Refugee
photo credit: mural at Bangla Academy, Dhaka, © Ashfaq Mahmud / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-3.0 / GFDL
When something keeps coming to my attention again and again, I sometimes choose to think that the Universe is trying to tell me something. For instance, I had heard of Big Bend National Park before, but I wasn't really aware of where or what exactly it was. Then a friend who was going through divorce around the same time I was spent his first extended period away from his kids on a solo hiking and camping trip at Big Bend. Then another friend told me about her journeys to Big Bend and how it was a kind of spiritual retreat for her. Here and there, now and then, the name "Big Bend" popped up in my life.
So I'm driving to Big Bend this month for a few days of hiking.
Similarly, though not similarly since it's a hot current events topic in a way that Big Bend is not, American immigration policy and the plight of refugees seeking asylum keeps coming up. It's not a topic to which I had given very much thought previously, but now I'm thinking about it all the time, partly because of my acknowledged obsession with podcasts.
Christopher Vu Gandin Le, a photographer and activist in suicide prevention and mental health, wrote an article for the Austin American-Statesman reacting to Trump's executive order, in which he relates his own refugee story. I met Chris probably 5 years or so ago when we were both active members of Austin Stay-at-Home Dads. Immediately after his powerful and personal call for American empathy was published, I coincidentally ran into him at the capitol after having not seen him at all since about a year and a half ago, when he took some of my all-time favorite photos of my son and me. Seeing him again, I began to suspect that the Universe was telling me to pay attention.
Around the same time, This American Life aired their story, the ironically titled "It's Working Out Very Nicely", on the implementation of the executive order to halt immigration from 7 specific countries. They've invested a lot in journalism on refugees, spending time in camps in Greece and exploring U.S. immigration policy and how it affects people around the world who have taken huge risks to help us in our multiple fronts in the endless war on terror.
Since then, On The Media ran their story, "Smoke & Handcuffs" on the lack of sanctuary in sanctuary cities and the lack of accountability and transparency in the law enforcement agencies that are on the front lines of immigration and border protection, including the case of Sergio Hernandez, a 15-year-old Mexican national shot in the head by U.S. Border Patrol agent while the unarmed kid was hiding behind a pillar on the Mexican side of the border.
After that, 99% Invisible ran their story, "Church (Sanctuary, Part 1)" on the movement in the early '80s that began in Tuscon and grew nationwide of churches providing services, supplies, and safe haven to refugees fleeing the civil wars in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. They were overwhelmingly classified as economic refugees not deserving of political asylum, even in instances where there was clear physical evidence of torture, because at the time the Federal government saw those refugees as communist threats to national security.
And now, because I'm in love with a woman whose mother fled Bangladesh on a student visa amid great political upheaval, I'm reading A History of Bangladesh by Willem van Schendel. Like a lot of histories of human endeavors, it's full of the horrors of what people can do to each other when they're able to think of other humans as less valuable than themselves, which is shockingly easy to do when they look different, speak and worship differently, and they have labor, land, and other resources from which a profit might be made. Of course, there are floods, too, that kill in inconceivably large numbers, and at least one cyclone whose catastrophic death toll affected an entire national election. But there are genocides and famines arising out of British colonialism, and genocide less than 50 years ago based on a complicated mixture of Cold War politics, resource exploitation, and racial and religious discrimination. There are a million and a half civilian refugees fleeing in terror from their homes and into India in order to avoid cold-blooded execution by their own nation's military.
How many times in its history has the United States, the white-hatted champions of truth and justice and freedom, helped the right wing governments of other nations in the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians? When will we cease to be surprised that we are seen in other parts of the world as the black-hatted villains?
Anyway. I've been thinking about refugees lately.
I wondered, "How can I help?" So I Googled. If Google is going to collect and profit by data about me, I'd rather that data reflect an interest in the well being of humans who are not me.
I found Refugee Services of Texas and checked them out on GuideStar. They appear to put almost all of the money they raise into a wide range of services for refugees. So I got on their email list, and I made a donation. They say that they have been overwhelmed with volunteer requests, so it may take a while for them to get to me. That makes me happy. In my state, where my governor is fully on board the Trump anti-immigration, anti-refugee, anti-kindness train, there are so many offers for help for refugees from individual volunteers that processing them all is an administrative challenge.
Clicking through some of their suggestions on how to help, I saw the Salaam Supper. This looks like something I can do. An excuse for a dinner party? Perfect! A reason to get together with friends and eat and talk and enjoy each other's company? Why not? I like this part of Google's definition of the word salaam: "a gesture of greeting or respect..." I hear it also means peace.
My home is small, and not very conducive to hosting get-togethers. I bet I can find a friend with a large home who would join me in this endeavor, though. If I do, would you come? Maybe I'll try my hand at making biryani. How hard could it be?
