Wandering Wednesday - Marching in Santa Cruz

 Back in June the horrifying news of the family separation policy at the US border was initially paralyzing. I mean, babies in cages! Our government doing this, our tax dollars at work, ack! I donated to Raices Texas, and watched as much of the news coverage as I could take, but that wasn't enough. Then I heard there were to be marches all around the country and I felt it was time to get up off the couch and participate. My husband was also riled up enough to come with me, so off we went to Santa Cruz. The march started at the city center, and there were thousands of folks, the energy of it was great.

 How about this clever play on the jaw-droopingly uncaring jacket Melania wore on her visit to the border.

 There were so many great signs, I wish I'd gotten more pictures of them.

 One of the handmaids was there at the protest too.

The speakers at the Museum of Art and History plaza were great, but it was quite hot and very crowded so we didn't stay too long. I think a lot more people came than were expected so we didn't come close to fitting in the space.

And now I'm posting about this a few months later, and things have improved somewhat, but thanks to all the activism and some key federal court decisions, a lot of families have been reunited. But there are still more than 500 children separated from their families. Some of the parents have been deported without the children, which is unfathomably cruel.

These are people, fleeing horrifying conditions in their home countries, taking a very dangerous journey with their children, just trying to protect them, find a better life for them, just like any other parent in the world would do. And they followed the rules, they came to our country and asked for asylum. (You can't accomplish that from your home country, it's not a thing.)

And we (that's you and me if you're a US citizen) stole their children from them. With no plan in place to track the child and parent, none. They weren't treated very well, (how could they have been?), a lot of the people don't speak Spanish or English, and there was a lot of chaos. Pretty much the stories get worse and worse and my heart can't take reading all them, I'll admit that. This whole thing is Not Okay, and I'm glad that the ACLU and other organizations are taking action against these horrific policies.

It's not a thing our country can be proud of, this is not who we are supposed to be. This is not the story we've been telling ourselves about who we are. Or maybe it is, maybe there's more than one story, there's another one where those seeking asylum are all criminals, sub-human, not worthy of our care or concern, that we'd be suckers or worse for taking them in. Nah, that's not the American Way, unless we're ready to send the Statue of Liberty back to France and close our doors to the world. Nope, our country is huge, we loom large in the world and we are known for having a huge heart. We are big enough to use our huge capacity to absorb newcomers and welcome them into the fabled melting pot.