When you first drive into El Paso, Texas from the north on Interstate-10, you’ll notice off to the right a neighborhood of simple but brightly painted houses. The walls are bright green, pink and orange and the first impression is that it’s an odd sight to see in an American city. It only after a few minutes that a wall comes into sight. Not the “Wall,” Donald Trump’s impractical and selfish fantasy but a long fence about ten feet high. It extends seemingly forever, heading up and over the surrounding hills. Those quaintly painted homes are in the neighboring Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez.
But the immigrants cramming the relief centers of El Paso aren’t Mexican. They are from the Central American countries of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. Thousands of which were dumped on the streets of El Paso, most of them sick and without winter clothing. Despite it being southern Texas, the nighttime temperatures were in the mid-twenties with snow. The relief centers are overwhelmed by hundreds arriving each day with many more to come. They put out a call for help. A perfect storm of events inspired me to respond.
I had planned to for some time right after the first horrific images appeared of children separated from their parents and placed into cages. Personal events interceded and the crisis at the border was soon pushed off the headlines by the latest Trump outrage which are now weekly events. But crisises don’t disappear because the news media has a short attention span. The recent deaths of two immigrant children in detention brought the issue back into the national focus along with the racist dog-whistle of supposed rapists, murderers and gang members “invading” our nation.
The other night, I watched “Madam Secretary,” one of my favorite shows, broadcast nationally on CBS-TV. Based on a fictional Secretary of State, Elizabeth McCord, the show has the uncanny ability to mirror current events even as they are happening. The episode I viewed was of her visiting a immigrant detention center in Arizona where she is arrested for speaking out against what she called an “Immoral and un-American policy” of separating children from their parents. Rarely has mainstream network television been so brave.
The day after, a friend of mine, a Chicano activist living in Taos, posted on Facebook that he was traveling to the detention center at Tornillo, Texas to both protest and give whatever aid he could. A few hours later, another pal, Lindsay, announced that she was driving down to El Paso with a car full of medicine, food, and winter clothing. It would be a thirteen-hour, eight hundred mile round-trip drive she wanted to do in one day. When she asked for a driving companion, I volunteered.
We left in -2 degree weather and arrived in El Paso a 4pm. We had been asked not to publish the location of the relief center, of which there are many, because there had been threats of violence directed against the immigrants. We parked, introduced ourselves and were told what to bring where. The main area was a gym with long rows of cots and a nearby cafeteria. Everywhere was stacks of clothing, paper products and food. A few volunteers directed traffic and looked after the needs of the refugees. I walked into the gym to meet one of the supervisors.
As I walked through the row of cots, I saw no “Rapists, murderers and gang-members.” There were mostly women and children, the mothers sleeping on cots, exhausted, a group of little girls playing with coloring books. The families doing whatever they could to make life bearable in a living condition one usually associates with survivors of a war or a natural disaster. But their kindness was evident. The men helped us unload. My limited Spanish was met by wide smiles and laughter. They thanked us but I felt the need to thank them, for having the courage to venture into the unknown, to risk hate and hostility to save their families from violence, terror and oppression. They had come to America for the same reason my grandparents had fled Eastern Europe a century ago.
Lindsay and I might have left disheartened if it hadn’t been for a family of a daughter, mother and grandmother gathering toys for children in the main dining area. They told us how proud they were of their hometown, El Paso which had opened its heart to those in need. “On the first day the immigrants arrived, long lines of cars appeared bringing food and clothing,” Estrella, the mother said. “The police showed up with crates of water. On Christmas Day, we were able to give each child a new toy.”
Their words were proof to me that underneath the headlines and the fear, most Americans are basically kind, decent people. That kindness and decency were on display that day and may it continue to do so.
Daniel A. Brown lived in Franklin County for forty-four years and was a frequent contributor to the Recorder. He currently lives in Taos, New Mexico.