EJI: I Didn't Know

Dear Alison, 

I didn't know.

I didn't know that your office at Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) is in the same building in which slaves were once held. Like where you type and read and learn and advocate for clients in prison every day.

When we emailed you to see if we could come by, I didn't know that you would meet with us personally, look us each in the eye, and tell us stories about your work. You treated my children like they mattered too. You showed us the labelled jar where your hands had dug up dirt at a site where a lynching had occurred.

I thought "lynching" was hanging someone. That seemed awful enough. I didn't know that lynching is terrorism. It changed where people could call home, where you could work, live, have a family.
Lynching is about unlawfully punishing a group of people, or one representative of a group, without due process or a shred of human dignity. And it was celebrated for so many decades. I didn't know it could be so horrible...and covered up, not taught and eventually forgotten. Thank you for helping us Not Forget.

I didn't know that The Legacy Museum was within walking distance of the offices at EJI, and that I would need 719 more hours to explore and learn. The museum appeals to all of the senses, to all learning types, to all ages and races. I didn't know how much I would need to sit when faced with the facts of our history. My own body weight was too much, so thank you for all of the benches and chairs.

When we drove to the Memorial of Peace and Justice, I didn't know it would be so hot...even if it is Montgomery, AL. We started our journey into the Memorial in the scorching afternoon sun, then found our path circled into the shade of hanging tombs, labelled by state, county, person, year.

Even the fence was symbolic: from an angle the wooden planks look like a simple fence, saving you from falling off the shaded path...or maybe protecting your yard from your neighbor's. When facing the wooden planks, they are lined up like bars on a prison cell - you can see through them, but not move past them.

As the path continued, the floor descended so the tombs hung over our head. I didn't know how powerful it would be to walk forward as the tombs rose. I watched my fourteen year old son walk ahead of me, noticing the length of his body matched the size of the tombs. 

I didn't know that this is my story too...and now his.

I didn't know the air would be so cool in the deepest corner of the path, and that there would be a wall covered with a waterfall. The sound of the waterfall hid the sounds of weeping, the water itself represented cleansing, the continual flow reminded us of grace. 

I didn't know my seven year old daughter would understand so deeply. At the entrance, she had many questions about the sculpture of life-sized humans, slaves with chains around necks and ankles - all connected so if one fell, all moved.
The sculpture toward the exit of heroines from the Civil Rights movement - faces she recognized from the videos and posters in the Museum we just left - and then there, right next to Rosa Parks was an iron circle with two feet impressions. My daughter put her feet into those slots and she became part of the sculpture. She was part of the story, part of the history, and now part of the healing too.
I just didn't know.

The county where I live everyday is marked on these tombs. No more hiding, no more Not Knowing.

Thank you Alison, for all of the hard work, seen and unseen, that you do. Thank you for investigating, filing, listening, writing, reading, briefing - all of the things. I didn't know...now I do. And now is different for the knowing.



Namaste,
Mollie

Sizing It Up

Dearest Señora,

I have many gifts, but looking at a person's body and translating their size and shape into numbers or small-medium-large is not one of them. It’s not the yoga way really...but that’s another letter to you...



The hardest volunteer shift for me at the Catholic Respite Center (CRC) in McAllen, TX was in the clothes closet.
Typically here is how the system went:

• Donations come in bags and boxes.
• Volunteers sort clothes and shoes into Men’s and Women’s, Children and Infants.
• After one-half to one-third of the items are sorted, volunteers leave.
• Clothes and shoes sit in piles.
• New volunteers come in, see the chaos, and begin sorting.
• New rules applied: no tank tops or spaghetti straps, no inappropriate logos, no used underwear, no holes or stains (Restoring Dignity, y’all).
• Volunteers leave.
• Traveling families arrive and stand in line for clothes before taking a shower.
• Volunteers arrive and ask, “How can we help?”
• Staff directs volunteers to clothes closet. Everything is in piles that made sense to the previous shift of volunteers.
• New volunteers have 2.5 minutes per family to determine size and fit and send them to the showers.
• Volunteers are taught the words: Pronto! Pronto! Eso o eso? Más largo? Más pequeño?

From the families we learn the word for “belt” and “hat” and “sports bra” and “boxers not briefs.”
Dignity, Señora. Where is it? It was not in the last load of donations.

It was hot and stuffy in the clothes closet. Boxes and bins were brought in and shoved out. Twice on Saturday, some amazing volunteers brought already-sorted-by-size, brand new clothes in labeled bins. These volunteers had been at the CRC the day before and recognized the wasted time in sorting dirty donations. They had raised thousands of dollars on social media and then shopped for appropriate clothing.
One (of the many) hard things was when a volunteer wanted pictures of the children’s faces as they received their new clothes so they could thank the donors. AWKWARD. That’s "torpe" in Spanish.

My first sorting-clothes shift was with Maria and Chema, a mother and son team who lived in the area. Maria spoke only Spanish and Chema, both English and Spanish. They taught us to weed out the XL and XXL since the current group of families were petite sizes. We were throwing clothes into boxes to refold and in a bag to go to the Salvation Army. I held up one shirt to Maria and asked her which category this shirt went into? She said, "UGLY."
I had a good giggle over the only English word she said. I think she understood the Restoring Dignity part the best.

Senora, do you remember how big the marching band was at the high school in the '90's? My son will be a freshman there this year, and the band is still big. He and I went to size his band shoes the day before I flew to McAllen. When he tried on those huge-looking, white patent leather lace-ups with thick white soles, my eyes got teary with excitement and pride, and my mouth grinned at how ugly they were. Out of context without the whole uniform, Maria would have put them in the Ugly Box.
Saturday night, after working at the CRC all day and preparing to do the same on Sunday, I had a dream.

I dreamt I hired a babysitter to play with my kids, then I took my minivan to an empty parking lot to sort all of the donations in the back. Someone had donated multiple bags of shoes and I needed some time and space to sort them. A friend arrived on a bicycle with her two children and they crashed into a tree, then stood up unharmed. They walked over to my bags of shoes. Together we brainstormed how to quickly organize and label them so we could pass them out to those in need. We decided to rubber band the shoes together with the soles facing out, then we would write with chalk "M" for mujeres and "H" for hombres, then the number size of the shoe. We could line them up numerically and distribute. We high-fived each other at our brilliant plan!
We leaned over to open the bags of shoes and out poured only huge-looking, white patent leather lace-ups with thick white soles. My friend and I looked at each other, looked at the white shoes, then looked at our hands which were holding only white chalk. Plans thwarted, all to the Ugly Box.



The first time a woman came in the clothes closet with an ankle bracelet strapped above her foot, I couldn't stop staring. I had heard about them, seen pictures of them, knew in my head they were real, but my heart, mi corazón, could not make sense of seeing it in person. My brain kept saying, "This is real. This is real."
If you are wearing skinny jeans, or tightly tapered jeans before getting an ankle bracelet to track you, how do you change your pants? You cut your jeans.
If the only available pants in your size are skinny jeans or tapered, how do you get them over the new ankle bracelet? I don't know. I couldn't watch.



Señora, this is real.
The fevers, the crying, the coop-ed up children, the mischievous tweens, the bored and tragic teens, the worried mamas, the vigilant dads - it's all real. And in my dreams I only have band shoes and white chalk.

I miss you, Señora.
Con amor,
Mollie


***A list of items to send to the Catholic Respite Center coming soon. They need a bigger facility and are currently accepting donations towards the building so they can serve more people in need:

http://sacredheartchurch-mcallen.org/immigrant-assistance/donate-now/

The Best Nest

Dear Señora, 

I sat in your classroom decades ago, yet I am still learning from you. 
Thank you for teaching me Spanish in high school.

My friend Rachel and I are moms...and sometimes our insides get scratchy...like a baby bird tapping to get out of its eggshell. We couldn't sit still in front of the information about the families separated at the Texas border. So through friends of friends of friends, we found the Catholic Respite Center (CRC) in McAllen, TX.

Rachel wrote to them, offering our services as "mama birds" just wanting to help. She asked if we could come help and learn, or if it would be better if we sent the price of our plane ticket as a monetary donation to their cause. They invited us to come.
We worried about draining resources, being in the way, contributing to "volun-tourism." 
They said we could come.

Rachel and I followed Hannah Adair Bonner on Facebook, who was advocating for the migrant families on the other side of Texas. She suggested that migration is a very normal pattern for humans. I began to imagine the shapes and patterns - ovals, ellipses, figure eights - what do migration patterns look like for birds?

My friend Carrie recommended a podcast by Malcolm Gladwell about migration patterns...which made me wonder: if migration is allowed to be cyclical, then can we believe that Latinos want to come to the US, not to steal jobs or rape our sisters, but to work and visit and then return home? Is it possible that migrants do not want to miss the abuela's funeral or the cousin's wedding?

Señora, I do not know.



(this is the padded tortilla holder that keeps them warm)

When I was working the lunch shift on Saturday at the CRC in McAllen, filling water cups, my eyes brimming on the regular, a young boy - maybe he was ten years old - tapped me on the shoulder, grinning. I couldn't figure out what he was pointing to until we walked to the door together. He pointed up to the corner, outside, where there was a speaker mounted, covered in a bird's nest. 
A bird family had made its home there.



Leaves and straw wrapped around the speaker, clinging. The mama bird's wings were flapping and you could see movement in the nest.



How did that little boy see the nest?
What did that nest mean to him in the corner of the scary outside hot world, and the fumbling efforts of the volunteers inside the building?

What nest had he fled?
What nest would he build?
When pushed to spread his wings, would he fly? Was he ready?



I grinned at him. He grinned at me. No words. Only depth of understanding.

I never saw him again, Señora. But I'm still learning from him.

Con cariño,
Mollie




***A list of items to send to the Catholic Respite Center coming soon. They need a bigger facility and are currently accepting donations towards the building so they can serve more people in need:

http://sacredheartchurch-mcallen.org/immigrant-assistance/donate-now/




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Serving Lunch

Dear Señora,

At the Catholic Respite Center (CRC), whose goal is Restoring Human Dignity, there is a room with four tables, each with six chairs. It is crowded and a little stuffy, but perfect for a little soup and tortillas.

After traveling and maybe not eating for days, maybe having access to drinkable water, maybe not...little tummies and big ones are not quite ready for heavy foods. To heal the gut and ease into whole foods, the CRC serves broth, eventually adding in chicken and vegetables and noodles. 

A warm corn tortilla flat on your palm can be rolled up from wrist to fingertips into a tight roll, perfect for dipping.

Volunteers had been stirring soup and warming tortillas all morning, in between shower duty shifts and clothes sorting shifts. I was on water duty.

There was a large water cooler towards the corner of the room where a doctor was seeing patients, making his closet into a clinic. Waiting families could sit by the water cooler until the doctor was ready for them. As I prepared cups of water from the cooler, I could offer them a water. Maybe they would get some Advil or an allergy pill from the doctor when it was their turn, and some water could wash it down.

I set the tables with paper towels and spoons, trying to make this makeshift lunch area a little more hospitable. Families came in and out, eating quietly. The whole room could feel their exhaustion. One little boy fell asleep sitting up, back not even touching the chair, and a little drool left the corner of his mouth.

Señora, remember when you would stand and lecture from the front of the room and if you didn't move around a lot, your lower back would ache? One day you missed school to rest your back. I remembered to keep moving: refilling water cups, sweeping up crumbs, asking simple questions, "Mas agua? Sopa? Una cuchara?" 

Three small boys came into the lunch room and sat in the chairs. A volunteer had guided them in and announced they needed sopa. We jumped to serve them; they were tiny in those huge adult chairs. After our persistent cajoling, one confessed that he did not like carrots and did not want them in his soup. Then another picked up a green bean and made a stank face. The other boy said he did not like soup AT ALL. He asked if I had any milk? No, only water.

I asked they boy, "What do you need? How can I help? Are you hungry?"

He just stared at me. Maybe he was four years old.

Again I asked, "What do you need?"

He said, "Mi mama."

She was in the next room. Later, he ate with her. Señora, I can't even.

I had to face the water cooler and fill up extra cups to keep my hands busy and hide my tears.

This stop at the CRC is a blip on their journey. I will never understand the fullness of their stories: the deciding to leave, the fear, the persistence, the not-being-welcomed, the not knowing...the choosing of the Unknown ahead because the Known behind will kill them.

Is there dignity in taking that risk? Or is that also left behind with their homes, their clothes, their pictures, the landmarks of their memories?

On Sunday, I had lunch duty for part of a shift. I was focused and frazzled, serving, wiping, spilling, refilling, mixing Spanish and English.

Another volunteer walked by and said to herself, "okay...so..." as she figured out her next task. My English ear heard, "Okay...so..."

My Spanish ear heard, "Oh queso..."

If you had been there Señora, we could have grinned together.

I asked the families while eating, "Do you need anything?"

A boy about five years old stood up and said, "Necesito una cama."

I didn't understand. Confused, I held up three fingers and said, "1. Sopa 2. Agua 3. Pizza."

He looked at my fingers and calmly said, "Uuuunnnnaaaaa Caaaaammmmmmaaaaa. Tengo sueño."

Spanish II from 1991 regrew in my brain: He wanted a bed. He was sleepy.

That sweet child...I will never know where his shoes have traveled. It doesn't matter right now. Soup, water and pizza are not a bed. He needs to rest so then he can rise, he can almanecer bien.

Señora, I wish you were here. Thank you for teaching me to look for the words, to not stop trying even when I'm afraid I will conjugate a verb wrong, for reminding your students to laugh at themselves and to always, always, always help others.

Con Cariño,

Mollie

***A list of items to send to the Catholic Respite Center coming soon. They need a bigger facility and are currently accepting donations towards the building so they can serve more people in need:

http://sacredheartchurch-mcallen.org/immigrant-assistance/donate-now/

The Process: Luck of the Draw

Luck of the Draw, from dictionary.com: noun the force that seems to operate for good or ill in a person's life,as in shaping circumstances, events, or opportunities:With my luck I'll probably get pneumonia. good fortune; advantage or success, considered as the result of chance:He had no luck finding work. a combination of circumstances, events, etc., operating by   chance to bring good or ill to a person:She's had nothing but bad luck all year. #LOTD Dear Senora, We arrived at the Catholic Respite Mission (CRC) this morning, maybe a little too eager to get started helping. The logo under the main sign read “Restoring Human Dignity” (scroll in to see). Indeed. We were in the right place. (Also, Alabama there, third from the left Jesus.) When we walked in, the waiting room smelled like laundry detergent and air conditioning. I didn’t realize air conditioning had a smell until I walked the Texas heat. There was another group volunteering that morning, so we met in the kitchen for a quick orientation with Eli, the jefe. We mostly had questions about the paperwork and processing - what had these families been through before arriving at the CRC? Eli calmly shook his head, explaining the parts he did know and did understand, and the rest falling into “it's just the luck of the draw.”  #LOTD When families walk across the border into the Border Patrol office, legally seeking asylum, which ones are fitted with ankle bracelets? #LOTD? Which ones are separated and sent to detention centers then back home? #LOTD? Which ones sent to jail (mostly those with priors?)? Eli was born and raised in the US, fluent in Spanish and English. He advises the families to not try and represent themselves and instead, to get and trust a lawyer. The system is hard to understand. He warns them not to assume they will get through easily. He has a daily, amicable communication with ICE. Even in this heat (ha ha puh-lease we all need to laugh.) Some families show up with newspaper articles describing the crime and danger in their home communities. Some arrive with papers and proof (as in photographs) of killings and fear - anything that will help them find safety for a time. Still, LOTD. They try 40 families at a time at immigration hearings. Eli explains that within the CRC are closets for clothing donations, tables for feeding, showers separated in an outdoor 18-wheeler container that used to be attached to a truck cab.  He says it’s time to get to work, Señora.  I took you with me to try and restore dignity, theirs as well as my own. (these are the showers) Con cariño, mi profesora.  I don't know how to do this. Mollie ***A list of items to send to the Catholic Respite Center coming soon. They need a bigger facility and are currently accepting donations towards the building so they can serve more people in need: http://sacredheartchurch-mcallen.org/immigrant-assistance/donate-now/ ReplyForward

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In McAllen, The Night Before

21 julio 2018

Dear Señora,

We made it to McAllen, TX...after a few hiccups.

Remember that year, Spring Break in 1994, when we went to Cuérnavaca and stayed with host families? Then the kids from those families came to Birmingham the next week to stay with us? And their flights landed in Birmingham before ours left México? 
Today was a little like that.

We had a flight delay, then cancel, then rebook, then delay again. Our housing arrangements fell through.
I couldn’t rent the rental car with a debit card, so Rachel rented it with a credit card. Then we couldn't find the car. Then I couldn't find Rachel.
Then it all worked out.
We are safe and weary, and still laughing and hopeful for tomorrow.


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I have been here two hours and already heard so much casual Spanish. It’s as if a sleeping rhythm inside me is creeping awake. I love this feeling.

What stories will we hear tomorrow?

Who will we meet?

Will we actually help or will we be in the way?

Will I understand when someone speaks to me?
Mas despacio, por favor...Cómo se dice...Otra vez...

I will sleep now. Thank you, Señora.
Con cariño,
Mollie




***A list of items to send to the Catholic Respite Center coming soon. They need a bigger facility and are currently accepting donations towards the building so they can serve more people in need:

http://sacredheartchurch-mcallen.org/immigrant-assistance/donate-now/

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