ARIZONA: Faithful participate in immigration rallies
Episcopal News Service. June 3, 2010 [060310-04]
Pat McCaughan
Witnessing tens of thousands of people from across the country join a May 29 Phoenix protest of Arizona's immigration law brought Juan, a member of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, renewed hope for equitable immigration reform.
"This march was different than the others," he said of the event, arranged by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network and other groups opposing Arizona's new immigration law that aims to identify and deport illegal immigrants. "There were a lot more people, and people from all over the United States. It was wonderful to see so many people supporting us," he said after a midday Spanish-language service at the cathedral May 30.
But his wife, Amelia, who with the couple's two children also marched five miles in sweltering heat, had the opposite reaction. "The more demonstrations we have, the more it makes the people in power not want to change," she said through an interpreter. Tears welling up, she added: "It's like you have to demonstrate, but if you do, you're going to get punished."
Fear and fear of punishment weigh heavily on the couple, who asked that their identities be withheld to help prevent detainment, arrest or deportation because they are working illegally in the country.
Beyond typical parental concern for their children's safety and well-being they describe an ever-present, more pressing, desperate fear: "If we get sent back to Mexico, what's going to happen to our children, to their education, to us?"
It's the type of question that the Rev. Enrique Cadena, vicar of Iglesia Episcopal San Pablo, Phoenix's largest Spanish-speaking Episcopal congregation, said he has been putting to his parishioners.
"I keep telling them to be realistic," said Cadena who attended the march along with several parish families.
The law has made an already-difficult life even harder, he said. Some parishioners "are afraid and don't want to go outside, while others are saying we need to fight. I'm for the fight, to encourage people to fight and to be strong," he added.
Cadena said he has counseled parishioners to explore their options, including relocating within the country, unless the new law is repealed on constitutional grounds or the government "won't allow it to be enacted."
On May 29, Cadena felt hopeful, he said, as he watched tour buses unload demonstrators from California, Washington, Idaho and other states. "There's a good energy here, especially to know so many organizations from different states are supporting us local people," he added.
Former Arizona residents Luis Gonzalez and Luisa Bonillas, parishioners at St. Paul's Cathedral in the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego also felt that energy during the march.
"It was very moving to be walking with so many people chanting ‘Si se puede' [yes, we can]" recalled Bonillas, a professor of U.S. History Chicano Perspectives at Cuyamaca College in El Cajon, California.
"We support an amnesty. Luis and his family came to the U.S. from Mexico when he was in elementary school in the 1970s," she said. "The 1986 Amnesty allowed him to go to MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology] in 1988."
They brought along their children Ariana, 13, and Andres, 9, "because we believe that they will remember the importance of fighting for other people's rights while also standing up for our own," Bonillas said. "It was also sad to know that we continue to have to fight for our rights even in 2010. Equipping our children for the fight means that we know we won't be done anytime soon."
The Rev. Canon Carmen B. Guerrero, canon for peace and justice for the Diocese of Arizona, said a diocesan grant that helped to publish a how-to booklet for those detained by authorities is just one of many ways the church is reaching out to undocumented people.
Often, she said, she is asked to write letters to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on behalf of members of the congregation.
"The letters explain that I know them and that they are members in good standing of the parish … and what they could contribute to our way of life in this country if given the opportunity," she said.
Guerrero has also printed a thousand extra business cards and handed them out "to each child in the congregation just in case the parents were arrested and the children were at a loss about where to go," she said.
The cathedral has begun to organize an informal network of parishioners who are willing to take care of children, at least temporarily, should their parents be arrested or deported. No one has had to use the cards yet, she said.
Just that possibility makes 7-year-old Jorge (not his real name) hang on his parents' every word and refuse to allow them out of his sight, even during a conversation in the cathedral parish hall May 30.
Since SB 1070 was signed into law earlier in the year, he fears that his parents, who are undocumented, will be taken away. "The law makes me very sad," he says softly, fighting tears, refusing to say anything further.
His mother, however, says emphatically that she believes "this law will never come into being. God is going to intervene and something good is going to come of all this," she declared, with Guerrero interpreting.
She was invited to the cathedral congregation by a friend two years and has been there ever since, she adds. "I can see the changes in my family," she added. "Whenever we get discouraged the children tell us not to worry, that God is going to take care of us."
But she admits that her biggest worry is about the effect of the law and their undocumented status on her children and about what her children are thinking.
Frederick, 19, a high school graduate, was 5 years old when his parents left Mexico for Arizona.
His immigration status didn't seem to matter until high school, "when it really hit me that being undocumented is like being in jail," said Frederick, who asked that his name and the name of his school be withheld for fear of being arrested or detained by authorities.
He maintained a 3.4 grade point average but "you see all your friends getting scholarships," he said. "They're going places in life and you're stuck. You have the potential but you don't get the offers. You don't get financial aid. You can't drive. You can't be out late because you don't have identification. You can't even go and see an R-rated movie because they card you."
He feels trapped between a country that doesn't seem to want him and one he no longer remembers. "I don't really know any other country than this," he said. "English is my dominant language. The American culture is my culture.
Being undocumented "feels like modern slavery," he added. "You get paid a lower wage. You just have the jobs nobody wants to do. Everything has to be outside under the sun, if they even offer you labor. And if they do give it to you, they don't give you what you're supposed to earn."
Joining the military is one option he has considered as a possible path to citizenship. "I feel fortunate to be here," he said. "I make the best of it everyday and I have faith. I am a good citizen. I feel I've earned the right to belong."