Voice of the Voiceless Solidarity Dinner in El Paso

This is the stage for the Voice of the Voiceless Solidarity Dinner.




This is Emma Molina (on the Left) and the Ministerio who were recognized for feeding, clothing and sheltering Christ in the poor Immigrant.

My Friends Fr. Arturo Bañuelas and Ruben Garcia













I’m in El Paso for my (kind of) home visit. It’s great being back in the US where I am in my first language and first culture. It all seems so easy! I’m taking 2 weeks at “home”. The first week my sister Jeanette was here. It was so fun just being around her. The second week I’m reconnecting with friends in El Paso. I’m going out to eat with friends for almost every meal. It’s so great to have this kind of time with them.

I came to El Paso for our Annunciation House Board of Directors meeting and our annual Voice of the Voiceless Solidarity Dinner. Coming to El Paso for the board meetings and the Voice of the Voiceless dinner is always a shot in the arm for me. I am so impressed with and inspired by the people who are so committed to the work of justice for immigrants. This year our recipient of the Voice of the Voiceless award was Fr. Roy Bourgeois, Maryknoll, who is the founder of the School of the Americas watch dedicated to closing down the School of the Americas. The program introduction for Fr. Roy said, “In today’s climate of severe hostility toward immigrants, the prominence of enforcement-only immigration policies, and an increasingly militarized border, we hold Fr. Roy Bourgeois as a powerful example of the tradition of witness, hospitality and justice to which the guests of our houses have called us.”

We also honored three local groups and individuals who have demonstrated tremendous courage in witnessing to the Gospel mandate to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and shelter the homeless, even at personal risk. Before this weekend I had always considered feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and sheltering the homeless to be pretty basic and couldn’t fathom that doing so could ever carry any personal risk in this country. I want to share with you what happened here in El Paso on February 5, 2008 that scares the heck out of me.

A group from San Antonio Padua church was recognized. Every Tuesday a group of parishioners gathers to distribute food baskets to the poor, struggling to feed their families. They call themselves Minsterio Asistencia Social Y Espiritual. On any given Tuesday they respond to the needs of 40 to 60 families. On Tuesday, February 5th, while distributing the food baskets, a woman in her early forties walked in and asked for help. She was a Salvadoran woman and she told them that she had just crossed the border at 2am that morning. She knew no one in El Paso and had no place to stay. Her clothes were still damp and she had eaten nothing since the previous afternoon. The church parishioners welcomed her, gave her a change of dry clothing, and invited her to share a meal with them. They also called Annunciation House and were told that we would be happy to provide her with hospitality.
At about 1pm, two of the parishioners offered to give the woman a ride to Annunciation House. As the driver turned onto the street for Annunciation House, she realized that she was being followed, and as they approached Annunciation House, the parishioner’s car was blocked off both in front and in back by two unmarked pick-up trucks. Men exited the trucks, approached the parishioner’s car, and identified themselves as immigration agents. They then asked the two parishioners for their drivers’ licenses and demanded that the woman from El Salvador get out, saying “we know you are illegal, get out of the car!” She was handcuffed, taken into custody, and placed in detention. She is now applying for political asylum.
One agent went back to the truck to run a background check on the parishioners, and as he returned their licenses to them, warned them that what they were doing was illegal. When the obviously nervous parishioners asked if they were in trouble, the agent responded that he had spoken to his supervisor, who said that although he understood that the parishioners were trying to help someone, they needed to understand that their actions were illegal. The agents then allowed them to leave with a warning not to do what they had done again.

The Ministerio, was recognized for their witness to what it means to be a person of faith. On accepting the recognition Emma Molina said “No vamos a parar!” (“We’re not going to stop!”) She got a standing ovation for that one!!!

It seems so clear that we can’t just sit back and let someone tell us that we can’t carry out the mandates of the gospel. Of course I wouldn’t obey a law that goes against the gospel. Then in the program we were given scenarios that make me realize that every one of us DOES have to choose to follow the gospel or bow to unjust immigration policies. Here are a few examples that were read:
· I am a social worker and I am committed to working to improve the lives of disadvantaged groups in my community. However, a new state law is asking me to deny services to any individual who does not have a social security number, and the undocumented are among the most marginalized of the groups with whom I work.
· I am a member of a church that provides sandwiches to the hungry in my community. Recently a discussion has come up about who we should serve. In particular, dropping off food in certain areas of town inhabited mostly by immigrants is raising suspicion. Many of my fellow parishioners are concerned about the potential legal consequences of aiding immigrants in any way.
· I used to hire a woman to clean my house and care for my three small children. I never asked her if she had papers, but I knew that she badly needed a job. I was happy to help her out. I recently found out that she is undocumented, and I think I will have to let her go. The penalties for employing people without documentation are stiff enough that I can’t run the risk of being caught employing her.

Wow, this hits close to home. We have discussions about our legal liability as a board of directors for Annunciation House where we provide food and shelter for homeless undocumented immigrants. After the Voice of the Voiceless Solidarity dinner, I am making a conscious choice to follow the gospel, regardless of what our laws say. I pray that I can hold that conviction very clearly if or when I am ever in a position that challenges me and calls me to make a choice.

(kind of) HOME VISIT

This is Manuel´s wheel chair set in front of our little store that he manages. He was hurt by the train 2 years ago and only recently has begun to be able to use his legs. Since I´ve been here he has progressed from being able to balance standing to last week the Dr said he should no longer use the wheel chair. It´s now time for the walker only. We just got the parallel bars finished in time for him to really work on his exercises. He is so motivated. Thanks for donations from many of you. These parallel bars have been needed for a long time. They are being used by the abuelos (elderly men) and young ones alike.



Here Manuel is doing his deep knee bends and high leg lifts.

Donar, who has bilateral amputations, sews in the sewing shop. They help support the shelter with the things they sew. He made me a beautiful skirt.

The last foto is of Olga. I´ve been wanting to get a photo of her that shows her like I always see her. This captures her with her great smile and enjoying the people she is helping. She has wild dreams for people who are sick or injured and knows how to work to make them come true.

The guy with the cap used to live at the shelter. He has a below the knee prosthesis. Alma, the seamstress has bilateral amputations......all from the train.

I´m making a kind of home visit in May! I´ll be going to the Annunciation House board of Directors meeting and our annual Voice of the Voiceless dinner. This year the recipient of the Voice of the Voiceless Award is Roy Bourgeois. I´m looking forward to meeting him and hearing him speak at the dinner. I plan to be there May 10-26.

An extra special treat for me is that my sister Jeanette will be coming down the week before the meeting just for a visit. We will be talking English, watching movies in English and eating ice cream!!! I can´t wait!

Many people have asked how they could get donations to me. It looks like this will be possible now in a relay type activity. Katy Brandes, a Saint Joseph worker, will be coming to El Paso and we´ll meet there. She is willing to bring supplies down from the Twin Cities. This is her response to my request.

"I would love to bring some supplies down for you. You can have people send them to me or Suzanne (Herder at the Administration Center) by Wednesday, May 14th. If people want to contact me to coordinate a drop off, they can call me at 612.418.2190. Glad to be of assistance."

Suzanne´s phone number at work is 651-696-2762.

As far as the supplies, I´d recommend that people don´t go out and buy supplies, but donate things that you already have. If you want to donate more than that, sending a monitary donation is easier to pack and I could buy the supplies in Tapachula. (Refer to the "things we could use" on the right hand side of the blog.)

While I´m in El Paso I hope to sell coffee to benefit the shelter. We sew cloth bags with our "Jesus el Buen Pastor" stamp and go straight to the ejido (communal farm) to buy the coffee fresh. If anyone has suggestions for where I might be able to sell them in El Paso, I´m open for suggestions.

Looking forward to seeing many of you in El Paso.

Blessings

Lillian

Arriaga and more train stories

Lining up for dinner.
This young guy in blue reminded me so much of my nephew Tyler. He was one of so many kids 15-17 years old in Arriaga this month. We had 44 people
register in one day. In addition to them, people had missed the last 2
trains so there were about 150 people staying at the shelter while I was there. The well went dry....and to add insult to injury, the next night robbers stole the copper pipes, so even if we bought a tank of water, we had no way to pipe it to where it was needed. Luckily that happened the same night that everyone left on the train.












The 2 guys below (in the center) are brothers, Oscar and Felix (no joke). They´ve both lived in the US and were deported. Felix was a cook in NY and likes NY. Oscar has been a cook in a chain restaurant in many states, including MN. He prefers California.
I tried the train (but only dared this while the train was stopped!) It was scary! I had been close to trains in the past, but to actually climb up on it was something else. It´s huge. The wheels are huge and powerful. The ladders start at about chest height. One of the women in our Tapachula shelter had her legs cut off when she grabbed the ladder and her legs swung under the train and she fell. As I tried to climb up the train when it wasn´t moving, I could see how easily that could happen.













I had the good fortune to be at the shelter at the same time as Edineo, a journalist from Minneapolis. He shared his fotos and stories with me. In this photo he is with a woman and her 2 kids who also rode the train. He told me about a woman who had carried her baby all night to get to the train. When she got on the train with her baby she fell asleep. When she woke up, the baby was gone. She must have dropped him while she was sleeping! They haven´t been able to find the baby. I can´t imagine what that woman is going through.



Edineo rode the train with the migrants and took pictures all along the way. He happened to be there at the time the army and immigration stopped the train for an "Operativo". This is one of the pictures he took that shows a soldier grabbing a woman as the rest were fleeing. I have other pictures that show them beating the migrants with clubs. Edineo was there and talked about it and other people who were beaten told me about it. There are also accusations of 2 women who were raped by the authorities. Edineo said what was so distressing to him was how the authorities seemed to be enjoying it. They were beating the people then standing around in groups laughing together as if they were a bunch of guys out hunting.

After talking about what the immigrants go through, it´s hard to switch gears, but I´m going to do it anyway!

I realize that I still keep thinking of myself as young because I am one of the youngest in my community. In Arriaga I was reminded many times that the rest of the world doesn´t see me as young as my community does. I have been called ¨Jefa¨ (boss lady--a respectful title for a woman of some stature.) I was asked by the woman who is standing beside me on the picture of the train above if I wouldn´t take her to the US and claim her as my daughter (to me she doesn´t look much younger than me!) The wildest one was being called "Abuelita" (Little Grandmother!) by one of the guys. ---All of these terms were said with respect and affection. They have no idea how shocking it is to hear myself being called "Abuelita!"

Today I was at the Dr with a man who is deaf. He lives in the mountains and is very poor. He reads everything he can find. They say he knows the bible inside out and backwards and is an expert on vatican II. When we were at the Dr I wrote him a note. He had some old reading glasses that were all dirty and scratched up. He was holding the note as far away as his arms could reach and said he needed a new pair of glasses but they were too expensive. I handed over a pair that Kris had given me. He read with them and had a great smile on his face. He said he could read very well with them. I said ¨keep them¨ he responded "You will go straight to heaven, sandals and all!" I have a couple of other pairs of glasses here so not to worry about me. (Sorry to say, I´m not generous enough to give away my only pair!!!) They will be put to great use--------giving a deaf man a way to communicate with the world is a wonderful feeling. He can´t hear but he´ll be able to read the words.
Blessings
Lillian

New Prosthesis

Juan getting his new prosthesis fitted





Juan selling pop, water and candy in front of the hospital






Pictures we took just before he went in to get his prosthesis fitted.








I´d like to share one experience from this week with you.
Juan is a young man in our shelter who just turned 20 last week. He’s a very likeable farm boy. He can rope and ride and drive a tractor and truck—or at least he used to.

When he was 17 years old he left home in Honduras to try to go to the US. His parents were very poor and he wanted to help them. He was riding on top of the freight train when someone from a gang pushed him off. The train cut off part of his foot and his leg was severely fractured. Mexican Immigration picked him up, sent him to a hospital in Guatemala where he received initial care, then he was sent on to a hospital in Honduras where he spent 5 months. The leg never did heal.

One night when his Father was coming home from work Juan heard him call out. He said he was slow because he had to get his crutches and couldn’t move very fast. As he got out the door, he saw some guys shoot his father and take the $10 he had in his pocket. Juan said it was payday and he’s sure they were watching him to rob him.

Juan had heard about our shelter and came here last October looking for help. He had an amputation, all went well, and this week he got his prosthesis. The hospital here did the surgery at no cost to him. All medicines (including anesthesia) and the prosthesis were covered by Olga. The prosthetist does his work at a discount for Olga. When he gave the prosthetic leg to Juan, he asked if he couldn’t take him to church to give thanks to God. Apparently the prosthetist and his family were in a very severe accident recently and he promised God that the next person from the shelter that he made a prosthesis for, he would bring to church to give thanks.

Juan is with tears of gratitude and anxious to be able to go back to see his mother with his new leg.

Holy week at Albergue Jesus el Buen Pastor

Washing of the feet. This is one of the men I do therapy with.













Holy Thursday mass in our chapel at the shelter.


This young woman is from Honduras. She came to us because she has paralysis in her hand for no known reason. The Dr is suspecting a brain tumor or hematoma (bleed). We´ll be getting testing done this week.
The man behind her had polio as a kid. It twisted and paralysed his legs. He rigged up this three wheel bike with pedals at the handle bars. He pedals it with his hands. He takes it out every day and sells from it. He used to live with his mother, but when she died he had no one else so now lives at the shelter.


This Salvadoreño (black shirt in photo below) had a stroke in NY. He couldn´t talk or remember anything so lost contact with his family and was living on the streets and in shelters there for 3 years. I can´t make out what´s going on right now. He says he has a son and daughter in NY but can´t remember the names of their towns. So, he´s lost from them again. I´ve gone through every scrap of paper he has and am looking for any leads on the internet. So far the most helpful has been a business card from a Taxi. I was able to track down the city where he says his daughter lives. Now I have to try to get a little closer!
















The guy with the cross and colorful shirt is recouperating from an abdominal surgery. He was coming home and got robbed. They beat him so badly he had internal injuries and needed surgery.















The guy with the blue rag on his head had his legs amputated by the train. I really like him. He´s got a family in Honduras but they are in a real mountainous area so he can´t live there with his wheel chair. The guy pushing his chair had his fingers amputated when someone attacked him with a machete. He just built a room that we are going to use for a bakery. I´m asking him to make the parallel bars for my therapy room.
















Just more photos of the Stations of the cross.
















Happy Easter and Holy season to you all
Lillian

fotos added to an earlier entry

I just want to let you know that I added some fotos to the February 27 entry
Lillian

Migrants´stations of the cross/VIA CRUZES

Living room watching TV at the shelter

Typical feet after walking 5 days

Jumping the train

Front of the shelter

Dining room at the shelter

I’ve been contemplating the struggles of the people I see here. I wonder why they leave their countries when they know before hand what a struggle they will face on the journey.
Why they leave:
This is what I’ve heard from Salvadoreños. They leave for economic reasons and fleeing mafia type control. The money in El Salvador changed from the Colon to the US dollar in about 2004. Immediately people went from being able to buy food to their money being nearly worthless. A worker receives $35 for 7 days of work. A hamburger at McDonalds in El Salvador costs $7. (More than a full day’s salary.)
I talked with one young man to ask what difference he sees from before the war in El Salvador to now, after the war. He said everything used to be very strict. If you did any little thing wrong, the police or army would kill you. Now he says it’s just the opposite. Everything is controlled by gangs like the Salvatrucha. If you try to open a little store or shop, the Salvatrucha (Gangs /mafia) come by soon after opening to tell you what your “rent” will be. It’s usually something like $500/month. If you don’t pay, they kill you. If you find that you are unable to make a go of your shop, you still have to continue paying the “rent”. If you don’t, they come to your home and kill you. AND, if anyone buys your home they need to pay or the Salvatrucha will come to the house and kill them! He said there are some very nice homes in El Salvador that are empty because the people had to flee.

This is what I hear from Hondureños. They also flee for economic reasons. They all say the pay is a pittance but if they could just get their little home, they could stay and make it. However, most of them rent. Consistently people tell me that on payday the landlord is at their house waiting for them to come home from work to collect the rent. After paying the rent they don’t have enough to feed their families for the rest of the month.
One man told me today that his little boy needs an operation. He can’t afford the surgery so he asked God to please give him just 2 months in the US to make enough money to pay for the surgery.

From Guatemaltecos—again economic reasons. They tell me they want a better life for their kids. One young man has a son, Junior, who is “5 years, 4 months and 19 days” old! (Counting the days tells me he was REALLY missing his son!) He said ¨I want him to be able to go to college.¨ He’s trying to make it North alone and later a Coyote (someone who is paid to help people get into the US) will bring his wife. Their “Junior” will be staying with his grandparents. The young man said they can make as much in one month in the US as they make in 8 months in Guatemala. The parents hope to work one or two years and then return to Guatemala. The young man is sitting here now trying to decide if he will continue the journey. He knows he’s risking his life on this journey and is wondering if it’s worth the gamble.
I don’t have any stories of Nicaraguenses but there are a LOT moving through this house this week. They are also primarily economic refugees.

The Journey through Mexico:
In this shelter we register everyone who comes through. (There have been 1600 men and 139 women so far this year.) One of our questions is “Did you have any problems in your journey up to this point?” About 2/3 of them report some sort of assault. Everyone has to pass through many check points on the road. The checkpoints are immigration, local police, federal police, military, and customs. These checkpoints are along all of the roads all the way up through Mexico. About half of the problems people have come from these authorities. They are made to pay bribes. People have been kidnapped, raped and beaten at these checkpoints. They are also sent back to their countries or sent to immigration detention. In order to avoid these problems people walk around the checkpoints. However, walking around the checkpoints doesn’t give them any more security.
There are awful things that happen as they try to avoid the checkpoints. People are held up with guns, knives, machetes. Friday was particularly hard. Young man after young man came into the office to sign in. Each one had been grabbed in la Arrozera--one place were people leave the road to go around a check point. They were taken at gun point to a shack, made to strip, and then they were let go--naked. One group saw a young couple being taken into the shack as they were being let go. They waited 3 hours and the couple was never released. The next young man said that he was taken to the shack but they were raping 4 young women so they just let him go. One woman arrived here with a cut on her face from a machete that she got while trying to resist rape. They raped her and another woman in front of her husband and the rest of the group (all naked) that was traveling together.
I just want to bawl.
Carlos from our shelter called the police to ask them to do something. They said ¨Oh, we´re dong an operativo (maneuver) there right now.¨ I heard him say into the phone ¨that´s a lie. I was just there with a reporter and a priest and there is no operativo going on there¨. (He had just come from there. Said he was scared the whole time.)
It’s so maddening to see this repeated over and over again and the authorities don’t do anything about it. When I said something about that, I was told that those rapes, assaults and robberies couldn’t continue without the approval of the authorities. The authorities are being paid to let the assaults continue. Worse, often times the assaults are done by men with haircuts just like the authorities, dressed in the same clothes as the authorities, and using the same kinds of guns that the authorities have. (It must be what they do for their second job!) Carlos said the US is giving Mexico $500 million this year to stop Central Americans from getting into the US.

When migrants leave here to hop the train, their problems increase. They have all the dangers of falling off the train or being brushed off by tree branches and losing limbs or their lives. One 47 yr old woman was going to jump the train 3 days ago. She tripped in a hole near the tracks and broke her leg in 3 places. We took her to the hospital by taxi. There they said she needs surgery with nails and a plate. We couldn’t cover that cost and she certainly couldn’t pay for it. So, we made an arrangement for someone to send her by ambulance to Tapachula. Olga will find a way to cover the costs in Tapachula.
There are gangs on the train who also rob and, if they don’t get what they want, they throw people off the train. They also kidnap. There used to be about 10-20 kidnappings a month. Now there are over 100 people at a time, daily. They kidnap the migrants and call their families, demanding money or they will kill the person. Whether they get the ransom or not, they will still often kill the migrant.
We have one couple here who said they were on the train when the military stopped it. People were pulled off the train and beaten. They used tear gas and rubber bullets. Bones were broken. They threw them all in cells and many hours later someone started coming around giving pain shots. Until then people were screaming in pain.
Others have told me that when the authorities stop the train, people start running to escape. They said they go after the women. If the officer is chasing a man and sees a woman, he stops chasing the man and goes after the woman. One woman said the officer told her she had to pay. She didn’t have any money so he said “then you’ll pay with your body!” Another woman fell and thought she broke her leg. When the officer came up to her she said her leg was broken. He said “we’ll see about that”. And took her leg and broke the other bone too!
This morning the train was FULL of people. It looked like a thousand. There were pregnant women and some little kids. You’d think they must be crazy for doing that. They’ve all heard the same stories I’ve heard. This just tells me how desperate they are to get to el Norte (the North).
This is what I’ve learned about the Migrants Way of the Cross/Via Cruzes in Southern Mexico. I’m assuming the rest of the journey through Mexico is similar to this. When they hit the Northern border they have other problems with crossing. Many of you know the next stations of the cross that the migrants pass through in the US….Minutemen, immigration, living in hiding and all the abuses that invites, lack of health care, finding work, being picked up while driving or at work and deported. So, I’ll leave the rest of the stations for you to fill in.

People ask what they can do to change this. I ask myself the same question every day. It feels like I’m putting band aids on a scratch on the left arm while the right arm has been cut off and the person is bleeding to death. All I can think of is to ask you to keep praying and talking to Congresspersons to pass comprehensive immigration legislation that is not focused on enforcement and building walls but provides for immigrant protections, a pathway to citizenship and reunification of families. It won’t change what people go through on the journey, but at least when they get there, they don’t have to continue suffering.

Lillian