Privileged

I went to visit my friend Ingrid at a Quaker meeting house this morning. Ingrid is not a Quaker, but the community of Friends has offered her sanctuary at their meeting house, now her home. Born in Peru, Ingrid came to the United States as a teenager in search of work and further education. She lives in sanctuary because ICE has threatened her with deportation due to her lack of documents and a misdemeanor offense (not paying taxes) from a decade ago. Ingrid made reparations on her offense and has paid taxes these past eleven years (something our chief executive has not done), but our government will not  forget her offense, and so she lives in a church with her one-year-old son, cut off from her partner and her eight-year-old son, who current lives closer to his school.

When we sat down in the rainbow-colored play area of the church basement, Ingrid asked how I was, and about my plans for the coming weekend. I eagerly explained that William and I plan to fly out tomorrow for Northern California for his water polo tournament. Adding that I would get to see family members, I started listing them, "I'll see my parents, two brothers and their wives, four nephews and my little niece." With every sentence, my awareness of my privilege and my discomfort grew. When I grumbled a little about the weather in California, I mortified myself into silence.

Ingrid hasn't seen her parents or siblings in sixteen years. She cannot even see her older son on a regular basis, cannot step out of the church for fear of being deported before her May court date. The loss of her income hurts the family and the lawyer's fees mount. As I rambled on about water polo, plane flights, family members, dollar signs lined up in my mind's eye like a bizzaro world fence that divided me from Ingrid. My stomach, my guilt-o-meter, started to churn.

I was born white to highly educated parents, educated at excellent public schools and graduated from college without student debt. The old metaphor of being born on third base and strolling to home seems apt. I'm keenly aware that my privilege is not earned, that my exceptional luck at being born to Ann and Jules Clavadetscher of Pompton Plains, NJ, USA, was not of my doing.

What can I do with my privilege to help those who were not so lucky?  I can help with Ingrid's lawyer bills (see Metro Denver Sanctuary Coalition if that interests you, dear reader), visit, bring food, play with the baby, and pray. I can make calls, write stories, share my experiences. It does not feel like enough.  When I read the administration's new guidelines for immigrants I think, why make innocent people a target? Why separate mothers from their small children? Who is going to do the jobs that they do - clean the buildings, harvest the crops, wash the dishes, paint and construct new homes? Perhaps that should be our penance. If our country sends home our undocumented neighbors, we must fill the jobs that they have done for many years. We must look after the motherless children, pay reparations for the destruction of families, and apologize for the cost that others pay for our privilege.