"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