I've been working like mad on the new campaign over at Presente.org (the org I co-founded), and recently, during one of our meetings, I was asked to go to Arizona to see first hand the way in which women and children are affected. I ended up going this past Sunday on Mother's Day. My mother is vacationing in Mexico so I decided to spend the day with folks in Arizona, and to participate in a Mother's Day march. Throughout the trip, I thought of my mother and her own migration story. My mother came to the US when she was in her early 20s, in search of a better life, because in Peru she had little opportunities. She was here alone, without her parents, nor her siblings, it was just her. She ended up meeting my father here, but for years she was on her own, figuring out how to navigate this country. She eventually started her own business, without a college degree, that has now been going strong for more than 25 years. She started her own small company at the same time she held down a full time job and took care of my brother and I, making sure we got excellent grades and stayed out of trouble.
I think about what it meant for my mother to leave everything because this country offered her something she could not achieve back home. She ended up having my two brothers and I here, and so I am a US citizen. I remember once getting upset at my Peruvian cousin because he called me out for being an American once. I rarely identify as an American, but on this particular day, in Japan, my cousin grabbed my passport in his hand, and said, "With this thing here, you are able to go almost anywhere. If you had been born in Peru, you would hardly be able to go anywhere. That passport you have there makes a big difference. You see this red passport I have here, it means closed doors for me. I can't go to the half the places you can go to, remember that." (he was referring to his Peruvian passport) I got very defensive with because this country has also done loads of damage to me through the racism I was exposed to since I was a child. Its been a hard journey to embrace the fact that I'm a US citizen. The reality is that wherever I go - Japan, Mexico, Canada, Italy - people call me an American. Although my cousin and I ended up getting into an argument, in recent years, I've come to understand what he was trying to say.
Some of my family members are undocumented and they live in constant fear, in fact my parents were undocumented for a while too. And when I was working with the four walkers on the Trail of Dreams, I really understood what it meant for young people to feel stuck because they don't have a simple document that labels them as "legal." I am lucky to have been born in the US, that's something that I can't deny and its something that I thank my mother for. I wrote to her on mothers' day and thanked her for giving me the strength to stand up for our people, for immigrants, like her, who came because this is where they could work and thrive. She's constantly afraid for me being an activist, because she fears that I will someday go through the same kind of violence and repression that her generation witnessed in South America - the disappearances, the tortures...
I explain to her that the fact that I was born here offers me some protection from that, and it does. I also tell her that the very fact that I'm a citizen means I have to fight harder, because loving your country means also challenging it and fighting for justice. I never would have thought to even say that I love my country, but after traveling around the world, I realized that the US is one of the few places I can really live for the long term. I don't like to admit it, but being in perhaps the most multi-racial country in the world is something that I have learned to value. Being around so many undocumented youth who share their stories with me about how they have the right to stay here, because this is the only country they know as their home and the only country they love - this has taught me to embrace my own truth.
I think about the ways in which my mother really shaped me to be confident and open. I grew up speaking my mind, and watching my mother be the primary provider and driving force of the household. My father backed her fully, and let her be the powerful woman she is. I was fortunate to grow up in a loving home free of violence. I saw violence outside and around me in the streets, but never in my home.
When I was in Arizona, I heard the story of 10 year old Catherine. She is a little girl who witnessed her parents being taken away by ICE (Immigration Customs & Enforcement). When she spoke of the sadness she experienced, the nights she could not sleep because she would wonder where her parents were, I grew sad and outraged. This child was being affected by a type of violence where families are separated. When she shared her story, she cried and said that she could not bear to be away from her parents. It was Sherrif Arpaio's policies that traumatized this young girl. Its Obama's policies such as 287g that are making it ok for Arpaio to do what he does.
When I think of her story, I realize that this young woman is going to be affected by this for the rest of her life. Its a trauma that no child should have to deal with, the trauma of having your parents taken away. It forced me to understand that in this fight for immigrant rights, we have to hold front and center and rights of children. Because children are not able to fight for themselves, they cannot vote, and they are usually considered the property of an adult. As activist, we have to understand that forced family separation is violence. When I met Catherine and her mother on mother's day, I was inspired to share their story, and to honor this Mother's Day as a day for immigrant mothers to be united with their daughters. I was fortunate that my mother was never taken from my side by force. I never faced that type of trauma and so I view my role as being someone that will fight this attack on our people, and pass this story to others by bearing witness.
This goes out to all the mothers of the world who risked everything to migrate to this country in search of a better life for themselves and their children. This goes out to all the daughters that were born on this side of the border that will carry our mother's sacrfices and migration journeys with us, and fight for the dignity of all immigrant mothers of the world.
Please listen to Catherine's story.
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