“Oh no,” I said, as I watched the new on TV. “Oh no, another ICE shooting of an immigrant. Oh, no, he died.” And then “Oh NO, here in Maine, in Biddeford. A murder. Oh, and Joan Sebastian Guerrero was not the intended immigrant. Oh, no, he was twenty-six years old and was shot and killed as he left for work, leaving a wife and a three-year-old daughter. Oh no!”
And then other than “no, no, no,” I didn’t know what to say. I did notice my stomach clench, my jaw tighten, and the pounding of my aching heart. I felt shame for this country, embarrassment for this state. And I didn’t know what to do. But I heard words come to me from my early religious training: Love thy neighbor.
“Pray for us,” my African friend said when I ask him how I can help. Yes, I said to myself, I can/we can pray for immigrants, for inclusivity, for justice, for peace. “Yes,” I texted him. “Every single day.”
He texted, “I don’t understand why there is so much cruelty toward immigrants.” I answered, “There is no way to comprehend such hatred. To understand the violence and mistreatment is beyond the capacity of the human mind.” We shared frown-faced and tear-filled emojis.
Then I remembered some reputable agencies that need funds to do this work. The family has set up an account with https://projectreliefme.com/ to try to help pay for expenses.
Another is The Maine Solidarity Fund: https://www.mainesolidarity.org/
Family Promise and Welcoming the Stranger also welcome funds. There is hope in these organizations.
And there is hope in protests, so I went to one, where speakers mentioned many many other beautiful nonprofits who need support. I asked a Middle-Eastern U.S. citizen friend to come with me. She said, “I definitely don’t feel safe going to this protest as a person of color, but am grateful to those do show up who feel safe enough to do so.” Oh, yes, deep gratitude for those who do this crucial and sometimes dangerous work. And sadness for “I definitely don’t feel safe enough.”
I went to the Scarborough ICE detention center, a normally busy place with ICE agents and detainees coming and going all day, a place with wintry cold cells, a place where innocent immigrants are handcuffed, body searched, first refused a call to their lawyers, and asked to sign a document to leave this country of their own free will. Really? Free will?
But today as I approached this immense stone building, hundreds, maybe three hundred people were singing, “We Shall Overcome,” an African American spiritual popularized in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. a hymn-like song for social justice and nonviolent protest. I remembered, from my past in the 1960’s and 1970’s protest movements, that these sacred words stood for equality and human rights. And I wondered, “who were we then?”.
I remembered high school civics lessons, studying the Constitution, how it starts with, “We the People of the United States….in order to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity…”
I remembered the Bill of Rights and the right of due process. Who were we?
And then I wondered, in the midst of these peaceful people gathered here, “who are we now?”. There were signs, many signs, this one noting the past and the present: “They said, ‘I was just following orders.’ It didn’t work in World War II and it won’t work now.’”
We sang Woody Guthrie’s 1940s,” This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land.” I cried, because, is this true now? Who are we now, with this murder in Biddeford, Maine? Who are we now, with this assassination of an innocent young man?
I had no answers but the next question came, “Who will we be? Who do we want to become?” We sang, “this Little Light of Mine. I’m gonna let it shine:”
All around the neighborhood I’m going to let it shine
All around the world I’m going to let it shine
Ain’t nobody gonna woof it out. I’m gonna let it shine let it shine let it shine.
And then I knew, to get to “Oh, yes,” rather than “oh, no,” THIS is the future. Staying engaged with each other, together, taking action based in love, organizing around peace. We need each other to hold all of what is asked of us now. We need each other because we can’t get to “yes” alone. And we need hundreds of peaceful voices to help us shine our inner light.
As always, you capture the pain of the moment in all the details we are trying to run from. And, as always, you find the turnaround that takes us from grief to hope, paralysis to action, and most importantly, from hate to love. Keep writing; we need voices like yours to show the way!