All About Borders...

*TW* my experience as someone torn from their mother by US government officials



She was fun and doing her own thang

Living her own life 

When they came 

About 3 of them and all their friends 

To take her from me

From us

All because they heard her voice 

Foreign

Other 

From elsewhere and not here.

The decided to use it 

against her 

against us. 

Crowned her with the scarlet letters "DT"

and said she could never return 

here.

I open this post with an untitled poem dedicated to my mother who was deported from the United States ten years ago. With the installation of our 45th president concerns of borders and citizenship have heightened in more explicit ways. We know that this country that we call home has been notorious in determining who is allowed to call themselves a citizen and who can plant roots that grow deeply here. Mostly, I've tried to steer clear of the stories that tell of babies being ripped and displaced from their parents because sometimes ignorance can be bliss. But, the heightened visibility of citizenship has caused me to think about my own complex relationship to citizenship. 

As you know from the introduction of this blog I recently graduated. My graduation day was the BEST DAY EVER! I have pictures that prove how much of a good time I had celebrating with my loved ones. But graduation was a bittersweet time because on this journey I lost major pillars  such as my paternal grandmother who raised me and my father. This time was even more bittersweet because my mother was unable to attend. 

My mother is alive and well, however, she is unable to visit the U.S. because she was deported and marked as a domestic terrorist. My mother is not a terrorist by any means she was just associated with the wrong people and vulnerable because of her citizenship status. We only need to look at the news to see that labels such as terrorist are a fluke and people who should be labeled as such usually are not. For example, white men who kill innocent church goers or students. But, I digress. Did my mother have a squeaky clean past? Nope. That's what actually further aided in the case the government and immigration folks made against her. She could not be trusted; she was not a productive citizen with her multiple arrest charges for drug possession and prostitution. And let's not mentioned the 4 children she had already displaced because of her lifestyle at the time. In the case of my mother her citizenship depended on her compliance to aid government officials build a case against someone else. My mother refused to keep us safe so since she was not a citizen she was held in immigration prison and then deported to her birthplace, the Grand Caymans. 

I did not grow up with my mom and did not have a relationship with her so at the time of her deportation it did not matter to me. Initially, like the government I blamed my mother for her transgressions. She brought this on herself right? I mean I could have maintained that stance, but 1. my father's family didn't raise me like that and 2. there were many factors at play like the fact that my mother was young when she had me and that really there was no real resources available to people affected by the crack era. The only resolution during that time was jail time. This is not to provide excuses for my mother because she doesn't need any and she has forgiven herself and I have as well. Thinking about all the factors at play allows me to think about our experiences on a macro level and intersectionally. Plus, forgiveness and redemption is better than sacrifice. 

Now that I have forgiven my mother and built a strong relationship with her I am forced to live this reality of separation by a non redemptive government who did not care that visits to see my mom would be few and far in between because of the cost and travel; or that video messaging would only allow for so much. My graduation was the second of many major events my mom will have to miss, my nephew's birth was the first. As I prayerfully enter the workforce reconciling the debt I have gained through seeking my education will come secondary to seeking an immigration lawyer so that my mother does not have to miss any more major milestones in her children's lives. 

I tell my story because it demonstrates how common place it is for families to be separated by fickle laws, lawmakers, enforcers, and loopholes. Further, my story demonstrates the need for us all to not live in blissful ignorance and for there be an intersectional approach to citizenship. If we all work together we will create a world we can all live in. As I write this I admit it sounds romantic and cliche. However, just as I can't afford to live in ignorance no one else can either. This is a problem of humanity that can only be made right when we care and think of each other as ourselves. I pray that all of us who are experiencing displacement and deportation get in touch with the resources needed to be reunited with our loved ones.

Xo,