These Shoes

Update

For awhile now, I've been meaning to sit down at a computer and write, but for some reason, I usually feel an aversion to doing so.  I don't know what it is.  It may be that I am still processing a lot of what I have been experiencing and I'm not ready to write it down just quite yet.  Who knows?  But this morning, I woke up set to write, so here I am! I have been blessed this past week to talk with some incredibly inspirational friends from Beloit, to hear their stories, and to share my own.  It's made me reflect on what a wonderful community that I find myself a part of.

I've now been in Tucson for a month, but it feels like such a longer time.  Life always seems to fly by once I get into a routine.  I work Monday-Thursday from 8:30-4:30, attend No More Deaths meetings on Mondays, community dinners on Fridays (and soon, Wednesdays), church on Sundays, and find myself involved with a myriad of other activities.  I am loving BorderLinks (BLX).  What a diverse mix of people putting our energy towards a common goal of popular education.  I hear more and more stories everyday.  So far, I've been up to Flagstaff to present a workshop for teachers and freshmen about immigration and to get them thinking about issues in their home community.  A group of us went to the alternative City High School (I wish I could have gone there!) to talk with a community engagement class.  High schoolers are so often overlooked in the valuable and insightful thoughts that they have!  This past week, I took part in a large mailing for BLX, and did my first trip planning.  My first delegation is next Friday and then another one starting next Saturday through the coming Friday.  I am excited for the conversations, experiences, and adventures to come.

These Shoes

Last Sunday was the 9th Annual Migrant Memorial, sponsored by Humane Borders and First Christian Church in Tucson.  Like No More Deaths, Humane Borders offers humanitarian assistance with the use of over 100 water stations in the southern Arizona desert.  The memorial started off with a service and a litany of remembrance, gathering together to remember, grieve, express hope, and to resolve to work for changes in policies towards migrants.  This was followed by special music from Pablo Peregrina, a local musician from Tucson, who is known for his migrants' songs.  The song that he shared with us is called "These Shoes:"

These shoes used to dance

Their fashions brought many styles
If these shoes had a voice many stories would be told

They came in many different walks of life
The young, the sick, and the old
If these shoes had a voice
Many stories would be told

Traveling shoes leaving imprints with their soles
A sole carrying a living soul
And from a distance you can hear them coming

These shoes have walked the miles                       
They came from far away
They sailed the ocean blue
They landed here and stayed

The first "wetbacks" in the living flesh
Have landed on the shore
The natives cried "our God is here"
Hail to our Lord, kneel to our Lord

These shoes have been weathered
through rugged, cold terrain
Mucking through the mud and extreme heat
Under the pouring rain, under the freezing rain

Don't forget about your past loved ones
Through Ellis Island with a legal name

Legal as can be to the eyes of the law
Out in the streets you were condemned
"newcomer" you were to blame
Feeling legal was not the same.

Throughout my day, there was this constant theme of feet and shoes.  As Peregrina's song says, the shoes were "soles carrying living souls."  The shoes, the people that the shoes represent came from many different walks of life with varying stories and experiences.  And the group of us that gathered together to march to the Federal Building also used our feet, we walked in solidarity, all of us coming with different backgrounds and experiences. 

I have been finding in my time down in Tucson that experiences keep connecting for me in the strangest ways, and the march and the theme of shoes was no different.  When I studied abroad during my junior year at Beloit, I started my experience on a different border, in El Paso/Juarez.  We stayed at a migrant center called Annunciation House in El Paso, where we had the chance to talk with migrants and take part in a border awareness experience, similar to what BLX does.  In one of the rooms of the house, they kept a small chapel with a cross hanging on the wall.  Inside the cross were shoes that had been found in the desert.  The lost shoes of migrants who crossed into the U.S.A.  The shoes served as a reminder of those who have come and gone and of those who are still crossing.  It was a powerful image that has stuck with me.

And then, earlier in the day, before worship at Southside Presbyterian Church, a historic Sanctuary Church, I sat outside in their outside chapel in front of a wooden cross.  To the right, tucked into a corner, stood a memorial.  It read: "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.  Hebrews 13:2"  And below it, guess what?  Imprints of shoes. 

This has all made me stop to think.  What stories would my shoes tell?  Where have I left imprints in the world?  Where can I better put myself to be in solidarity with the 196+ who have died in the Southern Arizona desert in the past year. 

Just some thoughts to think on.  Vaya con Dios.