Letters from the Field

Dear Friends, Cinco de Mayo—May 5, 2004

Special greetings from El Paso, Texas. My letters from the field are usually from other countries, so I thought my experiences at the US/Mexican border might be of interest. Each time I am in Texas I realize how little I know of the border struggle, and how rich is the multicultural experience of the people. I also realize that my early roots are here. Yes, I was born in Houston, Texas. I'm a "Tejana", as they say. As a small child I even had a southern drawl before my family moved back to Pennsylvania during the war years. Somehow returning to Texas feels like coming full circle. And as a white middle class woman it is a privilege to be part of the healing process here with Mexican people who have suffered for generations from the oppression and racism of US border policies.

I am always deeply moved by the love and generosity of the Mexican people who take me into their hearts. There is a special tradition here of helping each other and sharing, that I find in few other places. With the struggle for survival at the border during the last century, groups of women called "mutualistas" came together for mutual support to help each other when someone was in need or lacked food, health care and basic necessities. That spirit continues today. It is unthinkable for anyone to bring just their own lunch. Everyone shares whatever they have with the group! And some of the poorest are the most generous. Eighty-three year-old Ofelia who has become a dear friend always brings me a little gift. About two weeks ago a neighbor found her on the kitchen floor, having fainted from lack of food. Yet she brought burritos for everyone at the training the other day and even crocheted a special dishtowel for me. During my last visit Ofelia shared some of her hard life. As a 7 year-old child in Mexico she started working in the mines to help her family. She described how she was lowered down the mine shaft on a long rope, and because she was small she worked for years digging in the tunnels. Ofelia currently takes in ironing and cleans houses to earn a little to survive. She was widowed three years ago, so she jokes that she is now looking for a "novio", a boyfriend!

I have been walking with the people of the El Paso/Juarez area for several years. The groups that have sponsored my workshops for the last two years are Bienestar Familiar and the Cancer Consortium of El Paso. As word of the trainings has gotten around, participants are now coming from many different places-communities and colonias around El Paso, Sparks, Chaparral, New Mexico, and Juarez, Mexico. Many of these people offer remarkable services in their communities, with very few resources.

Bienestar Familiar (Family Wellbeing Center) is headed by attorney Imelda Garcia, who has worked for years fighting for the rights of women and families. After a bout with cancer Imelda founded Bienestar to reach out to Mexican families in Socorro, a poor area in El Paso where there are few health resources. Currently in Texas there is money to screen women for breast cancer, but no money for surgery or treatment. A recent law was passed whereby a clinic or nonprofit is liable if they find cancer in a person, but don't pay for the treatment-placing on small nonprofits without funds an even greater burden. So fewer people are being screened for cancer. Bienestar now uses Capacitar practices in many of its programs, women's groups, outreach to youth, men's groups, and work to heal violence in the community.

Imelda's husband, Jose, is a pharmacist in El Paso. He recently was honored with a national award and a three-year grant for his work with Mexican men who have diabetes. Jose developed a weekly group of older men (his viejitos) who come together to share their experiences and celebrate their Aztec and Native American ceremonies as part of their healing process. This is a remarkable renewal of their native traditions, since so many of these men were forced to deny or reject their culture to survive in the white world at the border. Most of the men have lived difficult lives of poverty, violence and trauma, and this has contributed significantly to their poor health and diabetes. Jose describes how the men-the "brothers"-share their stories, tears and joys with each other. For some of them this is the first time that anyone has shown interest or affirmed them. One of the projects that Jose recently started with the brothers is an outdoor labyrinth, made from bricks and logs that the men contribute. They are building their labyrinth in an empty lot next to the clinic where Jose sees his patients and prescribes their medications. Jose says he got the idea from the women. On each visit I usually carry the Capacitar labyrinth, which has become a wonderful healing tool for many participants in our workshops. The El Paso labyrinth was designed by one of the men. The bricks that form the labyrinth will be painted with Aztec symbols and traditional colors of the four directions. Jose described how touching it is to see diabetic men in their wheel chairs holding a string to mark off the labyrinth paths. Everyone is involved and everyone is contributing! A log with painted Aztec symbols appeared one day, more bricks on another day. Next to the labyrinth the men will plant a milpa, an herb garden and corn field with the traditional plants of the people. Jose and his brothers are also traveling to Chaparral, New Mexico, to help other men start support groups there.

Our Capacitar trainings (in Spanish) have grown to 60 or more people each visit. The gatherings have become a means of unifying organizations that normally don't get together. The age range of participants is 20 to 83. Groups have included the Cancer Consortium, Candlelighters and staff of Providence Hospital who work with families and children with cancer; El Paso men and women working in HIV/AIDS prevention, Hospice work, and VNA, visiting nurses program. From Chaparal, New Mexico comes a wonderful group of women who offer important outreach in their poor community. Chaparal is a town of about 2,000 people with few basic services. The first high school will finally be built next year after a huge struggle. Some homes do not have running water and there are dirt roads into the community.

Another area represented in our trainings is Juarez, Mexico. Almost 20% of participants now come from Juarez, which is right across the border from El Paso. Most of these people are from CompaÒeros, an organization that offers over 15 different projects and services including: care for children and youth; work with youth at risk; drug rehabilitation and recovery; work with HIV awareness and prevention; women's groups; vacation programs for children; and work in Ceresos Prison with health promotion. Capacitar is being used in most of the CompaÒeros programs. Yesterday we were all set to give a Capacitar workshop in the Juarez prison, but violence broke out a few days earlier with several men killed and a number injured. So this training is on hold until my next visit in November.

Juarez is the area where over the last couple of years more than 340 women have been brutally raped and murdered. Most of these women were young workers from the maquiladoras (sweat shops). The cases were never solved but our friends of CompaÒeros talk about the implication of the Juarez police in this brutality. CompaÒeros has had several support groups and ceremonies for the mothers of these murdered girls.

Since September 11 crossing the border between Juarez and El Paso has become much more difficult. Sometimes the Mexicans have to stand in long lines for hours in the sun waiting to clear immigration. Before that Juarez and El Paso were more like one community with some families living on both sides, and many people working on both sides of the border. With NAFTA and globalization there have also been many economic changes in the area. A few years ago thousands of El Paso residents lost jobs in companies that paid $25 a day on the Texas side. When these companies moved to the Mexican side of the border, the people were offered the same job, but for $30 a week. And the cost of living in Juarez is about the same as in El Paso. Most people in Juarez daily see the better homes, material goods, and opportunities for their children on the other side of the border, so it is no wonder that illegal immigration is a major challenge.

One of the issues that Imelda Garcia of Bienestar is starting to address with other organizations in El Paso, Chaparral and Juarez is multigenerational trauma. Most of the Mexicans and Native American people in the area are deeply affected by the traumas of their ancestors and more recently their parents. There were massacres of Mexicans by Texas rangers less than 100 years ago and many people were treated inhumanely. In fear and shame parents kept family secrets of their ancestry and intermarriages with native peoples. Some stopped speaking Spanish, trying to fit into the world of white America. Often women and children were sexually abused, while men escaped their shame and pain with alcohol. So many of the women and men who come to the Capacitar trainings are desirous of healing these wounds of the past and are committed to saying: "This stops with me!" So as Capacitar we, too, are committed to walk with these valiant people, to share what we can, but even more so to learn from them.

A friend recently sent me a quote of Haim Ginott that well describes the possibility we all have to empower ourselves and one another at this challenging time in our world: "I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decided whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming."

Thank you for your friendship and support!
Peace and blessings,
Pat Cane