Refugee hospitality on the US/Mexico border

10 July 2018

Tonight I’m volunteering in the donated clothing room at Peace Lutheran Church in Las Cruces, New Mexico, helping mothers from Central America find clothes to replace the clothing they crossed the border in. I immediately realize that the women’s ankle monitors present a problem. My friend Mary and I try to help them find pants that are loose at the ankle, but the women want to wear clothes that make them feel attractive, not stretched-out sweat pants that no one wants anymore. So, Mary takes scissors to the seam of a pair of jeans a woman has chosen and we hope she can get it over her leg after she takes a shower.

I’m grateful for this chance to help these mothers recover a small part of their humanity that was stripped from them in detention and to remember how important clothing is to identity.

While helping the women, I am reminded of a Triqui grandmother who fled paramilitary violence in Oaxaca several years ago. She was placed in a jail in El Paso where she was forced to wear a blue jumpsuit (blue indicates low security risk, yellow medium, and red high). In the following weeks, she became increasingly stressed without the wide belt that she was accustomed to wearing to hold up her traditional skirt. But the guards wouldn’t let her wear her belt over her jumpsuit. They probably thought she might try to hang herself with it.

Living for a year in1987 in Margarita’s home in a Maya community in Chiapas, I followed Margarita’s example and slept in my huipil and skirt and only loosened my wide cumberband a little. I don’t think that Margarita ever loosened her belt at night. It had become a part of her body’s armature, giving her a sense of security and comfort.

Now I only wear loose clothing, but that year of learning about dress and identity in Chiapas helps me understand the Triqui woman and the young mothers from Central America.

11 July 2018

This morning after the women and their children have eaten their first good breakfast in who knows how long, Mary and I go through the tubs of mostly large, unfashionable blouses and start a special tub of the smallest and prettiest blouses.

Later this month when the next group of refugee mothers arrive at Peace Lutheran we will go to that tub to find blouses that make them feel attractive on the buses and airplanes that will carry them to their host families.

We wish them Godspeed on this next step toward a better life for themselves and their children.

Christine Eber

This photo of Margarita putting on a belt over her skirt appears in Our Clothing/K’utik/Nuestra Ropa, a book in English, Tsotsil, and Spanish produced by weavers in Tsobol Antsetik of San Pedro Chenalho’, Chiapas. The book is available for purchase at http://weaving-for-justice.org/online-store-books-for-sale/

In response to the crisis on the border, members of the Weaving for Justice steering committee are doing what they can. Crystal is helping lawyers reunite parents and children separated at the border. Christine, Mary, and Sarah, of our steering committee are volunteering with refugee hospitality at Peace Lutheran Church in Las Cruces. To donate to this effort at Peace Lutheran Church go to Amazon.com and find Wish List for Border Servant Corps. To donate to Annunciation House, one of the four NGOs in the U.S. currently receiving reunited parents and children and then sending them to area shelters in El Paso and Las Cruces, including Peace Lutheran, please go to this link: https://annunciationhouse.org/financial-donations/ Your donation to Annunciation House can also be sent in the form of a check made out to Annunciation House and sent to: Annunciation House, 815 Myrtle Avenue
, El Paso, Texas 79901.