Homespun Homily: Notes from the Border
By Lori Fontana
How bad would it have to be that you would choose to leave your home, your extended family and friends, your country, and perhaps even your children or spouse to travel to a place where you desperately hoped life would be better? How bad?
How bad would it have to get for you to choose to travel thousands of miles – not via plane, train, or bus, but crammed in an open train car, or locked in the windowless trailer of a semi, or walking through thick jungle teeming with poisonous snakes and insects, through hostile cities plagued by corrupt police officials, through barren desert, with no relief from the heat, the tiredness, the hunger and thirst?
These are the “travel” stories we’re hearing here at the border. The people we meet are beautiful and brave. They arrive at our shelter having endured trauma, first in their own communities which are unstable, at times to the point of collapse, under the weight of high inflation, few jobs, and high- priced and / or scarce food and necessities.
Many have endured physical deprivation and abuse on their journey. They’ve paid their life savings to hire a “coyote” who promises safe passage, but instead they have been mistreated with verbal and physical violence or even left stranded along the way, without food or water.
Some of our migrant guests have been the target of gang violence. They’ve been threatened, extorted, beaten, stabbed. One person who wouldn’t cooperate with the local gang was thrown into a pond of crocodiles. Gang members have threatened to kidnap or kill their children and other family members.
As I see it, and as our guests tell of their own experiences, it becomes apparent that people migrate to our United States of America for two basic reasons: lack of food / work and threat of violence. And I very much believe that if faced with either of these scenarios, I, too, might risk everything to end up in a place where I could find a job and have enough to eat, where I could send my kids to school and to bed each night without worrying that they might be kidnapped or killed.
Our borders, immigration – it is all very complicated; and yet, it’s simple. Native Americans were the first inhabitants of this land from sea to shining sea. And all of the rest of us are immigrants or come from a line of migrants to this country. Being a U.S. citizen is not the result of anything we’ve done – we were just born here! Many don’t see it this way. Loud voices decry migrants of today – they’re taking our jobs, crowding our schools, packing welfare rolls.
But, please, open your eyes. Look around. On an ordinary day in my hometown, someone delivered my newspaper (I still read one!) to my doorstep; someone cut my hair – both recent migrants. I rode the city bus – the driver was from west Africa; I ate some Thai food – the chefs were from Thailand. I passed a shoeshine stand, a laundromat, a nail salon – each of the proprietors was a recent immigrant. Our doctor is from China and our dentist from Korea.
How many “Help Wanted” signs do you see each day? Restaurants, hospitals, construction companies, schools, tech companies, daycares, retail stores, parks departments, farms and grocery stores – all segments of our economy are begging for workers. Where will they come from?
In 1886, in New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty was dedicated. Did you learn Lady Liberty’s inscription as a school kid?
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these the homeless tempest-tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door! ~Emma Lazarus
In the 1880’s, the tired and poor coming to our “golden door” were O’Malleys and Salvatores, Bukowskis and Ovrelids (like my grampa from Norway), Schmidts and the English counterpart – Smiths. Today it’s Sanchezes and Aguileras, Fouches and Bekeles, Smirnovs and Wangs. People yearning for, and willing to work for, an opportunity at the “American Dream.”
If the Statue of Liberty doesn’t compel you to reflect on immigration in 2024, I hope you will turn to the words of Jesus:
“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” Matthew 25:35 – 36
It is clear that our immigration system needs work. In the meanwhile, as Christians we are challenged that migrants are “Jesus” at our door. What part am I called to do? I can’t fix the global problems. But I can welcome the stranger at my door and offer a cup of cold water. This is the mission of Annunciation House.
