In Lak'ech - Julia Munson

In Lak’ech
Tu eres mi otro yo - You are my other me.
Si te hago daño a ti - If I do harm to you,
Me hago daño a mi mismo. - I do harm to myself.
Si te amo y respeto - If I love and respect you,
Me amo y respeto yo. - I love and respect myself.

In the Hopes and Dreams Room at Ochoa Elementary, we begin every meal with this poem. Around the Border Studies Program lately, it’s become a reminder to ground ourselves. We began our symposium with it this evening by asking all those who have supported us this semester to read it with us. The voices together rang louder than I imagined they would, and, as I am often in this program, I was swept over by a wave of thankfulness. This semester has not always been easy and I wouldn’t have wanted it that way. The world is a tough, violent place in many ways. Yet there is so much to be thankful for. Three of the students in the Hopes and Dreams Room came to our symposium tonight with their families, to say goodbye and thank you as I strove to find the words for what they mean to me.

As we prepare to leave the borderlands, I have been thinking often on community, of how those first days my time here seemed so short, how it seemed so impossible that I would develop relationships of such deep respect and gratitude with people I would see only for a few hours a week for fifteen weeks. Yet I have. The students, families, and teachers at my field study have taught me so much about how to be graciously and bravely in the world, how to stand up for what you believe in, and how to stand in solidarity. They have taught me to sing to pollitos, to run around the playground, and to find incredible joy in encountering insects in the compost. They have taught me to laugh, to imagine the world in new ways, to move beyond the fear of putting myself out there.

I have learned to step out of my comfort zone, to approach others with “Buenos días. ¿Como esta Ud.?” before they approach me. I have learned to introduce myself, to explain my existence in a place rather than seeking to hide it, to say goodbye with wholehearted thanks every time. This transformation has been a radical process, radical as in roots; the roots of strong relationships start in these actions, in cultivating that sense of respect. It’s been a matter of decolonizing my mind, of reaffirming our potential to connect in a world that seeks to divide us.

Protect Chuk Shon, Rio Nuestro NOT Rio Nuevo - Sophie Kazis

Last Saturday, activists and community members gathered at Verdugo Park in Barrio Kruger Lane to oppose the Rio Nuevo Board and its attempt to develop the Chuk Shon land––the sacred birthplace of Tucson––for private profit. This land has a very long history, as Chuk Shon is the longest continuously inhabited land in North America. It has been farmed and inhabited for over 4,000 years––holding within its desert soil the heritage of indigenous folks, Chicano/as, and working class people for years and years. What the Rio Board wants to do is develop and gentrify this land, which would disrespect the land’s heritage, displace the local residents in the surrounding neighborhoods (one of which is Barrio Kruger Lane), and ecologically destroy the land. Tucson activist and Barrio Kruger Lane resident, James Patrick Jordan, explains, “What the Rio Nuevo Board wants is not only displacement, but a new colonialism.”

The Rio Nuevo Board, which is unelected by the public, was appointed by Governor Jan Brewer and Senator Russell Peirce––both advocates of SB1070. The board’s chair, Jodi Bain, is a lawyer for Munger Chadwick and Associates, a firm of NAFTA lawyers. To add insult to injury, John Munger, of Munger Chadwick, has been a loud opponent of Ethnic Studies, a position antithetical with the values and wishes of community members in areas surrounding Chuk Shon. The board also includes SB1070 supporter Jonathan Paton and Rosemont Copper lobbyist and Republican candidate for mayor, Rick Grinnell. This group wants to sue the City of Tucson not only for the ownership of the Chuk Shon land, but also for $47 million––taxpayer’s money nonetheless.

Everything the Rio Nuevo Board stands for goes against the values of those for whom the land is sacred. The board has only its own profiteering interests in mind, and cares nothing of the site’s indigenous, Chicano/a, and working class history. In opposing the Rio Nuevo board, we are also resisting the militarization, criminalization, and dehumanization of the community. As I am a Tucson implant, and cannot claim Chuk Shon’s history as my own, I join in solidarity with those directly affected by the actions of the Rio Nuevo Board in saying: “Our land, our community, and our freedom is NOT for sale! So thank you very much.”

On our Protect Chuk Shon – Rio Nuestro NOT Rio Nuevo Facebook page, you will find this statement:

"Thousands have taken to the streets all over in the Occupy Movement and the world watches with many people answering the calls to take a stand. We in the occupied city of Tucson live under an increased atmosphere of colonized oppression through private prisons, border militarization, deaths in our desert, police brutality, and hate laws like SB1070 and HB2281. These measures that attack our communities, destroy our schools, and ruin our health have been financed by large corporations and banks who have also contributed to the collapse of housing markets and unemployment in Arizona. We in Arizona are motivated to act in support of the Occupy movement, but seek to do this through addressing the need for systemic change in our local community. Fighting against the AZ State appointed and unelected RIO NUEVO Board while making an alternative solution for this ancestral land that respects historical, cultural, and indigenous values is our way to make this local struggle in solidarity with the global fight against capitalist oppression and economic inequality all over the world. JOIN US!!"

The Nov. 12 unity event/teach-in was very successful. The day started with a land beautification/earth-decolonization effort, in which people pulled up buffalo grass at the Chuk Shon site. Buffalo grass in a non-native invasive species that has displaced many native species, like the Mexican poppy. Then there was a blessing on the land, and a procession from Chuk Shon to Verdugo Park across the river, lead by the powerful dancers of Danza Cuauhtémoc. The day proceeded with speakers and teach-ins by indigenous activists, Barrio residents, local musicians, and many other people/groups as well. There was food and festivities, and activities for children. The event concluded with a community discussion to decide on a plan of action and talk about where we want to go next in our fight to reclaim and renew the Chuk Shon land for the community, NOT for the private interests of the Rio Nuevo Board. The event last Saturday was just the beginning of our fight to protect and decolonize Chuk Shon. Rio Nuestro, NOT Rio Nuevo!

Remembering Not to Forget: Imposed Forgetfulness in the Age of Neoliberalism - Sophie Kazis

During our trip along the western portion of the U.S.-Mexico border, it became clear that neoliberal development schemes fundamentally necessitate the social construction of invisible, or forgotten, communities. In her article “Climate Justice,” Ashley Dawson uses Hurricane Katrina as a lens into “the structural nature of invisibility”. She explains Rob Nixon’s concept of “unimagined communities,” which describes “populations who find no place in neoliberalism but whose existence is nevertheless an integral part of it.” The very existence of development in its current form depends on an ignorance about and normalization of its ugly consequences––whether that be potter’s graves, mass fish die-offs in the Salton Sea, or the struggle for basic survival of the Cucapá community in El Mayor. These are the harsh realities that we are not meant to see; and if we do see them, we are taught to believe that such consequences are the “natural” sacrifices our society must make, and with sacrifice comes benefits. But with every stop on our travel seminar, we witnessed “unimagined communities” that people benefitting from the current globalized, neoliberalized world would prefer were kept hidden. Invisibility is constructed in many ways, some of which include: enclosing the commons/displacement of peoples and ecosystems; pollution; conservation efforts; and the loss of traditional knowledge over time, through migration as well as acts of cultural imperialism and genocide.

As I celebrated Día de los Muertos about a week ago, I couldn’t help but think about the third day of our travel seminar, when we visited a potter’s grave. I remember pulling up to a grassy cemetery in Holtville, California, sprinklers on to keep the grass growing green. We walked to the far side of the cemetery where we stepped over a chain, separating the “official” cemetery from the sinking ground behind it. There, we found rows and rows of potter’s graves, single bricks marked Jane and John Doe. This potter’s grave is the burial ground for unidentified migrants who died crossing the desert. Killed directly by “the funnel affect” of U.S. immigration policy, these individuals are then buried far out of the public eye, with only a disintegrating brick to mark their lives and their deaths. The potter’s grave is a micro-example of the large-scale, structural displacement of peoples due to socio-economic foreign policy, and the government’s successful attempt at hiding the ugly costs of their violent legislation.

The costs of displacement are not easy to witness. The potter’s grave was in despicable condition. We were told to walk along the outskirts of the potter’s grave, as to avoid the graves sinking in beneath our feet. Handmade crosses lay broken and fallen down throughout the makeshift cemetery: a past attempt by people at bringing some small semblance of dignity to those forgotten and forgotten again. The John and Jane Does buried in Holtville are hidden people¬¬. Many of them were crossing the desert to become hidden workers in the U.S. In the process, they died in the harsh and hidden desert, and today are buried in a hidden cemetery. There is no room for dignity in neoliberal development, and thus, it is imperative that we remember not to forget. We must remember not forget the migrants buried in Holtville, the migrants working everyday in hidden jobs throughout the U.S., and the undocumented people being locked up and hidden away in detention centers and prisons every single day.

Joseph Nevins has a Border Wars blog post called “Holtville, California on the Day of the Dead,” in which he explains that each year on Día de los Muertos, people gather at the potter’s field to remember those who have died in the desert, at the hands of U.S. immigration policy. This is a powerful image, and perhaps more of us should spend our days actively remembering those who are actively forgotten, or “unimagined.”

"You Can Break Me, but Please Don't Break My Family": A Greyhound Story - Ian Flanagan

If you had looked for me Friday night last Halloween weekend, you would have found me dressed as the Scooby Doo of a Mystery Gang-themed group out on the town, lightheartedly hopping the plentiful parties as critical to Halloween for college students as candy and animal costumes are for kindergarteners. If you had looked for me the year before, you would have found me cruising on a Greyhound bus through 300 miles of cornfields to University of Iowa to surprise a friend on his birthday and stay up all night watching Arrested Development. If you looked for me on Halloween weekend’s opening night last night, however, you would have found me in a similar-looking Greyhound Station to the one I stepped off in a bus into at Iowa City two years ago, but for a very different purpose.

The other Border Studies students and I spent our Friday night at Tucson’s slightly creepy and chillingly cold Greyhound Station with the local peace and justice house Casa Mariposa. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) has a nasty habit of releasing undocumented detainees from nearby immigration prisons at the Greyhound Station late at night without money, phones, food, or a place to stay if they can’t get on a bus, and the house sends volunteers every night to lend a helping hand and listen to detainees’ stories.

We passed the ICE prisoner-transit van on the way in, a big pick-up truck with a cramped armored compartment on the back that looks like it’d be difficult to fit kids in, much less the adult men who typically get picked up for immigration violations. Only three men got out of the van, a light evening—often 15 or more people spill out of ICE’s armored clown cars—and as the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series on the TV, we waited around awkwardly with our boxes of food and water and our cell phones ready to lend until the three of them came inside.

At first, I thought that not much could come out of talking to just three released detainees. An hour or two in the station proved me wrong.

My fairly limited Spanish kept conversation with two of the men somewhat utilitarian, as the men borrowed our phones; turned down food, as ICE had, for once, fed prisoners before releasing them; and bought bus tickets to Phoenix and California with money their families had wired. In spite of the language barrier, however, we had some notable conversations.

The man off to Phoenix was quiet. He was from El Salvador and had been stopped while driving in Arizona and turned over to ICE (a process that’s in legal limbo in the state). He had been released with a court date because, due to an obscure bit of 1980s immigration law, he could be considered a refugee, as he left his country while it was still in civil war. He had been in immigration prison for two years and two months, and seemed dazed to be outside.

The man off to California was more talkative. He was from Mexico and had been released on bond with an immigration court date. He had papers to be here but didn’t have them on hand when stopped by California police, who turned him over to ICE (an illegal detention and a process California law doesn’t actually provide for). Of his four U.S.-born children, one is serving in the Army, one in the Navy, and one in Marine Corps, with the last stationed in Iraq. And this detail is a little silly to have taken such notice of, but it struck me perhaps the most of all that the man works as a strawberry picker, one of the legion of invisible workers who help provide my favorite food, somebody your average upper-middle-class college student depends on but never sees in the flesh.

The longest conversation I had, however, was with someone I wouldn’t have expected to see in immigration custody: a Mormon from Fiji living in Oakland, California who spoke perfect English. (I felt more than a little bit stupid when I first addressed him in Spanish.) He had been arrested at home when his wife called the police during an argument. She immediately dropped the complaint, but he was found by Secure Communities—a Homeland Security program that searches out undocumented immigrants in local prisons (some convicted of crimes, many simply detained for a short time) in prisons and transfers them to ICE custody for deportation—and sent to one of Arizona’s many immigration detention centers.

He had spent the past several months working one of ICE’s $1/day jobs in a prison where $7 buys a 12-minute phone card, $4 buys a single serving of coffee creamer, $3 buys a packet of ketchup, and $70 buys a tiny dollar-store radio. (He showed us the prison’s price list, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bigger racket—the only thing which didn’t cost 10x its market value was the postage stamps sold at face value.) The guards from the prison’s private security contractor treated prisoners well, even bringing in forbidden items past Homeland Security. ICE employees, on the other hand, treated detainees as both inferiors and criminals, especially the man I talked to, because the police had put the label Domestic Violence on his case. (Perhaps the most chilling quotation from an ICE agent I heard that night was: “So you like to hurt the females? Well, you can do that in your own country; go back and do it there, not here.”)

Detainees lived in fear of “segregation” (i.e. being put in living quarters with suspected gang members), and had to bargain their only personal items, shoes and watches, for access to phone cards. ICE personnel spent much of their time trying to get immigrants to sign voluntary-deportation forms in clumsy bits of subterfuge. But perhaps the most heart-rending thing I heard from this father of five was his description of the first time he went in front of a judge in detention, making the plea I can easily imagine making in his position: “You can break me, but please don’t break my family.” I wanted to ask what he thought his chances were in immigration court in California, but I knew it was more important just to listen…how much else can you do for someone in the situation?

As we left, I thought back to when we were driving to the Greyhound Station that night: I had half-wished I was back at the college for an evening of festivities, or even hanging out at Tucson’s costumed Halloween parade we passed on the way. But just shaking that man’s hand before he got on his 18-hour Greyhound ride to Oakland was more than I could have asked from a holiday so full of frivolity as Halloween.