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It always seemed dark. I think that is because I drove there at night. But there was also a darkness which I didn’t understand. It may have been all of the stories. Or maybe just my own uninformed fear. Yet once I entered the 5 story building there was laughter and joy contagious. To this day, the light heartedness is what stands out more than the dark. I was 18 and 19. The place was Lynn, an industrial city sprawling into Bostons. The building, an urban school with no playground. The laughter came mostly from the 40 year old men whom I taught to speak English. Between you and me, I learned more Spanish than they learned English.

Immigrants from Central America, I knew these men and women and children as friends on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s for a year, and they taught me a lot about a common narrative in their community of which I had no idea. Previous, I thought illegal immigrants where homeless people from Mexico. It took me just one day to learn that this blended group of documented and undocumented people where from families and communities that had names, but none of them Mexican. Places and people that they mourned leaving. The bravery they carried reminded me of the stories I’ve heard of my ancestors who pilgrimaged from Europe on boats and then on covered wagons to the West Coast. I realized that I had more in common with them than I had thought, yet each of our own struggles and privileges and countries of origin greatly separated us. At the end of each night I returned home to my mostly white college campus. I’m not sure where they went. And I’m not sure where they are today. I’m not sure how they have informed the legacy of the United States, but I do know that all of them where kind to me, and all of them sacrificed a lot to create new opportunities for their kids.

Sometimes I wonder how many of the families in today’s news are crossing our borders to join my students from Lynn. Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if I where born in Guatemala, and to what lengths I wouldn’t cross to carry my children into a better tomorrow. But most of all I wonder how our country can better respond to the struggles of these immigrants with humanity and relationship over fear. I wonder how we can better use our money and military power to influence the systems and infrastructures that are encouraging crime in America’s most marginalized communities, whatever ethnicity they may be. I wonder how we might better influence the roots of today’s issues rather than the symptoms. How can we focus our energy on refusing asylum to those who are real dangers to society rather than those innocently caught in the fire? How can we respond to the world around us rather than react to potential threats to our comforts and our ways of life? How can we cross the isle to offer dignity and a global response to all communities needing asylum?