Upon Volunteering to Head to the Arizona Border: I'm Sick-inducingly Frightened

Today I received the acceptance of my volunteer application with the human rights group No More Deaths, and I suddenly feel like vomiting, fainting, and jumping around all at once. I wonder if such a feat can be done.

No More Deaths is a Unitarian Universalist social justice group based in Tucson, Arizona. Their mission? To do what the name states, ensure no more deaths of border crossers in the Sonoran desert. I learned about No More Deaths two years ago when I conducted an interview with Walt Staton, a young man and No More Death’s volunteer, who was fined for littering when he placed life-saving water bottles in key points along the border to help save individuals from dying of dehydration and heat exhaustion. In certain areas like the Buenos Aires Wildlife Refuge, it is considered a crime to leave out water for border crossers even though water is a basic human necessity and people are dying in large numbers every summer. A year ago this month, it was reported the bodies of 40 illegal immigrants were found on the Arizona border just in the first two weeks of July, with the total number of deaths being in the thousands "since Operation Gatekeeper went into effect in 1994."

See, I read articles like this one and I feel my breath shorten and like I need someone to start fanning me before I pass out--you know, like in the old movies and news clips--because I don’t know how I can face these real tragedies in person. It’s so much easier to deal with it from a Google search in the safety of my living room.

Immigration is important to me, obviously. It has been since I was a young teen, since my parents instilled in me this awareness for social justice, since I knew my parents were immigrants. And I care about finding positive and socially conscience alternatives to the immigration issue in this country. And yes, I care about saving lives, or more so, I care about spreading awareness of government laws that intentionally or unintentionally cause harm and death to individuals. This is important to me, but hey, I’m no saint. I'm not even that nice most of the time.

What I am is a writer. And as Iranian poet, Sholeh Wolpe once told me, we must each use the resources we have to do our part. So I try as a writer and poet to do that thing I do, but sometimes it doesn’t feel like enough. Sometimes, I feel like I’m exploiting the issue from my laptop, and it’s when this feeling creeps into my consciousness that I begin to consider crazy ideas like voluntarily going into a detention center or camping out in the Sonoran desert in the middle of August. These types of ideas are the ones that make my friends raise their eyebrows and go, “Oh, Xochitl, you always love to get ‘real.’” But I don’t necessarily love it. It’s more like a personal dare. If you cared, I tell myself, then you’d get out there and do something about it. But it’s so scary, I reply. What are you, chicken? Come on. You can do it! (these conversations are not out loud). So I sign up, even though I’m scared shitless because I worry doing nothing is even more cowardly. And anyway, it’s not like it’s a lifetime commitment. I’m going for 11 days. And anyway, I can always write about it. (That’s the advice people always give me. Come on this trip. You can write about it! Why not move to another town? You can write about it!) But honestly, writing is not my main goal, though I should probably place it high on the list.

My main goal may just be to survive the week without freaking out or losing my mind. My goal is to be apart of something positive and important, life-savingly important, even though just thinking about camping in the desert for 7 nights with only a sleeping bag, hiking in the blistering August desert heat, and constantly fearing the moment I will walk around a sage bush to find some wounded hopeless person on a seemingly deserted road (I don't even want to consider the death part of No More Deaths) makes me feel like crawling into my skin, sinking down to the hardwood floor, and seeping into the cracks. I feel possible of conducting such matter bending acts if it means I don’t have to go, but then I hear myself, You claim to care about immigration, and now you just want to hide?

Sometimes it isn’t enough to write about a subject. Sometimes you have to experience it, but that is sick-inducingly frightening! Coming face-to-face with human suffering is not my idea of fun, but I once again dare myself to try. To try and survive, I guess, because the people I will be out their helping are surviving something much more difficult then I will ever experience as a privileged American living a relatively easy life in Los Angeles with the comfort of family, friends, a good education, and stable job to support me. So I challenge myself to be uncomfortable for a short time in order to try and understand the suffering of others, and maybe even help someone in the process.

If you would like to help, No More Deaths asks all their volunteers to raise $400 in order to support lodging, supplies, and food while with them. If you are able, I would really appreciate your donation, even if it is $5. I promise to do the rest.

You can send your donation to my Paypal account at xochitl_julisa@hotmail.com, or email me for other alternative forms of donations.

A New "Coming Out"

Earlier in the week, NPR did a story on Jose Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who has written for New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, and San Francisco Chronicle, who just "came out" as an illegal immigrant. In an interview on All Things Considered Vargas states: "I am sorry for breaking the country's laws — my country's laws...I am no different than anybody else in that I wanted to live my life and I wanted to survive and if I didn't tell those lies, I couldn't have gotten work and I couldn't have survived."

Coming out is the latest tactic taken on by DREAMer activists as a way to put pressure on Congress who voted down the Dream Act bill this past December. As Viridiana Martinez--an activist inspired by Jose Antonios Vargas' story--states: "The biggest obstacle we have is fear. So, coming out is a declaration that I am dropping the fear. I am taking my struggle in my own hands."

And perhaps in response, ICE has taken a surprising and hopefully promising turn with a new "memorandum granting its agents 'prosecutorial discretion' to extend leniency to DREAM Act-eligible people and others while cracking down on those who pose 'a clear risk to national security.' Leniency would take the form of deferred deportation, usually for up to 12 months, at which time individuals could request an extension and potentially reapply every year."

This new coming out is definitely the latest form of civil disobedience to take to the streets, not unlike the Montgomery bus boycott or the lunch counter sit-ins from the Civil Rights Movement of the '50s and '60s. As Thoreau said in his essay Civil Disobedience, "I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government." Let's hope Congress does right by these young people who have proven themselves smart, able, and willing members of our society, and lets hope they do it soon before some of these brave kids get deported.

In other news, Georgia recently voted in a SB 1070 copycat law, but Federal Judge Thomas Thrash blocked parts of the new law--scheduled to go into effect July 1--because "the state is enforcing immigration law that should be left to the federal government."

Two days ago DREAMers took to the public streets of Georgia and "Six young illegal immigrants were arrested...after they sat down and blocked traffic near the Georgia state Capitol to publicly declare their status and to protest state policies targeting people who are in the U.S. illegally, the latest in a string of such 'coming out' events."

Immigration Project Focus on: John Muir

Last month I had planned on writing a focus on John Muir in honor of Earth Day on April 22nd and John Muir Day (recognized in California) on April 21st,* but unfortunately, I never got to it. And as I am starting to enjoy the beginnings of the summer break and a respite from teenagers and grading, I thought I would finally get to an Immigration Project Focus On. Such IP focuses have included John Lennon, Dith Pran, and Jacob Riis, and I hope to continue this tradition as a way of celebrating the contributions of immigrants from all parts of the world to our nation's history and culture.

Muir is a name I have heard of all my life as it is the moniker for high schools, streets, trails, mountains, and campsites. As a Californian, I learned of John Muir's contributions to our National Parks, namely Yosemite, in the 4th grade when I learned about Spanish Missions, the Gold Rush, and other highlights of California history. The Muir name has always been in my Californian consciousness, (if only in name) and as something that reflects innately American much like the names Wilson, Jefferson, and Franklin. So I was surprised on my visit to Scotland in 2006, to find that Muir was a Scotsman. The Scotch pride seemed to have Muir's image and name everywhere, even more so than in California, and this is when I learned that John Muir, father of our national parks and co-founder of the Sierra Club, was a Scottish immigrant.

There are too many things to be said about Muir and his contributions, but I will try to give you a few highlights. John Muir was born on April 21, 1838 in Dunbar, Scotland and emigrated to New York by way of Glasgow as a child with his family in 1849. He is known as an early naturalist and conservationist, and believed our natural surroundings were nature's churches, often describing the peeks and domes of Yosemite as the spires and arches of European cathedrals. Different from other conservationists of his time who believed in conserving natural resources in order to sustain their use for human consumption, Muir believed that natural areas should be preserved and left virtually untouched as spiritual places for rest, worship, and appreciation.

He was a celebrated nature writer who wrote countless articles about the Yosemite, Mount Shasta, Alaska, sequoias, glaciers, etc and was published in such places as Atlantic Monthly, Outlook, New York Tribune, and Harper's. He had the opportunity to meet another great essayist, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who visited Yosemite in the twilight of his life, and though Muir wanted to take the writer on a backwoods private camping trip through Yosemite, he declined due to his age and health. Muir was greatly influenced by Emerson's writings as well Emerson's contemporary and another great nature writer, Thoreau, and according an article by John Swett, after Emerson met Muir he stated, "He is more wonderful than Thoreau."

But Emerson was not the most famous person to have visited the mountain man in the Yosemite Valley. That title goes to President Theodore Roosevelt who took a three night, four day trip through Yosemite in 1903. Muir convinced the President to join him on the trip Emerson could not, and after leaving behind his secret service and aids, Roosevelt enjoyed a private hiking and camping excursion through Yosemite where Muir spoke about the importance of preservation and a national park system.

President Roosevelt and Muir in Yosemite in 1903.

You can read President Roosevelt's memory of the visit in this Outlook article from January 16, 1915. There is a funny anecdote where Muir inadvertently insults Roosevelt.

Roosevelt on Muir: "He was emphatically a good citizen. Not only are his books delightful, not only is he the author to whom all men turn when they think of the Sierras and northern glaciers, and the giant trees of the California slope, but he was also - what few nature lovers are - a man able to influence contemporary thought and action on the subjects to which he had devoted his life. He was a great factor in influencing the thought of California and the thought of the entire country so as to secure the preservation of those great natural phenomena - wonderful canyons, giant trees, slopes of flower-spangled hillsides - which make California a veritable Garden of the Lord."

Can you imagine being in the quiet of a sequoia grove with these two giants of history? What a moment that must have been to have these two men bundled by a fire beneath snow sprinkled trees and the wide starry night above their heads. How else, but to bring the President to the source, could Muir have convinced Roosevelt to work for the preservation of natural areas like Yosemite and the expansion of federal parks?

Muir was successful in saving Yosemite from sheep grazing, farming, and other development by helping it become a national park, but unfortunately he was unsuccessful at saving another beautiful natural area, Hetch Hetchy Valley, that Muir believed was Yosemite's smaller twin: "Most people who visit Yosemite are apt to regard it as an exceptional creation, the only valley of its kind in the world. But nothing in Nature stands alone. She is not so poor as to have only one of anything." Unfortunately, Hetch Hetchy, though within the federally protected Yosemite Valley, could not be saved after the Raker Act of 1913 was passed by Congress, which allowed the damming of the valley to create a water supply for San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area. The battle for Hetch Hetchy was late in Muir's life and career as a conservationist, and was a major blow to the man who made his life's work saving these natural cathedrals.

A photo of Hetch Hetchy Valley taken prior to being dammed.

Muir's description of Hetch Hetchy from the article "Features of the Proposed National Park": "Here you will find a glorious view. Immediately beneath you, at a depth of more than 4000 feet, you see a beautiful ribbon of level a ground, with a silver thread in the middle of it, and green or yellow according to the time of year. That ribbon is a strip of meadow, and the silver thread is the main Tuolumne River. The opposite wall of the cañon rises in precipices, steep and angular, or with rounded brows like those of Yosemite, and from this wall as a base extends a fine wilderness of mountains, rising dome above dome, ridge above ridge, to a group of snowy peaks on the summit of the range. Of all this sublime congregation of mountains Castle Peak is king: robed with snow and light, dipping unnumbered points and spires into the thin blue sky, it maintains amid noble companions a perfect and commanding individuality."

The founding of the Sierra Club was to help stop development over natural areas like Hetch Hetchy Valley and it continues to do this type of work today. Where I live in the San Gabriel Valley such a battle has been boiling for the last couple of years over the Whittier Narrows Natural Area--which sits along the bank of the San Gabriel River. The natural area is a wildlife sanctuary in the middle of the suburban expansion and development of San Gabriel Valley and is home to countless species of birds and plants. Currently, there is a plan to build a 14,000 square foot building for a "Discovery Center" (a museum focused on watersheds and life along the river) and a 116 space parking lot over the natural area. The idea of destroying a wildlife sanctuary in order to build a museum educating children on nature is ludicrous and goes against Muir's own belief that the structures of nature are much more spectacular than any structure made by man.

For more on the Whittier Narrows Natural Area or to find out how to help go to Friends of the Whittier Narrows Natural Area.

For more about John Muir and the Sierra Club go to Sierra Club website, which has a fantastic collection of Muir's writings and journals and a great bibliography.

For more on Muir's adventures check out The Wild Muir.




*John Muir's birthday is April 21st, and though he is seen as a father of conservation, the date of Earth Day has no affiliation with John Muir.

Publishing News and a Poem for My Grandmother

I'm excited to share that Writer's at Work has chosen my poem, Ghazal of the Traffic, for their Poem of the Month series. It's great to have one of my "My L.A." poems finally find a home. You can check it out here.

From Ghazal of the Traffic

On a corner a child sells ripe mangos, yellow and green.
She looks familiar, but I have traveled too far in the city.

A hipster girl draped in vintage wails down Hollywood Blvd.
Countless are the broken dreams and scars in the city.

Radio gossip: coke-filled-photos, anorexia, Anna Nicole.
We keep our famous in air-punched-holed jars in the city.

In other news, this past Wednesday, May 11th, marked my grandmother's 90th birthday. That's right, 90! We had a mass to celebrate this past weekend, much like the one we had last year that I wrote about in this post. To commemorate the day, I wrote a little poem about my grandmother. It is a bit of a love letter to my grandmother and to all my cousins. I feel lucky to have had 3 brothers and 15 cousins to grow up with. Like I tell my cousins, Erika and Gloria, at every family wedding (after a couple of rounds of tequila), "I'd kill for you!" Of course, actual blood shed is highly unlikely, but there is little I wouldn't do for my family. I think it also fits into the "My L.A." poems because when I think of L.A., I often think back on weekends spent at my grandmother's home in Boyle Heights.

A shot of my grandmother's front steps.

On the Front Steps

We ate pink and blue ice cream
shaped like feet and rockets
bought from rusty trucks
singing down Fairmont. We gossiped

and giggled into cousins’ ears,
sugary colors dripping onto the
red concrete below us. We watched
the boys play football in the street,

and our grandfather manicure his lawn.
We inhaled the fragrances of orange,
guava, rose, fern, and every other plant
that grew green and full around us.

We grew much the same way
over years, maturing like plants
around her as she nourished us
with tacos de crema, bowls of conflais,

huevos con weenies smothered
in katchun katchun. She tended
to our insatiable bellies with pieces
of chocolate and cookie, and fueled us

with spoons of frijoles from a pot
that never emptied, and like magic
she nursed her little plants
from a tiny kitchen, and we sprouted

into wild creatures too big for front steps.
Knowing we could never be potted
and still, she sent us off with a kiss
and a prayer, “Que Dios lo bendiga,”

and stood at the top of the steps—
yellow light of the house framing her
small body like a saint—to wave us goodbye,
our bellies full, our hearts and minds strong.

My niece, the next generation of little plants.

May 10, 1869: A Date for Railroads and Chinese Immigrants

I learned that today marks the 142nd anniversary of the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad. According to the book The Other Half--a biography about Gilded Age muckraker, Jacob Riis--"35,000 miles [of rail] was in place by the Civil War...By 1869, Americans could take the train from coast to coast." (Buk-Swienty, 48). As many know, the laying of these miles and miles of track from coast to coast was due, in a big part, to the painful and dangerous work taken on by Chinese Immigrants.

KCET Departures has a good article marking the history of our railway system and the contribution of thousands of Chinese immigrants. You can check it out here.

Or you can go here for more on the Transcontinental Railroad and Chinese immigrants.

A Poem by William Archila

Latest News

At work, no one has seen him or his taxi.
Newspapers read, "Juan Márquez Missing:
Any sighting, please contact family."

A few months ago, police led a trail
to graves: some broken bones,
the kind you find in times of war.

In Nicaragua, they remember him,
poet so blue and modern like Dario,
almost a song of swans about to break.

Honduras spoke of him naked, hairless,
barefoot, tobacco skin without toenails
or ears, a man of ants and stray dogs.

Two weeks ago, a boy found a body
dark as eggplant. His wife, worn and rumpled,
could not recognize the blown-out face.

My mother thinks he's deep in the ground,
sleeping with torn clothes, thick,
dank roots spreading over his limbs.

The rumor goes at night in smoky bars
he met Jesus of Nazareth, a red lightbulb
flickering on and off in the corner.

Today I heard he's a bus driver
in L.A., circling long avenues,
parks, the same hotel signs, traffic

lights, the rain that falls at night.
Around ten, a rumor goes he gets lost
in a downtown dive, drinks his shot of gin.

Don Chamba, a shoe shiner from Santa Anita,
gave me the final word the other day.
"To me," he says, "those stories don't mean shit.

By now, after all those small deaths,
he has to be a soiled shoe, a worn-out tire,
aflame, smoking by an empty highway."


This poem is published in William Archila's debut collection: The Art of Exile (Bilingual Press, 2009).

William Archila was born in Santa Ana, El Salvador, in 1968. When he was only twelve, he and his family immigrated to the United States to escape the civil war that was tearing his country apart. He eventually becaem an English teacher and earned his MFA in poetry from University of Oregon. His poems have appeared in Agni, Blue Mesa Review, Crab Orchard Revewi, The Georgia Review, and The Los Angeles Review. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife.

The Art of Exile is the recent winner of the Emerging Writer Fellowship Award from the Writer’s Center and the International Latino Book Award. The Art of Exile was also featured in “First Things First: The Fifth Annual Debut Poets Roundup” — the Jan/Feb 2010 issue of Poets & Writers.

For more on this collection and Salvadorean literature check out Adolfo Guzman-Lopez's KPCC article, "Salvadoran American's Poetry Makes Amends for Silence Over Civil War."

Angel Island Poems

In one of my first posts I talked about the journey of Chinese immigrants through Angel Island in the early half of the 20th century, and shared the book ISLAND: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910-1940. I now realize that I didn't share any of the poetry from the book. Here are two poems from the book that were transcribed and translated from immigrant reflections scribed into the wooden walls of the detention center barracks.

34
For what reason must I sit in jail?
It is only because my country is weak and my family poor.
My parents wait at the door but there is no news.
My wife and child wrap themselves in quilt sighing with loneliness.
Even if my petition is approved and I can enter the country,
When can I return to the Mountains of Tang* with a full load?
From ancient times, those who venture out usually become worthless.
How many people ever return from battles?

*A Cantonese colloquial term for China.


2
Because my house had bare walls, I began rushing all about.
The waves are happy, laughing "Ha-ha!"
When I arrived on Island,* I heard I was forbidden to land.
I could do nothing but frown and feel angry at heaven.

*The colloquial name given to Angel Island by the Cantonese immigrants.


A facet of the immigrant journey that always fascinates me is the willingness to be cast out into the unknown, the decision to be neither here nor there. I often wonder how this decision is made knowing that venturing out might make you "worthless"? Knowing that this country will most likely see you as worthless, no matter your background, because you don't speak the language. I think perhaps because I was born in the this country, I might never understand what can be worth becoming worthless for.