Only Us

I first read Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" during my sophomore year of high school for an English class. I remember pouring through the letter and annotating every paragraph for an assignment. Pretty sure I wrote a few papers on it - but I think I mostly analyzed King's use of metaphor rather than the actual message of the letter.

I spent this long weekend (courtesy of Dr. King) in Tijuana, Mexico, as part of an immersion experience through LMU called De Colores. The trip focused on issues at the border, and I had the great privilege of being able to go to Mexico for the first time. I volunteered with Build a Miracle to help paint and furnish a home for a family, and I visited with migrants at Casa del Migrante.

Ultimately, the weekend was not at all about volunteering. The reality is, the house could have been painted without me, and the migrants don't have any obligation to share their stories with anyone. Instead, the weekend was more about accompaniment, an idea we talk about a lot at LMU. Since my love language is quality time, I absolutely love this idea of accompaniment - spending time with people and truly listening to their perspective.

The best parts of De Colores were the phone-free car rides to and from Mexico (we all gave up our phones as part of the experience), the delicious food made and shared generously in El Florido and at Casa del Migrante, the quiet conversations in rusty Spanish and broken English, the moments in silence when we ran out of words to speak.

Still, the overwhelming sense of helplessness I felt over the weekend was incredibly heavy. At Casa del Migrante, I spoke with a man who was barely able to communicate that he had been deported to Mexico even though he was from Africa and does not speak Spanish or English. More men than I can count told me about the years they spent in America prior to deportation and spoke of the wives and children they left behind, some in neighborhoods not far from my campus in Los Angeles. I cried when one man told our group that he believed in our futures and in the grace of God, even though he hasn't seen his daughter in decades. These people have waited years for justice.

When I returned to Los Angeles, to my beautiful home on the bluff, to my meal plan and full closet, I felt so sheepishly grateful for the things I take for granted. I reread "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" and was struck by this passage:

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

On our last day, we arrived at Border State Park just south of San Diego, with plans to make the mile trek to Friendship Park - an exposed part of the border wall where family members pilgrimage to talk to each other through the holes. The park was closed, and I was upset because I had wanted to see the beach.

As we sat beneath a section of the wall in the park, I felt a wave of deep shame as I watched car after car of families drive up and then turn around when they realized they could not access this one place where they can communicate with family members. And to think I was upset about not getting to go to the beach.

Throughout this experience, I was reminded of a critical theory essay I read over the summer called "Ghostly Matters" by Avery Gordon. She has two key points in the essay. First, she describes how life is complicated and any effort to try to explain it will be reductionist. This rang true over and over again. The people I met are so often reduced by American media and politics to numbers and statistics, and yet, they each had deeply nuanced and complex stories. We cannot reduce people to stereotypes or single stories.

Second, Gordon writes about what she calls "ghostly matters," a sort of generational collection of experiences passed inexplicably among relatives and communities. There is generational trauma, as well as generational resilience. I went into De Colores expecting to see generational trauma, but I was confronted by such generational resilience instead. A thriving community center robotics team, students committing to colleges, women attending graduate school and returning to serve their community, colleagues on the trip sharing their own stories of migration, people determined to return to their families no matter the cost.

I expressed to my group one night how I am not a very hopeful person. I tend toward realism on good days and cynicism on bad ones. This experience broke my heart in so many ways, especially because I do not see solutions for these problems, and I struggle to see how I can contribute anything. My majors in dance and English suddenly seem selfish, my worries about post graduate life petty.

One of the trip leaders shared a quote about hope from St. Augustine (who I have mixed feelings about, but bear with me because this quote is good). He says:

Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are Anger and Courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.

I am both angry and courageous, albeit often far more angry, and these are the ingredients of hope. I don't have any answers, but I care about continuing to educate myself, and I hope that my path will cross into advocacy. I hope that I can use dance and writing to share glimpses of these complex issues.

If you've read this far in my blog, thank you. Share this story. Read about Casa del Migrante and Build a Miracle. Call your representatives. Vote on behalf of human dignity. Work to identify and challenge the assumptions you may hold about people around the world.

It is great privilege to be able to go to Mexico and return to the United States, one I do not take lightly. It is an even greater privilege to be able to sit in my warm apartment and write about my experience with little consequence.

Dr. King has strong words for those who sit on their privilege and do not take action on issues of racism and classism. I always hold my breath a little when I read the part of his letter that says:

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

In honor of Dr. King, in honor of Tijuana and the communities I met, I dare to say, this cannot wait. Life is too short. People are too valuable. Our earth is too precious.

"There is no 'them' and 'us.' There is only us." Father Greg Boyle, Society of Jesus