What's the Buzz about taking "The Kite Runner" off school library shelves?

 Some reflections over the reasons why the iconic novel by Khaled Hosseini, the "Kite Runner” must remain on school library shelves. I read it years ago and consider it one of my all time favorites. That it would be placed on a pull from school library shelves mystifies me.  The message I got from this semi-biographical story is of a boy engaged in one of Afghanistan’s favorite sport/pastimes. It evolves into a journey through war, loss of family, and country, to gain freedoms in a new country.  

So why the fuss from a few who are disconnected who are pursuing their own narrow agenda, while wrapping themselves with the “grand old flag?

Earlier this week, i was in El Paso TX recording resume applications for five former Afghan army men with a translator, an Afghan, US Army reservist working in Afghan resettlement. 

I turned aside to one of the men, who had a better command of English. I asked him, “Where are you from?” He responded, “I am from Kabul.” Then I asked, “Do you know, what is perhaps the most read Afghan novel, “the Kite Runner?” He said, “Yes I do, by Khaled Hosseini?” “Yes,” I said.” 

Then I said, “When you were a boy, were you a “kite runner too?” He said, “Yes, I was.”  “Did you win?” I asked. He said, “Sometimes.”

What is surreal for me is to read this increadible novel of life in Kabul over a period of 30 years involving three wars, with several evacuations from Kabul, and then meet a man who remembers fondly of his youth and childhood flying these flemsy paper and stick craft. And then, as a soldier having to flee for his life, arriving in the US to begin to resettle, and hopefully to be fully integrated into this land of immigrants, like the boy in the novel. 

Why can’t local students be given the “freedome to choose” to read this novel and be inspired by the struggle of loss of childhood, family, freedom with the fight to regain these precious gifts in a new country?

With the Afghans in NM - Take 2

 We'rrrree Back!!!!

Yes, we are. After spending a week in San Jose and San Francisco during our annual pilgrimage to the middle school where one of Corry's cellos is played by students and to visit Corry's alma mager, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, we returned to Las Cruces NM for another week hanging out with Afghan friends. 

We witnessed a lot of progress with these proud and resrouceful folk.

1. The main agenda for the Afghans is finding work. Work brings confidence, a powerful antidote to despair and depression

2. Money is successfully arriving to their families in Afghanistan, along with phone visits, thanks to WhatsAp. There is no way, for now, for the Afghans to get their families out of Afghanistan to reunite with them.

3. Permanent homes have been found for small groups of men and families

4. The children are thriving in school. Today, we were at the El Calvario UMC over lunch. The chef we met last time in Dec/Jan is now cooking for the Afghans. We sampled his fare, a large plate sized turnover bread stuffed with mashed potatoes and spices. Itwas delicious. His wife prepared to flour. Their girls were trying out with us their first English sentences

5. A number of the men have flown the coop to Nevada, Iowa, and Arkansas, seeking better jobs and opportunities. Other have been united with relatives and friends

6. El Calvario UMC has assumed fifty more Afghans, with total number at around 125.

7. And the sheltering program of Asylum Seekers from the border continues. One hundred are being processed as we speak, spending the night at the church, then moving on to famiies  and communities across the country. The beat goes on.

This is what we have done in the past 3 days:

1. We created a jobs directory for the case managers and volunteers to business owners to promote jobs for Afghans. Each case managers is assigned a number of "clients" to respond to their needs, as a one stop shop prividor.

2. Some non-English job seekers met with a jobs counselor at the NM Workforce Connection

3. We interviewed six Afghans to create their resumes

4. Trudy spoke with a hotel manager who agreed to meet with two potential workers. The next day, we took the men to the hotel and the manager hired them on the spot

5. We drove to a number of businesses and handed out flyers telling of the Afghan's need for job. The reception was very positive, especcially from the hotels and the restaurans. It seems that like in the rest of the country, Las Cruces businesses are having difficulty finding workers.

6. The response to taking English lessons for the adults is spotty. The they would rather work now than learn English, to send money home. Many business will hire non-English speakers in menial labor at the minimum wage in NM at $11.50/hr.  

Tomorrow, Saturday, we drive to El Paso TX to meet with an English speaking Afghan who will translate for us as we gather resume information from five Afghans.

On Monday, I will drive 15 Afghans to Mano a Mano (Hand to Hand) day labor pick up. Mano a Mano is operated by the city of Las Cruces and puts people to work cleaning city parks, painting and general maintenance of city properties at $60 per day.

All those whom we met the last time, the families that we took to the parks, the translators, recognized us, but greeted us with us, as  close friends, which they are.

That last time, we worked during Christmas week, while we helped give staff a very well deserved break. We were pretty much alone with our van driving rounds, while meeting a very few of the staff.  This time we have interacted with most of the case managers who have given us tasks to do. These are very hard working - underpayed, sacrificial humanitarians of the highest degree.

Here is a sobering stat. Currently and rising there are over 80 million internal and international displaced persons on the globe of all catergories. About half are children. And as we all know, over 2M Ukrainians have fled their country and the numbers continue rise. Yes, half of these are children.  

Stay tuned   

Post 12 - February 1, 2022 - "Why Are They At the Border?"

In order to understand current events, history teaches us that we must know and understand the causes that have brought us to this terrible situation we are living with today, i.e., the southern border immigration crisis.  

The civil war in El Salvador ignited in 1979-- a decades long-standing conflict between the seven feudal families that controlled the country for centuries and a rag tag group of rebels the FMLN (Farabundo Marti de Liberacion Nacional) the Farabundo Marti for National Liberation. 

 

Farabundo Marti was a rebel leader that raised a peasant army in the 1930's in a futile attempt to gain land from the seven families. It was brutally put down. Little changed among the majority poor in the country when a new uprising erupted anew over 40 years later. 

 

In 1980 Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero was shot through the heart as he lifted the host during the eucharist at the Carmelite convent in San Salvador.  The assassin was in the employ of the seven families. Romero had openly accused the powerful of their human rights abuses and their impunity. In that same year, four American Catholic missionaries were raped and murdered by Salvadoran soldiers when their van was ambushed on the road between the airport and the capital city of San Salvador (Saint Savior). 

 

The United States was already supporting the corrupt government and army funded by the seven families. Our government imposed its policy of "containing communism" and declared that the FMLN was communist and therefore a threat to the status quo in the region and US security. This policy was being prosecuted concurrently in the neighboring countries of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Guatemala as well. In all instances, the US supplied right wing military dictatorships with funds, advisors, and weapons. The Reagan administration launched the “Reagan Doctrine” against the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua by creating and funding a Contra insurgent group (Contra – Against the Sandinistas). So determined was the Reagan administration to overthrow the Sandinistas it became embroiled in the so called Iran/Contra Scandal (selling rockets to Iran to fund the contras.

 

In 1985 I made my first of five visits to El Salvador, witnessing the impact of the war on the urban and rural poor, as they were violently denied their human rights.  At the end of the conflict, over 40k civilians were killed, many from torture and rape, mostly by the government soldiers and the death squads. 

 

During one visit, I met Maria Cristina Gomez, a women's rights promoter, labor leader, elementary school teacher - a Baptist Christian with the NGO I worked with. Later, I received the news that she was dragged from her classroom by heavily armed men in civilian clothes, witnessed by her horrified students. The next day, her body was found on a trash heap.

 

The war produced over 2 million internal refugees, while thousands fled the country, many taking the same route by land as those arriving at the US border today.  

 

Many Salvadoran youths found their way to Los Angeles and other cities, fleeing the military draft and the violence, not unlike similar motivations for fleeing today.  It wasn't too long before they joined street gangs or created their own such as the “Salvatruchas,” and others.

 

The immigration authorities rounded up and deported a number of them back to El Salvador as well as to Honduras, Nicaragua, and Guatemala.

 

Since there were no options for education and employment these same young men reorganized their gangs in their home countries.  

 

My last visit to El Salvador was in 2003 I was hosted by missionary friends. They took me to a new low-income housing project that their NGO was helping to finance.  But there was a problem.  My friends explained as we walked through the neighborhood. Gangs were invading this neighborhood as well. Young toughs would knock on doors and leave threatening notes that unless the residents paid protection money they would be violently attacked or their children would be taken away from them. The boys would be forced into the gang and the girls would be sold into sex trafficking. Sometimes gangs would take over residences, leaving families in the street.

 

I met a “campesino” (farmer) who taught me how to plant beans on the side of a hill, using an age old method.  He handed me a long stick pointed at one end and put some beans in my hand.  He said, “dig a small hole with the stick, then drop three beans in the hole, then push the dirt over the hole with your foot.” Then he said, “I’ve tried to get into your country three times, and failed. Here I am barely living.

 

A similar situation exists today, perhaps worse. The poor can’t find work. They are landless and depend on peonage farming. They are threatened with violence, especially to their children from the gangs and the drug cartels. El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua are failed states, their governments embroiled in corruption. The gangs and the cartels have become the de-facto rulers of these countries. Immigrants are so desperate that they are willing to trek over 1,000 miles, facing corrupt “coyotes,” guides who abandon them on the road, taking their money, and gang violence. They arrive at the border believing that they will be safer their, willingly turning themselves to the US Border Patrol.

 

A few of the lucky ones are designated as Asylum Seekers and allowed to cross the border into the US. They are given a court date when a judge will determine whether their claim of violence if returned to their home country is legitimate. Then a local agency such as a church or community will shelter, feed, clothe, them and arrange passage to their families or hosts while waiting for their court date. The judge’s ruling can go either way – stay or return. El Calvario United Methodist Church (www.resiliency.org) in Las Cruces NM is one of many shelters along the border receiving Asylum Seekers. I recently served as a volunteer there and will return in March. 

 

Making sense out of this scenario won’t happen until Congress passes a comprehensive immigration law, which is predictable and functional. The chances of this happening are slim at moment until Congress regains its sanity and returns to working across the aisle. 

Post 9 The Beauty of the White Sands in New Mexico

 I am pausing for now, but will continue after we return home today. But in the meantime, soak in the awesome beauty of the White Sands of New Mexico, an incredible geological and rare phenomenon.

Salaam alaikum - Peace be unto you.