arrested she was supposed to be helping? We couldn't warn them without drawing more attention. So we got back in the car, drove to the next waypoint on our GPS. What else could we do? The trucks just sat there, nobody got out. Maybe they were just doing their normal patrol, following us a little. We left water at the next drop. When we got back to the road, the two trucks passed us again. We peered in the back windows, but they were empty. I felt the tension I'd been holding in whish out of me. Thank god. They did seem to be following us though.
We went back an hour later, and all the food and water we left was gone. There were rocks left in the empty water bottles so they wouldn't blow away. We left a little more water, the rest of what we had.
When we got back to camp, Sofia told us we had a patient. His group got split up by the border patrol and his friends who also got away had to leave him behind because he had a fucked up knee. He said he'd been in the desert 4 days and was severely dehydrated. The medics are treating him, I can hear the people translating. Apparently he lived in the US for 20 years before he got deported, has a whole community there.
The moon is getting really bright. We went on a hike this morning after we saw people, and I swear I heard a woman's voice. Vivian said she heard someone cough. We called out but nobody answered, so we left some water and food.
It's so crazy to think about what people go through out here. We got caught in some bramble bushes on our hike and they were so hard to get out of without getting scratched up, even in the daytime. I can't imagine trying to cross that at night. I can't imagine walking through here for 4 days. I've only been hiking a few hours a day and I'm exhausted, my thigh muscles kill from the crazy mountainous hike we did yesterday, my back hurts from carrying my own water and food, socks, and gatorade for migrants on my back, my arms hurt from hiking carrying gallons of water. Imagine hiking all night. Every night. And you can't see the brambles that are going to scratch up your face, your guide might not wait for you to go up or down that 45 degree tilt on the trail, or climb under a barbed wire fence without catching your shirt or backpack on it, you don't have enough water and food, and you might have to leave your friends behind if they can't keep up with the group.
And somehow people make it, they get to San Francisco and Chicago and Lansing. And people treat them really shitty when they get there, they have a hard time getting shitty, menial work, and shitty, small homes. They spend their days, their lives, breaking their back to make money for themselves, their families, so somebody can make a whole lot of money off of them. Just like my father did, does, like many people in my family, only they do it for even smaller reward. And some who can't find menial jobs end up doing things for money that make them even more vulnerable, selling drugs or doing survival sex work. And the whole time they have to live in fear of La Migra picking them up, having to go through the whole thing all over again.
Vivian said something at check-ins tonight about trying to hold this whole experience, all the different aspects of it. Because it's so hard and so intense, but it's so beautiful here, and there's so much cool stuff in the desert, and we get to go on hikes every day in these amazing remote places, and I saw a really cool toad today, and found out those cylindrical plants I love are called ocotillos, and I got stung by a prickly pear. And everyone out here is so beautiful and amazing. And I feel like this experience has changed me, made me better. Maybe it's a change that's been coming for a while.
I'm getting too tired to write, and the moths keep bugging me, but the stars are so clear, and I can hear people singing, and I feel so at home now, in the desert, and I can hear coyotes, and I'm going home this weekend, and there's a man I've met whose journey home is far more treacherous and hard to trek through than mine. And I have to find a way to sit with all of that tonight.
I wish I could hold onto a moment forever. I wish I could take the sky home with me. I wish I could take them all home, all these people who are sharing the desert with us tonight. I tried to take a picture of the Milky Way but it wouldn't come out. Sometimes there's just not enough to hold onto.
When we got to the truck, Border Patrol was there. Two trucks, pulled up near our car. I felt something hard in my throat drop to the pit of my stomach. Oh fuck. Had they heard us calling out? We always called out on trails, whether we saw people or not, but maybe we had called out too many times, drawn their attention. How could I be that person, that stupid naive american gringo bringing more harm than good, getting people arrested she was supposed to be helping? We couldn't warn them without drawing more attention. So we got back in the car, drove to the next waypoint on our GPS. What else could we do? The trucks just sat there, nobody got out. Maybe they were just doing their normal patrol, following us a little. We left water at the next drop. When we got back to the road, the two trucks passed us again. We peered in the back windows, but they were empty. I felt the tension I'd been holding in whish out of me. Thank god. They did seem to be following us though.
We went back an hour later, and all the food and water we left was gone. There were rocks left in the empty water bottles so they wouldn't blow away. We left a little more water, the rest of what we had.
When we got back to camp, Sofia told us we had a patient. His group got split up by the border patrol and his friends who also got away had to leave him behind because he had a fucked up knee. He said he'd been in the desert 4 days and was severely dehydrated. The medics are treating him, I can hear the people translating. Apparently he lived in the US for 20 years before he got deported, has a whole community there.
The moon is getting really bright. We went on a hike this morning after we saw people, and I swear I heard a woman's voice. Vivian said she heard someone cough. We called out but nobody answered, so we left some water and food.
It's so crazy to think about what people go through out here. We got caught in some bramble bushes on our hike and they were so hard to get out of without getting scratched up, even in the daytime. I can't imagine trying to cross that at night. I can't imagine walking through here for 4 days. I've only been hiking a few hours a day and I'm exhausted, my thigh muscles kill from the crazy mountainous hike we did yesterday, my back hurts from carrying my own water and food, socks, and gatorade for migrants on my back, my arms hurt from hiking carrying gallons of water. Imagine hiking all night. Every night. And you can't see the brambles that are going to scratch up your face, your guide might not wait for you to go up or down that 45 degree tilt on the trail, or climb under a barbed wire fence without catching your shirt or backpack on it, you don't have enough water and food, and you might have to leave your friends behind if they can't keep up with the group.
And somehow people make it, they get to San Francisco and Chicago and Lansing. And people treat them really shitty when they get there, they have a hard time getting shitty, menial work, and shitty, small homes. They spend their days, their lives, breaking their back to make money for themselves, their families, so somebody can make a whole lot of money off of them. Just like my father did, does, like many people in my family, only they do it for even smaller reward. And some who can't find menial jobs end up doing things for money that make them even more vulnerable, selling drugs or doing survival sex work. And the whole time they have to live in fear of La Migra picking them up, having to go through the whole thing all over again.
Vivian said something at check-ins tonight about trying to hold this whole experience, all the different aspects of it. Because it's so hard and so intense, but it's so beautiful here, and there's so much cool stuff in the desert, and we get to go on hikes every day in these amazing remote places, and I saw a really cool toad today, and found out those cylindrical plants I love are called ocotillos, and I got stung by a prickly pear. And everyone out here is so beautiful and amazing. And I feel like this experience has changed me, made me better. Maybe it's a change that's been coming for a while.
I'm getting too tired to write, and the moths keep bugging me, but the stars are so clear, and I can hear people singing, and I feel so at home now, in the desert, and I can hear coyotes, and I'm going home this weekend, and there's a man I've met whose journey home is far more treacherous and hard to trek through than mine. And I have to find a way to sit with all of that tonight.
I wish I could hold onto a moment forever. I wish I could take the sky home with me. I wish I could take them all home, all these people who are sharing the desert with us tonight. I tried to take a picture of the Milky Way but it wouldn't come out. Sometimes there's just not enough to hold onto.
20081224
Friday 8.28.09: Tucson
Today we went to the Streamline hearings. Operation Streamline is something fairly new that cropped up in several border cities during the Bush administration. You can read a good article about it here. Of the 1-2 thousand people caught crossing the border every day, 70 are randomly selected to be tried and sentenced en masse. They tried 61 men and 9 women all as one big group. Everyone was in shackles, chains around their feet, their waists, their hands. The vast majority looked my age or younger. A lot of them looked terrified. I know I would be.
The first group the judge called up were indigenous people who didn't speak Spanish or English. They were deported with no record because they couldn't enter a plea. Then came two groups of people, the majority of the people there, who were charged with illegal re-entry. They were sentenced to jail time, between two weeks and six months. Then a small group of people who had previously been convicted of other minor offenses (reckless driving, minor in possession of alcohol, etc.), all who were sentenced to more jail time. The last group was made up of people who'd been caught crossing for the first time. They were "voluntarily" deported after waiving their right to due process and a trial. They were told that if they got caught re-entering, they'd be sentenced to jail time.
One guy asked if he could apply for amnesty because he'd been in the U.S. since he was 8 years old. The judge brushed him off and gave him a lecture about how his "free ride" in this country was over. There were four women sitting in front of us who were with him, two of them started sobbing. One of them cried out "I love you!" when they paraded him out the door at the end.
That was the first time this week that I cried. And it really hit home to me how fucked up this whole situation is from all angles. It's one thing to hear about how immigration policy is splitting up families, but it was another to see it, staring me right in the face. How scary it must be to be the one separated from your community and sent away, how painful to be one of the ones left behind.
All 70 people waived their right to due process in the hearing. The woman from No More Deaths who brought us said that many of them might be eligible for asylum, but in this system they're encouraged to go for the plea bargain and "voluntary" deportation.
We didn't get to hear many of their stories. The judge treated them like numbers on a sheet, names he could barely pronounce. He kept getting confused and addressing one person by another person's name, as though every migrant is interchangeable. I suppose in the eyes of the U.S. government and all it's auxiliary agencies, they are.
We did hear the story of one man who had a prior record (reckless driving and presenting the cops with a fake ID--two offenses 25-50% of alumni from Michigan State have probably been guilty of). His lawyer said that the man's girlfriend was 4 months pregnant, his father was dead, his mother blind from diabetes, and he had to take care of his 2 little sisters, who are both in the U.S. How's that for someone looking for a "free ride"? The judge still sentenced him to jail time.
Some people didn't seem to understand what was going on. Getting pulled out of the desert, where you were maybe wandering for days and massively dehydrated, and then flung into a mass deportation hearing two days later would probably do that to you. When the judge asked the last group of people to stand up if they'd changed their minds about the plea bargain, one guy stood up and then seemed confused. His lawyer gestured to him to sit back down. He did. The hearing went on and he was sentenced to deportation. I could see some of the security guards smirking about it.
At the end of the hearing, the judge, this old white guy, gave the last group a lecture about how they shouldn't try to come back. He said their "free ride" in this country was over, that they should make a home for themselves in Mexico, or go to another country that wants them. He said "the world is a big place". What a fucking uber-privileged dick. Excuse my language, but this made me so fucking mad. Maybe the world is a big place if you have privilege. It's bigger the more privilege you have. But it's not like if you're poor you can just pick up and move to Spain or something. And it's not like other countries aren't just as racist as this one. For some people, the world is very, very small. And there are barbed wire fences and Border Patrol all along the edges.
It's been a long, long day, and it's only 6:00. We got up at 5am, took down our tents, and went on a short morning patrol. We took one of the pickups to Bear Grass Canyon. I wonder why it's called Bear Grass when there are no bears here? It should be called Rabbit Grass. We saw footprints at the first water drop, all 50 gallons of water for that spot were gone. Got a little bit lost and drove around haphazardly in this meadow, but we made it back okay.
There's so much to think about and process from this whole experience. All of my thoughts are still to big for my head. I'm still adjusting to pavement, running water, toilets and clean hair. My regular life seems very far away right now.
The first group the judge called up were indigenous people who didn't speak Spanish or English. They were deported with no record because they couldn't enter a plea. Then came two groups of people, the majority of the people there, who were charged with illegal re-entry. They were sentenced to jail time, between two weeks and six months. Then a small group of people who had previously been convicted of other minor offenses (reckless driving, minor in possession of alcohol, etc.), all who were sentenced to more jail time. The last group was made up of people who'd been caught crossing for the first time. They were "voluntarily" deported after waiving their right to due process and a trial. They were told that if they got caught re-entering, they'd be sentenced to jail time.
One guy asked if he could apply for amnesty because he'd been in the U.S. since he was 8 years old. The judge brushed him off and gave him a lecture about how his "free ride" in this country was over. There were four women sitting in front of us who were with him, two of them started sobbing. One of them cried out "I love you!" when they paraded him out the door at the end.
That was the first time this week that I cried. And it really hit home to me how fucked up this whole situation is from all angles. It's one thing to hear about how immigration policy is splitting up families, but it was another to see it, staring me right in the face. How scary it must be to be the one separated from your community and sent away, how painful to be one of the ones left behind.
All 70 people waived their right to due process in the hearing. The woman from No More Deaths who brought us said that many of them might be eligible for asylum, but in this system they're encouraged to go for the plea bargain and "voluntary" deportation.
We didn't get to hear many of their stories. The judge treated them like numbers on a sheet, names he could barely pronounce. He kept getting confused and addressing one person by another person's name, as though every migrant is interchangeable. I suppose in the eyes of the U.S. government and all it's auxiliary agencies, they are.
We did hear the story of one man who had a prior record (reckless driving and presenting the cops with a fake ID--two offenses 25-50% of alumni from Michigan State have probably been guilty of). His lawyer said that the man's girlfriend was 4 months pregnant, his father was dead, his mother blind from diabetes, and he had to take care of his 2 little sisters, who are both in the U.S. How's that for someone looking for a "free ride"? The judge still sentenced him to jail time.
Some people didn't seem to understand what was going on. Getting pulled out of the desert, where you were maybe wandering for days and massively dehydrated, and then flung into a mass deportation hearing two days later would probably do that to you. When the judge asked the last group of people to stand up if they'd changed their minds about the plea bargain, one guy stood up and then seemed confused. His lawyer gestured to him to sit back down. He did. The hearing went on and he was sentenced to deportation. I could see some of the security guards smirking about it.
At the end of the hearing, the judge, this old white guy, gave the last group a lecture about how they shouldn't try to come back. He said their "free ride" in this country was over, that they should make a home for themselves in Mexico, or go to another country that wants them. He said "the world is a big place". What a fucking uber-privileged dick. Excuse my language, but this made me so fucking mad. Maybe the world is a big place if you have privilege. It's bigger the more privilege you have. But it's not like if you're poor you can just pick up and move to Spain or something. And it's not like other countries aren't just as racist as this one. For some people, the world is very, very small. And there are barbed wire fences and Border Patrol all along the edges.
It's been a long, long day, and it's only 6:00. We got up at 5am, took down our tents, and went on a short morning patrol. We took one of the pickups to Bear Grass Canyon. I wonder why it's called Bear Grass when there are no bears here? It should be called Rabbit Grass. We saw footprints at the first water drop, all 50 gallons of water for that spot were gone. Got a little bit lost and drove around haphazardly in this meadow, but we made it back okay.
There's so much to think about and process from this whole experience. All of my thoughts are still to big for my head. I'm still adjusting to pavement, running water, toilets and clean hair. My regular life seems very far away right now.
20081223
Sunday 8.30.09: San Francisco
We got into San Francisco at 5 this morning. I slept until about 10, then was awake. I got sick yesterday morning during debriefing. I am still tired. Everything is still a blur. San Francisco is cool and grey, overcast. Summer is nearly over. Of course our summer usually comes in the fall. But soon it will be winter, rain, christmas. In the desert we'd just be finishing evening patrol, coming back to camp for dinner, debriefings, bed. I'd be tired, aching, walking slow. Telling stories of my patrol, listening to the stories of others. I wonder what's happening there now. I wonder how the patient is doing, if he's ever going to make it home. I wonder who's waking up from their daytime rest, getting ready to hike the trails all night. I wonder if they're finding the water we left, the beans, the socks. I wonder if any of the migrants who were crossing when I was there have made it home like I have.
Everything is comfortable here. My tiny bedroom never seemed so big, so much space to stretch out, keep my things. My bed was so soft I stayed in it most of the day, even though I couldn't sleep. Technology gave me access I hadn't had in a week, my phone, my computer. Showering was a simple convenience, different kinds of soap to choose from, a loofah to scrub out the deeper layers of grime in my skin. I dressed in all black, as if a rebellion to the khakis and light colors I'd been wearing all week. I walked to the bank, the coffee shop. The terrain was flat, smooth, paved. I didn't need a GPS to find it. Everything is easy.
But I'm already planning how I can get back. How much money I'd have to save to take a few months off work, go to Mexico or Guatemala to learn Spanish really well, go back to No More Deaths next summer and stay longer, be able to do more. Work in the desert and maybe the Border Aide stations too, providing services to people who had been deported, gathering stories of abuse by the border patrol.
I'm still trying to piece my experience together in my head. I was only there a week, but in reality it felt on one hand so much longer, and on the other not nearly long enough. Before and after my trip I've been reading The Devil's Highway and it's really underscored the deadly realities of this situation. And I've been thinking about how to relate this back to my own communities, in San Francisco and in Michigan. Because every time someone gets deported from here, you know they're going to want to get back. Wouldn't you? If someone picked me up off the streets of San Francisco tomorrow and shipped me back to Michigan, well I love Michigan, but I'd want to come back. And a lot of these people have families here, have parents or children or spouses. As soon as they can, they're going to be in that desert, walking those trails. And some of them are going to die. No matter how much water we leave out, no matter how loudly we yell "tengo agua, comida, y attencion medica!", as long as the global economy is pushing people north, as long as the border patrol is pushing border crossers into the desert, some of them are going to die. These are not just interchangeable, faceless migrants, these are not just numbers on a page. These are our friends, neighbors, community members. They are people making a very tough decision in order to be with their families, have opportunities, make enough money to make life better. The penalty for that should not be death. It should never be death.
Everything is comfortable here. My tiny bedroom never seemed so big, so much space to stretch out, keep my things. My bed was so soft I stayed in it most of the day, even though I couldn't sleep. Technology gave me access I hadn't had in a week, my phone, my computer. Showering was a simple convenience, different kinds of soap to choose from, a loofah to scrub out the deeper layers of grime in my skin. I dressed in all black, as if a rebellion to the khakis and light colors I'd been wearing all week. I walked to the bank, the coffee shop. The terrain was flat, smooth, paved. I didn't need a GPS to find it. Everything is easy.
But I'm already planning how I can get back. How much money I'd have to save to take a few months off work, go to Mexico or Guatemala to learn Spanish really well, go back to No More Deaths next summer and stay longer, be able to do more. Work in the desert and maybe the Border Aide stations too, providing services to people who had been deported, gathering stories of abuse by the border patrol.
I'm still trying to piece my experience together in my head. I was only there a week, but in reality it felt on one hand so much longer, and on the other not nearly long enough. Before and after my trip I've been reading The Devil's Highway and it's really underscored the deadly realities of this situation. And I've been thinking about how to relate this back to my own communities, in San Francisco and in Michigan. Because every time someone gets deported from here, you know they're going to want to get back. Wouldn't you? If someone picked me up off the streets of San Francisco tomorrow and shipped me back to Michigan, well I love Michigan, but I'd want to come back. And a lot of these people have families here, have parents or children or spouses. As soon as they can, they're going to be in that desert, walking those trails. And some of them are going to die. No matter how much water we leave out, no matter how loudly we yell "tengo agua, comida, y attencion medica!", as long as the global economy is pushing people north, as long as the border patrol is pushing border crossers into the desert, some of them are going to die. These are not just interchangeable, faceless migrants, these are not just numbers on a page. These are our friends, neighbors, community members. They are people making a very tough decision in order to be with their families, have opportunities, make enough money to make life better. The penalty for that should not be death. It should never be death.
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