Quick Request from the Road
There's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo.
Surprise post! I’m on vacation, currently on a train between Hannover and Stuttgart, going from a weekend with my boyfriend’s family to a week with my dad! He’s at a reunion for his college study abroad group from 1971. Amazing.
I’m popping in briefly to share something that hit me like an arrow through the chest last week. When selective tragedy begins to make its way through your world, you never think it will happen to you.
From 2011 to 2015 I taught high school music, theology, and drama at a Jesuit high school in Palm Desert, California. Tucked in the center of the Coachella Valley, we had students whose parents were doctors, who took elaborate summer trips to Europe, and students from the local reservation, who lived at a trailer park. One of those students in the latter category was Cecilia Apolinar, who sang in my choir, played on the basketball team I coached, and went on to graduate, first in her family, from Cal State Chico.
Last week her brother was detained by federal immigration agents.
I won’t waste too many words on the obvious: the treachery of using a domestic federal force to terrorize American residents, the repeated violation of Constitutional rights during arrest, the prison conditions that violate human rights with a black box of legal communication akin to what happened in central American countries in the 1970s and 80s, and the fact that Cecilia’s brother Miguel is most likely an American citizen due to his status as the child of a reservation.
You already know this. We all know this.
Miguel, a father, needs legal help. The last time I accompanied the story of someone in ICE detention, the wife of a friend who was taken at her green card interview, she had the weight of a massive LA community behind her, and we called Senators on her behalf.
Miguel does not have this. His story will not make headlines. His inevitable treatment in detention will not be reported, with shock and disbelief, on the local news. He has his family. He has me. Now, he has you.
I want to rage at the system. But the available action is getting Miguel a lawyer. I donated $50, the equivalent of payment I receive for one voice lesson. That’s what I am able to give.
I invite you to give, in whatever amount you consider reasonable and possible. That includes prayers, Novenas, and Rosaries for his family and to hasten his release.
You will probably never meet Miguel, like you will probably never meet Cecilia. But I have met Cecilia, and I’m here to tell you it is the Cecilias of the world who make it worth fighting for.
I hope you have a wonderful, sunny week, wherever in the world you are.
