Here is a part of a whole story I’m writing about migration and sanctuary.
As I write, I think about the children in my classroom who are from Mexico, Central America and South America.
In their eyes I find the earth, for their eyes are brown like the soil from the farms and fields from which they came.
In their smiles I find the sunrise, for their sonrisas give light to our classroom and my life.
In their lives I find life.
(The picture of the book at the bottom of these words is a beautiful book of poems and pictures by Jorge Argueta titled Somos Comos Las Nubes/We Are Like The Clouds. Read it and put yourself in the chancletas/flip-flops of those who walk the migrant trail in search of una vida mejor/a better life)
trevor’s encyclopedia of lost things
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 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.
He 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.
Listen to these words from writer Jorge Argueta, who was a refugee from the civil war in El Salvador in the 1980’s and is a listener, storyteller and poet of young Central Americans today who are saying goodbye to everything they know because they fear for their lives.
“In 2014, when thousands of children began to arrive from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, I visited a shelter in San Diego, California, where young refugees were anxiously awaiting their fate. Some had the hope that a family member would take charge of them so they could remain in the United States. Others wanted to go back home. Others wanted to do both. Sad choices for such young hearts.” (Somos como las nubes - We Are Like The Clouds)
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.
Salito, 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.
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