Wish I had the answers…

January 25, 2010 (1:12 a.m. EST)

From Ocala, Fl.

It doesn’t matter what I do, I can never forget the day that Jose found out he had a deportation order, only weeks after he had been accepted to go to college -thinking all along that the broken immigration system could have kept him from being able to make it even THAT FAR.

I remember how I sat next to him and held the phone to my ear as the immgration department operator told me the news and I was afraid to even face him. I don’t know how I did it… I don’t know how I was ever able to raise my face or utter any words to him without crying. I don’t know how I didn’t die in that instant simply from the powerlessness that overcame me from thinking that I may never find the right way to help him and keep him safe.

How do we fall in love with people we barely even know? How could I feel so intrinsically intertwined with an individual I had barely shared a few conversations with?

I think back to all the poetry and prose I wrote as a teenager and how verses and lines served as a magnification of my daily reality. Its alarming to think that these lines no longer need to magnify anything at all, because its all so scathing as it stands on its own. Telling myself that: I didn’t really understand human rights until the moment I found the strength to raise my head to tell Jose this country wanted him deported… not even beleiving the words escaping my own breath; feeling that I could have treated him better in that moment by stabbing him with something.

Human rights made sense to me because it was perfectly clear that none of this needed to have to do with someone I knew for a long time, or someone I felt related to. Defending human rights is understanding that certain things should simply NEVER happen to anyone at all.

Perhaps… I was never supposed to tell you his story.

Perhaps I’m not supposed to mention that somewhere in the world, a 7 year old boy named Nicholas is crying to his mother because the family he was raised by is only accessible to him by pictures now. Not understanding what “customs enforcement” is supposed to mean, aside from simply PAIN.

Or that several mothers in Homestead are willing to stop eating and risk their very lives out of the conviction that perhaps only their personal sacrifice and suffering will be enough to reach the ears or desks of political figures that see us as no more than a number.

(What does 65,000 mean to YOU?)

I’m sure we’ve all been told that its safer to remain silent. That somehow, by simply writing this, I am putting my entire community at risk and thus should be censored or punished.

We do it to ourselves. We do it to each other.

When will we believe in ourselves enough to give ourselves and one another permission to be free? When will we accept that there is such a thing as existence outside of silence, fear, and violence?

There isn’t a SINGLE day to waste!

If you’re reading this, I hope you understand that I need you. I don’t mean it as Juan, the kid from Florida, whom you may have never met. I feel that in many ways, I write this because I need it for myself… Need to know these words exists and that they were set down in honesty to keep people pushing forward with conviction and courage, one step at a time to fulfill an honorable journey. I wish that you could write these very words to yourself so that perhaps you might actually hear it from someone from whom you are willing to listen:

How much longer are we truly willing to wait? I’ve been dreaming of an officer hand-cuffing a member of my family and telling me, “I am going to deport this person tomorrow. Will you wait another 6 months for congress to begin talking about immigration reform?”

That’s what’s happening… what keeps happening! And I just don’t understand why we keep telling ourselves that the best thing is to just keep waiting.

How many people are we willing to lose? WHO are you willing to give up next??? Will it be me? Will it be yourself? Is it still ok so long as the person that is taken is someone related to some other individual in a state you’ve never visited? Is it ok so long as it isn’t any of your friends or your own family?

Why does the safety of those we love depend on those who only seek to make more money or succeed in a re-election? Can we truly say they’re representing any of us? Can we truly say its in our name and our best interest?

Only you have the answers. I’m just a kid with a bunch of questions…

-Juan Rodriguez