As the group commences to eat, I scan the room wild-eyed, a victim to the adrenaline coursing through my body. I doubt if I've ever felt so grateful or indebted to another human being as I do this morning to Clay; without his willingness to get up and transition into crisis mode after only 4 hours of sleep, my breakfast train would have crashed and burned. As I recover, reeling in relief and reliving the last hour, my boss Nico approaches me, ignorant to the drama that has just transpired. "So, what are your plans for the day, Heather?" "Oh, you know, I'm just working the first shift, and after that I was supposed to have a meeting with you." "What would you say if we found someone else to finish your shift, rescheduled the meeting, and if you went with these women to their events today?"
Rewind: the group of fifteen that had to eat at 8:00 AM. They are a group of mothers from Honduras who have come to Mexico to look for their children who disappeared en route to the United States. They will go to migrant houses and hospitals looking for names or news of their loved ones while in the meantime speaking and raising awareness about the issue of migration. Ignorant to most of this at the time, I agree to go, attempting to prepare myself for the day at hand. I have not showered. I realize with a cringe that I am wearing my hoop nose ring... I've had my nose pierced for over 2 years and have worn a hoop exactly three days during that time, why today? I will already be standing out from this group of Honduran woman with my height, my hair, and my bright bright shirt. Oh, well. This is an opportunity that cannot be missed, despite my post traumatic stress symptoms and questionable appearance.
I board the bus with these women and embark on a day full of education, heartbreak, humor, and unimaginable warmth shared between strangers. I immediately feel welcomed as an adopted daughter by these doting mothers, something I am incredibly grateful for as the obviously odd woman out. We arrive in Ecatepec, a municipality of the city that is doing amazing work for migrants, a municipality that has declared itself a sanctuary in which everyone receives fair treatment. This is an official event. There is plenty of press there, and as I wait for the ceremony to start, I take in everything that's around me. The women lay out pictures of their loved ones who have gone missing, and I am struck by the real faces, the real stories. Can you imagine living in a country like Honduras in which migration divides families left and right, in which people leaving in desperation is the daily reality, the status quo? What a human rights catastrophe! How would we as US citizens react if our family members left (parents, siblings, cousins...), never to be heard from again? And if this were the norm, the unresolved tragedy of our lives? Many times Central American migrants leave behind children, with the intention of eventually coming home or of sending back money to support them. Then they lose communication, perhaps even lose their lives, and their children are left to be raised by grandparents, by aunts and uncles. As I imagine the horror of these separations, I survey the rest of the scene. On stage, there is a red felt sign announcing this "Caravan of Honduran Mothers." There are banners and posters, journalists with fancy cameras strolling through. I hug my arms close as I realize that I am not only under-dressed for the importance of this event but also for the chill factor. We are located in a plaza with statues and a huge Mexican flag rippling in the wind, and we are not the only ones up to some political activism. Other groups are congregated under the large white tents, and rallies and bullhorns echo in the background. I catch sight of an advertisement for Ecatepec: Ahora es de todos (Now for everyone).
Another sign catches my eye for the plainness and poignancy of its message. A picture of a disappeared man named Carlos is accompanied by these words: "Son, we need to know where you are. Your mother died. Carlos Alberto Remus lived in California, married a Mexican, and had four kids. His mother called him to say that she was sick. He told her that he was going to send $50; that's the last that was heard of him. His mother Sonia lives in Progreso, Honduras near the railroad near the battery factory."
I eventually take my seat in the audience and decide to play journalist for the day. I have a digital camera and a little notebook, and I scribble notes and snap photos as each new speaker rises to share his or her testimony. One of the mothers has been looking for her daughter for nine years, a daughter who nineteen years ago left to pursue "the American dream." She states emphatically that she is not asking her daughter for "dollars" but rather for her presence. She has left her children behind. Many speakers mention the connection that Mexico shares with Central American countries like Honduras as being a place that produces migrants. Mexico is absolutely unique in that it is a country of destination, transition, and departure for migrants: in other words, people arrive in Mexico to stay, pass through Mexico to reach the States, and leave Mexico to head north. Sentiments of solidarity are shared as Mexicans say that they want to provide Honduran migrants with the same sort of hospitality that they would want their own migrants to receive in the US. Speakers remind us that we are all brothers and sisters, that no human being is illegal, and that migrating is not a crime, but rather a right shared by all.
Energized by this press conference and by the roses that they have received, the women move on to their next destination: La Lecheria, train tracks outside of Mexico City in the municipality of Tultitlan. La Lecheria is a famous site because many Central American migrants are known to pass through there en route to the United States. One of the Casa's main goals with the migration program is to find a contact who's working directly with migrants at the Lecheria and provide them with donated food and clothes. Our bus ride out of the city and into the state of Mexico is filled with anticipation. The spirited, portly priest who is organizing this trip recounts with the group the harrowing experiences that they shared in arriving to Mexico from Honduras (they were stopped something like 14 times by police and migration officials). In many ways, these women feel as if they are retracing the steps of their children, as if they are reenacting their journey. With every ounce of my being I am grateful to be on this bus, seated across from a British journalist and squished between two eager Hondurans, clutching their cameras and roses.
La Lecheria feels dank and gloomy. It is a chilly, overcast day, and a sort of bleak misery seems to permeate the place, from the makeshift corners with ratty blankets and fires that have been constructed to the stray dogs sniffing at candy wrappers strewn along the tracks. This is a place that is not meant for tourism; it should not be exploited. There is something strikingly unsettling about being here. Though La Lecheria receives a steady stream of transitional inhabitants (who immortalize their presence with messages graffitied on stone columns), it should be no one's home. Restless yet curious, I wander around, observing. The journalists seem to all have narrowed in on one family: a Honduran couple who is debating whether or not to continue north or stay in Mexico. The woman who's interviewed says that she has three children in three different countries: Honduras, Nicaragua, and the United States. She's young and pretty; her hair gelled back in a ponytail, her manner nonchalant. While the cameras flash and the reporters take hurried notes, I move along to the conversations happening between the Honduran mothers and the Honduran migrants who've recently arrived on the trains. "Have you contacted your families at home? Do they know where you are yet?" They speak with the sobering authority of mothers, imploring these travelers to reconsider the sacrifice of leaving their families behind. They know all too well the consequences of these separations. Those consequences have brought them here.
Eventually, we pack up and go, our visit seeming slightly hollow as we think about those that we're leaving behind and anti-climatic as we have not witnessed the dramatic arrival of a train with migrants on board. We regroup on the bus, slightly emotionally and physically spent. Our final destination will liven our spirits. We have a lunch date at the Casa del Migrante in Ecatepec with Jose Luis Gutierrez Cureno, the charismatic mayor who has done much work to promote solidarity with Central American migrants. He appears to be wildly popular among his constituents as cries rise up several times throughout the meeting, "Se ve, se siente, Cureno esta presente!" (You can see it! You can feel it! Cureno is here!) I am very impressed with the words of encouragement he extends to these Honduran mothers, respectfully and sincerely offering any support that the municipality of Ecatepec can provide them in their quest to locate their family members. The migrant house at Ecatepec is a place of refuge for migrants passing through on the trains; there are beds, hot meals, a basketball court, and posters on the wall provocatively declaring, "If capital can cross borders, we can too." As the meeting draws to a close, and we all prepare to descend on the taco buffet, Cureno presents the women with a binder full of names and information that has been collected at the migrant house. Any one who has stayed there has been given the option (but not obligated) to leave their information in the hopes that family members might later retrace their steps.
As we board the bus one last time to return to the Casa, I begin to digest this day, to let process the many impressions that are filling my head to the brim. More than anything else, I feel incredulous that I have been aloud to be a bystander to these events. What business do I have here, a young girl from Pennsylvania with a bachelor's degree in English and a Spanish that's still far from fluent? I am no journalist, no migrants' rights activist, no expert on Honduran/Mexican relations, but rather a simple volunteer at an international guesthouse who was given the opportunity to get on a bus. I feel grateful to have been able to extend even the slightest gesture of solidarity to these women who have been through so much. I feel grateful to have been a pair of eyes and ears witnessing the warmth exchanged between mayors, mothers, migrants, priests, activists, and reporters. I feel grateful to have seen both the human heartache and hope that exist behind this intimidatingly complicated issue of border crossing. I feel grateful, humbled, and inspired.
1 comment:
you are amazing.
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