We’d been on the road for an hour. I’m not even sure it qualified as a road actually, it was more of a bumpy, dirt-trodden path, and with every twist and turn I felt the familiar lurch of motion sickness and silently wondered when we would stop. I held back my request to move to the front seat. I was here to learn, to volunteer. I was among the privileged and was embarrassed by my own trivial concerns. Surely I could stomach a little nausea. I looked back out the window like they always say to do.
“no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well
your neighbors running faster than you
breath bloody in their throats
the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory
is holding a gun bigger than his body
you only leave home
when home won’t let you stay.” – Warsan Shire, continued here…
You only leave home when home won’t let you stay.
I thought of that little baby boy yesterday when I read the stories about Aylan. When I shared in the collective weeping over his image, and read his dad’s heartbreaking words. I wondered where he is now. I wonder if they too fled. I wonder if he and his mama made it. I wonder where it even is.
I watched the news pour in yesterday and I did what I always do when I am overcome by sadness. I looked for the helpers (and there are so many helpers) and then I took the small steps I could to become one. I made donations, I shared on my tiny platform, I followed up with the local refugee agency I’ll be volunteering with this year.
It never feels like enough.
It’s not enough.
The response to this crisis has to come from us all. We have to find the courage to turn our collective tears into collective action.
And sometimes, standing on this privileged soil, this soil I was simply lucky to be born on, that can feel impossible. While citizens of Iceland and Germany push back at their governments, offering up their homes to refugees if their leaders will allow more people to come, we listen to presidential candidates yell about who can build a bigger wall around our country and what type of weaponry will flank that wall. While others around the world attempt to use their collective force for good, we are on social media talking about Force Friday, using our collective wealth to purchase more toys we don’t need. We, a nation of immigrants and refugees, make the argument with each new generation that America is done growing now, that it’s time to close up shop. That it’s essentially time to remove the famous plaque from inside the Statue of Liberty. That this generation constitutes the real America. No more room at the inn.
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
I’ve said before that I don’t have a single political or militaristic solution to the crisis in Syria or the threat of ISIS. I still don’t.
But I’m going to keep talking about refugees and immigrants. I’m going to keep asking that you join me in this conversation. I’m going to keep asking that you take one small step today to help. Make a donation to one of the many organizations with people on the ground trying to bring food, resources, medical supplies and support to refugee camps. Call your representatives and ask them to raise the quota on Syrian refugees from 8,000 to something higher, something that makes a dent in the three million Syrian refugees that exist today. Contact your local agencies for immigrants and refugees and find out how you can help those already here.
I’ll include links at the bottom of this post.
Please join me.
Five Practical Ways to Help
The United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR)
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) International, or Doctors Without Borders
International Rescue Committee (IRC)
Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS)
Refugees Welcome
Refugee Legislation
St. Louis local? Check out these resources:
Immigrant & Refugee Women’s Program
International Institute
Yes this, all of this… Collectively, we are compassionate and we care so little for the petty trivialities and distinctions of government. I keep hoping that one day we, collectively, will overcome all this ugliness.
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