Refugees Again and Again

I had occasion to reread a blog post from 2018 about demonstrating to support refugees, immigrants, asylum seekers. It made me want to put it out there again so here it is for anyone who still gets notifications when I post on this blog. (There's now a paywall at the Chronicle so the link at the end doesn't work unless you have a subscription.)

Refugees Again

I wore my vintage bright pink New El Salvador Today (NEST) T-shirt from the 1980s to the Families Belong Together demo at the ICE Detention Center in Richmond on June 30. The shirt still fits me, but T-shirts are made of super-stretchy material so it’s not the same as, say, still fitting into my wedding dress. My NEST shirt would fit an adolescent rhinoceros. However, I did not wear it as a fashion statement (and no species of adolescent creature, rhino or otherwise, would likely deign to wear such outdated attire). I never wear the shirt, and no one knows what it means anymore. NEST folded decades ago. Once, when my fashionista daughter saw me wearing my NEST shirt, she exclaimed in horror, “Mom, you still have that shirt?” Her tone implied that I had broken every rule of wardrobe acceptability in the known universe (or at least in L.A.). Busted by the fashion police.

I wore my NEST shirt to the ICE Detention Center to remind myself of how many years I have been protesting this kind of injustice. I bought the shirt in 1985, when my synagogue collaborated with NEST to aid and harbor Salvadoran refugees fleeing the violence of the Death Squads, a situation to which U.S. interests largely contributed for financial gain. We also helped Guatemalans and other Central Americans whose home communities were destroyed by U.S. imperialistic corporate interests, such as the Dole Food Company. Sidebar. Dole, originally founded as Castle & Cooke in 1851, also took a major role in colonizing Hawaii and enslaving indigenous people on the pineapple plantations. Never underestimate the nefarious hidden agenda of a pineapple, which may sting your mouth depending upon which part of it you eat. No doubt associated with an imperialist plot. Dole and other U.S. ag corporations have destroyed the soil in Central America to such a degree that it no longer supports the cultivation of edible plants, which means the impoverished people trying to live in this region who can’t afford to buy food also can’t grow it. Starvation is a strong incentive for relocation, particularly when combined with being pursued by a gang-member killer. The Central American refugees denied asylum and returned to their home country stand a good chance of being killed, same as those returned in 1985. It’s a no-brainer that people don’t choose to walk away from a beloved community and homeland, leaving their family behind and often enduring separation from their children, unless their lives are in peril and they have no other options. What part of this is so hard to understand? Should I do a Venn Diagram?

At the ICE Detention Center demo, a man stopped in his tracks when he saw my NEST shirt and said, “I have one of those shirts too. I worked for NEST.” I told him that when getting dressed that morning, it had been a toss-up for me between the NEST shirt and my Santa Rita Peace Camp shirt (from when I did nonviolent civil disobedience and got arrested protesting nuclear weapons at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 1983). He burst out laughing. “I have a Santa Rita T-shirt too!” he informed me. “You went to Santa Rita Jail with the Livermore 1,000 in 1983?” I asked. Yes, he had. He and I seem to have frequented all the same places.

Santa Rita Peace Camp is another story from my years resisting the forces of destruction. In 1983, I joined approximately 1,000 demonstrators in blockading the entrance to Livermore National Lab, and we were arrested. Since nearby Santa Rita Jail couldn’t house 1,000 protesters, they separated the men from the women and put us into red-and-white striped event tents on the prison property. We refused to go to arraignment until the judge agreed to sentence us to community service instead of a fine (because a lot of the protesters couldn’t afford a fine). Refusing to go to arraignment meant non-cooperation, such as going limp, which would have required guards to drag people to the transport buses. Some of the women protesters went so far as to strip naked as another resistance tactic, because the predominantly male guards were at a loss about how to politely wrangle a naked woman onto a bus (where do you grab her?) while being filmed for the evening news, because TV crews came out in force to document this spectacle. While our lawyers negotiated the terms of our release with the judge, we held workshops, teach-ins, songfests, talent shows, trainings, meditation retreats, yoga classes, cooking shows, caber tosses, spelling bees, health fairs, car washes, Porta Potty decorating contests, and other entertaining and enlightening what-not in our striped tents at Santa Rita. Thus, an inside joke emerged as we referred to our incarceration as Santa Rita Peace Camp. After the authorities released us (with only community service and no fine), Livermore Action Group (the organizer of the demo) made up T-shirts with an image of the striped tents and the words “Santa Rita Peace Camp.” I still have mine. Apparently so does that man I met at the ICE Detention Center demo. From that time to this I have raised three children and become a grandma. Yet here we are again, still standing in opposition to injustice, inequality, planetary destruction, and general stupidity.

I opened up to that man, my kindred spirit, and said, “It’s hard to keep doing this, year after year, generation after generation, as I grow old. In the 1980s, when I was young, my synagogue harbored Central American refugees in our homes. A Salvadoran refugee and a Holocaust survivor gave testimony together in my living room while a group of refugee women made the most delicious eggnog from scratch in my kitchen. Honestly, in the 1960s, my Jewish parents harbored a Palestinian refugee from the Six-Day War in our home in the suburbs in upstate New York. And in the 1920s, my grandfather arrived in this country as a refugee, fleeing the persecution of the Jews in his native Poland. Much of his large family (my family) perished in the Holocaust. We Jews have wandered as refugees for thousands of years, dispersed across the earth in Diaspora going back to the days before the birth of Christ, who, when you get down to it, was also a refugee. This business of migration and fleeing an untenable living situation has been going on for thousands of years. Apparently humans have learned nothing from it. I am outraged and exasperated anew that I must live among such continuously unevolved people. The ranks of our government swell with toxic demon dinosaurs. Our species may as well crawl back into the slime because we still have the intelligence of a one-celled organism.

When will people get it? The planet is one. Boundaries, borders, fences, and walls are artificial dividers. Countries are fabricated geographical subdivisions. When a land becomes uninhabitable because of degradation of nature, resources, culture, and/or humanity, then the inhabitants must move to another location, whether part of their home country or not. That’s how it flows. Well-intentioned folks like to say “do unto others” and “treat others as your own” and “be compassionate and kind to the other, the stranger, for you were once a stranger, and you could be one again at any time.” This is “other” nonsense. I have to ask -- what other? There is no other. We are all us. We are the human family. So I struggle to contain my rage. I struggle to disperse my frustration and focus instead on sources of joy, wonder, and delight. When I feel like I might run screaming into the forest, I tell myself to remain calm. I tell myself (oh thank you dear J.K. Rowling), “The Death Eaters may have control of the Ministry, but we will continue to practice our magic, and one day we will wave our wands, wrest the Ministry from them, and set things to rights.”

 *** 

Coda:  Last week Contra Costa County announced that they are severing ties with ICE and will not allow ICE to use the detention center in Richmond to house detainees. All detainees must be released on bail or moved within 120 days. Contra Costa County Sheriff Livingston cited the disruption and stress caused by recent demonstrations at the facility as a significant reason for this action (in particular the demo on June 30 attended by myself and approximately 1,000 other people). Egad, unbelievable, my voice was heard. Once the facility in Richmond is cleared of detainees, there will be no facility housing detainees in the SF Bay Area. Way to go NorCal. Imagine if all counties and all facilities in the country refused to participate in the ICE detention of refugees. Follow this link for an article in the SF Chronicle about Contra Costa County cancelling its contract with ICE.

Dear World

 

To my family and friends who live around the world in other countries: 

I’m sending you these words from inside the belly of the beast. Please know that millions of us continue to resist. You must wonder about us; how our country could have crashed this fast. But think for a moment about our history. This country is built on white supremacy, slavery, genocide of indigenous people, greed, lies, and exploitation for profit. This country was formed by landowning white men, who were at that time the only ones who could vote. Some of them had good intentions, but certainly not all of them did. I am not surprised by this turn of events. As a Jew, I have lived my life with the whispered warning “it can happen here.” So I have steeled myself to be prepared.

I hope you realize that criminal president has no mandate. He won by the slimmest of margins. Many foolish people voted for his lies and misinformation because these were efficiently sold to them using money from his henchman, Adolf Musk (what I call him). The Republicans implemented a massive voter suppression initiative resulting in millions of people (most of them African American) being removed from the voter rolls ostensibly because of “irregularities” so their votes did not count. Stop the steal? Who stole from whom? (This is the suppressed truth. You can look it up.) Many fools who drank the Kool-Aid and supported him have changed their tune. If the election were held again today, he would lose.

People are suffering. Children are starving. People are dying. It is heartbreaking and infuriating and horrifying. So much damage has been done. So much has been broken. So much more damage is yet to come. Some of it can be fixed and some cannot. I am saddened that my country’s reach is so vast that people in so many other countries are suffering and will suffer because of America’s mess. Yet there are things people here can do to resist and please know that we are doing those things. People are turning up in droves at demonstrations, town hall meetings, and lobby days. I attended a town hall meeting here (with our Democratic senator) where so many people turned up that hundreds could not even get in. Demonstrations at Tesla dealerships are mounting, people are trading in their Teslas and not buying Teslas to stop the flow of money to Adolf Musk. People are writing postcards (I write) and making phone calls (I phone) and sending emails (I send) and signing petitions (I sign). I subscribe to a number of newsletters to stay informed and to guide my actions. These include, but are not limited to, Indivisible, Earthjustice, Heather Cox Richardson, Gabe Fleisher, Jewish Voices for Peace, Amnesty International, Jewish Earth Alliance, Word in Black.

Republican senators have largely canceled town hall meetings because they fear facing their constituents. Cowards all. But constituents are organizing in-absentia town halls – putting a sign with the senator’s name on it on an empty chair and meeting anyway. These meetings are not just attended by Democrats and Progressives. Many disgruntled MAGA supporters (former supporters?) also turn up and they are also angry. Often when I call congressional offices the mailboxes are full and no longer accepting messages. The lines are jamming with so many calls. Some of our leaders are standing up to the MAGA King and Adolf Musk, that toxic duo. I send thank-you notes and encouraging emails to some of those brave enough to dissent.

I have close family members who worked in USAID and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau who have lost their jobs. The one employed by the CFPB is a single mom with two small children, and one of the children is neurodivergent and has special needs. She is a brilliant career economist. So unfair. Ron and I need a little more income than what we make with his pension and our combined social security so I continue to work part-time to make up the difference, but my work is grant writing and grants are drying up because of the toxic duo’s actions. My point is that the toxic duo is directly negatively impacting my life and the lives of my loved ones.

That criminal president’s behavior toward the hero Zelensky was disgraceful and disgusting. He is not fit to lick Zelensky’s shoe. Vance is not fit to lick the ground Zelensky walks on. It hurts my soul to see my country break longstanding ties with other countries and to have our country shunned by the countries of the free world, shunned by longstanding allies. Now your countries must protect the light of freedom in the world because America is no longer the beacon. I grieve for all that we have lost and that we stand to lose. My strongest emotion in this time is grief. But I do not let grief paralyze me. I take action and so do many others.

Please know that I refuse to fear. Whatever befalls me will befall millions of other people. If they cut my social security, I will lose my house. So will millions of other people. We are in this together. We will face whatever comes together. I am grateful for the blessings of my life that have brought me such joy for so long, including my relationships with you who are receiving this message. The toxic duo has the power to take a lot away from me, but I am wealthy beyond measure and they are impoverished. They cannot touch the love I bear for my family and community. And they do not have such love or community. They do not even know what that is. They are pitiable.

I promise you that I will continue to resist this horror in my own small ways. While I believe that we have lost our window of effective action to reverse climate chaos and protect the environment, I also believe that life on Earth has the capacity to adapt and evolve and there is some kind of future for humans that we cannot imagine. I must believe this for the sake of my grandchildren and yours if you have them. I believe that things will turn back around for the better eventually. I hope one day my country will swing back to becoming an ally and friend to your countries. I may not live to see it, but I hold that hope. Please know that I and many, many others within these borders are in solidarity with you. May our dear world survive this catastrophe.

 

Image of Earth from space.

Contemplating Paying Taxes to a Corrupt Regime

I sent our tax information to our accountant this week so I have taxes on my mind. The thought of paying taxes to our criminal government is more than I can stand at the moment. I remembered a blog post of mine from 2019 and went back to reread it. I talked about being a war tax resister back in the day. Here is the last paragraph from it. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Not long after the 2016 election, I reread Thoreau’s essay “Civil Disobedience,” which is his reflection on spending one night in jail in 1846 for refusing to pay his poll tax in protest against the American invasion and occupation of Mexico in the Mexican-American War and the institution of slavery (in particular the expansion of slavery into the Southwest). In truth, the poll tax was a more localized tax that was not used to pay for any federal shenanigans, but Thoreau was apparently a bit fuzzy on how all that worked. He stood on principle. Much to his chagrin, his aunt paid his poll tax and he was released in less than 24 hours. How ironic that I dearly wish I could withhold my income tax 173 years later for similar reasons – to protest the military, the nonsense at the Mexican border, and the institutionalized racism in this country. I never went to jail for refusing to pay my taxes. (The government eventually absconded with my back taxes by forcibly seizing the money from my bank accounts.) I did go to jail once in protest against nuclear weapons, and I spent three days in Santa Rita Jail, and I have written about that experience. I want to point out that I spent more time in jail than Thoreau. Plus I was handcuffed (he was not, the bum). He managed to turn one night in jail into a 173-year bestseller and all I got was a T-shirt. (Seriously, I have a Livermore Action Group T-shirt that says “Santa Rita Peace Camp.”) If Thoreau could get published writing about one night in jail, you would think I could get published writing about three days there. But I can’t seem to catch a break. What’s more, the food at Santa Rita was dreadful, and Thoreau got oatmeal for breakfast. Is there no justice? 

Thoreau's cabin in the woods on Walden Pond.