Also, see the other posts in this series by Ana Maria Fores Tamayo:

1. Anti-Immigration Murrieta Nasties Battle Besos, Not Borders
2. McAllen’s Sacred Heart Leads Efforts Helping Refugee Families
3. Helping with the Refugee Crisis at the Border: A Photo Essay

#Adjunct, #dreamer, #undocumented, #workers, #labor & all #unions: we should all stand together to help!

“Like Lorca — like all those who seek out truth — I write about what I see as injustices to be righted. As such, I will be writing a series of blog posts about my experiences on the border these past couple of weeks, and how the people there — the little heroes who are never talked about or praised — are fighting an unjust system and helping real people in need.”

–

“To see you naked is to recall the Earth” Federico García Lorca

As adjunct activists, we need to remember our collective truth — our nakedness with all its biting candor yet its accurate honesty — and realize that on this earth, we are all in this together: adjunct, dreamer, undocumented — children & parents alike — workers, labor & all unions.

If we do not stand together as one, what will happen? Wasn’t it Ben Franklin who said “we must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately”?

I guess no one thought to stand by Lorca, who was executed today, on August 19th, 78 years ago, by nationalist forces under Franco in Spain. Lorca wrote what he believed. His works were banned, yet he continued writing.

I am not sure whether our truths are liked or not, but frankly, I do not care.

Like Lorca — like all those who seek out truth — I write about what I see as injustices to be righted. As such, I will be writing a series of blog posts about my experiences on the border these past couple of weeks, and how the people there — the little heroes who are never talked about or praised — are fighting an unjust system and helping real people in need.

As adjunct faculty, we try to do the same: fight the unjust system & help real teachers in need. Yet when I see our plight and compare it to the plight of these people coming in from Central America, how can I compare both? Yes, adjuncts have real need; we are disparaged and forgotten, especially in the outlier states.

Yet it is nothing when I look at what these people have gone through, only to get to our “promised land,” and have them be rebuked, even by the likes of us. Because I have been chastised for defending the immigrant. But aren’t we all immigrants? Didn’t our forefathers escape from somewhere else?

Doesn’t the earth belong to us all?

So I will write about what these Central American refugees have gone through, and what their helpers on this side do every day to aid them.

The folks on this side of the border do not talk about helping; they do not write about it. They live it, every day, from the early morning to late into the night, when the buses filled with refugee families come into the McAllen bus station, and helpers — dressed in their Catholic Charities frocks — assist them, day in and day out.

But this is not only an endeavor of Catholic Charities; it is done by the entire town of McAllen, all denominations and all people. Moreover, since they began in mid June of this year word has spread, and helpers across the country have flocked to support McAllen; I met folks from Michigan, from New York, from Minnesota, from DC, from many other places, too. And of course, I met the locals, many of whom have not missed a day since this project took over one of the parishes, Sacred Heart, near the bus station.

Helping Refugee Families Resettle

These people, the original heroes of this true tale, have decided that politics has no bearing when it comes to helping folks in need. Cooperation and fraternity — real and concrete — is what moves daily at El Sagrado Corazón in McAllen.

So we should all continue helping, and I for one will document my time with this diverse group of people, to try to spread the word that more help is needed, more money needed, more justice needed.

La Bestia or the nameless buses should not carry these poor immigrants all this way, through danger and hardship, only to be turned back — once here — to a possible death.

If it were you or your children on the other side, riding La Bestia, wouldn’t you want others to help you?

So one of these days — with support from many many more people — maybe that will be so. Until then, I will write about it so that the world becomes aware.