They Did Not Choose That

Young Adult Participant
RISE: A UM Faith Community
March 2013

It’s not fair what family we are born into. I didn't choose my parents or my situation. My kids didn't choose me. The kid who is beaten daily by his father did not choose. The child sold into slavery so her family can eat did not choose that. The mom who has to sell her body to feed her kids did not choose that. The child who’s parents who are being deported did not choose that. The boy who has to run home in fear of being shot did not choose that. The girl who has a warm bed did not choose that. Where I was born I did not choose that, but I choose now to speak up, to stand with and fight alongside those who did not get to choose.

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Shannon
Wofford College
January 2013

Chain link fences intertwined in a defensive barrier. Like chainmail, tough, combative, destructive. What divisions are we creating? Divisions out of fear with safety in mind? Or is it a lack of understanding of what lies just beyond the fence? This chain link fence is not wooden. It has holes in it for opportunities to poke through. We can see what is on the other side bet we cannot grasp it, only the mere idea of it. Where are the wire cutters? Where is the sulfuric acid to eat away at these barriers and bring us together? We are family. A family temporarily divided but soon that will end. Change is coming. Are you ready? The cutting edge is only getting sharper.

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Student Participant
UCM Columbus
May 2012

A dark old wizened face smiles out at me with his dark eyes through Coke bottle thick glasses, a laugh ringing out between yellow teeth as we watch the evening news. I ask him what he thinks about immigration. Like the man on the television is talking about and he says in his clear southern tone “Channa, people is people no matter where they live. People is just tryin to get by an feed their families.” I recalled this image in the faces of the migrant workers, tired, worked to the bone and think of what he might have said and how he might have answered their questions and of what his response would be to “what do I do next?”

Facing Life as a Minority

Mary, Adult Leader
Unity Center
March 2012

The spoken language is beautiful
 its sound lilting

It makes my ears go down different paths
makes them work
makes my listening more useful

But when my Hispanic friends laugh
I don't get the joke

Can I laugh just because
well, just because they're my friends?

I don't know.

From My Mom’s Perspective

Maria, Youth
Unity Center
March 2012

My children are important to me. I can’t let life go by with them around me. These are times I want to cry. To think my children aren’t going to have their rights given by God by the time these political wars end. To live in a nation in which I moved to escape physical hurt, where discrimination is somehow legal. Tears my soul to see a nation that was established for freedom turn into a nation of unfairness and despise. I want to do something to speak with a person who can carry the message to the president but to not speak the language they will never hear me. All I can do is encourage my daughters and sons to become involved and speak out to society about these things that tear soul and kill life. I sometimes ask where is God in these times, but I stop myself. God gave me my children. God gave me life. God gave me courage and a voice.

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Gaby, Youth
Unity Center
March 2012

I sit and think about the day they took my oldest brother away. We had left our country due to war and famine. To seek better opportunity in the land of liberty and freedom. But now that he is gone it seems so unfair. My mother cries constantly and hopes he is well. Life isn’t the same since he left. I miss those happy days of not worrying just happiness. Maybe one day we will reunite again but until that day I will continue to worry for him.

Last Time

Patty, Adult Leader
Unity Center
March 2012

Today is my last time to see coconuts under palm fronds, Coquina crunching underfoot, to feel sea breeze skimming wave foam, to smell onions and peppers frying in my mother’s kitchen and to touch her wrinkled hand at close of day. I am leaving and may never come back.

Alien, Illegal, Undocumented

Mary, Adult Leader
Unity Center
March 2012

Alien
Afraid
Arrested
To make your money for your happy day

Illegal
Determined
Locked away
Can you help my dream for a happy day?

Undocumented
Wondering
Claiming new roots
Hoping to find my happy day

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Jesus, Youth
Unity Center
March 2012

For me, the most important thing is being able to further my studies like anyone else can. I’ve been here for 3/4 of my life and haven’t even gotten a chance to see the rest of my family in Mexico because my family couldn’t return for me to finish school and college and all that. I’m basically White on the inside. I usually correct the “Americans” on their own grammar most of the time. I feel like I and any other “illegal” who wants to follow a career path should be able to do so. Education shouldn’t be something that is limited to only legal residents. Basically denying young adults of an education would be taking away the dream of most immigrants, the American one where if you work hard you will succeed. Even if an illegal works hard through all their adolescent years their adult years will be filled with struggling to find employers that will have an undocumented to work for them.

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Rev. Linda Troy
West Ohio Interns 2011

We came from Guatemala 11 years ago. We came looking for work for my husband. We live in these small houses tucked away, a few obscure streets surrounded by wealthy neighborhoods. No one really knows we are here, and we like it that way.
I’ve heard that a nearby church gives away food and we can buy clothing inexpensively. I’ve never gone to this place, because I am afraid—I’m afraid because I don’t speak the language, and I don’t know these people I know if I should trust them.
One day I heard the church would welcome us to come and shop at this store. I went with my husband, my friend, and our little children. I was shy about coming in to the store, and the people in the store didn’t seem to know what to say to me. I felt self conscious as they showed me around, seemingly welcoming us but it was awkward nonetheless. My husband kept the children outside and let them play on the church playground. I wondered if that was okay.
This new home where we live, I wonder if we will ever be truly welcome. Will it ever be truly home?

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Rebecca Farnum
Third Year Undergraduate, Michigan State University
Participant in GBCS Seminar Spring Break 2011

So many people climb up my stairs
Ride up my elevators
To see DC as I do
To see the city in its splendor
From my heights they look to the White House, the Capitol, the Potomac
They revel in the stone glory of their national home
But they don't see all that I see
From my heights I see the city
The people
The life that is DC
I see the White House, the Capitol Building, the other monuments
But they are but a blip on the radar
Most of my sight, most of my city
Is composed of people
Living, working
Loving, dying
People whose only crime is to live in a city without representation
People who come to the capitol of freedom and are rejected
People who walk past buildings with the words "Equality" and "Justice" every day
But there is no justice
The is no equality
There is only hope
Hope that one day the land of the free will live in freedom
For all
For mothers and children and brothers and uncles
For white and black and rich and poor
For the immigrants who came here illegally and the immigrants who came before there was a law to break
For the working poor and the unworking rich
I see people
Sharing food, offering shelter
Telling stories, laughing together
I see people.
As the many people of this nation look through my high windows,
I see them. I hear them.
And I see and hear the people they have failed to see and hear.
I watch over this city, this people
And I wish them well. I wish them hope.
I wish them freedom.

Janessa-Student
St. Pauls School of YouTheology
June 10, 2011

Violence

Student
St. Pauls School of YouTheology
June 10, 2011

Violence
I have seen how women, mothers, sisters, friends, girlfriends scream for someone that is not here anymore
So the cartel, a gang or just for pleasure kill HIM.
I have seen all kinds of violence how the number of dead people increase in my city and how each family lose a member, a love one.
I have seen how people try to cross the border in a search for a dream, a dream that will give his family a better life but in the way they face obstacles, and some ones do not even arrive to his American dream.
People is dying out there for drugs or even worse for a paper saying that he is NOT an American Citizen. People of all the races, colors and citizenship stay in the middle of his dream.
Violence is not affecting the person who receive it, but also the people around him, his love ones…
I have seen all this violence, death people in the way to school.
Decapitated people in the news
Friends of mine are not here anymore,
Others still fight in the hospital
Without NO HOPE from the doctors to survive.
I’m afraid to stop feeling and become a cold person and that this make me feel like this is NORMAL when is NOT.
I want to change the world but I cannot do it by my own.

Ashley Manns-Student
St. Pauls School of YouTheology
June 10, 2011

I’m in a world of violence, and sometimes don’t know how to fix it. It has gotten so out of hand. Racism and discrimination everywhere, I just hate it. I want it all to stop. I can’t do it by myself, I need some help. Will you help me? We can end racial profiling and end the incarcerations of immigrants, make life better and safer for all.

Kara- Student
St. Pauls School of YouTheology
June 10, 2011

Violence is really bad. It is not just physical violence that hurts, but also emotional violence. People go through violence every day, but we do not usually hear about it. Our government is trying to “protect us”. I think if they really wanted to protect us, then they should tell us what is going on in violent places so we can do something about it. For example, I never knew how bad the journey across the border really was until I met the LPI girls. I blame it on the gov. When the government doesn’t tell us the truth it is like they are hiding something because they are doing something wrong. What I have learned is that we have to raise awareness about what is truly happening because if we wait for the government to tell us then we will be waiting for a long time, maybe even forever.

The Mexican Mafia Member

Anonymous Participant

My name is Hector Sanchez
I am an illegal immigrant
Living in the U.S. in Tuscan, AZ. Back home I have a wife,
2 little girls, and a newborn son suffering from asthma.
We are very poor, that is why I had no choice but
To join the Drug Cartels because no help was given to me to support my family.
The system has failed to acknowledge my situation just like many others,
So it was a matter of life and death. Some may call me evil, but I had no
Other choice.

Someday

Anonymous Participant


How does one know what is true?
How do I know what I should do
So much pain, and, trouble, and strife
When will we realize, it’s not just a number, it’s actually a life
Questions are bountiful, solutions are hard
But no matter what, immigrants are no just objects to discard
Guide us Oh Lord and show us the way
That we’ll all treat eachothers like
Brothers and sisters, somehow, someday

Who Would Jesus Deport?

Aislinn Maier
Kansas Disciples Seminar; March 13-14, 2008

The farm was in my family for over 10 generations. Suddenly, the big corporate farms were allowed to be competition with us, I simply couldn’t keep up. I had to sell the farm to feed my family. When that money ran out, I had no choice; it was either cross the border, risking my life to find work or watch my family starve. Although not an easy one, the choice was clear. I had to do whatever it took to keep my family alive. Then when I get here I am seen and treated as an enemy to nearly everyone I meet. I only want to work until I can figure out a way to return to my family. Why is it no one seems to understand or even care?

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Anonymous

Another uneventful patrol, nothing really special, Just a lot of sand. The other guys caught a group trying to cross the border. It’s actually kind of sad really, these people trying to get in. I can’t fault them for trying to get in. But the people that bring them across, those I hate. They circumvent the system and profit from it. I hope we can nail these guys…

Talk About a Dream

Amanda Shackford
Savannah Wesley Foundation; 2008

Talk about a dream festering in the sun…I tried to get away and survive, the right way, you know legally. But I am told I have to wait and I’m telling you I Can’t. How can I watch my family be put in such danger. The government of my country will kill me. But they don’t care, how can they depict the fear that entails this brutal regime. They don’t worry about my people those Americans they talk about what to eat or what to wear—Not how to flee for their lives and much less, how to get food and water.