This is what democracy looks like

"I'm NOT your average man! When I got a jammy in my hand!" I howled with L.L. Cool J, cruising my smokin' hot, just can't kill it '97 Mazda back to my house. Who's gonna knock you out? Well, I'm gonna knock you out. Pues, Momma said knock you out. Who's gonna do it? I'm gonna do it.

"Man, estoy bien" my little Bruce Springsteen kinder kid announced in his steel worker's voice "I got night vision goggles for my birthday, it was awesome".

I tossed and turned. It started during the last days of my vacation while sleeping in the warm mornings of the forbidden tropical wonderland. Work, money, disrespect, what do I care, why do I care. Work, money, disrespect. Images of fifth grade kids with with wintergreen mints sparking in the night in their mouths, something they told me about, something from their overnight field trip, you decorate the butterfly wing, Alec, you decorate butterfly wing, delirium, work, disrespect, MONEY. MONEY. MONEY. Disrespect.

"Buenas tardes. Buscamos firmas en contra de lay ley, saben, la ley como la que tienen en Arizona, la ley en contra de imigrantes..." I worked the crowd at Feria Latina. Folks feared me at first. Gringo lady, talking about immigration laws, asking for signatures. When the words started spilling from my mouth, they got the message. I had my best luck with young, cholo, tattooed men. No one else approached them. I knew they would get me. And they did. You just got to be nice.

"The Underground Railroad ran a registry, at this house in Maryland, you know, they took names, so people could call and find them....their relatives... they could ask if they passed through..." the fifth graders continued with their presentation, and my mind drifted, drifted to Casa del Migrante, the people that called, the registry we kept, so their relatives, you know, their relatives, would know if they passed through..."Sanctuary" the kids said, "they sought Sanctuary". Sanctuary. Such an important word. Sanctuary. I thought of the bad ass Presbyterians, yeah, never thought I'd say that, the bad ass Presbyterians that offered SANCTUARY, yes SANCTUARY, in their churches to Central Americans during the 1980s civil wars. In the United States. Driving, harboring, SANCTUARY. Felonies, jail time, SANCTUARY. You can't leave the state. Felony. SANCTUARY. It is morally correct. God or no God, morally correct. I am so lucky to know them. To know them. To look bad ass Presbyterian in the bad ass eye. It has been my pleasure. And my benefit.

So, they say the older kids don't like to sing, they like chants. What the fuck? I don't want to sing those stupid educational songs either, I just did it because it's elementary school. Fine. I tried to figure out a chant. For days. Finally, it hit me. "Show me what democracy looks like! - This is what democracy looks like!", "Arpaio, escucha, estamos en la lucha!" The rally chants filled my head and soon I was filling in the blanks with target grammar structures. They liked it. Actually, they loved it. Little activists at work. They just don't know it yet.

I hope so. And I'm leaving. But I wish them well. I do. I wish them well.

Hasta la victoria, siempre

I climbed through the boxes and piles of discarded teaching supplies that lined the hallway that leads to my classroom. They were the remnants of my former neighbor and friend's teaching career; the results of her "resignation". It looked like an eviction. The students that sometimes work at the table in the hallway cleared a space and worked in the middle of it all. Every student that entered my classroom had to walk through her discarded possessions in order to go to my class. I had to get out of there.

"The Senate can pass HB87, Georgia's copycat, Arizona-style bill Thursday or Friday, or after they return from vacation, anywhere from Monday the 11th through Thursday the 14th - day 40- the big day, the day when bills must pass or die" explained the lobbyist at my Tuesday night, stop Georgia from hating on immigrants meeting. "Who can be at the Capitol?" he asked, as hands rose in the air.

"Man, we heard EVERYTHING in Health class today" my thirteen year old niece commented, clicking past us in her new high heels and picking up her electric guitar. Open suitcases laid on the floor, bathing suits and sunblock, as the sound of the dryer echoing through the house.

"Either party may, without cause, terminate this Employment Agreement upon 30 days written notice" read our new contracts. "I'm not really comfortable with this" a teacher responded in our impromptu faculty meeting, the third of the week. People were getting agitated. It was the Friday before Spring Break. I had never seen so many teachers in a voluntary faculty meeting on such a day. I was agitated a year ago when I signed the same contract. If you can call it a contract. As a teacher, I'm just used to a little more protection, especially when administrators have been known to be partial, vindictive and petty. "Let's hold our contracts, tell them we won't sign until we get some written concessions" a teacher announced. "Yeah" many seconded. The hair on my arms started standing up. Was I seeing collective bargaining? Here, in the South, without any sort of official labor recognition? Grassroots collective bargaining? Hella better being seeing what I hoped to be seeing. "Okay, it's settled," an emerging leader announced, "we're holding our contracts, all of us".

And so I left. Off I went to the beautiful place that cannot be spoken of. Fly, fly, fly to let my feral self have a long-ass break.

Monday morning, I sat on the floor in a circle of kids, bleary eyed after a Sunday night return flight. "Okay, I have two questions: ¿Cómo estás? and one thing you might like to add about your Spring Break" I instructed the group of eight year olds. "Man, estoy bien. I played mini golf, rode a roller coaster and went to a place that smelled like a public bathroom" one commented. "Yeah, I went to an Albertson's that smelled like that once" another kid seconded as many others voiced their experiences. "I'm mal because I had to go to church and I did not want to" one of my favorite kinders voiced solemnly, later in the day, as I recycled the same question. I knew I liked that kid. "You cut your hair!" another exclaimed "You look like that lady on the Electric Company!". You know what? That is the nicest thing I've heard all day.

Day 40. I stood outside the Capitol, doing my best to chant though I am not a big chanter. A few hundred people had formed. I loved the idea, I had spoken up for it at the Tuesday night meeting. Last hours of the legislature, we will wait until you decide, this is important to us, it affects us. The warm spring air surrounded us in the dimming light. "Show me what democracy looks like! This is what democracy looks like!" the crowd answered. "Deal, escucha, estamos en la lucha!" the crowd continued. I ended up sitting down next to a solemn, totally indigenous looking Mexican boy and his abuela. And we waited. People started lighting their candles. It really was a beautiful night. A DJ had come, letting us use his sound system to speak to the crowd. But people wanted to hear music, so he relented, "one song". People started moving immediately with the opening beats of the song and soon, a full blown dance party was occurring on the Capitol steps. "Otra, otra!" the crowd called at the end of the first song. It was lovely and wonderful and made me smile and again appreciate the Latino capacity for joy, even in the worst situations, even when we were dancing on our own graves as the Georgia legislature debated OUR future. It was a beautiful night.

And, at 10pm, HB 87 passed. Georgia became a state of hate.

Wild Things

I sat in the rally planning meeting feeling like a fly on the wall as the preparations continued. "No one can sell anything" one of the organizers explained. "Tell that to the palatero man!" someone called out. People started to giggle, reminiscing about the palatero man who mysteriously popped up at a rally to sell his little Mexican popsicles, weaving his jingling cart through the chanting crowd. My mind wandered to Phoenix. I had gone to Arizona from Tijuana for a rally and was stunned by the shear quantity of Mexican food that appeared during the march: elote, paletas - all right there in a pueblo vs. Arpaio rally in Phoenix. It did seem funny. So quick thinking. Entrepreneurial.

I watched Alec try to feed Momo her bird-food birthday cake. She ignored it. His ipod started a new song. "This will bring them alive," Alec commented "they like the MC5". I didn't know our birds liked the MC5.

I watched the strange image on the ultrasound machine, as if I would be able to see with my untrained eye the thing they were looking for. I guess most people see babies in a situation like this, but they, well, we were monitoring an ominous, threatening thing that was definitely not a fetus. They had dragged me back in to see if it "had changed". I mentally started counting up the sick days I have acquired in the short time I've been at my new school, all while staring at the image on the screen. Maybe eight? What if this thing had transformed itself into what everyone feared in the last six months? Eight paid days off wouldn't be enough. I started getting pissed at my job again, pissed that they rejected the thirty odd days I had stock piled in my first four years of teaching, pissed at them for opting out of a law that everyone else has to follow. What if I need the days, what if....."The doctor says you're good. No more six month check ups. We'll send you a notice". I grabbed my clothes and got out of there.

My eyes wandered to the cats. The rest of the dinner party guests continued talking, but my eyes were locked on the eyes of one of the many feral cats my friend has taken in. You can tell how tame each is by their eyes. This one was not too tame. I liked looking into its wild eyes.

The advent of spring and a cycle of antibiotics to kill the devil flu has brought me back to the land of the living. My light is beginning to shine. I run out of school minutes after the kids and have been working the kind of short work week that critics of teachers claim believe we always work. I like it.

The wild bird continues to nest on the porch, spring has sprung, the world keeps rotating and many things just can't be tamed.

Fly, fly, fly

"You know, I always wanted to be a cop. Not like a normal cop, like the FBI or DEA or something. Just want to cause a ruckus in the street" Alejandro told me over lunch at a diner in an almost rural area outside of Atlanta. I laughed. And felt uncomfortable for doing so. If that was some white kid's ambition, or even a black one's, I'd tell him to go for it. But Alejandro, well, it's out of the question. Fuck your dreams, fuck your ambition and fuck your contributions to our country. You can do nasty work that we need and that no one wants to do and run from the law while you do it. And there is not a damn thing I can do about it.

I looked at the now filled bird's nest that has been sitting on my front porch since last August. A huge full moon hung in the sky. I didn't think about much, not about the people walking or the activity of full moon nights. The bird went crazy, it flew out of its nest and circled the ceiling, pounding its wings in panic. I felt terrible.

I went to the Confederacy again on a little driving day trip through the Andersonville concentration camp, Americus and beautiful Plains, GA - home of J.C. It doesn't take long to hit the Confederacy, just drive south of Atlanta about twenty minutes and you will start to see it. The old state flag, you know, the one that's indistinguishable from the Confederate rebel flag, statues of black folks with huge teeth and lips eating watermelon, all the markings and fixings of the Confederate States of America. It's all right there. We stopped in to a small restaurant and got some barbecue in Andersonville. The woman tending the shop was freakishly nice and friendly. As I ate my sandwich, my eyes scanned the walls of rebel flags and racist symbols, all the while exchanging pleasantries with this more than pleasant woman. A black couple perused the items for sale. Were they doing the same thing we were doing, trying to act like everything was okay in this bizarre state of utter bigotry, out of fear, fear of what, not accepting them for what they are or fear of outright confrontation? Is that what they were doing too?

I remember moving to the South. I was ten. It was the first time I heard the words "War of Northern Aggression" instead of the commonly used term: The Civil War. Even at ten I was confused, were they pissed about something? Were they actually still worrying about this? As I walked around the acreage at Andersonville and read about the filth and scum that killed nearly 13,000 people in seven months, the voice of my tenth grade history teacher filled my ears. "Sherman was a war criminal! He burned from Atlanta to the sea!" No sir, Andersonville was a war crime and I'm glad someone burned this bitch to the sea.

"Ching ching!" went the staple gun as my sister and I ran around the neighborhood quickly posting flyers against Georgia's looming, Arizona copycat immigration bills. "Hi!" I said and waved at one of my students and his mother, then slyly turned and stapled another flyer to a pole. The trip around the neighborhood businesses was pretty telling. "No," one shopkeeper answered as we asked him if he would post one of our rally flyers in his window "nothing political." I had seen his jaw tighten when I said the words "anti-immigration bills" No, I just want folks' money. No convictions, I'd sell to anyone. Dude, it's money. And I felt an equal amount of joy when I told a neighborhood restaurant owner about E-verify provisions in the bill, while eying his Hispanic cooks in the back. "Put it in the front window, I'll get you some tape" he instructed, then talked my ear off for fifteen minutes about how wrong this bill is. Tell me, mister, tell me. I love to hear it.

Though the full moon didn't strike me like it normally does, I did feel the feral side of me start to rise. Eight more weeks of school. That's it. Eight weeks. And then Arizona, Tijuana....I felt the feral side rise in Egypt and I can feel it rising up again, shining and glowing and rising.

This little light of mine

I watched the man with the dark mark on his forehead yell into the camera on television. I remember those guys from Egypt. They get that mark from praying, praying hard.

They want him back in court. At the detention center. I'm worried. "I'm worried too" Alejandro said in his email. I can't go. I have to work, I just called in sick last week and contracts are about to come out. I'm worried. He shouldn't go down there alone, but even if he comes with an army they won't be able to stop the state from taking him back if they want him.

I still wear the friendship bracelets my students in Tijuana made me before I left. They are starting to fray, disintegrate. Everything is.

"This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine!" the music teacher sang with the kids during our morning meeting. I was surprised when tears sprung into my eyes. I want my light to shine. "All around the world, I'm gonna let it shine!" they continued. My light feels sick and weak and tired. I want to let it shine, but it's dim and struggling.

"So, have you been involved in advocacy?" the church lady asked me at the pro-immigration meeting. "Yeah, sure, I've been pretty involved in some things for the last few years, mainly in Arizona and Tijuana" I answered. "You should join our group!" she went on. "Yeah, okay, because I'm pretty worried about the legislation that is happening in Georgia" I answered. "Just send us an email telling us why you want to join and we will read it to the members and decide if you can." she answered. "Are you kidding? Why are you so exclusive? Don't you realize that immigrants could really use some friends right now?" I responded. "We don't want the enemy to find us" she answered, wide eyed. Give me a fucking break. While you hide from the "enemy" no one else can find you either and a bunch of fat rednecks continue making Juan Crow laws against brown folks. Just so you know. Keep watching out.

I wrote the little sentences and questioned why I bothered. I like what I do during the summers in Arizona and my solo activities on behalf of immigrants here in Atlanta. I do not like the "advocate" community in Atlanta. There's a lot of hierarchy and competition and sitting around talking and a huge amount of inaction, served with a giant side of self promotion. It's different than what I have experienced in Arizona and California and even Tijuana. It doesn't feel like the immigration situation is being changed much, but folks certainly are aggrandizing themselves. It's embarrassing to watch.

"Whadya gonna do next year?" one of my teacher friends from the school asked me over beers. "I don't know. Thinkin' of really going feral," I answered, knowing she was one of the few people that would get that.

"I'm gonna let it shine"

The Fever

"So my dad was in Wal-Mart and he heard these guys talking real loud" the five year old extrapolated. "'Whadya want to eat?' the one guy asked the other one," he continued "'Chicken in the box!' The guy said 'chicken in the box'!" and the kid erupted in laughter, then roared "CHICKEN IN THE BOX!!" over and over. For some reason I couldn't stop laughing either.

I ran into one of my old art school professors a couple of months ago. It was strange to see him, like visiting a moment from your forgotten past. He was awesome, just like he always was and still working and creating great stuff, just like he always was. "What are you up to?" he asked me. "I am an elementary school Spanish teacher" I answered. His eyes widened in surprise. He encouraged me, just like he always did and I left him feeling sad and wondering who I really am and which of the many identities I have encompassed in my life is the real one.

And then I was struck down. I started the week with a swollen, painful injury to my foot that completely derailed my advancing jogs around the park. I visited my doctor, who told me that I have a bone problem that I really do not want to discuss but am in no way pleased by. I limped through the week. A dry, itchy cough entered my repertoire last Thursday. It continued on Friday, interrupting my lessons with hacking coughing fits. By the time school let out, I was having trouble standing up and colliding with walls and doors when I did. I went home and collapsed. I felt confused and wasn't sure if I was awake or asleep as my brain obsessed and cycled over and over again through my many problems at work. At one point I made myself wake when my head hurt; I realized I was shoving it into the arm of a chair. I was praying for the night to end and for the daylight to return. Alec got me up and took my temperature. "101.5, Hilary, that's kind of high" he told me.

I remember, after three weeks of hiking high in the mountains of Nepal, climbing downhill on our return to Kathmandu. It was the easy part. Suddenly, I realized I really couldn't do it anymore and told Alec that we needed to check in to a hostel, though it was the middle of the day, and I collapsed on the bed without even taking my hiking boots off. This was the beginning of multiple feverish days of 104 degree temperatures and confused hallucinations, before I was finally able to rise and finish the remaining four day walk to the capital.

On Saturday, I got out of bed for ten minute stretches, only to be exhausted and lie back down. My temperature continued to rise to 102. "Take this" Alec told me, giving me aspirin to reduce the fever. I fell firmly asleep and woke up that evening lying in a pool of sweat. I was able to get up. I am horrified that elementary age children can give me a flu so retching that it can only be compared to the dysentery I picked up in a third world country.

The fever had broken and though I didn't feel good, I was not hallucinating. It was a huge relief. I went to bed that night, and the visions started again. I got up Sunday morning and again was drenched in sweat. I took a lot of over the counter medicines and prepared for work on Monday. I went to bed early, my stomach sore from coughing and chest feeling like it was full of cement. And then the visions began again, the tossing and turning, the work obsessions, I couldn't tell if I was sleeping or waking. I woke up, exhausted. And called my boss and told her I wasn't coming to work. "Okay" she snapped "they'll have to cancel Spanish today!".

I laid back on my bed and broke out in a heavy, freakish sweat. And then I slept.

San Valentín

As I walked down the stairwell and toward the exit, I heard a whisper behind me. "You're going to walk around that park, aren't you?" I turned to see kinder George alone in the hallway. "I see you going there from my house" he said, smiling coyly. He looks like my brother did when he was little, when we were little. "You're right, I am going to the park" I admitted, glancing out of the window at the lowering sun. "Do you think I'll make it before it gets dark?". "It's going to rain" he responded . "The spider is back in the bathroom. Not the first one, a new, brown one".

The city of Atlanta inexplicably decided to throw gravel all over the ice covered roads during our January snow storm, instead of putting something down that might dissolve and vanish when the ice went away, as other states do. Over a month later, cars continue skidding on the gravel covered roads throughout the neighborhood. Funny that rocks don't just go away when the ice vanishes. Parts of the roads began disintegrating as soon as the ice started to melt, just like Tijuana after the rains.

I watched the two second news report of the attack on the female journalist. I'm not sure why in a moment of extreme jubilation and unprecedented liberation it would enter anyone's head to celebrate by beating the living shit out of a random person and forcibly shoving their dick in her while she more than likely screamed, cried, bled, kicked and fought. I really don't celebrate that way. It actually doesn't even enter my mind.

"Okay so make the valentine for whoever you want, your mom, your dad...." I instructed. "I don't have a dad!" Greg exclaimed, "I have two moms!". The other twenty children did not react in any way, just looked at me blankly and awaited my response. I looked into his concerned face and for the first time in a long while my heart opened up with love and admiration for the tortuous place I work in. "Make it for your moms, Greg. They'll love it" I answered.

I think about the hand print stained windows in the visitor's area at the detention center a lot now that we don't have to go there anymore. Do people still claw at the glass, desperately trying to touch a loved one? Does the little boy still sit alone in the chair on Sundays saying "Papí, te quiero, te quiero" through the telephone while his mom looks on and cries?

Greg smiled happily and started cutting out two small red hearts.