Written By Karina Aquiahuatl Villagran, Mosaic Intern for Hispanic, Latinx and Indigenous Student Engagement in Campus Life

91 days have passed since July 26, 2018.

That was the deadline set by Judge Dana Sabraw to reunite forcibly separated families who came mostly from Central America, seeking asylum in the US. per Judge Sabraw’s orders, children younger than five had to be reunited with their parents within 14 days and the rest of children within 30 days. As of late August 2018, 565 children still remain under the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). The ORR is a branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, charged with caring for unaccompanied immigrant children. Less than a quarter of the 565 children are not reunited with their parents due to safety concerns. For more than half of these children, reunification looks slim, as their parents were very likely tricked to undergo deportation to their home countries where dangerous conditions limit communication.

Let us keep in mind that 91 is exclusive of the days from October 2017 to June 27th, 2018—the time period in which more than 2,000 children were torn away from their parents. 2,000 screams humanitarian crisis, but just oneis just as cruel. Thinking about the trauma that these children and their parents likely face today due to their experiences at home, on their way here, and in the US is heart-wrenching. The common journey from Central America to the US is unspeakably distressing for all those courageous enough to start their lives over for better opportunities. People see and experience things that should never be done to a human being. These trauma-inducing experiences did not stop for the 2,000 children who came with their parents, and they certainly continued in the States through this separation.

If you can, try to imagine the impact that the separation of a family has on a parent. And a child? A family? A community?  What does it say about us as a society, that family separation still happens without serious repercussions? Where is the justice for the parents who are likely crying at this very moment over their children who are living with strangers and not them?

(Spencer Platt, Getty Images, 2018)

Unfortunately, family separation is nothing new to the United States. This is an issue that has affected several different ethnic and racial groups in our society. Historically, the United States has separated countless children in the era of slavery and Jim Crow, Japanese internment camps, and boarding schools for Mexican and Indigenous/Native American children.

On my journey across the border with my then 12-year-old relative, I did not meet trauma. In fact, my relative demanded I wait for the trip to Maryland in a safer underground house. I was away from the men with whom he stayed where the chances of witnessing or experiencing human violations were high. I do not know trauma, and I wish these children didn't either.. However, I am well acquainted with the fears of family separation through the instability of DACA. Just the thought of family separation is haunting, so much so that I wake up with tears rolling down my face from nightmares about it. I cannot imagine what it must feel like for those who have been separated.

I sincerely hope that these children under ORR custody can lead lives with stability, forgiveness, resilience, and kindness despite the wrongs that they have experienced.

Written By Emily Melluso Graduate Assistant for the Office of the Vice-President for Student Affairs

Content Warning: Includes cases of graphic sexual assault. Unless otherwise noted, all definitions and statistics referenced in this article are sourced from the Tahirih Justice Center website.

As we move through the final stretch of this year’s Critical Social Justice week, we have explored several barriers that immigrants experience in the United States.  We have learned about the ignition of courage within individuals, how this light connects them together, and can bring them into spaces of safety, community, and recovery. Since October is domestic violence awareness month (read more here) and during CSJ there are events centered on the experiences of undocumented immigrants, I think it is important to see how these two topics interact . First, what is domestic violence?“Domestic violenceis a pattern of abusive behavior in a relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control. Domestic violence may include physical and sexual violence, threats and intimidation, emotional abuse, and economic deprivation” (Tahirih Justice Center, 2018). As part of our learning journey with critical social justice is the discovery that there are always dark lived events and experiences but it is important to note that justice, safety and recovery are not equally accessible to everyone individually.

For some, they must travel a very and strenuous trek to find a safe place for both them and their loved ones. Some must go through injury, harm, and danger before they can access healing. I would like to share just a single narrative of those dark places in our global society.I would like to once again warn you of the graphic sexual content of this post.

The following is a true story of a woman who experienced intimate partner violence. Norma’s story is an excerpt from Tahirih Justice Center, a non-profit that supports immigrants fleeing violence from their countries of origin.

Norma was only 15 years old when she was abducted, raped, and forced into marriage by a violent older man who threatened to kill her family if she refused. At 20 years old, while pregnant with their child, Norma was hospitalized after a particularly brutal beating; the baby barely survived. Norma’s father convinced her to go into hiding and hired a private attorney to file for divorce, in secret, on her behalf. They knew it was only a matter of time before her ex-husband found out. Fearing for her life, Norma fled to California.

Now free from her ex-husband, Norma began a life in the United States, as an undocumented immigrant. Years later, she fell in love with John*, a U.S. citizen who was initially was smart, fun-loving, and handsome. After living together as a family for three happy years, John began drinking heavily and staying out all night. Norma was stunned and heartbroken when he admitted to cheating on her. John begged for Norma’s forgiveness and swore he would change.

With promises of a business they could own together, a bigger house, better schools for the children, and a renewed sense of commitment, John convinced Norma to move to Houston. They bought a house with their shared savings, and John finally proposed marriage. It didn’t take long after getting married for John to start drinking again. This time, it worsened. John started beating and raping Norma. As a method of control and humiliation, he would lock Norma outside or force her to sleep on the floor of the home they owned together. He became increasingly emotionally abusive, blaming Norma’s performance as a wife and a mother for the physical and emotional pain he inflicted.

When she finally built up the courage to leave, John used Norma and her children’s undocumented status to exploit, intimidate, and threaten her. He promised to have them deported if they called the police, and he destroyed Norma’s personal documents to prevent her from filing for immigration relief on her own. He removed her name from their shared bank accounts, canceled her credit card, and eventually forged her signature on a document transferring full ownership of their house to his name. John showed Norma that he could take everything from her, and made her fear reaching out for help as much as she feared him. Norma’s voice got smaller and smaller.

Just when Norma started to give up, a member of her congregation noticed that she needed help, and offered her a place to stay for nothing in return. She connected Norma to a domestic violence support group at the Houston Area Women’s Center, where she was referred to Tahirih. Norma’s neighbor lifted her up, community resources connected her to a path forward, and Tahirih helped her access protection under U.S. law.

Her own perseverance and the support of her community helped Norma find her voice again, stronger than ever. Now, Norma gives back to her community by joining the fight to end violence against women. She tells her story to domestic violence survivors, church groups, radio shows, and in women’s prisons as evidence that fear can be overcome, survivors are never alone, and there is always a path forward.

While domestic violence is a national epidemic in the United States, immigrant women and girls are disproportionately impacted. There are many factors which make this population especially vulnerable, including reliance on abusers for legal immigration status or limited knowledge of the English language. Immigrant women and girls in the United States are almost twice as likely to experience domestic violence than the general population. For undocumented women and children in the United States, their histories with domestic violence are often two-fold. Many come to the United States seeking refuge, asylum or protection from relationship or gender-based violence at home including forced marriage, female genital mutilation/cutting, honor crimes, human trafficking, rape, torture, and domestic violence. For immigrant women and girls, their struggle for humane treatment may not end with arriving in the United States. One in three women around the world will be raped, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime (Tahirih Justice Center, 2018). These same women and girls are also less likely to leave their abusers due to fear of immigration consequences, such as being deported and separated from their children or families.

WHAT IS TAHIRIH?

The Tahirih Justice Center is the only multi-city, national organization that provides direct service and policy advocacy for women and girls seeking support, visas, asylum and other forms of protection from gender-based violence. Tahirih has five locations in the U.S. including the Baltimore location which opened in 2010. Tahirih’s numbers in 2017 include 502 Baltimore clients and their family members protected through free legal services; 171 Baltimore clients and their family members connected to vital social services; and 1,764 community members and frontline professionals trained. For more information about the types of legal protections available, visit https://www.tahirih.org/what-we-do/direct-services/legal-services/. For more information about the reaction of Tahirih to Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ revoking of asylum protection for victims of gender-based violence, visit https://www.tahirih.org/news/breaking-news-asylum-protections-revoked/.

HOW TO GIVE HELP

Please consider donating to the UMBC fundraising page to reach our goal of $1,000 to support the efforts of our local Tahirih Justice Center as they fight for the protection of women and girls under the law.

HOW TO GET HELP

If you are an immigrant woman or girl who needs help, or know someone who needs help, please visit https://www.tahirih.org/locations/baltimore/baltimore-programs/.

Programs and services offered in Baltimore include free legal services and social services, training and education, trafficking prevention, and poverty alleviation and family stabilization programming, including life skills workshops and a medical debt forgiveness project.

Growing up, I really didn’t think too much about kids. I didn’t have any younger brothers or sisters that I played with or helped to take care of. I didn’t do much babysitting. I wasn’t even a camp counselor. I did tutor and mentor an elementary student through a high school club I was involved in, but it was only for one year. My tutoring and mentoring experience in high school led me to flirt briefly with the idea of becoming a lawyer and working alongside one of my sheroes, Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children’s Defense Fund. However, I defined myself by other identities that mattered more to me at the time - being a Black African American girl, Christian, middle class, daughter, student and amateur dancer/actress.

Given all this, parenthood wasn’t even on my radar. So, you can imagine my surprise in 1999 when I married my now former partner and started seriously thinking about becoming a mom. I wanted a boy first and then a girl. I figured if my daughter had a big brother, he would protect her and she would defend him - (Now, I see how patriarchal my thinking was back then, but I digress). I surprised myself even more in 2001 when I decided to become a mentor with Sister’s Circle, Inc, a relationship-based mentoring program for middle and high school girls of color from inner-city Baltimore neighborhoods. Mentoring Imani, a 5th grade girl and later Shamera, a high school girl until they reached college was one of the scariest, joyful and most impactful experiences of my life. Looking back, I had no idea how to relate to them at first, but I will be forever grateful to Imani and Shamera who taught me how by just by being themselves.

Little did I know that my mentoring journey would help prepare me for the biggest challenge and greatest joy of my life - mothering my daughter. In 2003, I was blessed to give birth to one of the smartest, coolest, most beautiful old souls that I’ve ever met: Mia Rosa. Over the years, as she’s grown from a baby to a teenager, and so have I - emotionally, mentally and spiritually. You see, becoming a mother forced me to get serious about why I am here on this planet and very clear about how and for whom I needed to pursue my life’s work: to co-create a more loving, respectful, just and inclusive world for my daughter and all young people. It’s to give back to them and pay forward all that I can. It’s to push them when they need a boost and catch them when they’ve fallen. It’s to be the wind beneath their wings so they can soar to higher heights.

Imani, Shamera, Mia and all the young people in my life kickstarted my journey from a diversity educator and volunteer mentor to inclusion advocate and social justice change agent. I’ve made more than my share of missteps along the way and I still screw up more than I care to admit. But, I’m still striving to be the kind of woman, mother and global citizen that will help make this world better for them. Despite all the divisiveness and challenges facing our human family, every day I look in Mia’s eyes and I become a little more hopeful; a little more brave; a little more steady and a little more ready to push back against oppression and inequality in all it’s forms. So, I rise for Mia, and in doing so, I rise for all our children.

When I was asked what “I Rise For” the first thing I thought of is empowering others. Empowerment has many meanings for me because it can be used with entire populations but also everyday interactions with others. Some people have the tendency to fix other people’s “problems”. A lot of well-intentioned people end up hurting the ones they try to help by doing things for them because they are not practicing empowerment.

Empowering others means to listen to those you are assisting first. It doesn’t matter what intentions you have because it is not about you or what you think, it’s about them. Especially with a marginalized population, who have quite often experienced someone else making the rules for them, it is important to understand that what they want comes first. The next steps will be what they think is right for them. We have to assume they have the capacity to make decisions for themselves because they know their situation best. Empowering others means that you give others the opportunity to choose what happens to them because they already know what they want to but aren’t necessarily given the chance.

Empowering others means not doing things FOR others but WITH them. Empowering others means reserving your opinions on what someone needs to do and support what they think they need to do. The bottom line is, they know their situation better than you do. Empowering neighborhoods means governments and organizations should talk to community members before making decisions that will affect the neighborhood. Empowering others means helping someone in crisis by giving them options and resources why letting them make the decision about what their next steps look like. I Rise for empowering others.

Idania Ramos

Mosaic Ambassador

I Rise for Those Who Are Too Scared to Speak Out

I’ve always known that I was different, my color, my culture, and my language didn’t follow the “American Norm.” My first language was Spanish and my parents were born in El Salvador. I experienced economic hardships at a young age and dealt with the constant fear of someone in my family being deported.

Growing up, my father was an undocumented immigrant so I was taught to keep quiet in fear of experiencing backlash towards my family. I was taught to stay silent and live life in the shadows.

As I got older, I found my voice, and felt more comfortable speaking out. I associated myself with people who were more vocal about social issues. When I started my sophomore year of highschool, I would fearlessly spoke up about Black Lives Matter and gender equality, but I still wouldn’t speak about immigrant rights. I felt obligated to protect my father at all costs; I didn’t want to lose him. One day he told me, “You’re Latina, you will face discrimination, encounter many trials, but you have a fighting spirit. Speak up and be my voice.” I felt comforted that I had my father’s blessing. I then started to be more vocal on immigrant issues and rights. I knew that I had to speak out and be his voice.

I rise when I see discrimination and inequality and I take a stand against any injustices. I rise for those who feel fear. I rise for those who don’t have a voice. I rise for those who live in the shadows. I rise for my father.