Last Saturday, I boarded a bus with 25 religious leaders at BorderLinks in Tucson, AZ (https://www.borderlinks.org/) - an organization with the mission:
Through dynamic educational experiences, BorderLinks connects divided communities, raises awareness about the impact of border and immigration policies, and inspires action for social transformation.
The bus took us toward the U.S./Mexico border at Nogales which “was once an easy, friendly and relaxed two-nation border town” as described in the official website of Nogales, AZ. “The urban fabric is now split in two,” the website description continues, “Separated by an international border, yet still Ambos Nogales remains heavily reliant on each other.” This somewhat neutral description quickly evaporated as we moved close enough to the dividing wall to look over to the Mexico side of Nogales. While we saw in the U.S. side “a progressive city that has been able to maintain its small town charm, rich traditions, and vibrant culture”—another somewhat accurate description from the website—on the Mexico side, we saw dwellings made of unfinished cinderblocks, car tires and wood panels, crowded on the hillside pushing up against the border wall.
After we cross the border into Nogales, Sonoma, we listened to stories of people planning on crossing the border illegally in order to be with families and make a better living. Some had repeatedly been deported back from the U.S. and still they would try again. We drove by the manufacturing plants factories called Maquiladoras, which take advantage of the efficient proximity to the U.S. and the abundance of inexpensive labor. We had lunch in a cinderblock house in which our gracious host shared her struggles in challenging the factories to honor the rights of the workers who made an average wage equivalent to $35-$75 per week. As we continued our journey, I saw a vision of a large machine and people were fed into it with prescribed paths. Even when they were fighting the system, they are still confined by the rules of this machine. I was desperate to find hope.
Finally,
we arrived at the "Hogar de Esperanza y
Paz" where stories of hope were shared through adult education programs,
programs for children, community gardens, and mirco-economic development. I saw these programs as ways to create
reasons for people to stay. However,
this place of grace seemed so small in the face of this enormous destructive
system of exchanges across this border that favors the corporations and the
rich, while the poor continues to struggle to find sustainability including
making the dangerous journey north.
Yet, this glimpse of hope is what we have to hold on to. We have to find ways to connect with this vision and then share and expand using our currencies of relationships. As long as there are systems that exploit the poor, we will always have the poor among us. And we might try to help the poor within this system, but our limited efforts are not going to address the heart of the problem. The solution is to transform the system, or at least name and realize an alternative sustainable community. We can only do this by first anointing the “sustainist” in ourselves and each other—the part of our heart and soul and mind that truly love and respect humanity and the earth. If more and more people are dwelling in the way of love, we might have a chance to truly transform our systems from scarcity to abundance, limiting border to expanding margin, from fear to grace.
BorderLinks envisions a world in which people, within and across social borders, respect and care for each other, value and celebrate differences, and build healthy and just communities where everyone has equal opportunity for a full and dignified life.
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2013 Opportunities to Study with The Sustainist: April 15-19 July 15-19 August 19-23 Register at: www.kscopeinstitute.org |
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Reflection Questions for the Forth Sunday in Lent (Year C) Isaiah 42:16-21 Psalm 126 Philippians 3:4b-14 John 12:1-8 |
Eric H. F. Law
Kaleidoscope Institute
For competent leadership in a diverse changing world
www.kscopeinstitute.org
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