Los Vecinos

The vicious uprooting of our communities

Friends,

A humanitarian nightmare is occurring within the borders of the United States.

ICE is ramping up — from 20,000 to 30,000 agents — and adding many more detention camps. It’s tearing apart families, uprooting communities, taking our neighbors.

Over 70 percent of those now being detained have no criminal records. Many have been hardworking members of our communities for decades.

ICE is now detaining at least 60,000 people. That’s almost 45 percent above the capacity provided for by Congress. Detainees in at least seven states are complaining of overcrowding, food shortages, and hunger.

Many camps are run by private contractors who evidently don’t care about conditions in the camps. Recent job cuts to an independent watchdog within the Department of Homeland Security is resulting in even fewer means of complaining about inhumane conditions.

One of my favorite poets, Alison Luterman, sent me this, to pass on to you.

**

Los Vecinos

Teresa, our Mexican neighbor,

climbs our porch steps on arthritic legs,

carrying a plate of fresh tamales,

still warm, wrapped in cloth,

because they’re having a cook-out in their yard

with all the tias and grandbabies,

and we’re included in the golden circle

of familia, through no virtue

of our own, yet here she is again at our door

with a plate of something delicious, or a big plastic bag

filled with nopales from the edible pads

of the giant cactus in their yard

which she has skinned and cubed and boiled

in salted water. They’re slippery as okra

and tart as lemons and she swears they will cure

a long list of ailments, including

but not limited to cancer, high blood pressure,

diabetes...standing on our porch, leaning

against the railing, she enumerates

the benefits while I smile and nod, “Si, si, gracias...”

My friend who lives in a rich neighborhood

says she’s seen ICE patrolling, looking for gardeners

and maids escaping over the back fences of Marin.

They’re tearing apart families like clumps

of seedlings, uprooting whole delicate

ecosystems, but what they don’t

understand is the mycelian nature

of kinship, how love is a weed

that travels across borders in a bird’s belly

and pops up waving its arms, no matter the law.

Our block resounds with spangled mariachi tunes

all summer long, and I’d be lying if I said

I wasn’t jealous some evenings,

lying awake while parties go on all around us,

because this land is their land, and this devotion

is tough and wild and joyous and Teresa can’t read

the red card that says Know Your Rights

in English and Spanish that I give her, nor understand

how I make a living, but she knows

what to do with the leaves of the guava tree

growing along our driveway, whose leaves

are medicinal in dozens of ways--whose leaves,

like the Bible says, are given for the healing of the nations.