It amazes me
how my thoughts parallel those of others without collaboration. I went on a
twitter storm day before yesterday on immigration and other things. Then my
sister in San Antonio sent me an exquisitely expressive poem she wrote about a
mother crossing the border with her child strapped to her back. It is a very
sad and vibrant word picture. It won't be shared *yet" online yet because
it is an unpublished work and most publishers require that it be submitted
before publication and they consider even posting on Facebook or small blogs
publication. However, it expresses what I was feeling. She also included a poem
about a relief worker in Honduras who did not save for her retirement. Both hit
"close to home" for me.
Many people
went to Honduras following Hurricane Mitch and we had our perceptions and
hearts transformed. Those who cross the US border are usually fleeing from the
crime and terror and abject poverty/ They are not faceless to those of us who
were on the ground several decades ago. The crime was enormous then and it is
many times greater now. We were not allowed out after dark for any reason
whatsoever and every time we left the cathedral compound the Bishop sent us out
with an armed guard. This was a shock to our north American sensibilities. Seeing
an armed guard with a machine gun at the entrance of the cathedral was quite
different to us. Yet the school, clinic and relief supplies within the compound
made it a target.
During that
time, donors sent several new automobiles to missionaries in Honduras. Every
auto was hijacked at gun point within a few weeks of its arrival. The military
government (responsible for those many "disappeared persons" during
the Reagan administration} had just been overthrown when Hurricane Mitch (a
series of hurricanes which stayed stationary over Honduras for over a week
dumping massive rains at the same time as an earthquake) occurred, devastating
the entire country. Because the government was so corrupt, and the country was
in such need, NGOs and religious institutions became the conduits for relief
and development during that post Hurricane Mitch recovery period instead of the
government.
My memories of the mega shelters are acute. They were
military tents with concrete floors. Each family had about an 8-square foot
section of living space with a light bulb hanging from the ceiling. The cooking
was in the aisle outside the tent by kerosene camp stoves and the sinks were
tubs with a water hose. There were no locking doors on those tents in this
country so terrorized by the former military who now operated as criminal
banditos. These families lived for extended times in tents in a country where
the Bishop required everyone who served to stay in the hotel or cathedral or at
home after dark and to travel with armed guards! The children in those mega
shelters grew up in tents which did not have locking doors. Most families were
in the mega shelters for 9 to 28 months. San Pedro Sula is high in the hills
and it is cold there much of the year.
When we had an influx of children crossing the Rio Grande a few years ago from Honduras it struck me that the parents of these children were the children who were in the Mega Shelters following Hurricane Mitch. Those children woke up one day and every one of them lost people who were close to them -- either parents, friends, teachers, neighbors, school mates, grandparents, siblings. Over 11,000 people died that week in Honduras. Small children were uprooted from their homes and families and displaced. The Government was unable to process paperwork or police the communities or jail criminals to a sufficient degree to establish order. Crime and gangs were already high and escalated following Hurricane Mitch. Women and children were the most vulnerable people in that society They had no rights. Rape was /is common.
Murder is normal. Running for your life becomes the sane choice. Once North, they are viewed as economic illegal aliens instead of assault victims fleeing for their lives. If American foreign policy had not played such a key role in destabilizing Central America in our Cold War Communist/ Capitalist era struggle, the plight of these generations of Central Americans would not be as acute. We do not like having the fruits of our sins arrive on our shores. We want to ignore our roles in creating and sustaining the terror that these women and children and young men are subjected to. We choose to label them criminals for coming here or sending their children here so that they have a better chance of surviving. This is what it is about when folks say they come for a better life. Usually it means that they are coming to try to survive period fleeing a place where the realities of being beaten by terrorists with machetes is normal.
I supported Hillary Clinton because I trusted her to work for
solutions to help those who remained in such countries and for those who fled
to our shores. I don't think that when our ancestors arrive here is nearly as
important as the fact that people are human beings and we are all deserving of
the opportunity to expect to survive each day and find a way to eat and work
and care for our children and learn and be human. If we weighed the cost of
terror as highly as we value economic selfishness our world would heal. I still
see the eyes of the children I met in Honduras. They are part of the north star
of conscience which guides me.
NOTE: Hurricane Mitch hit Oct. 22, 1998. Any US immigrant from Honduras born between 1978 and 1998 were children when it hit. Those born after 1998 in Honduras have never known a stable community where the streets and homes are reasonably safe. It was the most-deadly hurricane to hit the Western Hemisphere in over 200 years Over 11,000 persons died in a small Central American country and there was over $5 Billion in economic loss in a country where most of the wealth was held by absentee landowners and a very few resident elites.
© 2017 J Chatham, Arlington, TX
