Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Beneath Brutality and Black Ribbons

He was sleeping when I first laid eyes on him again. It had been a year and a half since we had spent every day together in Uganda during his time in the rehabilitation home for boys raised by the streets. I woke him up. He looked up at me, and his beautiful eyes (one now white and cloudy) filled with tears. We sat and cried together as he relayed to me how the security guards had beaten him simply for being out walking at night with his dog, shortly after I left.

 “It was as if they wanted to beat me to death, and I wish they would have done so. They left my eye so swollen and bleeding from their sticks and put me in jail where it kept bleeding for days.”

Joseph is so full of life and love, but he’s been hardened by so many who treat him with scorn. He’s quick to lash out and act out, yet he is an incredibly loyal and loving friend. When I’d run errands, I would come back and find that he had washed all of my clothes and even taken several of them to the tailor to be patched up. He hardly left my side for the two weeks I was back in Uganda.


At 17, he is again living on the streets with all the strength, willpower, pain, risks, and heartache that entails. His self-esteem has taken a turn for the worse as he is ashamed of his white, cloudy eye that causes him constant pain. We went to the clinic to see if anything could be done and were told that the pain is from the pressure in his eye that remains high from the beating. The guards scratched his cornea with their sticks and his vision can only be restored by a cornea transplant; an operation which is not available in Uganda. (**If you know of organizations that donate this type of surgery, please let me know!!**)



I was so enraged by the brutality that so many young people endure world-over when systems are still entrenched in the idea that punitive justice will someone how “straighten out” today’s youth. As we walked to the internet café, I walked with one eye closed, realizing how Joseph’s vision would be for the rest of his life unless he is able to get a transplant.

I logged into my facebook account as Joseph waited patiently beside me, and the first message I saw was from a friend in El Salvador in the community where I lived and worked for four years. He’d written to tell me that a 14-year old had been killed in front of the school, and that the soldiers had stormed the community and beaten and carted off a whole group of young people as they went door-to-door collecting money for the funeral expenses for their friend. One had sustained a severe head injury from the beatings.

More punitive justice. More abuse by the “authorities.” More guilty until proven innocent. I scrolled down the newsfeed hoping for a picture of someone’s baby with a “2 months old!” sign to bring me back to a happy place and my heart skipped a beat. I saw the black ribbon that all too often takes up my newsfeed, and this time it was accompanied by “Rest in peace Alejandra.” Beneath the post were a host of messages; one of them from my dear friend Jonathan read: “See you soon.” I looked up at Joseph's cloudy eye and crooked smile and gazed back down at the dreaded black ribbon next to Alejandra's smiling photo. Beneath the remnants of brutality and the black ribbons there are endless dreams and untold stories that I've been blessed to be close enough to hold. If only the whole world could hear them.

Alejandra and her beloved grandmother
Alejandra and Jonathan were two young people I had known for years in El Salvador, who had struggled together to leave behind the street life they’d grown up in. While Jonathan managed to leave the gang life, Alejandra could never quite cut her ties. I met Alejandra while doing creative writing workshops in the juvenile detention center. I will never forget her zest for life and her child-like zeal over her accomplishments. She loved writing and expressing her frustrations and aspirations through whatever came to her mind. She wrote a beautiful piece for her mother one day after being moved to tears in her cell by a song on the radio, and I’ll never forget the eagerness with which she awaited my affirmation the day she showed me the poem.

She was a natural leader. When she got out of detention she began recruiting youth from her neighborhood to join a project for youth wishing to leave the street life. She couldn’t quite leave that life herself, and a few mistakes in, she was kicked out of the program and sent back to the detention center by her parole officer. The streets offer family, quick money, mobility, and a sense of belonging, while the “peacebuilding” community offers short-lived programs with no follow up and/or detention. Which would you choose?

Alejandra got out and soon had a beautiful son who won’t have a single memory of her. She was killed when he was only 2 years old… by whom? We’ll likely never know, since the deaths of gang-affiliated youth are rarely if ever investigated. It could have been the police, her “rivals” or her own friends. We’ll never know.

Alejandra and her son
I showed Joseph her photo on the screen and he shook his head with sadness. “She’s so beautiful,” he said. Young people a world away… united by their desire to belong, to live and to thrive, and by their experiences of violence and brutality. Joseph now lived with half of his vision and a mound of trauma, but at least he was still alive…

I wrote to Jonathan, letting him know I was so sorry for the loss of his friend. I logged out of my account and re-focused my attention on the sounds of Uganda surrounding me. Cars passed outside, honking incessantly. Joseph chatted with a friend. The generator made a buzzing noise. I walked outside and Joseph grabbed my hand to cross the street. I crossed with caution, still in a state of disbelief, all too aware of the fragility of this life, especially for the billions of young people struggling to find their place in this world.

Jonathan responded to my message several days later, by which time I’d started my internship in LA with a group doing gang violence intervention. The stories here in LA are the same stories as those told by youth world-over… police brutality, corruption, detention, criminalization, uncertainty…  Amidst so much tragedy, Jonathan gave me great hope. Two friends of mine had interviewed him with me in January and we would soon be publishing his story on their historical memory blog.

Jonathan was a living, breathing miracle. He’d escaped death more times than I could count on my fingers and toes. He had survived the Ilobasco prison fire in 2009 that killed 27 of his cellmates and long-time friends (in which guards left the young inmates to burn alive for 35 minutes before unlocking their cell). He’d literally risen from the dead, as he was placed in the hospital morgue, thought to be dead from his burns and from smoke inhalation, but he woke up feeling very cold and dazed and walked out of the room, much to the horror of the nurse he encountered in the hallway.

Jonathan and his girlfriend Andrea, January 2015

Jonathan had seen it all at his 22 years of age. Most notably, he had realized without a doubt that the gang lifestyle made no sense, and he had chosen to be jumped out of the gang despite the risks this posed to his safety. He told us “What is the gang even fight for? For nothing. They say we’re fighting for territory but we’re the ones who die and the territory stays here.”  With his heart of gold and fearless nature, he began counseling youth out of joining the gang. He would give a hand to whoever was in need, and he landed a job for several years in a Christian used-clothing store that gives jobs to former gang-members. Whenever I’d sink into doubt about whether or not it would be possible for the many youth I work with to transform their lifestyle, I’d think of Jonathan and he’d give me hope that it was certainly possible.

Jonathan would go with me to speak to groups visiting El Salvador on cultural immersion trips and he’d fearlessly explain his own story. He’d highlight the ways in which the society makes it merely impossible to change because police target gang-involved youth, often killing them indiscriminately whether or not they are still involved in gang activities. He’d explain the barriers to employment and the psychosocial baggage that his homeboys faced and the fact that those who are seen as victimizers are in fact victims as well.

As we chatted I asked him which name he’d like to use in the upcoming publication of his story, and he told me he’d like to be called “Proceres” (Hero). I asked how he was doing and he said he was ok, but that he could hardly leave his house because “these days the police are killing all of us, even those of us who aren’t involved in anything anymore.” I told him I knew how dangerous the situation was, and to stay safe. He sent a thumbs up.

One week later I had a long, invigorating conversation with a friend about the potential for working together to create opportunities for Salvadoran youth to become involved in changing the trend of violence and abuse in their country and writing a new narrative. As I drove home, my mind was racing, thinking of the possibilities given this new connection. My mind was still spinning when I got home and checked my facebook before going to bed. I couldn’t breathe. The same black ribbon. This time it read, “Rest in peace, Jonathan. We will never forget you.” I checked his wall in disbelief, and sure enough… I saw the litany of messages appearing since the news got out that he had been shot to death while waiting for the bus. I thought back to the comment he had made on Alejandra’s wall “see you soon.” It’s as if he already sensed that his 9 lives had been used up…

Jonathan at church with his 5-year old son the evening before he was killed

I certainly didn’t sleep that night, but though awake, I didn’t stop dreaming. Joseph’s blindness and Alejandra and Jonathan’s murders enrage and immobilize me. At the same time, they urge me into action. May these young sages, in all of their suffering and wisdom, guide those of us dedicated to creating spaces for young people to flourish and challenge systems of oppression. May we never tire in our efforts as we cling to the hope that dreaded black ribbons will soon be replaced by posts of life as it unfolds.


*See embracingelsalvador.org for Jonathan’s full life story as he relayed it to us in January, 2015. The story was transcribed and edited with great care by Don Seiple and Caroline Scheaffer.


Sunday, April 5, 2015

She Seeks My Warmth


I found out yesterday that Ángel was killed in a motorcycle accident. Maria Hoisington and I were privileged enough to share a bit of this life with him when he took part in our poetry project while in  juvenile detention in El Salvador. He was 20 years old. I had just been chatting with him about how he wanted to try to make it up to LA so as to get a job and send money back to his wife and 2-year old daughter whom he loved a great deal. He was to embark on this risky journey this month, since it is merely impossible for young people to “turn their lives around” in a country whose legal system and law enforcement officials assume their guilt unless they can afford a lawyer to prove their innocence. I want to share four pieces he wrote for the book “Beneath a Gangster’s Mask,” as a tribute to his resilience, in gratitude for his openness, and as a reminder that there is so much work to be done to create a world where violence is not at the center of so many young lives.
Ángel and his daughter.


Abuse
Ángel

When my dad would come back drunk we would hide all of the knives and broomsticks. He always took out his anger on us. He had a shit ton of women and children. He even stole one of my girlfriends.

I have younger twin sisters. I remember that just for crying, he used to hit one of them. One time he put his hand in her mouth to choke her. Then he broke a broomstick on my mother’s head. A splinter got stuck in her head and if she removes it she can die.

On Sundays we used to rest from selling all week at the market. I would fix the car with my dad and he’d hit me with anything he had in his hands; pliers, hammers, and screwdrivers. I would much rather have been working on the street. When he didn’t beat me with sticks, he’d kick me and leave me kneeling in sorghum seeds crying.

I didn’t say anything to my mom because I was too embarrassed, until one day she found me crying. She asked, “are you hurt?” and she began to cry. I knew that if she babied me, my dad would beat her.

When I didn’t sell enough avocados, he beat the shit out of me. When he beat the shit out of me, I was filled with rage, and with this rage inside I felt hatred and the urge to kill. I fear finding him because I don’t know whether I’d kill him or hug him. Sometimes I love him, and sometimes I hate him.

I wanted to hear that he loved me. I envied other happy families because I was beaten all of the time. I wanted to hear that my dad was proud of me and that I was intelligent. I didn’t want to hear that I was worthless and that he wished I’d never been born.

Children exist to be cared for. They don’t exist to be beaten, treated like slaves, and manipulated. A parent’s role is to care for them and give them a good example and all that they need, not to obligate them to provide for the family. Be good parents. If not, your children will feel the same hatred for you that I feel towards my father.

Ángel always had a far off gaze in his eyes when he re-imagined his childhood. His pain was palpable, but so was his determination to change the course of his life and to shower his own daughter with all of the love he had never received. His wife used to visit him at the detention center as their child grew in her stomach, and after one of those visits he wrote the piece below:

She Seeks My Warmth
-Ángel


On Wednesday she brought me the ultrasound,
all rolled up.
You could see her tiny eye, nose, and mouth
at three and a half months.
I felt happy and nervous
as if I already had my daughter in my hands.

I kissed the photo and I kissed my wife.
I couldn’t wait to meet her!
I kissed her belly and I said:
“I love you my love.”

I started playing with her belly
and the baby pushed back on my hand.
My wife says that my daughter seeks me
when we are together.
She seeks my warmth.



When he was released from the detention center, she became the center of his world. He loved her dearly, and it pains me to know that she will grow up without his warmth and without a single memory of him.

Ángel spent years in juvenile detention, and he was well aware of how gang members are treated as scapegoats for all social ills in El Salvador. They are treated as the problem, rather than the symptom of years of exclusion and marginalization. He wrote the following piece as he reflected on the injustice and discrimination that had defined his life and that awaited him upon his release:


To Those in the System
-Angel

They say no to robbery
No to extortion
No to killing.
But they won’t
provide work or support.
Just because we’re gangsters
they discriminate against us
They don’t let us live in peace.

How do they have the right to demand things of us
when they offer us nothing?

They say yes to massive round-ups
Yes to “capture them all”
Yes to “give them a ton of years in jail”
Yes to eliminate gangs
Yes to social cleansing.

I say no to abusing people
No to discrimination
No to humiliation.
Yes to support
Yes to being taken into account
Yes to being helped
Yes to opportunities.

A gangster is no better or worse than a civilian.
We all have the same value
No matter who we are.

See me for who I am, not for who I was.

Ángel with his partner and his daughter shortly after being released from detention.



Though his life was full of trials and tribulations from a very young age, Ángel never stopped dreaming and trying to become a better person each day. Though others saw him as merely a "gangster," he was determined to change the course of his life and to provide a bright future for his daughter. He wrote the following poem near the end of his time in detention:



A Man’s Desire
Ángel

If I were a bird
I would go far away from where I am.
I would fly away until I found a tranquil place
with no problems
without anyone telling me what to do
just to enjoy a moment of peace.

If I were a turtle
I would enjoy the slow life.
I would see the beauty of the sea
feeling free
soaking up the solitude.
I would submerge myself into the depths
leaving all of my problems in the waves.

If I were a bat
I would hang from a branch
and see the beauty of the sky
the brilliance of the stars and the moon,
to feel myself alone
without anyone looking at me or criticizing me.

If I were a dog
I would care for the people I love most,
I wouldn’t let anyone near them.
If someone wanted to rob them,
I would defend them.
I would stay with them all of the time.

But I am a man.
I can’t become an animal
but I have hopes of becoming
a good person.





I hope that on this Easter Sunday, we can recommit ourselves to breaking down the fortresses we have constructed to protect our fragile lives. I hope we can step out of our nicely decorated churches, our comfortable homes, and our minds full of fear and self-doubt, and that we can encounter those whose stories just might break our hearts, but whose resilience and wisdom will surely astound and inspire us. After all, it is in and through this union that we might come to know the daily practice of resurrection as we work together to build inclusive and loving communities.