immigrants

How We Can Help

2021, Politics and Current Events, , , , , , View all 20 comments
Virginia, Maryland Say They'll Be A Safe Harbor For Afghan Refugees : NPR
Photo by NPR

The drama unfolding in Afghanistan is a humanitarian crisis and it’s not going to get better. There is little doubt that the execution of the withdrawal after 20 years of war and corruption has been a disaster. Politicians talk about getting our “friends” out. But, even if that’s possible, our “friends” apparently don’t include the tens of thousands of people who aligned themselves with the US in unofficial ways. The families of my refugee friends in Europe have relatives in Kabul who have almost no chance of getting help from the US, even those who worked for US contractors or government agencies. Like so many others, they are in grave danger.

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An Act of Resistance Will Set You Free

2019, Caravan, Greece, Mexico, Politics and Current Events, Refugees in Greece, Universe, , , , , , , , , View all 10 comments

I recently read an article by American journalist, Chris Hedges, which proposed that “societies are held together by a web of social bonds that give individuals a sense of being part of a collective and engaged in a project larger than the self.”  https://riseuptimes.org/2018/12/30/american-anomie-by-chris-hedges/

This simple idea reminded me of the many times friends and family have asked me to describe my “volunteer work” with the refugees in Greece or the Caravan in Mexico. I never have a good answer. I say the people I met were kind and grateful in spite of their physical and emotional challenges. I say they were running from persecution created by the neo-liberal world order and forever wars, that some of them played cards on a blanket under a tree.

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Desperate Conditions Ahead for the Caravan

2018, Caravan, Mexico, , , , , , View all 12 comments

My phone rang in our hotel room at 4:15am Tuesday morning. It was Francisco: “Como estas, Kim? Voy a llegar at 4:45 ok?” We think he called to make sure we would actually be awake when he arrived to pick us up at our Tapachula hotel. I met Francisco the day I arrived in Tapachula because he was the taxi driver who took me from the airport to my hotel. On that ride, I told him I was there to support the Caminata, and he replied “Todos somos iguales bajo dios.”  We are all the same under God. Then he said he wanted to help too.

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