Three years after my YAV year in Guatemala and two after my YAV year in Nashville ended, I find myself in Tucson, Arizona, volunteering with Border Links so that I can learn more about immigration on the border. When I was in Guatemala I heard stories from people who were about to try and go to the US to find work or who had been in the US and had returned to Guatemala for various reasons. In Nashville I worked in Conexion Americas, a Latino immigrant organization, and I saw familles trying to establish themselves--buying homes, navigating the school systems, paying taxes, and learning English. However, I didn't know much about the experiences and issues of crossing the border. So here I am in Tucson, still chasing a passion or an urge or a calling that I discovered during my YAV years.
On Tuesday I went with a group led by Casa Mariposa to visit folks in a detention center who had been arrested by the Border Patrol and were awaiting their date in court. The man I talked to had been in the detention center for four months and still does not yet know when his court date will be. His bail is several thousand dollars, which he cannot pay, so he will wait in the detention center until his court date at which time he will most likely plead guilty to illegal entry and be given several months jail time before being deported to his home country of Brazil.
He was mostly upbeat as we spoke to each other in Spanish, a second language for both of us, but when he spoke of his son he began to tear up as he admitted that what he missed most was physical contact, that he longed to hug his son and his mother. He thanked us for coming to visit but said it's nothing like talking to and touching your own flesh and blood. Family and freedom, he said, are hard to live without.
