Dehumanization
One story that caught my attention was in the introduction. It was the story of Jerry. Garcia-Hernandex describes the way they both grew up similarly: “we were both raised in the Texas borderlands…We were born into a community that is almost entirely Mexican. We are both Spanish speakers whose families have traversed the border” (4). But then he goes on to describe the differences in the way they grew up: “I was born in Texas; Jerry in Mexico. I’m a US citizen; brought to the United States by his mother when he was just eight months old, Jerry is a permanent resident — the final rung before citizenship, but crucially a step below the citizen status I was born into” (4). Jerry was a purple heart veteran who lost some friends in a bomb explosion. He then turned to drugs. He was convicted for possession and was placed in a special state-run rehab program that was specifically for veterans. This program was supposed to help veterans get back on their feet into society. Then one day Jerry stopped showing up to his sessions. It was later found out that he had been arrested by ICE and sent to the Port Isabel Detention Center. No one had even told the judge or the rehab program of his whereabouts. It concerns me how ICE is allowed to just take someone from a country that they have known all of their lives just because they were technically not born there or are not an official citizen. This makes no sense to me. Jerry was allowed to serve our country, meaning that he was worthy of being a citizen in that respect. He demonstrated his love for the United States. Yet because he is not a technical citizen means that he can be deported from our country? How can this be allowed? He watched many of his friends die, he was trying to do that right thing by going to rehab to fix his issues. Yet ICE didn’t see the person that Jerry was. All they saw was that he was not an official US citizen and decided to do something about it. This is important to know and understand because it shows that immigrants, even though they have lived here for so long and have established lives, always have the risk of being sent away. Even if they have families in the US. No one even knew of Jerry’s whereabouts. After reading of Jerry’s first hand experience, it now occurs to me how something so similar can happen to someone in the Canal. It is scary to not be a US citizen in our country and there is always the looming threat of ICE. This is because ICE doesn’t see the person, ICE only sees that the “immigrant” does not have a passport stating that they are a US citizen.
Another area in the reading that I found interesting was the idea of, “‘family residential centers’ — secured facilities in remote locations to which access is highly regulated” (111). These centers were created for families so that they could stay together while they were either being detained or deported. This to me is seen as a gesture at trying to be nice but what child wants to sit in a cell and not even understand why they are there? What mother wants to have her children live in fear and be taken from their home? Even though this is a “family center” the same harshness and cruelness is present in this detention experience just as the other detentions for immigrants. They even tried to lighten the experience by placing the cells in a neighborhood like fashion and by giving the blocks names: “names after brown bears, green turtles, and, as one lawyer put it, other ‘really cute names’” (111). Although they are trying to make this a more “kid friendly” zone, this shouldn’t have to be a kid friendly area in the first place. Children should not be locked up and neither should their mothers. It is a cruel system that we have created where ICE is allowed to arrest and detain anyone who is not an official citizen. People’s lives are uprooted and families are torn apart. This should not be the case. I didn’t even know that they had family detention centers and after reading this I am appalled that such a place exists. That mothers have to raise their children in a cell where they are treated cruelly, just the same as a normal detention center. Just because the word “family” is in front does not mean that it should be for families.
During World War II, due to the labor shortages, the Bracero Program was created: “The Bracero Program led to hundreds of thousands of Mexicans coming to the United States every year with the federal government’s blessing” (41). For the United States, this was useful because it was an army of “low-wage workers” who could “do the work left behind by the actual army of young men who had been shipped to the battlefields of Europe and Asia” (41). This program was designed to give the employers an upper hand. The reason these men signed up to be laborers was for the incentives that came with it. Workers were allowed to come to the United States to work for a particular employer during a particular period, which would usually be harvesting season. Because of this, if they lost their job, they wouldn’t be allowed to come back to the US. This means they were subjected to whatever their employer wanted them to do. Employers agreed on paying the Braceros a prevailing wage and they were to receive social security contributions. But since the employers held all of the power, the employers could decide how much to actually pay the Braceros. Thus immigrants would work the entire day and not get paid what they deserved. This is very unfair because the Braceros were at the mercy of their employer. Of course the employer would threaten to fire them if they complained about their wages or the conditions in which they were working in. If they complained, they could be sent back to Mexico, which was not ideal for them: “When employers complained of mouthy Mexicans who dared to demand better treatment and higher wages…They detained and deported their way to a sacred workforce” (43). This is why the Braceros put up with this work so that they could stay in the United States. Garcia-Hernandez asks his grandfather about his Bracero experience and what stuck out to me was how the employers did not provide restrooms for them to use during the work day. So they had to urinate in the fields. This to me is treating these immigrants like animals. How could they not give them one toilet as human beings? They deserved the common decency to go to the bathroom without having others be able to watch them.
In the reading, it stated that many Mexican immigrants travelled to Chicago to find work. My grandparents were some of these people. I do not know the full scope of the story, but they got married in Mexico when they were very young and they fled their home town in search of a better life, this meant the United States. My grandma gave birth to my uncle while in Mexico, so he was legally a citizen of Mexico. Yet when they travelled to Chicago, their first daughter, my mother, was born in the United States. This meant that she was a US citizen by law. My grandfather worked many jobs to make sure that my mother and her four other siblings had everything that they needed. My grandmother was a stay at home mom and took care of the kids. My grandfather sent all of his kids to private school because he wanted the best for them. Though times were different back then, this was a huge sacrifice that he was making. Without their aspirations for their children the likelihood that I would have been born in the US would be slim.
One story of dehumanization that I heard was spoken by Branden Gomez at the extra credit event on March 4th, 2020. He described a time when he went to pay for gas and was behind a white man and this man spoke to him in Spanish, not thinking that he spoke English. Then when the white man allowed him to go in front of him, he spoke in English to the cashier. The man that had allowed him to go ahead was shocked that Branden was bilingual. To me this is dehuman izing because it is inappropriate to assume what specific language a person can speak. Just because a person looks a particular way, through skin color or the clothes they wear, doesn’t necessarily mean they speak the stereotypical language that they are portraying through these factors. In the readings, an act of dehumanization occurs through the eyes of the Border Police. Garcia-Hernandez discusses the story of David Rodriguez. When Rodriguez and his girlfriend Vanessa were heading home one night in 2010 when two drunk men threatened her. He then pulled a bat out and swung at the men, hitting them. They drove off. After, he plead guilty to misdemeanor assault and moved on with his life. Then years later, he and his now wife (Vanessa) were coming off a plane in 2015 in Miami. It was then that, “an immigration officer at the airport concluded he was deportable” even though his conviction was from five years ago (95). The officer believed it was a, “crime involving moral turpitude” (95). These four words are very vague and it remains open to interpretation. Many of the stories that were told in this reading, such as Rodriguez’s involve similar situations in that people are deported from older crimes that they have committed. Crimes or incidents that were in the past. Because of these four words, these past crimes or incidents can remain in an immigrants life forever. I never really understood this concept since it is difficult to grasp but I think I have a better understanding of it now. This idea of moral turpitude is dehumanizing because of the fact that a person’s actions in the past, even if they make up for these actions, are always looming in the background. They can never truly erase the past.
During the extra credit presentation, one thing that had shocked me was that San Rafael High School did not meet the A-G requirements to apply for college. To me this was shocking because most students probably do not even know what this. I’m sure that the people at Canal Alliance though are aware of this and have informed the students of this, but it is still disheartening. I’m curious to know what school the majority of the Canal Alliance UP! Students attend. I think this is something that I will ask them next time. I also thought it was interesting that the reason the Canal was built was for new college grads and newlywed couples. It was not meant to house so many people in a small portion of land. It makes sense as to why immigrants came to the Canal though: due to cheaper housing. Driving through the Canal, another statement that I agree with is that it is partially in a food dessert. Many of the stores I see around are fast food places or taquerias. After school, many of the students come to program with fast food or burritos. I don’t see the students eating very healthy food and that is probably because they do not have great access to it or it just isn’t appealing to them. Overall I enjoyed the powerpoint presentation and the statistics that were given on the Canal.
