Without Food, Fasting for Immigration Reform

Reflections on learning and listening

As a pre-teen in the early 1990's America, I listened to many hateful television screeds about people who don’t look like me or don’t share my same story. I remember in school talking about immigration, and how women would cross the border to have their children in the United States. I knew I was supposed to be disgusted by this action, but I found it to be an incredibly powerful act. What parent wouldn’t cross a border if it meant a better life for their child? After all, isn’t that the role of a parent?

More than twenty years later, I’m years into being an organizer for social justice, yet I’ve never directly worked for immigration reform. As a student organizer in the late-1990's/early 2000's, I listened to the stories of refugees from the wars in Central America via the School of the Americas protests. Through United Students Against Sweatshops, I learned about the economic struggles on both sides of the border, and the lack of dignity for low-income people all over. Over years, my work has intersected with the immigrant’s rights community, but I never found myself stepping up.

This November, I wandered into the Fast for Families tent on the National Mall in Washington, DC. I knew that immigration rights leaders were fasting for House to take a vote on the bill. I felt bad for them immediately. As organizer, I hate the idea of anyone working for justice ending up hurting themselves. I was so fearful that they would get hurt, and we’d still be far away from getting a vote on the bill.

I watched from afar for a few weeks.

The days of the fasters without any food began to mount and neared the three-week mark.

I thought about the food I eat and how immigrants picked most of my vegetables.

I remembered my friends Laura’s Facebook’s posts about her students missing school because of a parent being deported.

I was inspired by the undocumented youth leader who asked President Obama to stop deportations during his speech on immigration reform.

I went to one of the nightly community meetings right before Thanksgiving. Unlike most places of protest, there was calmness in the tent even in the midst of a campaign. The calmness showed that folks might have come to fight to pass a bill but stayed to honor the basic value of human dignity.

As I felt the strength, peace, and anger of the Fast for Families, I knew that I could no longer be a passive supporter of immigration reform. I went home and I signed up online to join as a faster after the Thanksgiving holiday.

I was still working so I couldn’t be in the tent all day every day, but as I quietly joined the fasters, I realized that this campaign was so much more than passing one bill. It was rebuilding communities torn apart by thirty years of cultures wars. It was building bridges across groups of people. It was modeling a better way of dealing with the anger that comes along with organizing. It was channeling that anger into a calm and steady work for justice.

The organizer’s organizer, Eliseo Medina would facilitate most of the meeting sessions. Each faster would tell their story to visiting guests of all backgrounds. These circle times were very powerful as the fasters were a mix of long time activists and community members from all over country. Eliseo would say that the fasters reflected all of America, and he was so right: Gay, straight, cisgender, transgender, brown, black, white, rich, poor, faithful, atheist, citizens, aspiring citizens, and from all over the country.

I was moved to tears by the calling of the fasters to be in the tent, and to be counted. During the 8 days I spent in the tent, I saw so many people who “don’t work on immigration reform” unable to be anywhere else but that tent, and apologizing whenever they had to step out.

As I’ve talked about the fast with friends and colleagues, I keep getting thanked for fasting. Each time I am thanked, I feel so very uncomfortable. The decision to fast was so very easy once I committed. Compared to field organizing, fasting was so very easy. Just like food is a tool to build community, the collective refusal of food also built a community. I went into the fast as an individual, and I left as a member of a community. I’ve spent that last week trying to find the best way to thank everyone who organized and support the fast.

While the fast was powerful and transformative, it was also a real risk to the participants.

Organizers and community members had to put their bodies in harms way in order to get Congress to pay attention to immigration reform. Fasting, despite what self-help gurus say, is beyond horrible on the body. I only fasted around 7 days. Just in those 7 days, I went from normal blood pressure to high pressure, normal heart rate to fast heart rate, normal blood sugar to low blood sugar, and began to lose nutrients in my body. Now, think of Eliseo, DJ, Cristian, and Rudy who fasted for 22 days. 22 days without food. 22 days of harm to their bodies. 22 days of their families worrying about their health. Something is horribly wrong in our country if the best path forward for a vote on immigration is fasting, is putting the body at risk, is suffering.

Of course, something is horribly wrong if folks have to lay their bodies down in front of deportation buses.

Of course, something is horribly wrong if folk have to lock themselves to ICE detention centers to raise awareness about the plight of detainees.

Of course, something is wrong at when compressive immigration reform is only being delayed because racism and classicism control the House of Representatives.

So of course, with everything at this high level of being wrong, I firmly knew that fasting was the only option left to take for this powerful movement. I am thankful that I had the privilege of fasting with the movement’s best organizers and community members. I would do it again in a heartbeat

I fasted because it was a simple, powerful action to step up and support my immigrant neighbors, and the organizers willing to risk their health because the time is now for reform.

I fasted because it provided a clear path to shame through love and faith the most intransigent Members of the House.

I fasted because it’s been over twenty years since I first thought of immigration issues as a pre-teen, and the situation for undocumented Americans has only gotten worse.

I fasted because too many children aren’t going to hear their parents say “Merry Christmas” on December 25th.

I fasted because too many low-income undocumented Americans have no hope for dignity.

I fasted because my cousin’s children have not seen their undocumented father for years after he had to leave the country.

I fasted so that everyone who doesn’t work on immigration reforms know they need to join in and support immigration reform to get this bill passed in 2014.

I fasted because we need a vote on the immigration bill and it’s time for House Republicans to quit leading with racism and fear instead of acting from love and hope.