migratory roads

In the community around my school, many of the students and their families are from Mexico, Central America and South America.

I listen to their stories and this helps me understand the migratory road they traveled to get to South Carolina more clearly and deeply.

When I browse a story about immigration on social media, hear an interview with an immigrant family on NPR, or read the reporting of an investigative reporter who immersed herself in the lives of migrant workers in the American south (I still love to read long form journalism!), I close my eyes and see the faces of the Latinx students who fill my life with their presence each and every day.

When I hear the words ‘immigration’ and ‘immigrants,’ I see Maria and Jeremy and Hilcias and Patrick. 

When I hear the phrase ‘migratory road,’ I remember the stories they told me face to face and heart to heart about their journeys from their home countries.

This seeing and hearing and remembering is of utmost importance to the way I understand my immigrant neighbors around me.

It’s why I wear a button that says “No human is illegal” on the lanyard of my school ID.

It’s why I reach out to the SC Appleseed Legal Justice Center to support them in their work with immigrant families.

It’s why I read read ‘lots of books and write ‘lots of stories about immigrants and immigration.

In the paragraph and poem below, you’ll see and hear some of my own writing, some of my own voice, some of my own heart, about the immigrant families who are part and parcel of my life.

Migratory Roads

He traveled the migratory roads of migrant workers from state to state and farm to farm with his family when he was a toddler. He rode on his mamí’s back, tied with a threadbare piece of cloth, as she climbed ladders and reached up into the sky to pick peaches from trees in South Carolina, and as she kneeled and reached down to the earth to pick tomatoes from plants on Johns Island.

Things They Carry

Now

on

the land

migrants live

with holes in the floors

cracks in the walls, leaks in the roofs,

broken apart from years upon years of people

moving in, moving out, broken apart by owners using money for things other than repairs

yet held together by people like my abuelo and mamí, who will move into a used place, scrub the floors and walls with soap and water

repair broken parts with things they carry with them, patch them with grit, common sense and love