Please Read!

This is a beautiful story from a woman who has been deeply involved in the Postville, Iowa Immigration raid. I realize that not everyone shares my same views on this subject, but I would love it if you would at least indulge me and read it. I know its long, but it is worth it! Thanks!

**************************************************

Opening the Door

The Day our New Neighbors Arrived

By Liz Rog

Today ten Guatemalan and Mexican men came to live in Decorah. Our community greeted them as honored guests, showered them with gifts of shelter, food, support, phone cards, laundry soap, kindness, and the promise of much more. We know how grateful they are to us, because they told us again and again – but they have no idea how grateful we are to them. Could they know how much healing it brings to us when we serve them, whom we know to have suffered so deeply at the hands of our government, for so many months and generations? They have brought us a chance to show ourselves, each other, and them that we are human. They have brought us a chance to be generous with our abundance. After years of keeping our politics to ourselves for fear of offending others, we are openly taking a political position – of all things, by feeding and housing people whom our government has convicted as felons.

We learned a few weeks ago that homes and support of every kind would be needed for the ten men that would be brought to Decorah. Many people offered a room in their home – for two months to a year – and after considering all of the possibilities the men's parole officers decided that they would be divided between two places: a vacant home on the corner of Mill and Main, and the Catholic Church rectory, with Father Phil. That was decided just over a week ago. Last Tuesday a number of local church leaders and parishioners met to work through the details, after which a notice went out that complete household furnishings would be needed for the empty house: beds, dressers, tables, tv, chairs, sheets, towels, pots and pans, and of course men's clothes. Almost all of those things had been collected within just a few days. On Saturday the call went out that the next day people were needed to move all the furnishings over to the home from their storage place at St. Benedicts Church. A small army came to help, and in just a few hours the empty house was transformed into a cozy home, ready to welcome the men fresh out of their six months in prison.

Today they were slated to arrive at around noon, but you know how those things go and it got later and later. I had offered to Pastor Steve Jacobsen at First Lutheran to meet the guests upon their arrival and do whatever I could as a translator and host. I was at work, watching the minutes crawl by, and by 11:30 I was already too excited to be of much use at work. I made it to 1:00, 1:30…finally just after 2:00 I gave up pretending to work and walked to the church (just across the block) to stand out front and wait. Like a husband whose wife is in labor, I paced….truly, I couldn't have been more excited ("emocionada" in Spanish) had I been waiting for the Dalai Lama, or Eleanor Roosevelt, or the new president. I felt my place in the big turning – surely one of millions of turnings that are happening and need to happen – part of the history of this community, of its evolving into a new and positive relationship with our neighbors to the South. As I stood there I gave thanks for all of the things people in this community have done to help out after the raid, in little ways and big: donating money, bringing food, calling legislators, driving immigrants to legal appointments in Cedar Rapids, staffing the food pantry, taking them to medical appointments in Decorah and LaCrosse, marching in protests, staffing the phone at the St. Bridget's Church relief office, writing articles, making films, providing legal assistance, documenting atrocities, helping immigrants search for loved ones in the US prison system, testifying before Congress….

In the midst of all these acts of unceasing kindness and generosity, somehow this was now happening: that I stood waiting for the moment when I would try to pour our whole community's concern and compassion for an entire indigenous people into a few simple words spoken to these ten men. "Bienvenidos. Mucho Gusto." Welcome. So good to meet you. I would try to put it all into the meeting of eyes and the handshake, because at this point I couldn't yet say, "We are so sorry for what our government has done to you. We are so sorry about the invasion of your country and the killing of your democratic leader in 1954, and the ensuing civil war in which we armed the terrorists. We are so sorry that our agricultural system produces artificially low prices on all the products which you also grow, and that the free trade agreements have enabled all of those products to flow into your country, so that now none of you has land or work. We are so sorry that our arrogant technology of genetic engineering has been exported to your land, forever contaminating your native seed with the poison of GMO (Genetically Modified) corn. We are so sorry about our broken and damaging immigration policy, and the border wall and the Texas vigilante who use their guns against you, and the unbearable separations of your families. We are so sorry that ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) tricked you into signing papers saying that you had performed identity theft and Social Security fraud, so that now you are convicted felons and will never be able to legally enter this country..." There was so much for which to apologize, but today I would have to try to convey all of that with three words, a glance, and a handshake.

Finally they arrived, down at the Mill St. house. Ah, our sweet, small town! From where Ellen Macdonald and I stood waiting by the church we could see them getting out of the van three blocks down, so we hurry-walked toward them. Ellen carried her camera and some of the money that the Unitarian church had raised for them on Sunday.

Once inside the house we found the ten men, their two parole officers, a translator, and Bill and Donna Ibanez, the owners of the home. Donna was saying, "Anything in the house is yours to use. Watch out on the back porch – we just replaced some windows and the old ones are sitting there waiting to be moved. The washing machine works and of course that's yours to use too…" etc. etc.

Imagine it. Your family was starving in your homeland, so you risked it all: you walked across Mexico for a few months, then paid all that you had plus an unbreakable promise of at least half your first five years' wages to a Coyote to get you across the border; then you walked across the desert with little water and with both vigilante and border guards watching for you with guns, then you went to freezing, white Postville to work in a sweatshop that not only did not protect you from the dangerous machinery, but willfully abused you through overwork, physical abuse, automatic deductions from your small paycheck for unexplained items, or the requiring of sexual favors; then one day helicopters and federal agents descended en masse on the town and along with buses, heavily armed men, sirens, chains, beatings, screams, and sobbing, takes you and 380 others to a cattle yard in Waterloo, where you are shackled, kept awake all night, hardly fed, and forced to sign papers you don't understand but which would seal your fate. Ten days later you are off to prison, with no way to contact your loved ones, no knowledge of what would become of you. You know that you are sentenced to five months, then deportation. In most of the ten different prisons where you spend these interminable days and nights, it is gruesome, unjust, and violent. You have eaten food that you wouldn't consider fit for dogs, and very little of it. You figure out that if you save half of your biscuit in your pocket and eat it at night before bed, you can sleep because you are less hungry. You have slept with no mattress. You have been cold. You have been beaten. You have been utterly alone, and yes you have spent many days in solitary confinement, in a little grey cubicle with nothing to do or see, day after day, perhaps because you were caught looking in the garbage for food. The five months come to a close, and many others are deported, but not you. Why not? You do not know. Then you are put on a plane homeward bound – but then, you are all of a sudden taken off the plane! And brought back to prison! And put in confinement for another two weeks…and then back to prison proper, and you don't know why you are still imprisoned, nor how you will ever leave this place. One day about a month later, you are told that you'll be taken back to Iowa.

That would have been about…two days ago for these men. That's when they were informed that they would serve their probation in Iowa for up to a year, so that they could be available to the government as material witnesses in the lawsuit against their former employer. They would pass these days with GPS trackers attached permanently to their ankles, to ensure that they stayed put – a modern-day electronic shackle for the Mayan peasant farmers.

Would you be ready to open your heart and accept anything at this point? May we never have the opportunity to know what we would be doing with our sanity and our souls after all of this. But I can tell you what I witnessed: I walked into that house, where the men beheld the clean sheets and comfy couches, and where Donna was saying "anything here is yours to use…" I looked into their eyes and said it: "Bienvenidos! Mucho Gusto!" - and what came next wasn't because of my handshake or my eyes. It was because their aching, open hearts were still somehow ready to believe that the world was capable of giving them something good, and that they were deserving of it. They rose up to the moment. They stood full and smiled wide and breathed deep. They were no longer prisoners treated as animals. They had been treated well now by the parole officers, the van driver, and some others along the way. They had seen just a few hours of respect today and already the light of hope in humanity shone brightly from them.

We walked around the house. Many clothes had been provided for them. They all were in need of coats; the parole officer explained to me that those who had had a coat left it with some women who were coatless. They asked if they could wash clothes right away. Did you know that all they were given upon their release from prison was the exact clothes they had worn when they entered, and none of these had ever been washed? They asked about a phone, for most of them had not been able to make even one phone call home during the six long months. They asked whether they might all be allowed to stay in this house together, for they had suffered much together and would like to continue to stay as one, and were already accustomed to much smaller quarters anyway. They expressed gratitude over and over - not in the gushy way of a happy recipient of a grand present, but rather in a humble, quiet, polite way that would be natural in those who were involuntarily dependent on the generosity of others, gracious and grateful even though they ached to be allowed to provide for themselves.

We walked the three blocks back to the rectory - guests, parole officers, Ibanezes, Ellen, and me. It's pretty fancy up there, folks! The rectory tour elicited lots of oohs and ahhs! Donna said to Father Phil, "This is the Hilton. Our place is the Comfort Inn!" Ellen snapped a first-day photo of the ten men, sitting and standing around Father Phil's couch.

We went then to First Lutheran, where Steve and volunteer Nathan Breitenbach-Dirks had kept the food pantry open extra long because they knew we were coming. Introductions all around, for the third time in an hour: Onofre, Luis, Victor, Henri, Oscar, Otto, Juventin, Aron, Javier, Elmer. Steve and Nathan explained to them that the pantry is open Mon-Fri, and about the process for getting the allowed two "bolsas" (bags) per day, plus a bag of meat. Incredible! As long as money donations keep coming into the Food Pantry, these men will never go hungry while they are in Decorah.

As they stood in line there to get into the Pantry, once again waiting patiently as they have done so many times now, we intermittently chatted and stood in silence. I asked them: "What would you like to do first, now that you are free?" The unified answer was – can you guess? - WORK. For this is what they came to do, and this is what they need to do in order to feed their people at home. Their families depended on them for almost all cash, and they have sent nothing for 6 months now.

They walked the one block (our small town!) back to their home to rest a bit before the Welcome Potluck that had been planned only a day earlier, once we had learned that they would truly be arriving Monday. Who could have known how many people around town and across faiths were at that moment home preparing something fit for the Dalai Lama, or Eleanor Roosevelt, or Guatemalan and Mexican immigrants?

But they were.

Steve had gone on a few errands and arrived back at the church with four Mexico phone cards, fresh off the rack at the Quik Trip. Who got the pleasure of running those down to our new friends? - the only Spanish speaker among the two of us, Lucky Liz! Have you ever had the chance to bring a man to the phone who hasn't spoken with his wife for six months while he's been in prison? If you ever get the chance, take it. It changes the day completely.

Potluck time came. We walked into that fellowship hall, and I believe everyone was overwhelmed with emotion for their own reasons. The men said later that they just couldn't believe that that many people had come to welcome them. Also, the food that these kind people had prepared was absolutely beautiful. It was NOT your average potluck – indeed, for my wedding we had a potluck (believe it or not), and not since that day in 1988 had I seen a potluck this extravagant in its variety, careful preparation, and quantity. It was like a "best of" potluck album, and you know those people didn't pull out all the stops for any other reason but to show their gratitude and caring for these newcomers in our midst.

For my own part, in addition to noting the beautiful food, I looked at all the faces. With well over 150 people, it was as full as I've ever seen the fellowship hall at First Lutheran (not including Nordic Fest!), and because I've lived here a long time I knew 98% of the people, but I was quite certain that never before and never again would this particular gathering take place. There were so many different churches (and also non-churches) represented there, and so many different mixes and subgroups of folks who have done this or that project together over the years, and Democrats and Republicans, and new people to town as well as old-timers. By some wonderful luck they had all heard about this potluck and on such short notice had been able to come or had perhaps chosen to skip something else important. By their own choices of media exposure or travel destinations or friendships these were all people who don't choose the simple, black-and-white approach to this critical question in our country and in our back yard. You know the one I'm talking about, because surely a friend or neighbor of yours says it: "They did something illegal. They should pay for it, and they are criminals. We don't owe them anything." Yes, these Decorah people who might at first glance have seemed to be a random group all share many things in common, and most importantly they share the understanding that we DO owe these people something – at the very least, shelter and food and friendship while we get our government treat them, and all whom they represent, fairly.

A certain feeling had been brewing in me all day, and finally, looking around at the happy assembly and the food and the somewhat bewildered but contented guests, I put my finger on it. Many of these Decorah people, including me, have been to visit a small rural town in Latin America or perhaps in some other part of the world. There we witnessed the excitement with which the whole town greeted us: how perhaps news of our coming had rippled through the pueblo even before we arrived; how the natives to that place all pulled out their finest of everything to serve us, but most of all how they clamored to see us, to hear us, to be close to us. We were rock stars, just because we came from somewhere far away. Cynically, I have to admit, I also thought that it was just because we came specifically from the USA as seen on television.

But tonight I was taken by delightful surprise to see us feeling and acting that same way toward our guests. We were so happy and honored to have them in our midst! We wanted the best for them, and would give so much for them (witness the thousands of dollars that were raised in the collection plates among Decorah churches last Sunday). We were giddy with our luck, and at the same time gently and sweetly awkward in our sometimes shy attempts to make a connection and show our caring. So! We are NOT too sophisticated and separate to go to a room and try to communicate with people whose language we do not speak! We are NOT too cynical to care! We are NOT too busy to bother! And since none of those is true, what is left? It's what we saw in each other tonight: the joy of giving together, with the knowledge that their receiving of our gift is in itself a healing and strengthening of our humanity.

We sang grace. We served ourselves food – guests at the front of the line! We ate. Many people came over to the tables where the guests sat and introduced themselves. Welcome, welcome! So glad you're here! Welcome!

Steve gave some opening remarks in English that were the perfect words to share with the Decorah people, then Pastor David Vasquez supposedly translated but in that one case he actually transposed as well, using his knowledge of the culture and suffering of these people to convey the perfect opening words for them. After David finished, his remarks having taken about three times longer than Steve's, Steve asked "Did I really say all that?" - and everybody roared with laughter.

David then invited each of the ten men to stand and tell us his name, where he comes from, and anything else he'd like to say. He translated brilliantly for each of them, allowing them to go on for quite a while, most of them even finishing their comments before he began the translation. He recalled and recounted all the key points of what they had said. That man is like a champion swimmer in the water: he seems to become part of it, and to not need to think or try, the translation flows from him so smoothly.

Each of them said, in their eloquent, passionate Latino manner, that they were infinitely grateful for our kindness. They said it in a variety of ways: that they would never be able to repay us, but that God would repay us many times; that as it says in the Bible, when you give a man even so little as a cup of water you are pleasing God; that they never could have imagined, just a few days ago, that the time of their suffering in prison would be over and that they would be in this place now with so many kind people; that they had always thought that there were good people in the USA, but for so long now they had encountered nothing but brutality that they had given up hope in this country. And again and again, that they gave thanks to God that they had survived, that they were here with us for now.

Some of them showed great emotion when they spoke, and even those who had to wait for the translation were moved to tears just feeling the emotion of the men. Some of the men cried as they spoke. They talked of how afraid they had been; how lonely they were for their wives, parents, and children; how sad they were to have had those six months forever taken from them; how their families at home suffered from both the want of knowing where their loved one was and also from the absence of the remittances on which they had depended; and they spoke of how they were forever changed by what they had endured. They told us some stories from the prisons: stories of confusion, sadness, hunger, pain, suffering, fear, and boredom. They acknowledged that they had been driven by hunger to do an illegal thing (clarification: by that they meant crossing the border, NOT stealing an identity or a Social Security #.), but said that always in the past, the risk had been worth it because the punishment was only deportation. -That never had they heard of such punishment as this, the robbing of six months of a life and so much more. (We know now that indeed this was an unprecedented punishment that they were given, designed to show maximum power and evoke maximum fear).

David offered to take questions or comments from the Decorah folks. The leaders of the event were dutifully trying to be aware of the time and not keep us there too long, but I'm sure everyone who was there would agree that time stood still as we listened to these men, bringing stories from the underbelly of our own democracy – stories we know we must hear and pay great attention to, if for no other reason than this: an injustice which a country is willing to inflict on outsiders will sooner or later be inflicted upon its own.

As one of the men, Luis, spoke from the front of the room about the atrocities of the prison, behind him and over just about ten feet there came quietly and tentatively through the door two Mexican women and two little children with them. They seemed sure that they were in the place they meant to be, but at the same time uncertain what to do. A Spanish-speaking Decorah person went and spoke with them briefly, all the while as Luis continued to speak to us. This lasted about 20 seconds, during which everyone there had a full view of Luis and of the women as they stood behind him. Then he turned to look at what we were looking at, and ever so quickly, quietly, and smoothly they came to him and he to them, and within moments after that first glance they were together in an embrace, holding each other as would family who had been forcibly and violently separated for six months, not knowing if each other was alive. They embraced as we watched in silent awe…and then the tears began –we heard their cries come up from the center of their embrace. We trembled. We cried. We sat in silence, accidental witnesses to this private yet universal moment. We were stuck there with it all – it was impossible at that moment to feel anything but sadness and regret for what has happened to these people. We just had to sit there and face it, raw and painful as it could ever be for people like us who have never personally known such a fate.

The family went and sat at an empty table together and we resumed talking. People asked good questions and made meaningful comments. Two come to mind. Maryn Olson stood and addressed the men, saying something like: you have been brought here after so much suffering and you have come into our midst tonight, and even after all that you've endured, you were willing to open your hearts and tell us your stories, and even shared your tears with us. We thank you for all of this, and we ask you now, as you begin living here with us, to keep your hearts open to us. Tell us not only what you need, but what you want. Tell us how we can help you, because that's what we want to do.

Poor David - when he set out to translate her words he launched out in English, and when the assembly called out to switch to Spanish, it took him a few seconds to catch what it was that we meant. We got a good laugh out of that too! Where do languages sit in the brain? Aren't they all wrapped around in the same little corner? Does someone with David's acuity just flip a little switch without knowing, so that sometimes he doesn't even know which language is which?

Next Kevin Sand stood and said something else very important. He spoke of the horror we feel in knowing what our government does to people in prisons, as well as what it is doing now to immigrants. He apologized for that, and told them that we hoped to change that. He said that he hoped that the small things we can do for them here will begin to heal the wounds inflicted on them in our names. It was a sincere, serious, sad, and somewhat angry statement of solidarity and apology.

I was asked to tell the group about our plan to provide a host family for each of the gentlemen. First, though, I made an attempt at describing the feeling I wrote about above, of having this amazing opportunity of role reversal, where we got to welcome and hover over our esteemed guests. Then I briefly described the plan, whereby the host church (there are eight) would provide a Spanish speaking person who would be that church's connection to that guest, so that they could become friends and so that there would be someone to whom the guest could express their needs (and wants!). We made a plan to meet after the gathering closed, to introduce host families to their guest.

Pastor Carol Kress gave a brief report from Postville today: GAL properties, owner of the apartments where most remaining immigrants are living and closely tied with AgriProcessors, has not paid its utility bills in months and so the heat and electric will be turned off in two days. These tenants have PAID their (exorbitant) rents, yet they are threatened with homes dangerously unheated, without electricity, water, or sewer. She urged that we call our legislators tomorrow to demand that something be done for these tenants.

David asked us to make a circle for a closing prayer. It was a big circle! To stand in this way was a strong and fitting end for this diverse group of people who had just become One for the night though our collective witnessing of these stories. David said a long prayer, in which he recalled the biblical story of Sarah and Abraham, who set out as emigrants leaving everything behind, following only a promise. They were undocumented aliens, who had nothing to prove the trust within them. God saw their faith as righteousness, and they were blessed. We celebrate their trust and faith. Just like Sarah and Abraham, the Guatemalan and Mexican immigrants have come by faith and are blessed by God. Their faith and trust, however, has not been counted to them as righteousness. In spite of that, we, here tonight, give thanks for their example of faith and their trust in God.

Nobody wanted it to be over. After the prayer we lingered and lingered. The kitchen crew snapped into action and in a jiffy they had all the extra food packed into containers and ready for the men to take with them, plus all the dishes done. The host families stayed to meet their guest. Someone came to me and said that they had just butchered a hog; could I ask the men if they like pork, because if so the family would be glad to bring over some of the hog. Someone else brought a bag of jackets. Luz Maria Hernandez, the Luther Spanish teacher from Mexico who along with David and others has spent thousands of hours in Postville helping at all levels since the raid, took the opportunity to meet our guests. Plans were made for get-togethers in the coming days. Peg Matter told them to come down to the Hatchery tomorrow because she had some hats and gloves for them. Brenda Carlson handed me some Guatemalan textiles that she had purchased in that country, asking that I bring them to the men's dwelling to help decorate with a little touch of home.

When I moved to Decorah in 1980, one of my favorite high school teachers came to visit me in my new hometown and pronounced this place too isolated from the real world, too easy, too white, too conservative, too nice. It hurt my feelings deeply, because I loved this town already and knew that it was as real a place as any, just as capable of love, pain, growing, and healing as her beloved Minneapolis. And indeed, in these 28 years since she came and left and never came again I have seen much conflict, resolution, growth, change, destruction, and creation. It is all part of our story, and it's not all nice but a lot of it is much better than nice.

But I have never seen anything quite as beautiful as the coming-together that I saw tonight, as the story of our honored guests entered our hearts, broke them, and opened them wide. We were so raw, yet so comforted by the gentle presence of each other and of them, with their clarity of mind and heart. We stood there in unity as their story began its weaving into our own

– and in this way once again we felt the presence God, as we so often do, through our love for each other