Takis, and the feeding of not-quite-five-thousand

This post is about the mysterious and oddly redemptive properties that I have observed in a spicy snack food that has been taking central Pennsylvania by storm.

Takis. For those of you who have not yet encountered this miracle, a brief explanation is in order. Takis are a sort of rolled-up corn chip, which has been liberally baptized in a powdered coating of various and sundry spices including, but not limited to, chili and lime. They come in a variety of flavors, the most popular of which seems to be the "Fuego" Takis, notable for their purple bag and spicy taste. Ever since I was introduced to this snack, I have noticed it's remarkable and humanizing effects upon even the squirreliest of students. The following anecdote is just one among many.

Yesterday, we celebrated the birthdays of three of the students in the program. We have already struck upon a unanimously approved method of birthday celebration, which is the communal partaking of Takis. As is our custom therefore, I arrived at the cafeteria supplied with three big bags of Fuego Takis. I engaged the birthday boy and girls to divide the three bags into 26 smaller portions-the number of those present that day. Or so I thought. As it turned out, one of the students had gone to the bathroom right before the head count was completed. This resulted in 26 small plastic cups of Takis to supply 27 students with the necessary elements. When the missing student came back from the bathroom, he was understandably distressed to find the multitudes already seated in groups of fifties and hundreds, with nary a fish nor loaf to spare.

In a normal situation, this would have been a particular pickle. The Taki is favored above all other edibles among the Hispanic student population, and to attempt a re-partition of the snack once it had already been bestowed would have been like trying to convince a pack of ravenous hyenas that they should hold off on the  antelope because one of the their number had missed the memo, and was late in arriving. But the affect of the antelope on the hyena is merely physiological. Not so that of  Takis on the soul of the young Latino. In an instant, and without any encouragement, students were scrambling to donate their Takis to the plight of their unfortunate companion - even the birthday celebrities chipped in. Before long, the tardy hyena's cup was as the Psalmist's, and ranneth over, his head anointed not with oil, but with generosity, and his hands with the bright-red powder of Takis.

"You are in the US now, not in Guatemala."

"¿Cómo estás hoy?" I asked C, as she slumped down on a stool in the cafeteria. "Mal," she answered- bad. "Why, what happened?" She lifted her head up off of her binder and looked at me with tired eyes. "Hoy me regañó la maestra por hablar español. No nos permite escribir ni hablar en español. Me dijo que tengo que hablar inglés porque ahora estoy in los Estados Unidos, no en Guatemala."

She was scolded for speaking Spanish with another classmate. She was asking for clarification about something the teacher had said. Why the reprimand? There may have been a very practical reason, but the one expressed to C was that "you need to speak English; you are in the US now, not in Guatemala."

C and her sisters have been in the US for about 6 months. They came from Guatemala in late Spring this year, and she has been in my program since late April-early May. Students receive little if any content adaptation from classroom teachers for their language level. C and her older sister attend all of the same classes with their native English-speaking classmates. The only exception to this is that instead of an English class, they have an ESL class - English as a Second Language. Apparently it is the understanding of some educators that, although all classes from math, to science, to physical education are taught in English, the only class for which students who don't speak English need additional accommodation is the English class itself.

Please understand, I am not intimately acquainted with the explicit policies of the schools. I appreciate the complicated nature of having to serve students of such varying levels of English proficiency. I understand the reality of limited resources, especially as governments at various levels in this country seems bent on siphoning of investment in our future to pay the bills of the past. As a language-learner working on my second foreign language, I am intimately aware that in order to become functional in a second language, one must avoid relying on the native language indefinitely. I understand all this.

But for pity's sake, please don't quash the spirit of an 11-year old girl by telling her in no uncertain terms that, in order to succeed in this new country, she must not only learn the new language and culture, but leave her native ones behind.

Please, please can we just try to have a little compassion?

The story of M: a ray of sunshine

This story begins with the previous post.

Chapter III
Over the weeks, M had been waiting for news about her father and brother. Finally, she heard that they had made it back to the border in an attempt to cross and begin the journey north through the US to be united with their family again. Crossing is always a dodgy process, all the more so if you have been recently ejected. They were caught. Dad was sent back a second time, but brother was taken into custody and sent north to a county prison in south-central Pennsylvania. I don't understand the process of sending someone who had recently been deported so far north into the country he was deported from, just to be incarcerated again, except that such policy benefits the private prison system - a steady stream of inmates means security for multi-million-dollar prison contracts.

So her brother is back in prison, where he started at the beginning of this debacle, only now her father is gone too.

Chapter IV
The other day we were playing basketball outside on a glorious Fall afternoon. One of my students ran up to me, saying that something was wrong with M. I ran over to where she was, on the far side of the court by some dumpsters. She was crying. She had just received a call from home; her brother had been released and he was at home. We all gathered around her, hugging her and patting her on the back. It was something achingly profound, happening right there on a middle-school playground. It was a microcosm of a world full of separation and pain that, in one instant, in one small life, finally saw a ray of sunshine breaking through, a drop of hope, of being reunited with that which had been lost.

I don't know why brother has been released; I don't know if his freedom is temporary or long term, if it bodes well or ill. For now, we can only hope, and enjoy the sunshine.

"I pledge allegiance to a country without borders, without politicians..."

This post has been hard to write, which is why it has taken so long. It isn't the first story, chronologically speaking, but I felt it should be the first one to be shared. It was the grain of rice that tipped a scale in my life that has slowly been getting heavier. This blog is the result of that final grain; it is the first scattering of rice, spilling off of an overwhelmed heart.

The story of M
M is one of my middle-school students. She is about 12 years old. Right now, she is living with her mom because her father and brother are out of the country. 

Chapter I
A little over a month ago, she informed me that her father had been put in jail for being in the US without papers. He had tried to bail his son out of jail, who had been incarcerated for similar reasons. Upon discovering that the father was also undocumented, instead of releasing the son, the authorities jailed the father along with him. The mother would have been in danger as well, but some last vestige of sanity in the legal system apparently prohibits the incarceration of both of a minor's parents or legal guardians, at least for non-violent crimes.

Chapter II
More recently, she confessed that her father and brother had been deported, and that the immigration authorities had given her mother an ultimatum to leave the country by a set date in October. M is a legal US resident; she was born here and has lived her whole life here. She understands some Spanish, but does not speak it. In an empty classroom, as I tried to comfort a weeping 12-year-old girl, I got the sinking feeling that the world is a much darker, scarier place than I'd ever realized. 

M's story isn't over, and I feel as though mine may have just begun.

Bienvenidos a Vida en Voz Alta

"Vida en Voz Alta" is Spanish for "Life Out Loud." 

This is a blog that will try to share some of the different experiences and stories I run across as I live and work among the local immigrant and migrant populations in South-Central Pennsylvania. These stories are from a largely Spanish-speaking population, though there will be characters from Haiti, Pakistan, and many other places that take the stage from time to time. 

The goals of this blog are three-fold. In no particular order of importance, they are as follows:

•  to give you, dear reader, the chance to be a witness to a whole world that you might not otherwise have any idea exists.
• to give a voice to the joy, grief, struggles, and triumphs of a community that has been largely unheard.
• to give us a safe place to think and wrestle with some very hard questions that may be raised as a result of some of the stories we will share.

I hope you will embark on this journey with me, and hopefully, we may all end up wiser, braver, and more compassionate then we were before.

Vaya con Dios,

Peregrin