Border of Death,
Valley of Life: An Immigrant Journey of Heart and Spirit
by Daniel G. Groody
Introduction: Corazon
Destrozado—The Crushed Heart and the Dynamics of Mexican Emigration and
Immigration
"The light shines in darkness, and the darkness has not
overcome it."
—John 1:5
The Mexican Immigrant
in the United States
The subject of immigration is not
new, but the issue is as important now as ever. Especially as the United
States grapples with how to fight terrorist threats from foreign fanatics, the pressure
to seal off our American borders is tremendous. While there is a legitimate need to control these borders in the
interests of national security, my fear is that many people will never hear the
other side of the immigration story. This
book presents the human face of immigration. The people I write
about are not terrorists or drug dealers. Nor
are they criminals or enemies. The vast majority of Mexican immigrants who enter the United States
illegally are simply hardworking people, willing to work in menial jobs so
they can provide for their families back home in Mexico. Mexican immigration
presents the United States with terrible ironies: Mexicans are prevented from coming
across, yet they are needed to sustain the American economy; they
are often denied jobs, yet often they do the work that no one
else wants to do; many fear them, yet they can enrich American
culture.
While much has been written in recent years about immigration,
nothing has been written about Mexican immigrants and their spiritual lives.
This book seeks to respond to such a need. Through
it I hope to address some of the profound, human, spiritual hungers
of immigrants in this country. While many come to the United States with a strong
faith, in many places, Mexican immigrants find themselves dying of spiritual famine. They hunger for a deeper
spirituality than they find in many of their local
Catholic parishes. Even though many Hispanics have cultural roots that are lie deep at the heart of
Catholicism, many are leaving the Catholic Church. Andrew Greeley estimates that one fifth of the Hispanics who were raised Catholic have left the Church. Because part of this problematic is
spiritual in nature, I chose to focus my energies on one place where some
important, spiritual movement was happening, in the hopes that this model might serve as a guide for further
pastoral development and intellectual
reflection.
As I looked around the country to find places where Mexican
Hispanics were flourishing in their spirituality, I discovered the Valley Missionary Program. The people of this
organization had the most committed spirituality of any community I had ever seen. These immigrants were not simply playing around
in their
own self-actualization sandbox (in contrast to some spirituality currents in U.S.
American society), but they were living out a central value
that profoundly transformed their lives and
led them to commit themselves to the needs of their
neighbors. Because the
program enabled many of them to undergo some real changes in the way they understood God, their world, and their very lives, I quickly became
intrigued and enamored with the program. One of its compelling features was
that the people reached out not only to
those who came to Church but also, and especially, to those who had left
the Church or had no contact with it at all. In many
ways, great and small, the program embodied
God's mercy.
A priest of my own religious
community, the Congregation of Holy
Cross, founded the program. Even within the community, however, the program had
received little attention until recent years.
One of the reasons for the protracted appreciation was because this priest—as holy, committed and generous
as he was— had the reputation of being eccentric, stubborn, and idiosyncratic. For these reason and a few others, he was
sent far away to the forsaken town of Coachella, California, because, it
was thought, in the words of a former
provincial, that "there he could do the least amount of
damage." To everyone's surprise, he started
one of the most innovative spiritual renewal programs in the country and
became a beloved figure for many of these immigrants.
Rejected from the mainstream currents of the Church, this founder became
the cornerstone of a great renewal movement in the Church. The program became
so successful that these immigrants
themselves started bringing it back to many of their villages and cities
where they came from in Mexico. Currently, the organization has
"associations" or chapters throughout Mexico, and it continues to grow
exponentially. I argue that the program thrives because it touches something
deep within them; it brings their spirituality to life and it transforms their lives into something new.
At
the same time that I developed a pastoral fascination with the program, I also began
doctoral studies in Christian spirituality. For five years I was able to
carry on a rich dialogue between scholars in Berkeley and these immigrant farm workers in the Coachella Valley. Eventually, I bought the two
worlds together in a doctoral
dissertation entitled "Corazon y Conversion: The Dynamics of
Mexican Immigration, Christian Spirituality, and Human Transformation."
This work was my first attempt to understand the spirituality of Mexican immigrants, and it led
me to understand better the social
location, culture, and spiritual experience of the people. I also wanted
to probe how their encounter with Christ in faith led to the restructuring of their core values,
beliefs, and priorities. In other words, I wanted to explore how their
experience of God led to integral conversion. Since then I have developed this work further and tried to
refine my insights into a systematic reflection on the spirituality of
these people. This book, then, is the
result of sustained reflection over a period of years on the faith experience of a people. It has become an opportunity
to weave together the best
of scholarship in
spirituality with my own insights and
experiences of Mexican culture and pastoral
ministry.
From an academic perspective, this work
in theology is a disciplined reflection on spiritual experience. One of the
initial challenges of
embarking on such a work in spirituality is that of methodology. By nature, methodology in spirituality is interdisciplinary;
it is a bridge discipline. In this particular case, the primary discipline is theology, but this work also draws
on sociology and cultural
anthropology. Spirituality, as an academic discipline, seeks to weave these different disciplines
together into a coherent conversation about the complex experience of human
beings in relationship to God.
This work, then, is done at the crossroads of Mexico and the United States, the rich point of
intersection between the two countries. It is also a work done at the crossroads between spirituality
and
theology, culture and theology, fieldwork and theology, sociology and
theology, and the grassroots and the academy. Especially for this study,
the border has been a fertile place of reflection and inquiry for
examining the spirituality of these immigrants.
In the pages that follow, I describe four dimensions of Mexican immigrant
spiritual experience: context, revelation, transformation, and interpretation. In chapter
1, I do an extensive description of the immigrant
context. The purpose of this description is to bring out the difficulties
and struggles of the undocumented immigrant and to name the pains they
experience in the process of breaking from Mexico, crossing the border and
entering the United States. I argue that we cannot adequately understand a
Mexican immigrant spirituality without better understanding their social
location, the trails they endure and the wounds they bear.
A Hunger For Freedom,
A Wall Of Separation
Overwhelming joy went through the Western world as it
witnessed the tearing down of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The great Wall had long
stood as the symbol of separation between the material abundance of the West
and the economic scarcity of the East. It represented the dividing line between
freedom and slavery, opportunity and oppression, prosperity and poverty. The
crumbling of the Berlin Wall gave a breath of fresh air to the world, and it
gave hope for a new era of freedom for humankind. Especially in the United
States, the news of the falling of the Wall reinforced the deep U.S. American
ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Ironically, as the great wall of separation was coming down
in Europe, an even greater and more dangerous wall of separation was being
fortified along the 1,952-mile border between the United States and Mexico.
Though not a wall of concrete, it is a wall of separation between the citizens
of the United States and the poor of Latin America. As doors were opening to
those who escaped the tyrannies of communism, doors were closing to those who
were trying to escape the tyrannies of the unjust economic, political, and
social structures of their own countries.
Between 1961 and 1989, in the hope of finding a better life
and a more promising future on the other side of the Berlin Wall, eighty people
were killed; fifty-nine of them were shot dead by East German guards who
protected the border. Between 1995 and 2002, in the hope of finding a better
life and a more promising future in the United States, more than 2,000
immigrants have died trying to cross the U.S.-Mexican border. This means that
more than one human life has been lost for each mile along the border since
1995. Those who lost their lives attempting to cross from East to West Germany
were considered heroes in the United States, yet those who attempted to cross
from Latin America to North America are often considered criminals. While many
of the deaths along the Berlin Wall were noted internationally, many of the
people who die along the U.S.-Mexican border remain unpublicized, unrecognized,
unidentified, unburied, and unmourned. In the public eye, the Mexican
immigrants who die often seemed like nothing in life, and, in the end, they
appear as nothing in death, without even a simple cross to mark their graves.
The newspapers are full of reports of the horrible
conditions that undocumented immigrants have to endure in order to cross the
border from Mexico into the United States: "At least seven Mexican
immigrants died and more than fifty others were rescued in rural San Diego County
canyons . . . after a freak spring storm dropped a foot of snow on (the)
mountains"; "Six illegal immigrants sleeping on railroad tracks in
south Texas, possibly to avoid snakebites, were killed when a Union Pacific
freight train ran over them"; "Six suspected illegal immigrants
trying to escape Border Patrol agents plunged 120 feet into a ravine near San
Diego . . ., leaving one dead"; "Twelve illegal immigrants who
crossed the Mexican border perished as they tried to traverse the barren Arizona
desert in 115-degree heat and reach a highway... ."
The dynamics of Mexican immigration are full of stories like
these, about people who drown in rivers, freeze in the mountains, dehydrate in
the deserts, and get hit by cars or trains. Given all these painful stories of
horror, we are forced to ask: What kind of conditions, circumstances, and
pressures lead people to take such risks, expose themselves to such dangers,
and face the prospect of even torturous deaths?
In order to provide a foundation for understanding the
Mexican immigrants' spirituality and their journey, it is important to look
more closely at the social, political, cultural, and economic context in order
to understand their lives more adequately. Christian spirituality seeks to
understand God, human life, and the relationship between the two. As we try to
understand the human experience of Mexican immigrants, we must consider why
they leave Mexico, what they endure when they cross the border, and what they
experience when they come to the United States. Attention to their wounds as
well as their aspirations will increase our appreciation for how their
spirituality heals and transforms them. On the surface, we will speak about the
story of Mexican immigrants, but at the core, their stories touch and dig into
some of the most fundamental dynamics of human existence: the will to survive,
the desire for connectedness to others, the hunger to make a meaningful
contribution to the world, and the search for God in the midst of daily life
and its trials. In the particular story of the Mexican immigrants, we discover
aspects of the universal human story and the struggle to live with dignity,
friendship, and purpose.
Breaking From Home In
Mexico
The dynamics of immigration are as old as humanity, but the
extraordinary numbers of immigrants today are symptomatic of the ills of our
age. Immigration is a global malady that needs to be analyzed in relationship
to the political, social, and economic context that precipitates it. Today more
than 100 million people are migrating around the world. The effects of globalization on the poor, in
particular, increase these numbers daily.
Virtually all immigrants leave their country because of an
urgent need, whether social, political, economic, or religious. Chief among these
is the widening gap between the rich and the poor of the world. Poverty,
hunger, violence, war, the abuse of human rights, religious and racial
prejudice, oppressive intellectual conditions, or a deteriorating economic
climate all contribute to the flight of these people to a new and foreign land
where, often, a different language is spoken. Migration is a traumatic
undertaking. Such a separation leaves an indelible mark on the heart of the
immigrant.
The Pressure to Immigrate
The mass exodus of people from Mexico to the United States
is indicative of a country in crisis. Many Mexicans emigrate in the hope of
relieving some of the intense pressure caused by unemployment, hunger, disease,
poverty, and early death. The majority of Mexican immigrants come to the United
States primarily for economic reasons.11 Mexico's 40 percent unemployment rate
and low paying jobs, contrasted with the high demand for labor and
comparatively high wages of the United States, draws Mexicans into the United
States like a magnet.12 More than 40 million Mexicans live in poverty and dream
of making more than the national wage of 35 cents an hour, or 200 pesos (about
$20) every two weeks.13 In brief, foreign debt, a declining Gross Domestic
Product (GDP) per capita, and diminishing "real wages" are some of
the primary reasons why Mexicans migrate to the United States.14 In the words
of one immigrant named Mario, "I left a wife and three kids at home not
because I wanted to get rich but because I wanted us to survive. When we got to
the point where we did not have enough to buy even necessary things like
tortillas, eggs, and sugar, I had to immigrate." Many are forced to choose between a
dehumanizing poverty at home and the perilous crossing of the border into the
United States.
People enter or live in the United States illegally when
they do not pass through designated border inspection stations, when they
present false papers at these stations, or when they enter legally and then
overstay their visas. When they do this, they become classified as
"illegal aliens." (Because the term "illegal alien" is a
dehumanizing term, I will refer to these immigrants as "undocumented"
throughout this book.)
Between 6 million and 12 million undocumented immigrants
live in the United States, and the majority of these are from Mexico. Every
day, some 4,600 immigrants jump fences, swim across canals, and traverse
deserts along the U.S-Mexican border.16 They come in search of low-paying jobs
in agriculture, landscaping, construction, and other areas. Statistics show
that, despite increasing attempts to control the border, the number of people
trying to enter the country illegally is increasing. And while, paradoxically,
market liberalization strategies like NAFTA and other free market policies give
the impression of a borderless North American economy, U.S. immigration
policies and stricter border controls reveal the high walls between the two
countries. While new and bold
initiatives have been proposed by Mexican President Vicente Fox and have met
with some support from President George W. Bush and congressional leaders, the
suffering of immigrants will continue in the years ahead, whether immigrants
enter with guest visas or enter illegally.
The economic problems that immigrants face affect multiple levels
of their identity. Many of those condemned to a life of poverty and destitution
often think of themselves as inferior and incompetent. They often begin to
blame themselves for their inability to better their lot in life. With fewer
opportunities, many people have less incentive to create, innovate, or try new
things; they feel quite powerless, even over their own lives. Young people
often see no future at all as long as they stay in Mexico. "The most
difficult thing," said Jaime, "is feeling the impotence of not being
able to do anything." With poor
wages, high expenses, unemployment, and underemployment, many immigrate to the
United States just so they can support the family. Ironically, the move to come
to the United States to support the family often breaks up the family.
Breaking from Family
Mexican immigrants who come to the United States looking for
better lives leave behind much of the world they love. While they feel
attracted to many of the jobs, opportunities, and material comforts of the United
States, the immigration experience exacts a major price on the families and
relatives at home. One of the most immediate human costs of immigration is
saying goodbye. Only rarely do families emigrate together. Most often, the man
is the one who breaks from home, leaving his wife and children behind for eight
months, a year, or longer. "The most painful thing," said Juan,
"is leaving the family behind, especially the children, but we do it in
the hopes that some day we will have something in Mexico."
As the family breaks up, the husband and wife face double
burdens. While the husband often faces a future of dangerous border crossings,
economic exploitation, and difficult work, the wife suddenly becomes farmer,
rancher, parent, provider, and protector of the household. Most Mexicans
immigrants do not want to leave home. The majority are not drug dealers. Nor
are they terrorists. Often they say that they leave home not because of
inordinate ambition but because of the pressing need to survive. "We don't
want to steal," said Adan. "We come here to save some money so that
later we can return home to take care of our children."
Breaking from the
Familiar
Emigrating to the United States also means leaving behind a
familiar environment. Because culture permeates every level of a person,
Mexicans find it easier to leave Mexico than for Mexico to leave them. Mexicans
love Mexico and are extremely proud of their -x country. It remains their
birthplace, their homeland, and their culture: "Como Mexico, no hay
dos" ("There is no place like Mexico"). Mexico runs through the
blood of the Mexicans, and it never leaves them. It remains as much a part of
them as their own family. Mexico is a very festive and distinctive place.
Fiestas patrias (national holidays), Dias de los santos (saints' days), and
posadas (Christmas rituals) shape the psychological and spiritual consciousness
of the Mexican, alongside the smell of tortillas (bread), maiz (corn), frijoles
(beans), and other aspects of their culture. The relationships, music, drink,
dress, and culture all contribute to the life they enjoy in Mexico. However,
poverty puts many strains on their lives. Struggling Mexicans spend so much of
their energy surviving that many have little leisure time, making it difficult
to nurture significant relationships and develop more of their personal lives.
Long hours of work and economic scarcity rob many of them of time for intimacy
that would allow them to develop more capacities for human connectedness.
Crossing the great border exacts an enormous toll on Mexican
immigrants and their families. Leaving home creates many emotional and
practical difficulties. In the midst the process of emigration, immigrants
often face a terrible irony: they leave Mexico to escape the insecurity of life,
only to come to the United States where they experience an even greater
insecurity. They give up their homes, their language, and their customs for an
uncertain and pre carious future. For many immigrants, crossing the border of
death means leaving behind much of what ultimately gives meaning, value, and
cohesion to their lives.
Crossing the
US-Mexican border
In southern California, there are three main ways of trying
to cross the border without passing through designated points of entry: through
a fence along the border (those who do so are known as alambristas), across the
border canals (known as mojados or braveros), or through the rugged terrain of
the desert mountains and valleys. The immigrants make a dangerous crossing with
few or no resources. No matter what the method, the three biggest threats come
from immigration officials, smugglers (or coyotes), and the perils of the
natural environment.
Noted journalist John Annerino brings out just how radical
and precarious a journey it is for them:
[The immigrants] will be wearing
cheap rubber shower sandals and ill-fitting baseball cleats to protect their
feet from rocks, thorns, hot sand, and lava, not form-fitting one hundred
dollar hiking boots; they will carry their meager rations of tortillas, beans,
sardines, and chilis in flimsy white plastic bags, not freeze-dried gourmet
meals cooked over shiny white gas stoves carried in expensive gortex backpacks.
And they will sleep on the scorched bare earth in thin cotton t-shirts, not in
cozy two hundred dollar, down sleeping bags. They will follow vague routes,
passed down from one desperate generation to the next, across a horizonless
no-man's land, not well-manicured trails. Their signposts will be sun-bleached
bones, empty plastic water jugs, a distant mountain, not hand-painted
fluorescent signs with arrows pointing the trail every quarter mile. They will
cross a merciless desert for jobs, not for scenic vistas. And nothing will stop
these honest people in their quest for a better life, not the killing desert,
and not the transformation of the "tortilla curtain" into the Iron
Curtain.
The journey across the U.S.-Mexican border means journeying
to the very margins of life. Mexican immigrants experience vulnerabilities from
every side and dangers every step of the way.
The Border Patrol: La
Migra
Guarding the door of entry into the United States is the
Border Patrol, popularly known as La Migra. The Border Patrol, as part of the
Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), is the largest federal police agency
in the country with about 10,000 agents.24 While the United States has had
border control policies throughout its history, these policies have become more
restrictive in recent years. Since 1986, federal and state legislatures in the
United States have sought to control the nation's borders more aggressively
through reforms in immigration policy.25 Currently, the U.S. government spends
more than $6 billion dollars employing agents to protect the border.26 Although
the U.S. Border Patrol currently functions to keep out criminals, drug
traffickers, and terrorists, it also keeps out other immigrants who come across
the border simply to work and provide for their families. These reforms,
coupled with anti-immigrant sentiments, have made it both more difficult and
inhumane for the illegal Mexican immigrant to enter and stay in the United
States. Beginning in October 1994, the INS launched Operation Gatekeeper near
San Diego, California, Operation Safeguard near No-gales, Arizona, and
Operation Rio Grande in east Texas and other initiatives near the major urban
areas along the border, all of which were directed toward further deterrence of
illegal Mexican immigration. Increased federal investment in border control has
driven up costs demanded by illegal smugglers, and it forces immigrants, now
more than ever, to cross along ever more difficult routes. While the border
strategists have adopted a "prevention through deterrence" philosophy
to deter immigrants from crossing, there is no indication that immigration
flows have diminished in any way; in fact they have actually increased since
these reforms' were initiated.
Restricting the border has not diminished the migration flows; it has
merely redirected them and pushed immigrants more and more into dangerous and
life-threatening territory. "It's
like pressing a plastic bubble," said Richard Lopez of the busy El Centro
sector, "if you press one side of the bubble, the air inside simply shifts
to the other side." The U.S. policy has dealt more with the symptoms of
immigration than the causes, and, until the government implements more Shortly
after the Border Patrol apprehended Marcos, he said, Last night was incredibly difficult. After walking so much, my whole
body ached, especially my legs, and I was exhausted. You don't get any sleep
and the cold penetrates you. We had to sleep for awhile in the mountains, but
it was cold, incredibly cold . . . and then we ran out of water. We let
ourselves be captured by the immigration officials just so we could get
something to drink. It's dangerous and disorienting out there.”
For the undocumented immigrant, the perils are greater now
than ever. The stronger the force of the
Border Patrol, the greater the risks that the immigrants take. Because many
deaths go unreported and undiscovered, the number of those who die trying to
cross the border is presumably even more.33 Until the U.S. dedicates comparable
resources to addressing the human costs of migration as it does to the economic
costs, many immigrants will continue to die in the process of crossing the
U.S.-Mexican border.
Those who do make it across the border still face
difficulties as they try to move northward. Shortly after Maria and Pepe
crossed over, they said "our coyote (smuggler) told us that we had to hit
the ground because an (immigration) helicopter was coming overhead, and we
threw ourselves on the desert floor. When we got up, my wife was covered in
cactus spines, and for eight days I removed them from her body." In some
cases, vigilante groups in Arizona have taken extreme measures to deter
immigrants. Some ranchers have even threatened to kill immigrants that trespass
on their property.
Some immigrants who are apprehended spend days, weeks, and
even years in detention centers and INS facilities. Maria said she was
terrified when immigration officials apprehended her: "I spent two months
in the detention center feeling traumatized ... all I wanted to do was come
over and see my children and husband, but when they apprehended me, they put my
hands and feet in chains, as if I was a criminal or had murdered
someone." She is now living in the
United States illegally, and she fears leaving her house because she does not
want officials to send her back to an immigration detention center.
The presence of the immigration officials extends beyond the
border into secondary checkpoints sixty miles north of the national boundary.
On highways, at crossroads, and under bridges, Border comprehensive strategies
that deal with the economic, political and social ills of both countries,
Mexicans will continue to migrate to the United States.
Patrol agents use various techniques to detect undocumented
immigrants. Such watchfulness leaves many immigrants on a constant state of
alert and anxiety. As Guillermo said, "we're tired of living like rats,
jumping from one rat hole to another."
The Smuggler: El
Coyote
In addition to fearing la migra, the immigrant also worries
about el coyote, the smuggler. The term itself has evolved over the years, and
people often use it in the negative sense.
Generally, the coyote belongs to the culture of the immigrant
underground railroad, which has an extensive network of people who help
immigrants seek safe passage—when they have the money to pay. Sometimes they
are called polleros or, the most benign, traficantes de personas. Most often,
the coyote smuggles not drugs but people, though in some places they rival, or
collaborate with, drug traffickers. According to Rita Vargas of the Mexican
Consulate in Calexico, California, coyotes work together with a series of
guides to help shuttle immigrants across the border. The coyote coordinates the overall plan of
the immigrant, but the guides are the ones who lead them across the border.
Both act as intermediaries in the immigration process, and they know the most
about safe passages across the border and the routes which best evade detection
by the immigration officials.
Coyote fees are directly proportional to the size of the
Border Patrol. The stricter the control at the border, the more immigrants pay
for a coyote. Currently, a coyote costs anywhere from $800 to $1,800, nearly
double the cost of one in 1994. The
poorest of the poor, however, come across the border alone. They have no money
to hire a coyote and they are often the ones who get lost and die in the barren
desert borderlands.
The immigrants must entrust themselves to the coyote;
sometimes this is a fatal mistake. Sometimes the coyote will lead people over
the border only to rob them on the other side. Other times, coyotes will leave
immigrants stranded in the middle of the desert, to become disoriented and die
of dehydration. Still other times, they will have unsuspecting immigrants carry
the coyote's backpack, which may have drugs in it. If officials apprehend a
group, sometimes these same immigrants can be the ones sent to jail. Women are
particularly vulnerable, as coyotes sometimes demand sex as payment, or take it
by force. "In our group," said Jose, "our coyote grabbed one of
the young women, took her behind one of the mountains and raped her, even
though she was screaming and yelling as he abused her." Those immigrants who enter the country
illegally face vulnerabilities every step of the way.
The Life-Threatening
Elements: La Muerte
One of the largest and deadliest areas along the border is
the Imperial Valley of Southern California. It is one of the last great,
uninhabited areas of the lower forty-eight states. It has a stark and deadly
beauty about it. Almost totally uninhabited and uninhabitable, it is home to
bobcats, rattlesnakes (sidewinders), raccoons, coyotes, badgers, skunks, rats,
scorpions, and illegal immigrants. Temperatures get as high as 120 degrees in
the summer, and there are virtually no water sources in the desert north of the
border. Many immigrants travel this route as they try to make it into the
United States, and it is the area where the most immigrants die each year. On
average, an immigrant a day dies trying to cross the border here.
Those who cross the border know they are entering a
life-threatening situation. Because of the constant vigilance of the
immigration officials, extreme measures are taken to avoid being seen. For
those who lack experience, the possibility of death is very real. The
canal-crossing method is the most dangerous. People use ropes, inner tubes,
rafts, or plastic bags filled with air or they swim the 120-foot body of water.
Some who try to cross the canals don't know how to swim—and they drown.
Powerful hydroelectric turbines that feed the electric needs of the valley
cause strong unexpected currents, which cause many to lose their footing on
muddy river floors. For others, the cold water of the canal freezes and cramps
their muscles and paralyzes them from making it safely to the other side. Some
will seek refuge in a railroad car, a truckload of carrots, or a truck full of
flour. In increasing numbers, many are dying in the desert of hyperthermia
caused by extreme temperatures. When people die along the barren trails, birds
circle the corpses like carrion, animals prey on the carcasses for food, and
the cadavers are often left to decompose in the extreme heat of the sun until
they slowly disappear in desert sands. These deserts are long, lonely,
desolate, and dry. When asked how immigrants felt about crossing the desert,
given the fact that many die along the way, Julio said, "We are aware of
the dangers, but our need is greater. There's always the risk of dying in the
desert, but the desire to survive and keep going is even more important. It's a
gamble."
For food, immigrants bring along a can of beans, tuna fish,
a few tortillas, and water. Said one coyote named Alejandro, "The food is
so bad you won't even want to eat it."
When they cross the desert floor, many wear knee-high, tough leather
boots, so the biting rattlesnakes cannot penetrate them. Some people get
blisters or swollen limbs from the physical demands. Some get tired and worn
out in the intense journey through the desert, but those who cannot make it, or
find themselves too tired to continue, are often left behind. They travel at
night so as not to be seen. As food reserves get low, survival becomes an
issue. Immigrants often have to suppress and/or repress deep emotions of loss,
grief, loneliness, and isolation in order to make it. Many have no time or
leisure to reflect on their lives or process their experiences because of the
demands of survival.
The desert heat is the second leading cause of death during
border crossings. Each year the Border Patrol combs the desert searching for
undocumented immigrants. Even though the Border Patrol, the Mexican government,
and volunteer organizations like Humane Borders have initiated various search,
rescue, and emergency aid initiatives, the number of rescues is arguably low in
proportion to the number of immigrants who are crossing. As human rights
advocate Claudia Smith noted, "No amount of search and rescue is enough in
the vast expanses of hell to which migrants have been rerouted." Others
die from various other causes: hypothermia during cold desert nights, suffocation
from within confined spaces in trucks and trains, and fatal injuries from
vehicle accidents. Put simply, illegal entry across the U.S.-Mexican border is
extremely dangerous and potentially fatal.
Some songs in popular culture capture the price that the border crossing
exacts on families. The following song is called Un noble engano, "A Noble
Deception."
A Noble Deception
Joaquin was only fifteen Pedro was sixteen
They were coming to the United States
They left from Monterrey.
They had great dreams
From hearing so much talk.
They wanted to go to Houston, Texas,
And begin working there.
Joaquin thought it was easy to cross the Rio Grande.
But the river was full And he could not make it.
Pedro cried at the failure He almost went insane
Upon seeing his brother drown in that treacherous river.
It was one year since my brother was called back to heaven.
My poor parents don't know he never reached Houston.
I take my brother's name when I write my parents.
I don't tell them the truth. They think he's still alive.
After a long absence I returned ready to tell all,
All that is locked up in my heart.
My poor mother crying hugged and kissed me.
"You have returned at last, my son!"
And her tears did fall.
And when she asked for Joaquin
I forced myself to smile.
I had to continue to pretend
So as not to see her suffer.
I pretend I am him When I write to my parents.
I do not tell them the truth. They think he is still alive.
When immigrants cross the U.S.-Mexican border, they enter
into a strange and foreign land. They
move into unknown territory—socially, culturally, linguistically, economically,
politically, legally, and even spiritually. They move from the bottom rung of
their home culture in Mexico to the bottom rung of a foreign culture in the
United States. They arrive not as tourists but as strangers and outsiders. As a
result, immigrants receive a double blow: They are forced to leave the homeland
they love and belong to, yet often they feel unwelcome and unwanted when they
finally come to the United States. For the undocumented Mexican immigrant, such
messages of cultural nonacceptance produce a deep sense of alienation that
reaches into every level of the immigrant's life.
Political-Cultural
Alienation: Mexican in an American Land
Above all, the immigrants move from a world where they
belonged to a world where they are labeled as "illegal aliens." This
deepens their sense of estrangement. Even people with green cards are called
"resident aliens." They experience acute alienation from home, church,
culture, and even themselves. When many Mexican immigrants come to the United
States they often experience cultural displacement. The cultural differences
often cause immigrants to isolate and insulate themselves from the outside
world. Oscar said, "I spent three years alone when I came here, and for
the first month I was closed up in my house. I had no friends and I did not
want to leave because I thought people were going to look at me as
different."
The most immediate experience of alienation is the language.
The inability to speak or understand English intensifies their feeling of
distance from home. Limited educational backgrounds and illiteracy make it even
harder to learn the language. Some cannot communicate about even the most basic
aspects of life. "When I was separated from my wife at the border,"
Miguel said, "I spent weeks worrying about her. I did not even know where
she was. She could not even call us because she couldn't read the numbers on
the telephone."
For other immigrants, the demands of survival leave little
free time to do anything but work. Many labor all day in agricultural jobs,
rising sometimes as early as 2:30 A.M. When they arrive home they are often
exhausted. In addition, few immigrants have cars, so transportation to classes,
even if available, is in many instances very difficult.
Besides language problems, they find it difficult to express
the deeper experiences of the heart: fears of being rejected, useless,
unimportant, used, abused, mistreated, disregarded, and oppressed. As a result,
many immigrants building up high psychological walls between themselves and the
outside world: many become strangers even to themselves.
Another form of alienation is cultural. The movement from
Mexican culture to an American culture is a dramatic shift. Many Mexicans go
through painful moments of disorientation when they enter into U.S. American
society. The customs, values, and attitudes are often dramatically different.
Even the social geography is quite dissimilar. For example, in Mexico the
social life often centers on the town square. More often than not, in suburban
United States the center is the shopping mall. The cultural values of the U.S.
American and the Mexican are often inverted. As Mexicans enter into the U.S.
American world, they often find themselves caught in the crossfire of
conflicting value systems. They experience the economic pressures of survival
and, at the same time, the constant pressures of a materialistic culture.
When they go back to Mexico, many immigrants often are not
accepted in the same way as before they left. Mexicans describe this experience
as feeling ni de aqui, ni de alia [neither from here (the United States) nor
there (Mexico)], and with good reason: it is difficult to survive in one's
hometown, yet it is difficult to find a true home in the United States. Living
in the United States leaves many Mexican immigrants with the feeling of
absolute non-belonging.
Socio-Economic
Alienation: Poor in a Prosperous Land
Virtually all undocumented Mexican immigrants have no
security, no benefits, no health care, and no guarantee of long-term work. They
pay taxes but get few, if any, benefits. Although undocumented workers pay over
$7 billion dollars annually in taxes and social security, many are not eligible
for most benefits. They are often abused by their boss (or contratista), and, through various
types of trickery, sometimes are denied their just wages. Even
recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions have decided that federal immigration law takes precedence over
labor law, which makes immigrants even more
vulnerable. Whereas previous court decisions used to protect immigrant
rights and the right to compensation for work rendered, newer legislation has
ruled against them, further opening the undocumented immigrant up to labor exploitation.
The Mexican immigrant typically labors in jobs that most
U.S. workers do not want. Some are dangerous and precarious. They plow fields in temperatures above 110
degrees, fumigate crops with poisonous
chemicals, prune vines amid rattlesnakes and scorpions, pick strawberries with their backs bent
over, and tend citrus groves from the break of day. In many ways, the
California economy is built on the backs of migrant workers like these.
Typically, Mexican immigrants are more willing than U.S.-born workers to take jobs that
are boring, dirty, dangerous, and low paying. California's shaky economy in
recent years also has created a difficult environment for them. Immigrants are
often the scapegoat for social and economic problems. Negative social messages
deepen the experience of alienation for these people.
The jobs the immigrants get often are unstable. When
workers begin to protest
their conditions, they can easily be dismissed. "For every person working
in this valley," said Esteban, "there are five more behind them waiting to take your job."57
Because of the large numbers of immigrants looking for jobs in southern California, there is a super-abundance
of unskilled laborers. Corporations maintain the upper hand. This creates conditions in which workers are often exploited and manipulated.
"We live in a new era of the plantation-estates,"
said Mario, "but the only difference is that [our slavery] is more disguised now." Even though he is a college graduate, Mario spends his
days working in the agricultural fields of California.
"We work like slaves for the multinational corporations, but they have no regard for us. We break our backs in the sun, but for little money."58
Those who hire the
immigrants often they see them just as arms and limbs without hearts or souls, unrecognized bodies viewed in terms of their economic usefulness rather then their human
and spiritual potential.
Psycho-Spiritual Alienation: Lonely in an
Unfamiliar Land
In leaving Mexico, many
immigrants enter a world of social poverty and
become disconnected from family, culture, and homeland. "The most
painful thing is separating from the family and leaving behind your loved ones as you search for a more dignified
life," said Gustavo.59 Loneliness is a heavy burden and one of
the most unrecognized aspects of the immigrant's pain.
In the midst of their
separation from home, many of these immigrants long to know that they have a
place in someone's life, and especially in someone's heart, to know that
someone cares, to know that it makes a difference to someone if they are not
around. Without the feeling of connectedness, the agony and emptiness can
easily give rise to deviant behavior in drugs, sex, gambling, and alcohol, all
of which can lead to various psychological and physical sicknesses. Their
loneliness becomes all the more acute when they come to the one place they
expect to feel at home, namely the Catholic Church. Often, even there, they
do not feel welcome.
Many
Mexican immigrants live in isolated and rural areas. Because their experience of the
institutional Church is often limited, some
see priests infrequently, so they have little contact with the sacramental life of the Church. They often have a
negative or neutral understanding of the God and the institutional Church. In
general, they are accustomed to few
liturgical services, and they often have to pay for those they do request. Many
have very limited instruction in catechism as well, except from many of
their grandmothers. As a result, many immigrants come with a notion of a punitive
God who scrutinizes their behaviors and watches them with a punishing vigilance. Nonetheless, many immigrants have a deep sense of the sacred in their daily lives and a deep sense of the providence of
God.
The
pressure to work prevents immigrants from addressing their loneliness and other inner pains. After he left his wife in Mexico, Miguel stated, "I would just cover up my pain by working, working, and working."60
Despite busying himself with constant activity, the loneliness continued to
afflict him. He continued, "I used to just
try to keep myself busy in the fields because the pain was so intense. It used to drive me crazy, and I used to do almost anything to distract myself so as to numb the
pain I was feeling."61
Immigrants often feel tremendous
longing for their families back in Mexico. Many Mexican
children grow up not seeing their father for months or years, lacking even the
simplest gestures of touch and affection
that are part of a loving relationship.
For those who have no family contacts
in the United States, the loneliness is even
greater. They have no one to hold or share with on deeper
levels. They often experience a deep feeling of rejection. In their isolation and abandonment, they often ask, "Will anyone be
there for me?" "Does anyone care?" "Does my life have any
significance?" "Can I trust
my co-workers?" "Will they call immigration officials?" The
fear of being deported is one degree of the immigrant's
loneliness, but beneath this is another: The fear that one is
nobody to anybody.
Since many of the
immigrants leave immediate family behind, they have a deep need to connect to other people. Even when they are
around others, however, they often feel incomplete while their family
is far away in Mexico. This deep
longing to connect is what drives them to take incredibly
high risks to return to visit, or to encourage their family to return with them,
even with the dangers involved.
For some, their problems worsen as
they try to bring their families with them. Jesus Jimenez, a
Mexican national who had worked in Fresno, California,
is one example. At the age of seventeen, he returned to Mexico to marry the woman
he loved. In the perilous crossing over the
border, he and his wife hit a snowstorm, and the
coyote who was guiding them
abandoned them to die in the cold. Having been married
only two weeks, Jimenez's bride, Osveia Tepee Jimenez, only twenty
years old, died in his arms amid the freezing
temperatures of the mountains. While recuperating in the hospital, he said, "I've loved her all my life . . . we were going to make a new life here, so much better
than the one we had. We had so many dreams, but we will never live them now. It's
all my fault for bringing her."62 Of all the burdens they carry,
guilt is one of heaviest.
While some feel noble in their
attempts to provide for their families, many experience a burden of culpability, which comes in various forms: the guilt of not being able to return for the funeral of a
loved one, the guilt of not being able to raise a family and be a father to one's children, the guilt of infidelity, and even the guilt of not sending enough
money home. Amidst this loneliness, the temptations
increase. Looking for someone to touch or hold often drives one to search for a prostitute or a passing
affair, someone to connect with and
alleviate the pain of the loneliness. Afterwards, some immigrants experience a double burden: the
burden of loneliness has not lifted, and the burden of guilt remains, a
guilt that comes from the feeling of having
betrayed the ones they love and have left behind. Some even begin new families
on the American border while
maintaining a family in Mexico.
Many immigrants experience a
complex, overlapping feeling of alienation from home,
family, culture, and even God. Drugs and alcohol help alleviate
the pain yet drag them into the vicious cycles of poverty,
depression, and failure. Loneliness often leads them to shut
down emotionally. Many immigrants become all the more in need of love but all the more unable to find it or express it, resulting
in a deep feeling of emptiness.
The Immigrant Predicament: A Stranger in a Foreign Land
Some immigrants who come to the
United States experience new prosperity and tremendous opportunities. For many,
however, their situation gets worse before it gets better. The physical demands of border crossing
are arduous enough, but unfortunately they are only the beginning of the
difficulties that they experience. While many Mexicans come to the United
States looking for a better job, or at least some money to help them survive in
Mexico, they often go from bad to worse, from guate-mala to guate-peor, as some say. Their struggles to survive are as difficult on the U.S. side of the border as on the Mexican
side, sometimes more so.
After it is all said and done, after the immigrant
has broken from family, gone through the trials of the border crossing, and worked under harsh
conditions, many of them ask themselves, "Am I better off now than I was in Mexico?"
"Have I really
advanced at
all?" While they follow the ripening of the crops,
many immigrants, humanly speaking, are unable to ripen themselves.63 Slowly there creeps into the immigrant's consciousness a painful realization that one
is in an even more miserable condition than in
Mexico.
The Immigrant Journey
As A Way Of The Cross
For the immigrant, the road across
the scorching temperatures of the desert is a devil's highway. In the process
of leaving Mexico, crossing the border, and entering into the
United States, undocumented Mexican
immigrants experience nothing short of a walk across a border
of death. Even when they do not die physically, they under go a death culturally,
psychologically, socially, and emotionally. Their journey involves an economic
sentencing, whereby they have to shoulder the difficult responsibilities of
leaving family, home, and culture for an unknown future in the United States
and the search for a job with meager wages. The Mexican immigrant experiences
an agonizing movement from belonging to non
belonging, from relational connectedness to family separation, from
being to non-being, from life to death. When
these immigrants arrive in the United States, they are often tired,
burdened, and wounded. Not all Mexican immigrants experience such extremes of the immigration process, but many of them do.
As we look more closely
at the lives of these immigrants and the suffering they
experience, we see the many forces that affect their lives. The suffering they
experience is an important starting point for a discussion about their
spirituality. Spirituality pertains to the totality of life,
including the social, economic, cultural, political, and economic dimensions
that shape it. No serious discussion of the topic can ignore
these elements that affect the lives of these immigrants so
dramatically. Any credible discussion of a Mexican immigrant spirituality must have reference to the
pains and trials of their lives, as well the hopes and desires they have for
a better future.
Within the particular stories of
their lives, we see echoes of the universal
experience of suffering. The
poor often bring forth truths that are the most basic to human life. They penetrate the superficialities of a cosmetic culture and reveal the naked truth of human
existence. Through them we can glimpse hints of the hidden presence
of God who lives with them on the margins of society.
These immigrants
are willing to descend into the depths of hell in the desert for the people they love so that they may have better lives. Within
their particular stories of hunger, thirst, estrangement, nakedness, sickness,
and imprisonment we can begin to see the face of a crucified
Christ (Matthew 25:31-26:2). In their suffering, the immigrants reveal the
hidden mystery of Christ today.
At the same
time, the life of Jesus as revealed through the Scriptures gives these
immigrants a new way of understanding their own lives. The life, death, and
resurrection of Christ are foundational to
their spirituality. The naked truth of human life is also revealed in
the person of Jesus, who also makes known the truth about God. Like Jesus, many
of these immigrants sacrifice their comfort
and risk their lives for the good of others (John 15:13). For these immigrants, the life of Jesus reveals the
truth about God and the truth about
their human experience.
The journey across the
border of death is a very real way of the cross for many
immigrants, and the entrance to the United States is an experience of crucifixion. Overall, this journey to the United States resembles Jesus' own journey to Jerusalem, a land of great promise but also
great suffering. Economically, the undocumented Mexican immigrant experiences
a movement from poverty in Mexico to poverty and exploitation in the United
States. Politically, they experience oppression. Legally, they are accused of trespassing. Socially, they feel
marginalized. Psychologically, they undergo intense loneliness. And
spiritually, they experience the agony of separation and displacement. "That's
the way it
is,"
affirmed Carlos, "but it doesn't matter, we still have to keep going." Life in the United
States is the place where many Mexican immigrants experience a
contemporary Golgotha, but it is also the place where some experience the rising to a new way of life.
