Anthology about the Refugee crisis soon to be released in RGV

Mother and children on sidewalk in Las Flores, Mexico. Photo by Gabrriel H. Sanchez

It is amazing to think that almost a whole year has passed since the story of the unaccompanied refugee minors arriving at our doorstep from Central America really hit the mainstream news cycle. For a short while there it seemed that all the media attention would actually get something done, something good. Instead, just a few days ago i read a story about immigrants arriving at the Sacred Heart church in McAllen, Texas wearing ankle braces so as to be tracked. It made me think of animals in the wild when researchers tag them and attach a digital collar to track them and study them. The only difference here is that those wild animals are actually receiving better treatment from the researchers than these folks coming into our country seeking refuge. Now that I think about it, a better analogy is cattle. All that is left for them to be dehumanized completely is to be branded with hot irons right to the forehead, so as to be most visible like some primitive society's punishment to some burglar or armed forces deserter. 

The main reason this is happening is not because there is a necesity for measures like these, but because these people are powerless and at the mercy of those processing them like animals that broke a fence and need to be reigned in and kept in check. We are all responsible for those poorly conceived ideas that are not solutions at any level to the issues driving the immigration problem. At issue is primarily a difference that is hardly understood and at times outright rejected by some: immigration and this refugee crisis are not one and the same. The immigration problem must be fixed somehow, that much is true. But the refugee crisis must be acknowledged first, accepted as something that we can address, and engage the issue head-on to try to find some real solutions. The first step is perhaps bringing ourselves back to the reality that these creatures coming from so far away, facing so many dangers and horrors, and leaving their beloved homelands are doing so not by choice but by necesity... and by the way, they are people. The necesity to survive, the necesity to find freedom, lawfulness, and security--that which is absolutely vital for the raising of children and propagation of family and community--is what is lacking in their lands. Who wouldn't head for the sweet land of liberty when facing those conditions? Maybe history can tell us who did and we will know that they, too, did not deserve to be treated like herds of cows run amok. 

*UPDATE:

We are close to finalizing the anthology. I know I have said it before, but the publishing process is twice as difficult when there is no staff to delegate work to and you still have all your "real" work and family commitments to fulfill. The list of contributors to this project is as follows:

 (In Non-alphabetical order)

Isis Hinojosa 
Amalia Leticia Ortiz
Edward Vidaurre
Brenda Riojas
Phyllis Wax
Fernando Esteban Flores
Octavio Quintanilla
Sister Juliana Garcia
Jenny Campos Galvan
Neftali de Leon
Raquel Lopez Suarez
Ana M. Fores Tamayo
Christopher Carmona
P.W. Covington
Aide Escalante
Cesar Riojas
Jose G. Cano
Cesar De Leon
Joseph Ross

We thank you all contributors, donors, and friends for your participation, support, and your continued patience. We are hoping to reveal the final product by late June 2015. Stay tuned...

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