Illegal: a true story of love, revolution and crossing borders [Ch.27]

in #immigration6 years ago

Illegal - Ebook.jpg
I'm a journalist for publications such as The Guardian, Vice, The Diplomat and Narratively and my first book, a memoir, came out just over a year ago [Amazon link]. It's won numerous awards and sold thousands of copies. And now I want to give it away. This is the twenty-eighth installment [Prologue | Ch 1 | Ch 2 | Ch 3 | Ch 4 | Ch 5 | Ch 6 | Ch 7 | Ch 8 | Ch 9 | Ch 10 | Ch 11 | Ch 12 | Ch 13 | Ch 14 | Ch 15 | Ch 16 | Ch 17 | Ch 18 | Ch 19 | Ch 20 | Ch 21 | Ch 22 | Ch 23 | Ch 24 | Ch 25 | Ch 26] and every few days I'll post another chapter. From the back cover:

A raw account of a young American abroad grasping for meaning, this pulsating story of violent protests, illegal border crossings and loss of innocence raises questions about the futility of borders and the irresistible power of nationalism.

--

Crossing Four March 29, 2007

Giving Up on Hope [Chapter Twenty-Eight]

I could argue that I got deported at a bad time, but there’s no good time to be forced to leave your home. Everyone who is deported is already dealing with a myriad of other issues, just like any other person. Whatever problems I had before became magnified, and much of what made me happy drifted deeper into the cracks.

A few weeks after I got back from my January crossing, there was one particularly disturbing incident. I had just returned to the downtown apartment Lucía and I were renting when I heard the doorbell and the loud screech of tires. By the time I reached the door there was no one outside and no cars in sight, but there was a shoebox on the step. The shoebox was crushed, with a tire mark across it. A bright red liquid oozed out of the torn cardboard sides. Curious, I opened the box: inside was a dead and badly disfigured guinea pig. It looked like they had run over the box while the animal was trapped inside, still alive. Blood had splattered on the sides of the box and the animal’s intestines poked through the torn skin and fur. The front lip was peeled back and ripped from its face, revealing a handful of broken teeth and slashed gums.

I wanted to vomit and cry at the same time. I felt horrible, and a dozen paranoid thoughts raced through my mind. Is this because I’m American? Is it someone I know? Do they know that guinea pigs are pets in my country? Did they know I was home? Are they watching me? Did the same people leave the dog shit on the step yesterday? Will they come back?
The anti-American sentiments I had dealt with before had been annoying though bearable—but the mutilated guinea pig was the breaking point. After I went back inside and collected myself, I fell into a state of depression and waited for Lucía to come home. But when I told her what had happened, she didn’t seem to care. She didn’t understand why I was so upset.

“I live here, that’s why. This is my home,” I shouted at her. “People spit on me in the park and leave dead animals at our door and you don’t even care.” And for the first time I started to seriously think that maybe this wasn’t my home, that maybe Lucía wasn’t the woman for me, that maybe the dream was just fantasy.

That same week, while I still clung to the idea that things would work out with Lucía and me, with Ecuador and me, I walked past a protest in the park. A hundred youths, faces covered with bandanas, were blocking the road while a group of riot police lined up a block away. The police were putting on their gas masks; the protesters were collecting pieces of pavement and rocks for a counterattack. After I passed the protesters and had my back to them, I heard one yell after me.

¡Fuera Yankee!—Yankee go home.”

I turned around and looked in the direction the voice came from.

He said it again. It was the tall one with the red bandana. I turned and walked straight for him. A crowd gathered to watch what would happen.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“Yankee go home,” he repeated, though with less confidence in his voice.

I laughed but did not smile, did not break eye contact. “You don’t like my country because it treats Ecuador unfairly. Because it doesn’t know your nation but it makes assumptions about it. Because it thinks all of Latin America is the same, thinks all Ecuadorians are the same. Because it thinks it knows you, but it’s ignorant.” I paused. “You’re the same. I live here. I work here. And the U.S. government does not represent me anymore than Lucio represented you. You’re the same as the U.S; you’re part of the problem.”

The man with the red bandana responded in a voice so low that I barely heard him above the noise of the protest, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

I turned my back and walked away. At the time I felt proud, but what if the roles were reversed? What if the protest was in the United States and had anti-immigrant undertones? What if one of the protesters shouted at an Ecuadorian walking by or a Muslim woman in a hijab and that person confronted the crowd?

Sort:  

Amazing story. Awesome Sir.

Posted using Partiko iOS

Wo000000w Really it’s Amazing I really liked that

Cheers! You should enter to win a free signed paperback copy of Illegal on Goodreads, here: https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/286623-illegal

Great story! Fabulous this story, I got completely into it, I liked it from the first moment. I get direct alcorazon, too much pasionante. Amazing! Magnifica! REGARDS!

Illegal always bad and has nagetive impact.

I'm not quite sure what you mean, can you explain? Are to saying the prohibition of freedom of movement is bad and has negative impact? Or do you mean not obeying those prohibitions and restrictions are bad?

Are you implying that other people have some sort of obligation to take in random people from outside of their countries? That's fine if you're immigrating for work, but a lot of the immigrants that come here on a visa vote for bigger government and a generous welfare state funded by the citizens' taxes. It would be even better if you were to encourage people in other nations to not participate in local elections since it is very evident that politicians cause 90% of the problems that they experience on a daily basis. Therefore, they would be much happier without government corruption that fuels their constant problems with immigration to other countries. As for freedom of movement, certain restrictions will have to be put in place by people who own private property in order to keep their property from getting damaged or stolen by trespassers without the need of the state. People who break the restriction will have to face the consequences. This is called the non aggression principle. The non aggression principle relies on the fact that private property owners have the full saying in who they can allow onto their property and who will not be allowed. So people who own large portions of land near the U.S/Mexico boarder, will crowdfund projects and programs that will keep their property from getting effected by people from the other side. All in all, this isn't enforced by the state because the owners of the property can can all agree to hire private security or they can all keep an eye out and defend each other to keep the neighborhood safe in case any one is breaking the NAP (Non Aggression Principle).

No, certainly not implying any individual obligation.

Immigrants who do not arrive legally are not eligible to vote or receive all forms of welfare. In fact they tend to contribute more than they extract, see here: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/no-undocumented-immigrants-arent-stealing-your-benefits_us_5a144263e4b010527d6780b0

That said, these are people not numbers on a spreadsheet.

illegal is a lifestyle :))

Congratulations @johndennehy!
Your post was mentioned in the Steem Hit Parade in the following category:

  • Pending payout - Ranked 3 with $ 158,2

Congratulations @johndennehy! You have completed the following achievement on the Steem blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :

You received more than 5000 as payout for your posts. Your next target is to reach a total payout of 6000

Click here to view your Board of Honor
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word STOP

Do not miss the last post from @steemitboard:

Saint Nicholas challenge for good boys and girls

Support SteemitBoard's project! Vote for its witness and get one more award!

congratulations mate! pls keep coming?

Hi @johndennehy!

Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 2.509 which ranks you at #16174 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has not changed in the last three days.

In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 226 contributions, your post is ranked at #209.

Evaluation of your UA score:
  • Only a few people are following you, try to convince more people with good work.
  • Your contribution has not gone unnoticed, keep up the good work!
  • Try to work on user engagement: the more people that interact with you via the comments, the higher your UA score!

Feel free to join our @steem-ua Discord server