Ask Yourself: Who Would Jesus Deport?

WWJD--A New Twist on a (Very) Old Bracelet Acronym.***

One of my friends here is the manager of a fruit farm. He's been in the US for five or six years; he left his family farm in northern Mexico to work here as a migrant laborer when prices for Mexican corn couldn't compete with the low, low cost of subsidized grain imported from the US through NAFTA. He is part of a generation known as "NAFTA kids" who have sought a way to make a living in the US after their small family holdings fell apart in the wake of the trade agreement. The owner of one of the farms he worked on here in Mississippi recognized his experience and talent in agricultural management, taught him English, and hired him on as her foreman. Since then he has become her right-hand man, running the farm and getting involved in the organic food movement. He is a well-respected leader in the local Catholic Spanish-speaking parish, and he has spear-headed several projects aimed at bridging the gap between the immigrant community and the local Mississippian community. Mississippi is his home--his work, his spiritual life, his friends are all here, as is his goddaughter, of whom I am the godmother. If he is deported, to what "home" would he be sent?

Another friend of mine, Mercedes*, belongs to our Mujeres Unidas (Women United) empowerment and support group, as does her mother, Elisbeta*. At 19, Mercedes is the youngest of our participants, and truly represents the "next generation" of Latina immigrant women living in this country. Her mother, in search of a job that paid enough to support her family, brought her and her siblings into the country when Mercedes was about 6 years old. In a recent Mujeres Unidas gathering, Elisbeta told us how she used to send her daughter, who spoke no English at the time, to first grade with classmates who would relentlessly tease her during recess and rub her face in the dirt, yelling epithets she couldn't understand. Each day Mercedes would come home from school in tears, begging her mother to let her move back to Mexico and live with her grandparents, where everyone would speak the same language and no one would taunt her. Elisbeta told us that she wanted her daughter to learn English and to have a better life than she herself could ever hope for, and she couldn't imagine separating her family; but 13 years later, tearing up, she says "me sentí un monstro, un monstro horrible"--"I felt like a monster, a terrible monster"--for continuing to send her precious daughter through this awful gauntlet day after day.
Mercedes grew a thick skin, however, and her language skills developed until they matched the natural aptitude for mathematics, a subject without language, which her elementary teachers had noted in her. By the time she was in high school, she spoke English with no accent; she had proven herself to be a dedicated, intelligent student, graduating with her class and hoping one day to become a doctor. Upon graduating, however, she was not able to apply to any four-year colleges or universities, because she has no Social Security number. She is currently enrolled in community college, unsure whether she will ever be allowed to pursue a higher education in the land of her adolescence and young womanhood.

One more story: my friend Lauren* has been dating her boyfriend, Armando*, for over 2 years. Armando left his family and crossed the border in search of better job prospects--in his home city in Mexico a decent job, one that makes more than the 49 Mexican pesos (or $4.81 USD) daily minimum wage, is extremely hard to come by. He was stopped for a traffic violation--a broken headlight--by local law enforcement and thereafter detained by Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) in an overcrowded jail, where he slept on the hallway floor for several weeks before being sent back to Mexico with a permanent bar on his passport (meaning that he cannot legally return to the US, for any length of time, even on vacation. Ever).
After long, frustrating months of trying to find a stable job making enough money to contribute to his upkeep at his parents' home, he crossed back over the border at the risk of being incarcerated for multiple years. He has been able to find a more reliable stream of work here in the construction industry; but one traffic stop for something as minor as a faulty taillight would mean that he and Lauren will never be able to live together in this, her home country, even if they decide to marry. They would have to live separately, seeing each other only when she could take extended vacation; or she would have to move away from her family, friends, and home to Mexico and hope that they find work, and he would never be able to travel back to the United States with their children to see their American grandparents.
We are used to the question of the government's right to interfere in the bedroom of gay couples; what about mixed-legal status couples? Should a government be able to legislate your right to live with your spouse? As Lauren says: "The current law negates my ability to seek life liberty and the pursuit of happiness in my own country. Something I am supposed to be guaranteed."



So which one would Jesus deport?


I don't pretend to advocate for unequivocal opening of our borders to whomever wishes to come here (although I do believe that state and national borders are human creations which have no bearing on a person's God-given human rights, or his or her status as a human being, not an "illegal" or an "alien")--and I understand the sentiment of those who where born here or who immigrated legally and who wish to see others go through the process legally, to "get in line." But the truth is that our immigration system is severely broken, and for the vast majority of those wishing to come to our country, there is no "line"--no legal way to come to this country in order to put food in their children's bellies, or to work as the seasonal agricultural laborers, meat packing factory workers, or construction workers on which our economy relies**.

Until we achieve comprehensive immigration reform--and even afterwards--it is worth considering the question:

Who would Jesus deport?


*Not her real name.

**For Mexicans and many other Latin Americans, you must have a clean immigration record and you must have a clean immigration record and be the spouse, parent, child, or sibling of an adult U.S. citizen, or the spouse or unmarried child of a lawful permanent resident, who is willing to sponsor you. Even then, the process is long and arduous, and legal technicalities often close the door to those who would otherwise qualify. (Thanks to our immigration specialist Mary for that concise explanation of a complex policy!)

***I borrowed the title of this post from an article my boss wrote for the local paper--she, in turn, borrowed it from someone else In my opinion, it's too good not to pass on.

Boulevard Beer

Apparently this beer out of Kansas City is only available in 13 Midwestern states...and guess what, Mississippi doesn't count as part of the Midwest (although I've had some East Coasters & Californians ask me if Tennessee does. Or Oklahoma. Ahh, geocentrism...).

But I still like it (the beer, that is).

We tried the IPA & the Bully Porter in a nifty little vegan-friendly joint called Prairie Blue in downtown Jefferson, Iowa, where we spent our overnight during RAGBRAI.

Long time coming

I checked the date of my last post this evening and realized it corresponded roughly to the start of the Big P's Project SafeSpace, a homeless day center providing shower, laundry facilities, and most of all, a community of welcome and respite for the "residentially challenged" in our city. As the main staff person for this program, a role which often requires me to pull 12-hour days, I should not, therefore, be surprised that it is now August and I haven't found the time to create one single post on this blog. Yet I am--so many issues lately weigh on me and inspire in me just such depths of reflection as would fit perfectly into a nice, meaty blog post, and it's frustrating that I haven't been able to use this outlet to process the challenges of working with marginalized communities. I've missed my little blog, and I missed hearing from those of you who read it!

So the nose goes back to the creative grindstone, and I'll catch you up on some of the happenings of the last few months.

--

April: I traveled to Washington, D.C. for a spate of congressional lobbying with the tri-state Equity & Inclusion campaign, which fights for a just & equitable use of Gulf Coast recovery funds with the ultimate aim of eradicating poverty in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. What can I say--we like a challenge. (See longer post, with many more photos, here.) The Economic Development/Workers' Rights team in front of the Cannon Office Building.

Getting to sit down with Congressional staffers and elicit some interest from a few of them in regards to the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act (a WPA-style pilot program designed to create 100,000 high-quality, non-exportable jobs focused on rebuilding existing and developing new public infrastructure & civic works projects in hurricane-affected states) was an empowering experience. The glimpses we stole into the inner workings of the legislative branch of our government were fascinating, as was the development of strategy to push our legislation to the forefront--who do you target based on membership in relevant committees and subcommittees? Who owes whom favors in terms of sponsoring legislation? What important tidbits can you cull that will help you tailor your pitch to appeal to a representative's home district or personal history? It was easy to see how people get caught up in the game, the powerplays and tactical moves and the win/lose/compromise calculations. And the suits.
But that was also what disturbed me most about our visit--the fact that there is a game to play, when you're talking about real people's lives, the fate of real communities. The fact that in a supposed democracy (although really we live in a republic, a fact that is often conveniently glossed over in social studies class) the people have to travel a thousand+ miles to a 4 acre block of office buildings where the dress code is Ann Taylor and Brooks Brothers in order to have any kind of a chance to get a law passed that is vitally important to their survival...well, let's just say that isn't exactly an accessible option for the vast majority of our nation's residents. Which was the great thing about E&I--it gave us ordinary folk a chance to do just that. But it bothers me that I am listened to and taken much more seriously when I am part of a well-funded, large campaign that can fly me into D.C. to corner a staffer in the Senate cafeteria* instead of simply showing up at my representative's local office and trying to get on his/her appointment calendar. The tip of the iceberg...
*(where Senators pay $3 or $4 for a buffet meal for which everyone else has to fork over $12!! What about a discount for Americorps VISTA serving their country on a shoestring volunteer stipend (not me but close)?? Or for that matter, a discount for ordinary, tax-paying citizens who don't make the Senate's yearly salary of almost $170,000??)

Okay, let's not be entirely cynical--let's take a moment for paparazzi celebrity highlights! We saw Sen. Barbara Boxer dress down a security officer who didn't recognize her and tried to make her stand in the metal detector line. Nuh-uh, Mr. Security Man, you don't mess with the Senator! We also watched Dennis Kucinich's wife flit through his office looking dressed to kill and trilling along in her lilting British accent...yeah, so I'm reaching.

Also, a real joy, truly, to spend time with my family's good friend and my advocacy mentor/heroine Cat Cloud, Vice President of Important Things at the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA), and her lovely stepdaughter at the brand spankin' new Nationals park, where she helped me score my first ever complete baseball game!




Also in April: Jazzfest. It rawked.
Feathers + SoCo + Babies = Jazzfest.


Like Woodstock, but with more clothing & fewer mind-altering drugs.


Hot 8 Brass Band--one of my fave-o-rites--with Mardi Gras Indians. Sweet.

We saw also Alain Toussaint, Elvis Costello, Al Green, Calle 13 (my new favorite Puerto Rican hip hop/reggaeton/salsa/funk/rap/brass group), and a bunch of swing stuff. And Mamadou Diabate!


May: Our first Open House/Block Party as The Big P! We finally caught our breath from moving into our new offices (in January) and getting SafeSpace and ESL and a bunch of other programs up and running, so we threw a party to celebrate/show off our digs/welcome the neighborhood.

First food & libations: Then dancing ensued:


June: Visit to Hotlanta to see The Fam/The Sister. Botanical gardens, they were beautiful!
Weird poofy trees.

Lovely waterlilies.

Frog and Toad. I mean Leah.


Also in June: Our prayer vigil for immigration reform on the steps of the Capitol in Jackson--read the article about it in the Mississippi United Methodist Advocate.



July: Wow, July was insane. I was out of town every single weekend; came back the last weekend late Saturday night to help build a fence Sunday for our move from the old house to my roomies' brand new house a few miles away. No wonder I'm still recovering.

First weekend: 4th of July in NYC with friends from Habitat, mainly to see the Red Sox school the Yankees on their home turf. Mwahaha. Scored my second ever baseball game--thanks, Doug! (Clarification: I've been to several pro baseball games, but these were the first two for which I've kept score.)
Also trekked to the top of the Brooklyn Bridge (a fascinating feat of engineering!), reveled in the glory of deciduous trees in Central Park--I didn't realize how much I'd missed deciduous forest here in the Land of the Pines. Hit up the Met (my first time there--this
painting of haunted Russian pacifist/activist/writer Garshin, plagued by mental illness, stopped me in my tracks), including a visit to my old friend Cézanne, some QT with the toothpaste thick texture of Van Gogh's sunflowers & Degas' bathing women, and an ogle or two at my favorite French photographers, Cartier-Bresson & Doisneau. A modern photography exhibit introduced me to this gem of ironic composition, "headless" authorities photographing the body-less human head remains of the infamous Cake Box Murder.

Also enjoyed: Afghani & Moroccan cuisine in the Village; REAL bagels with tofu cream cheese (ahhh, heaven--I went there so often the bagel shop men wished me bon voyage and wanted to know when I was planning on returning); and saw the Tony-award winning out of Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater. Read reviews here and here. It was excellent--brooding and dark and hysterical and masterfully acted, especially by Estelle Parsons as the strung out matriarch, Violet Weston, and Steppenwolf veteran Amy Morton as Barbara, the eldest of three daughters trying to salvage the family vessel from the rocky shoals upon which her mother has steered it; she ultimately, however, ends up taking her mother's place as the vice-gripped captain of a sinking ship. Highly recommend it.


Second weekend: Our first ever Mujeres Unidas (Women United) leadership retreat! A smashing success involving visioning/mission statement development, communal art project, charades, beach time, good food, great women, and maybe just a smidge of merry-making. :)


























Third & Fourth weekends: a 2,000-mile roundtrip drive to RAGBRAI (The Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa) and a visit to my grandma's house in the land where the tall corn grows. Excellent use of Spandex.

I break my sunglasses before we even get on the road. Classy.


"RAGBRAI: Just you, the open road, and 10,000 of your closest friends."



The Cuzins, Day 2 (did I mention we biked about 115 miles in two days?)


Flossie & Leah prepare to take their two-woman show on the road.


Jobby, our little monster thingamabob, shows off the corn we picked from my uncle's sweet corn patch. I ate a lot of that, helped freeze some of it with my sister & mom, and brought a bunch back for lunch for folks at Project SafeSpace. The homeless community of the Gulf Coast concurs: Iowa Sweet Corn surpasses any and all Mississippi corn impostors. Mmmmm.



Alright, now that we're all caught up--look for more focused, subject-specific musings in the near future.


Happy August!

Our Nation's Capital/Capitol

Time for the promised report on my visit to DC: "Ms. Leah Goes to Washington." (PS I actually get called "Ms. Leah" by my boss' kids and other small children around here. Weird.)

I've been to DC twice before, but for sightseeing purposes. This time, I went as part of the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation's Equity & Inclusion (E&I) campaign, a multi-state advocacy effort to bring about legislative change favorable to a just and inclusive hurricane recovery in Louisiana, Mississippi, & Alabama. The campaign focuses on bringing together non-profits interested in a wide range of recovery-related issues to work on wider initiatives designed to create not only a bandaid solution to the Gulf Coast but a foundation for future prosperity--especially pertinent given that LA, MS, & AL are consistently at the bottom of the barrel in education, health, and poverty rankings.

The bill I spent most of my time working on is HR 4048, The Gulf Coast Civic Works Act, a WPA-style program that would bring 100,000 high-quality jobs & the necessary training to the Gulf Coast, along with infrastructure & public works rebuilding, and would provide for the preservation of Gulf Coast culture by organizing and centralizing all of the hurricane refugee stories that were gathered post-Katrina & Rita in the Library of Congress, a la the collections of slave & Depression-era narratives. Public works rebuilding is critical for our region--many communities still look like Pass Christian, where almost all essential public services, from the police to City Hall to the library to the local bank branch, continue to operate out of trailers. Many schools remain still shut down, including Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, the location of this famous Norman Rockwell painting:


Roads, harbors, bridges, levees--across the region infrastructure is in sore need of replacement, rebuilding, or shoring up. The work is there; the irony is that we don't have enough local, qualified workers to do the job. I should note that I'm not, in principle, against workers coming in from elsewhere to accomplish the work (I'm an imported "worker" myself and I work with immigrants), but it only strengthens the local economy to grow the existent workforce, giving them the training to secure living-wage jobs and establishing a solid base of high-skilled workers to maintain the newly rebuilt infrastructure & public works facilities for years to come. The Gulf Coast Civil Works Act addresses this with a 3-tiered system: the first round of jobs would go to local residents and displaced storm refugees; the second, to state residents; the third would be open to workers from everywhere. All rounds would prioritize women and minorities as potential job candidates; my friends K & J, who work in a women-in-construction program, point out that often, (minority) women are the sole breadwinners and it is in everyone's best interest to provide them with training & quality jobs.
Another good thing about this bill is that it will leverage successful existing programs, like Job Corps and NCCC (National Civilian Community Corps), not reinvent the wheel. One of my roles during our talks with Congressional staffers was to share a story that would "bring to life" the reason we need the Gulf Coast Civil Works Act. Here's the story I told:

I'm a caseworker at an organization that works with the immigrant community on the Coast. One of my client's sons, Jaime, is 17 and has dropped out of high school to support his family by working a construction job. We're getting him enrolled in Job Corps, a federal program which will help him get his GED, improve his English, and learn HVAC [heating and air conditioning] skills so that he could earn more money, better support his family, and contribute more to society. But the local Job Corps center, in the town where Jaime and his family live, has been closed since the storm, and the next nearest site is three hours away. Jaime will only be able to come home twice a year, and we're worried that without the support of his friends and family, he won't make it through the 2-year program. But with the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act, the center could be re-opened and the highly successful program--it has upwards of 90% job placement--could be incorporated into the Act as a solution to both the deficit of high-skilled jobs in the area and as a public works project in and of itself.

Then I deferred to my colleagues as to the numbers, the "ask" (what we're looking for the Congressman/woman to commit to), etc. Each of us had a part to play, coming from different issues, states, and organizations; we tag-teamed it beautifully and almost had Dennis Kucinich's top legislative adviser crying. No really, she teared up talking about how her family wouldn't have survived without the New Deal. Granted, Kucinich's office was an easy win; but we tailored our presentation to each office, pulling in the fact that Congressman Wu (D-OR 1st) is an immigrant himself (from Taiwan), or flooding Rep. Danny Davis' (D-IL 7th) with all our Chicagoland ties, or chattin' up Rep. Hinojosa's (D-TX 15th) front desk man whose grandfather died in the same Houston hospital where I was born (no connection too tenuous!). We hit up all the members on the Education & Labor committee, where our bill will have to go if it is to reach the House floor (see the School House Rocks video I used in my ESL the other day to help one of our students study for his citizenship test: "I'm Just a Bill" ). On Friday, our last day there, we reconfigured into state delegations and went to see Reps. Bennie Thompson (D-MS



Did someone say chic, overpriced boutique hotel? (paid for by non-profit $$, eek):
The robes really are a hoot, though:
Our nation's Capitol, with (spring!!) flowers:
The Nationals game at their new park (sadly, they lost, but I scored my first-ever entire baseball game!):
Meems, Turtle Girl (Go Sox!), & the lovely Cat:

The traditional 4th inning stretch Big Head Presidents Race--best 4th inning entertainment ever. Special points for powdered wigs and top hats.

Teddy never gets any love:Dogwoods!More dogwoods:
Metro peeps unaware that I'm photographing them (you fall for public transportation hard when you've gone without for over a year): La Corte Suprema:

Doesn't she look fab?

Word.

From our walk around the Capitol Hill neighborhood--spring!
Steve & Kieulin, lobbying homies:

???

Lovely flowers:



Rhubarb, where have you been all my life??

Enjoying a cold (nonalcoholic) one in Capitol Hill. Note Kieulin cracking up and the wig shop in the background.

Care for a bite of vegan-friendly sandwich, Leah? Why yes, Steve, thanks!
My team, super-sharp in front of the Cannon House Office Building.
We get ready to kick (or kiss?) some Congressional behind!

A half-demo'd building which looks like its face melted off. Public art, anyone?