They come to CAFEMIN one at a
time—singly or in family groups. They come from Guatemala,
Honduras, Venezuela. They are alone and rarely have enough money.
Each has traveled a different path to get here, to this refugee
center in Mexico City. They have all left behind stories, some more
horrific than others. They are all starting over. All come with
nothing but their suitcase and the clothes on their back.
They are refugees, potential immigrants
to Mexico or Canada or to the United States. Already they are hated
and despised by the most radical on the Right Wing of their country’s
politics.
Here are a few of their stories.
Maria January
28th, 2014
I have never met
Maria, but I do know her two sons. The boys are 10 and 12 and are
living at CAFEMIN without their mother. The boys, along with their
mother and two younger sister, have been living at the center
throughout the fall. Like many we see, they are Honduran. Two weeks
before I arrive I'm told that the mother left Mexico City and
traveled to the US border where she handed over her two youngest
children to border officials who then gave them to an aunt waiting on
the other side. These children were born in the USA and have an
American father.
The boys, on the
other hand, have a Honduran father, and will have to process into the
United States in the conventional manner.
Mom has left them
behind. At least she knows that they are safe at CAFEMIN. Once she
knew her two daughters were safe, she returned to Mexico, and hired a
coyote to lead her across the desert separating Mexico with
the USA. She will enter the country illegally, if she survives the
crossing. Many have died.
For weeks there is
no contact. The nuns, who have to maintain psychological distance
between themselves and their clients, are more concerned than usual.
The two boys are still at CAFEMIN and no one knows when or how Mom
will make contact.
And then one day
there is contact. Mom has entered the US—illegally of course. By
now the boys are living elsewhere, perhaps with extended family in
Mexico City or have entered into the Mexican foster care system.
Hardly the best thing for them.
By May, when I
leave, everything is still in limbo, but I often think of this woman.
WE know that life in Honduras has become intolerable...and
dangerous. What could be so bad to drive this woman to escape, leave
everything behind, including her two sons, to reach a place where she
knows she will be safe.
It's a problem few
of us will ever have to face.
Carla
February 8th, 2014
Maybe she’s 35. No more than 40.
She’s alone. How she got to Mexico City from Honduras is a mystery.
She tells me that she had a good job in Tegucigalpa, the capital.
But there is more to her story, and as the winter unfolds she tells
me…
She tells me she watched her mother
shot dead in front of her several years ago. She tells me the
assassins shot her in the head and left her for dead. She tells of
surviving but then living in fear. She tells me of her decision to
left her entire known world behind her and come to a country where
she won’t be targeted.
She does not tell me these stories
overnight. They unfold over the course of two months. She’s helped
me, more than once, in the library.
One day I come, another Monday, and
she’s gone. The nuns have done what they can to get her papers in
order, find her enough money to live on until she can find a job,
help her find an apartment.
Then she’s really on her own. At
least she speaks Spanish, yet she’s left her first world behind,
then the security of her second home at the refugee center.
Roberto and his family
Feast of St. Joseph, March 19th,
2014
Mom is in her ninth months of
pregnancy. They already have two children—a sweet and gentle
little boy who’s no more than two years old and a daughter who’s
five or six. CAFEMIN is joyfully buzzing with activity. The
nuns—Sisters of St. Joseph--have hosted a breakfast and dinner in
honor of their patron saint. There is a festive air about the day.
Roberto and his family have come from a
small village in Honduras. They've escaped. “He saw too much,”
Sister Mirian tells me. Drug cartels are destroying the country, and
country that was already on the brink before these warlords took
control. In November they decide to leave. They have little money,
no form of transportation. They walk...she pregnant, he carrying the
littlest child, who often had to walk...over mountains, through
jungles.
Somehow they get to Mexico and arrive
at CAFEMIN just before Christmas. Here they are protected, fed,
sheltered. For the three months they live at the Center they are
primed by the Refugee agencies as to what to tell the Americans at
the border, where they will seek political asylum.
What I do not know is that this is the
family’s last day. After lunch, we gather in a circle around the
family. A priest is at the center and he blesses them, asks God's
safety upon them as they travel to Matamoris, on the Mexican/Texas
border. Almost everyone is crying. It's hard to say goodbye to
people you've lived with intimately for three months.
I am not involved with this family, but
I gather with the group. I'm able to observe this small drama from
an emotional distance.
The metaphor of what I'm seeing isn't
lost on me. The whole event has a strong Biblical overtone. She's
pregnant. He's responsible for the care of his wife and two young
children. Like Joseph, whose feast day we are celebrating, he's now
charged with a form of exile—traveling not to Egypt, but to the
United States. The nuns and refugee agency who's helped them all
along act as angels. Like the Holy Family, they are escaping, too.
We hear from them until they arrive at
the border—36 hours later. And then...nothing.
All we know is that they crossed the
border. It is assumed that the US has taken the initial steps in
granting them political asylum.
But it's as if they've been sucked into
a black hole.
It is one of the hard things about
CAFEMIN. We never really know what happens to people once they
leave.
David February 20th, 2014
Robert is as American as apple pie, but
he's classified as stateless.
He tells me he was born in Mexico about
70 years ago, lived on the streets and was ultimately brought to
Texas by a Mexican family, is educated there, then returns to
Veracruz where he's been living for the past forty years. One day,
about two years ago, he says, the Mexican authorities ask him for
proof of residence. He has none. He then falls into the “system,”
is ultimately sent to Mexico City where Refugee organizations try to
piece together his story.
There is no evidence of this man in
either Mexico or the United States. He has no passport, no proof of
birth in either place.
We become friends, although, in time, I
learn to keep my distance. There are huge holes in his stories.
He
speaks no Spanish, which is hard to believe, considering he's lived
in Mexico for forty years. He says he was from Texas, but he's got a
solid Philadelphia accent. He seems far more educated than he says
he is.
We have lunch together one day at the
end of my time at CAFEMIN. He tells me he's living on the street. I
know he's reliant on a soup kitchen for his main meal. We are both
Senior Citizens, and I feel his predicament more the week I turn 65.
I have Social Security and a great pension. I have assets, both
liquid and in good investments. He has nothing.
The Aid agencies have given up on him.
There are too many discrepancies in his stories, too many times he's
contradicted himself. I want to ask him...”what are you running
away from, what is it you're not telling them?”
But I don't. Like all my relationships
with refugees, I simply accept them for who they are and for what
they are willing to tell me. I have long ago learned to do what the
nuns do...provide shelter, provide a safe place to live and bestow
upon them love and dignity.
I cannot imagine myself, who I see in
David, in this situation.
Macario and Tere, Lili and
Derek March 24th, 2014
So few Americans
come through CAFEMIN that when they do Sister Mirian always tells me.
They are from
Venezuela, and because Macario is American it's become too dangerous
to live in the country he's called home for ten years. They leave
everything behind—her family, his dad. Their home and jobs.
Madero, the new “president” has made it too precarious for the
family to continue living in Maricaibo. They leave on one of the
last international flights out of the country.
I come to love
this family—all of them—and of all the folks whose lives have
intersected with mine at CAFEMIN, it's these people I miss the most.
On the Saturday
before Easter I am included in the Baptism of their two children.
There are dressed in white—Derek in a snappy white suit and Lili in
a lovely white dress. There is something very special about watching
older children take this sacrament. Unlike a baby, they have some
idea of what is happening.
All day Macario has
been cooking, and that evening there is a party for the twenty guests
who've been invited. A long table has been set in the center of the
compound. We ate spaghetti and salad. There are balloons and a big
cake.
Because
it's Easter, I have baskets for the two children. I've been telling
them that the Easter Bunny--el
conjejo de Pascua--is a
friend of mine and that maybe he'd come to Mexico if I asked him to.
Like all the children who come through here, there is no culture of
the Easter Rabbit, so it's always fun to introduce him.
At a lull in the
party, I shout down. Vino el conjeo, vino el conjeo. The
Easter Bunny's come. They race upstairs to the library and attack
the goodies he's left behind.
Later, when I see
Macario, he tells me they were on a sugar high for days. A happy,
happy memory.
There is great
hope for this family. Because of them is American, the “system”
will take less time. Interestingly, it's the children who will need
to petition the US government for their mother to come to the United
States.
I know we will
keep in touch.
Los Mutilados April 8th, 2014
A few day before
the “mutilados” arrive, I'm asked if I can come in early to help
out with feeding a large group of Honduran men who've come to Mexico
City in hopes of meeting with the president, Pena Nieto.
“Mutilados” is
not a word I know so I have to ask around. It's a cognate, I learn,
but why on earth would I think of anyone as mutilated. Just who are
these mutilated ones?
I'm stunned when I
arrive very early the next morning. There are, perhaps, 40
men—mostly on the young end. Each of them has lost a limb, or
limbs. Talk about politically incorrect language. Calling a group
of people “mutilated” is beyond my scope of correct usage in
English, and even in Spanish I'm told it's crude. But that's the
term they go by.
I”m more than
curious, so I seek out Mauricio. He's got the scoop. Each of these
men had been on a train somewhere in Mexico. They were riding the
train illegally, assumedly heading north to the Mexican/American
border. When they were discovered, each had been thrown off the
moving train. They tell of the many, many more who died on impact.
They are the “lucky” ones—the ones who didn't die, the ones who
survived the loss of a leg, or an arm, or two legs and an arm, or a
leg, a half a leg.
The whole story is
hideous, and I'm shocked that this sort of thing still exists.
They have traveled
in a group--all of them walking or relying on transport from generous
folks.
They've given DF
advance warning, and the entire scope of Mexico City media has
descended on CAFEMIN. They've even been given limo service to get
around.
All the want is to
meet the president, tell him what happened, and ask that it doesn't
happen again. The media seems to be on their side.
But they never do
meet with the president. They get close, but never into his office.
I'm told it's a
public embarrassment to Mexico. The government offers them money,
free houses, a visa to come and live in Mexico. But that is not
what they want. They want the promise that this will not happened
again, but apparently that's not promised.
The day before
they leave, a massive rain storm blows in. No one can leave the
compound. Wind howls, rain descends in sheets. Then, as soon as it
begins, it changes...to hail.
Hail descends in
huge balls. The entire compound is covered in inches of white stuff.
There's so much it
looks like snow.
So what's a child
of the north supposed to do with this?
I start making
small snow balls and begin throwing at the kids. They pick up really
fast. We have a hailball fight. Everyone laughs. I built little
hailmen. I hand one to Sister Mirian, who's from El Salvadore and
has never seen anything like this. She doesn't know what to do with
it and immediately drops it. The kids begin pelting her with
hailballs.
The mutilados join
in. We're all laughing hysterically. This is just way too much fun.
All of these
people have an impact on my life. Over the winter I've had glimpse
into the lives of people who just want a better life. None of them
want to leave their country. No one them want to leave their
families, their friends, their support groups.
But they do. And
they move on.
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