American "Family" Association is at it again

Once again, the Mississippi-based American Family Association is up to its so-called "Christian" bullying tactics, targeting (of all things) the company that makes American Girl dolls and books for a possible boycott (full AP story here).

American Girl supports several organizations including Girls Inc., which favors educating and empowering young girls, or as its mission states, "inspiring girls to be strong, smart and bold." Sounds like a refreshing alternative to filling their heads with notions that they should be shaped like Barbie and copy the materialistic, snobbish attitude of "Bratz." Here is a link to Girls Inc's advocacy positions - check it out for yourself. They even have a Girls' Bill of Rights.

But the AFA calls Girls Inc a "pro-abortion, pro-lesbian advocacy group."

Does the AFA speak for your family's values? If the answer is no, here are two things you can do. First, email the American Girl company to let them know you disagree with the AFA's tactics and have no problem with their support of Girls Inc. Second, put the company's products (dolls, books, an upcoming movie and more) on your Christmas shopping list.

Humane Borders blog

Just found out that Humane Borders now has a blog.... Thanks, border friends, for linking with our recent posts. I have added a link to our right-hand column's bloglist.

Will be back in Tucson later this month. Meanwhile, here are two photos from my trip in Sept. One thing I found out is that the desert is a place of many signs. In fact, another term the Border Patrol and others use for tracking migrants is called "cutting sign" - looking for footprints and other clues.

This cross was in a remote area in the Buenos Aires Wildlife Refuge, I think. At first I was concerned that it was either a gravesite or a marker where someone had died. Later, back in Tucson, someone told it was part of an impromptu 'stations of the cross' that migrants had constructed during the journey. Prof. Jacqueline Hagan at UNC Chapel Hill and Fr. Dan Groody at the University of Notre Dame have studied the spiritual aspects of migrants' journeys.

Here is another sign, found a few miles from the cross. This Christmas Tree car air freshener was hanging from a bush, miles from nowhere. If you have any idea why, please let me know.

Katrina Victims Unwelcome in Some Towns

This AP story sheds light on what may become our next big problem: a pecking order among those in need. Like Fresno's mayor, Alan Autry, many want to rush out and invite the evacuees to their towns and churches. That's great.

However, many towns and cities and rural areas, like Fresno, already have people who are in need of housing and other services. So what happens to them? Do they get leapfrogged by out-of-town natural disaster survivors?

It may seem like a crude question and one we'd rather avoid discussing. That would be a mistake. G. Todd Williams, pastor of New Covenant Christian Church in Houston, ever-so-gently warned of this problem right after Katrina. His church ministers to the homeless, particularly youth and young adults. He sees the great need ever day. The influx of new homeless to Houston creates more difficulty for the already-homeless; more danger that they will be forgotten or ignored.

So what are we to do? I don't have any answers here. And I continue to be impressed by the response of churches and faith groups and caring individuals.

But like the hurricane itself, the spreading of refugees is exposing poverty that has been long-ignored, by the government and sometimes, by the faith community. Are we hypocrites for falling all over ourselves to help out-of-town folks when we have been overlooking the needy in our own communities?

Your first response might be 'No! The evacuees couldn't help it. A natural disaster caused their situation. It wasn't their fault!'

So they are more deserving? What about the slow-motion hurricane of economic and social forces that contributes to ordinary poverty? Is it invisible just because we can't watch it develop on the Weather Channel?

Make no mistake, there is an implicit pecking order, imposed by well-meaning folks, on the needy. Domestic disaster evacuees come first. Then, political refugees with 'legal' status. Then, the homeless. At the bottom, "illegal aliens" who suffer and die in the desert by the hundreds, and in the trunks of cars or in overheated railcars or packed into semi-trailers.

We have shown how much we CAN care. Before we return to the status quo and pat ourselves on the back, assured our good works will please God, we need to ask some hard questions of ourselves and of our political leaders.

Borderlands dispatch: Scari-vaca

I posted this a few days ago, but when I hit “publish” it disappeared into the ether. So, I had to start again from scratch and it’s taken me a couple of days to find time….

Anyway, on the same day I went out to the desert with the Samaritans, we stopped for lunch in the town of Arivaca, someplace south of Tucson in the middle of nowhere. Arivaca is a one-street town with the odd mix that you find in Arizona outside of the major metros. One or two bars, a touristy gift shop with southwestern crafts, indications that artists live here, but also a weird place with a huge flagpole flying the American and POW/MIA flag (possible symbol of anti-immigrant groups, if the flag is upside down. I don’t remember) next door to a taco stand run out of a small trailer. Ranchers in noisy pickups drive through, kicking up dust. The post office is by far the fanciest building in town, a stucco study in overkill. As if someone thought a new post office would bring this town back to life!

Virginia runs the taco stand, where we went for lunch. Behind it are four plastic tables inside one of those zip-up tent/gazebo things to keep the flies and bees out. Good burritos and soda in cans out of a cooler behind the trailer.

After lunch we drove out to the No More Deaths group's camp – it’s called the Ark of the Covenant. NMD seems to be an offshoot of the Samaritans, although it’s supposed to be an umbrella organization for all the groups working on the border. The idea behind the “Ark,” according to a young woman named Xylem that I spoke with, is that by camping out in the desert, they can go out and look for migrants in need at any time, day or night.

It makes some sense – migrants are on the move a lot at night, and even leaving Tucson at 6 a.m. it took us a couple hours to get out to the west desert. Earlier this summer, they helped a man named Cesario during his weeks-long search for his daughter, Lucrecia, who died in the desert with her teenage son by her side. Her 7 year old daughter went on with the rest of the group.

Most of the people staying at the Ark are young – probably in their 20s except for one guy who eyed me suspiciously and looked a bit older. The Ark sits on some property owned by children’s book author Byrd Baylor, about 20 minutes outside Arivaca. If you came upon it by accident, you might mistake it for a sort of communal hippie camp – sleeping bags on cots out in the open, a tent where the cooking is done, a “bathroom” with no privacy, just a shovel and a symbolic log to indicate whether the door is shut or open. Twenty years ago, I would have loved to hang out here, sleep under the stars and fight the good fight.

They made a shrine of items picked up in the desert. Pieces of clothing, memorabilia, a photograph in a broken frame showing a handsome young man, identification, all gathered around a cross and a candle of the Virgin of Guadalupe. The saddest item was a small pair of little girl's shoes - the fancy colored leather ones with the little cut-out shapes of flowers and raindrops, and a buckle on the side.

I wanted to take some photos but the older-looking guy was getting increasingly wary of me and I didn’t want to cause trouble for my Samaritan friends. (Here is a link to some cool photos on their site though). I did get to talk with Shanti Sellz, one of two NMD volunteers arrested in July for transporting migrants. The were recently indicted and Sellz said the trial is set for Dec. 20. she seemed to be doing ok. The point of dispute is not whether they transported the migrants or not, but whether the migrants were in need of medical attention. Border Patrol says the migrants were fine. The NMD volunteers and at least one of the migrants has said that they were in bad shape and that the two were taking them for medical help after following the group’s protocols.

Shanti’s mom grew up in the same Ohio blue-collar town I did. Small world. She gave me her mom’s number (she now lives in Iowa City) and said to give her a call.

The trial will be a big deal. Both sides have a lot at stake.

Meanwhile, I have already started planning a second trip, hoping to talk to some Minutemen (who began patrolling the border down in Cochise County) and also go down to Altar, in Mexico, which is a staging area for the migrants getting ready to cross.