(from Dr. Maria's notebook)
The road from the countryside of El Salvador to the lowcountry of South Carolina is long and hard.
If you take the time to ask the migrants along that road, "Why are you trying to make it to the United States?" they will answer, "We're trying to make una vida mejor, a better life."
The journey along that road is fraught with danger and heartbreak.
Listen to these words from journalist Oscar Martines, who embedded himself with migrants on the migratory trail from Central America to the Mexican-United States border and wrote about the people he met in his book The Beast: Riding the Rails and Dodging Narcos on the Migrant Trail...
"We walk on, telling ourselves that if we get attacked, we get attacked. There's nothing we can do. The suffering that the migrants endure on the trail doesn't heal quickly. Migrants don't just die, they're not just maimed or shot or hacked to death. The scars on their journey don't only mark their bodies. They run deeper than that. Living in such fear leaves something inside them, a trace and a swelling that grabs hold of their thoughts and cycles through their heads over and over. It takes at least a month of travel to reach Mexico's northern border...Who takes care of them? Who works to heal their wounds?"
Before The Beast was translated into English, it was titled Los Migrantes Que No Importan, The Migrants Who Don't Matter.
It is important to remember that people do not leave their land, their family, unless they have to.
If your children are threatened by violence, sickness or poverty, you migrate and look for una vida mejor for them.
If your house is bombed and your land is stolen from you, you migrate and look for una vida mejor.
If you open your cupboard, and there is nothing but dust, and you reach into your pockets and there is nothing but lint, and there is no sustaining work for you to do to support your family, but only underemployment and unemployment, you migrate and look for una vida mejor.
No, no one wants to leave their land, their family, unless they have to.
No one wants to take on the danger and the heartbreak unless they have to.
But some people have to.
Hilcias, his mamí and his abuelo had to.
They do matter.
They are human beings.
They are life.
I am here to take care of them.
I am here to heal their wounds.
I am here.
Estoy aquí.
- Trevor Scott Barton, stories for a brown-eyed girl, 2020
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