Hope on a Tuesday

It was a Tuesday night and I planned on meeting with a small group of neighbors who I thought might qualify for the new Deferred Action Immigration Policy.  I had talked to maybe 20 people and expected about that many to show up. I set up a few chairs in the living room of our Solid House and waited for our new lawyer friend, who graciously agreed to help our neighbors file, to arrive. You see, normally how these community meetings go is maybe about 50-75% of the people we expect to show up actually do, and usually they are 15-30 minutes late. It's the way of the neighborhood and something I have come to embrace.

But this Tuesday was different. It wasn't even 7:00pm yet, the scheduled start time of our meeting, and the little living room was packed. People were overflowing into the patio and we definitely did not have enough chairs for everyone. It was hot and muggy, but the energy was high. We decided to move our meeting to the church down the street so everyone would fit. All SEVENTY people walked through the neighborhood to the church. It looked like a parade! When the lawyer arrived, he went right into introducing himself and sharing about the basics of the new policy. There were arms flying up left and right with questions about themselves or "their friends." I couldn't quite put my finger on it at the time, but something was special about this night. A group of people who daily feel the weight of their societal labels, like "illegal" and "criminal", were eager, anxious, and excited. There was fear in the room, but as the night came to an end, it hit me: for the first time, a room of undocumented immigrants from our neighborhood were gathered together and the normal overwhelming feelings of struggle and fear were strongly overshadowed by hope.

Hope is powerful thing. Hope gives you confidence, drive, and determination. As I scheduled individual appointments for each potential applicant that night, I heard countless people talk about how they were going back to get their GED now, re-enroll in college, or apply for a job in the field they love, have a degree in, but could never pursue without a work permit. Hope was in the air and it was a beautiful thing to be apart of. 

As the night came to an end and as I locked up the church, feeling physically tired but emotionally rejuvenated, a mom and her 13 year old daughter came up to me. They had just heard about the meeting and were wondering if I could help the daughter apply. I explained that she was too young right now, but as long as the policy was still in place when she turned 15, I would definitely help her. I gave her the basics of deferred action and her face literally lit up as I explained the potential for a work permit and driver's licence...things this girl didn't dare dream about. Her mom looked at her daughter as she put her arm around her. She didn't have to say it but I knew what she was thinking.

This is why she made the difficult decision to come and dangerous journey here...for hope. 

And this is why I got involved in this work to begin with...to see that look of hope on the faces of my friends and neighbors.

My DREAM for Change part 2

My life has most fully been lived on a little street in Fullerton, Ca.

This neighborhood means so much to me. It's where I fell in love with my husband. It's where I discovered who I truly am. It's where I have experienced Jesus in the deepest way. It's where I learned to dream BIG dreams for those I love, even if they are not able to dream them for themselves.

My neighborhood is far from "beautiful". There is trash everywhere, gangsters hanging out on the corner, worn down apartments, and I have broken up a fight or two. But it's not this physical place, full of imperfections, that has so deeply impacted me. It's the perfect God I have experienced through my neighbors that is what brings me to a deep place of reflection.

In the countless meals I have shared, walks to Target I have taken, and conversations had at the food trucks, I have come to realize how connected I am to my neighbors. We are not all that different. We all want to be safe, provide for and protect our families. We all want to be valued.

We all want to dream.

As similar and connected as we are. There is a stark difference between me and my neighbors: I have been given the right to dream. In fact, I have almost been forced to dream. I grew up with the idea that I could do anything. I was free and even entitled to follow my dreams, whatever they may be.

My neighbors? Sure they can dream, in theory. They can imagine being doctors, engineers, teachers, artists, musicians, lawyers, politicians...but the reality of their circumstances often crushes those thoughts before they even fully play out in their heads.

When I first moved into my neighborhood I was an idealistic 19 year old. I thought with a little love and imagination this neighborhood could transform. What I have come to realize over the last 7 years is that love and imagination will only take you so far. I pray everyday not to lose my idealism, but I have accepted the reality that transformation takes time. It takes work and it is often times very difficult. When it comes to the reality of my neighborhood, there is just so much we have to overcome. We have systemic poverty, slum lords, a broken education system, and too many kids who don't know how to dream. We have generations of people who can't see past the corner of Garnet and Placentia and the second they do they are quickly reminded that for them, there is no point. Over the years I have also come to realized how deeply connected these issues are with the fact that so many of my neighbors are undocumented. When you don't belong, you have no rights, and you are treated like a second class citizen, what's the point of dreaming? I fear our lack of just Immigration policy is robbing our neighbors of their God given right to dream.

I think, as the Church, we need to acknowledge this as a viable possibility.

We also need to begin repairing the damage we have caused by allowing our big corporations to cause systemic poverty in our neighboring countries, taking advantage of cheap labor, creating a demand for drugs, weapons and prostitution, and allowing years of outdated and unjust laws go unchanged. Too many people want to criminalize the acts of those who came here unlawfully, but I think we need to take responsibility for our role in this mess.

We were so busy asserting our American right to dream for power and prosperity that we forgot about the dreams of our neighbors.

I know that changing our immigration laws will not instantly make everything better. There will always be poverty, corruption and injustice. But for my neighborhood, and countless other Immigrant communities across the nation, we will not see our dreams of transformation fully come to fruition without it. What Comprehensive Immigration Reform would do is restore my neighbor's ability to dream...something we had no business destroying in the first place.

The Real Garnet

So what happens when you have an undocumented family living in a poorly kept apartment complex owned by a greedy and lazy landlord? Well, this is what happens....

The other day, a girl from our teen center, whose family rents the apartment pictured above, came into our office telling us about how their toilet backed up and flooded their entire apartment. An awesome way to start the week if you ask me. We went over to talk to the family and see if there was anyway we could help; it was bad...really, really bad. It smelled like poop and their entire bathroom (the only one in the apartment) was completely unusable. The flooding had gone through the wall and into the closet in one of the bedrooms. All of their clothes were soaked and you could not walk through the hallway without your feet getting drenched with toilet water. It was terribly disgusting. The family called the landlord numerous times with no answer. Finally, later that night, the landlord came and snaked the toilet...but he left the house completely flooded and left part of the snake in the toilet, keeping it from being usable. He said, "You guys clean it up." The next morning, with the apartment still flooded, the tenants were at a loss as to what to do. The single mom can not take a day off work to clean it, the kids have school, and there sure as heck isn't money to hire a cleaning company. I went over to check on them and they asked me to call the landlord to put some pressure on him. When I called, with the most polite voice I could muster up, all I got was an angry man who was clearly avoiding his responsibilities. He quickly changed his tune once we got the City involved...but seriously, what a jerk!!

Slumlords. We have about 40 of them that own the run down, cockroach infested, cold water only apartments we, along with our friends and neighbors, call home. See, this is what happens when you have people who need a place to live, but don't have a social security number or the first and last month's rent. Add that to the fact that their are countless property owners who are only thinking about how to get the most money for the least amount of work, and voila, welcome to the American slums. Undocumented Immigrants are the perfect market for Slumlords in the US. After all, they have no rights or at least they don't know their rights. Even if they did, they are too afraid to speak up. Who would listen anyway?

Unfortunately, this story is not an anomaly. It's funny how I asked my landlord for screens on our windows and their was a guy installing them the next day, but my neighbors (who live in the same complex) have been asking for screens for years and have yet to get them. They look at me and assume I will assert my rights, but when they look at the Mexican family, they think, "Ha, what are they going to do??" Something has to change folks, so our friend from the teen center doesn't have to go to sleep to the smell of sewage, so my neighbors can eat dinner without a hundred flies swarming their food, and so the hard working single mom can take a warm shower when she gets home from work. It just ain't right people, it just ain't right.

For the Love of Soccer

There are few things that make me happier then when things in my life overlap. I love when old friends meet new friends, when my parents come to visit my neighborhood or when friends celebrate holidays with my family. Since the day I started going to the shelter, I kept thinking how awesome it would be for some of my neighbors to come and hang with these kids also. Well my dream has come true in the form of a little indoor soccer league. When my contact at the local immigration shelter asked if I would get together a team of teens to play in a league with the kids from the shelter, I agreed right away! How fun...3 things I love dearly: my teenage neighbors, the kids in the shelter, and soccer! What I didn't expect is the impact this could actually have. When I first approached a small group of boys from our teen center and asked if they would be interested in forming a team, I was surprised at how excited they were. I explained to them a little bit about the kids we will be playing against and shared that this will not be about losing or winning, but about building relationships with the boys that are no different than them, other than their circumstance. I told them this is their opportunity to be apart of something bigger than themselves. It is usually like pulling teeth to get these boys to commit to anything, especially something that is not about them, so I was skeptical about them even showing up.

But they did. Early.

Just about every Sunday over the last month or so, we have woken up to my team knocking on our door about 45 minutes before I told them to come over. I rush to make breakfast and entertain the 12 boys occupying my living room while we wait for our assistant coach Stricker (aka Striker or Bob Bradley) to get there, on time. We load up our mini vans (yes, we own 2 mini vans) and drive our neighborhood team to the local YMCA for some good ol' competitive indoor soccer. But there is something special about what is happening. I find our team asking more and more questions about the boys on the other teams, pointing out when they are "building relationships" and making it a point to slap hands with every other boy before they leave the field. My heart is warmed. This experience has been so special to me on so many levels. I have loved hanging with my assistant coach and seeing his heart for the kids. I have loved spending quality time with the boys from Garnet. I have loved walking through the neighborhood and hearing, "Hi Coach!" I have loved seeing the boys from the shelter NOT think about their complicated immigration cases or the trauma in their lives, even for just the 50 minutes they are on the field. Mostly though, I have loved watching how God is using the love of soccer to draw us all closer to Him. My prayer for this whole thing is that the boys from Garnet will grow a passion to think outside of themselves. I want them to taste God's Kingdom, experience what it is all about, and join in. At the risk of sounding cheesy, I want them to join the fight. I want them to care about their neighbor so deeply that it leads them to do something. I have been reminded of how, although my role in this is to fight for justice for the kids in the shelter, it is just as much my role to invite those around me into that fight. I keep thinking I need to engage the influential pastor's or rich Christians...but I am realizing more and more the power and potential that is within the group of boys on my team.

What a blessing to have two important parts of my life collide in such a beautiful way.

Oh, and not to mention, our SWEET team shirts we ordered through Solid T! If you are

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Freedom

I spent the day with a bunch of boys from our Garnet Teen Center...always an adventure, to say the least. As we were driving home from a day at the beach, one of the boys read the sign as we got on the 405 south...towards San Diego. He said, "I'm not aloud to go there!" I reassured him that we were, in fact, going home and that he had nothing to worry about. Although I chuckled a little when he said that, it also struck me as kind of sad. See this young teen does not have papers...he is "illegal." He recognizes his lack of freedom.

I spent a long time talking to a friend of mine tonight. He is also undocumented and is in the middle of a messy court case trying to legalize his status. He has been in immigration detention for the last 2 years where he had to basically do whatever people told him to do. Now that he is out of custody, he has no idea what to do or how to make choices for himself. He is just waiting for time to pass, is how he explained it to me. He doesn't trust people around him and even more, he does not trust in himself. He has no control over what his future holds, as he is at the mercy of a pretty harsh immigration judge. He knows that even though he is out of custody for the time being, he could be apprehended and deported at any time. He recognizes his lack of freedom.

I have spent the last 4 years working along side a young man from my neighborhood. He came here as a young child but now is 19 and trying to sort out his life. He has some college credits and is planning on continuing, but is struggling to pay for the classes he needs. The words, "What's the point" too often come from his lips as he expresses his frustration with his life. Even if he can find a way to pay for his classes and graduate from college, he can not legally work. He could go back to Mexico but his whole life is here: his family, his community, his girlfriend, his ministry. His memories of Mexico are few and far between. So he stays...hoping for a miracle. In the meantime, he daily recognizes his lack of freedom.

Galations 5:1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

Tonight as I go to bed, my heart is heavy, as it often is after blogging. But tonight, I hold on to Christ's promise and I pray His truth over my beloved friends, with the hope that they can one day recognize the freedom He offers.

Meet Julie and Natalie

Julie, 7, and Natalie, 3, are our neighbors that live directly behind us. For some reason, they have decided they like coming to our house. I'm not exactly sure why, we have nothing that I would consider appealing to a 3 and 7 year old, but they come...almost daily. Because of this and the history we have with the family over the past few years, we have gotten to know their story quite intimately. Natalie, Julie, and their older brother, Jose Luis, were all born here to their American citizen dad and their non-citizen, Mexican born mom.

When their parents were first married, the couple sought to legalize the status of the new bride. It seemed like a no brainer; if you marry an American citizen, you should get your papers. Unfortunately, this is not as true or as easy as it used to be. When the couple was first married, she was told to go back to her country in order to return legally. As she left the US, thinking she was doing everything right, her leave was incorrectly marked as a deportation, even though this was not what she was told. For those of you that know anything about Immigration you know that a deportation on your record basically means you are blacklisted from the US and it makes it practically impossible to ever receive residency or citizenship. In order to be with her husband and ensure her future children would have opportunities as American citizens, she crossed the border and started their family.

Fast forward to today. After thousands of dollars spent on lawyers and years of struggling through the difficult choice of "follow the laws of the land" or be with your children, the family has found themselves in a tough spot. Their mom has returned to Mexico to try and legalize her status once again, but was told she must "wait in line" at least 10 years before she can legally return to the US. 10 years. Her kids will be 13, 17, and 22. The thought of a mother being away from her children for 10 years is unfathomable. As just a friend, I personally can't imagine missing these children grow up, so to think what it must be like for their mom daily breaks my heart. The kids often talk about their mom and how much they miss her. After they leave our house, I usually have one of two responses to our time with them: I will sit and cry or I get on a soap box and begin preaching to the choir (my husband) about how injustice is alive and well...and then I sit and cry. I feel so helpless; so hopeless. All I can do is love them like crazy while they are in our home, tell their story and fight for reform.