Skip to main content

To the Children Seeking Asylum in the U.S.: This Is My Wish for You [yesmagazine.org]

 

Dear Children Seeking Asylum in the U.S.,

These past few days, I have drafted several letters to you, children and youth, who have walked thousands of miles north from your countries of origin to ask for asylum in the United States. I can only imagine the difficult, very difficult, circumstances that your families must have sustained to decide to leave behind everyone they loved, everything they knew and owned and walk into the unknown.

In these unfinished letters, I tell you that I think your parents are so brave. You and they have shown the world what courage looks like, what hope and determination look like, the raw wish to live. Life seeks always life—your parents want to live, they want you to live, to see you grow up and prosper. Your parents love you. That is what I see in the pictures of all of you walking thousands of miles, enduring hunger, thirst, sleeping on sidewalks and plazas.

In these drafts of letters, I tell you that like some of you I come from El Salvador, that like some of you, I was 14 years old when I fled the violence and terror of the Salvadoran civil war. I tell you that I did not leave on my own, that I was with my mother, father, and younger sister. I shared how, at first, my family struggled mightily in the U.S., but eventually each of us learned English and found our way, in the same way I know you would also learn English and find your way. However, given the intransigence and active refusal of the U.S. government to recognize you in your hour of desperate need, given the choice the U.S. government has made to thwart your human right to seek asylum, I found it difficult to maintain the upbeat tone and the spirit of hope I’d hoped to convey. As my hand moved across blank pages trying to find the right tone, the right message, I fought the futility of my action and, given the inhumanity of the U.S. government, felt my effort to be risible at best. I don’t see how I can say anything that will, in the slightest, soothe the stress, shock, and suffering you have lived, are living, and most likely will continue to live.

[For more on this story by Claudia Castro Luna, go to https://www.yesmagazine.org/pe...ish-for-you-20181203]

Add Comment

Comments (0)

Post
Copyright © 2023, PACEsConnection. All rights reserved.
×
×
×
×
Link copied to your clipboard.
×