By Jonathan Blitzer
For those of us who came of age in the Nixon era and were fully engaged in our careers during the Reagan years and beyond, this book resonates with particular relevance. Throughout this long but well-written and engaging book, the author takes us through the personal lives of several migrants and their families, while providing the economic, social and political context for the struggles they undertook, along with hundreds of thousands of others.
Eddie Anzora was a graffiti artist who eventually went on to become a successful music producer in South Los Angeles before being deported. Eddie was born in El Salvador, but early in his life he believed he was Mexican, since that was what everyone not Black was assumed to be in his neighborhood. Despite the challenges confronted, Eddie made the best of the circumstances he was forced into.
Juan Romagoza was also from El Salvador. He excelled in school, received a scholarship for college and worked towards his dream of becoming a doctor. He succeeded in gaining an internship but never finished. El Salvador was in the midst of civil war. Government repression, especially targeted to students, was rampant. Juan was arrested and tortured so badly that he was never able to practice medicine. But haunted by having saved the life of a protester who was recuperating in a hospital bed when armed police entered the room and riddled the student with bullets, Juan carved out a successful life in the health field in D.C and El Salvador. The motivating reminder he carried throughout his life were the shell casings left by the murderers of that student protester.
Keldy Mabel Gonzales Brebe de Zuniga was born and raised in Northern Honduras. Elimination of civil rights, gang violence, the murders of family members and destructive hurricanes eventually forced Keldy to flee her home and make her way to the U.S. She made it across the border and was intercepted by ICE agents during the Trump presidency. This was early in the administration and she was one of the first asylum seekers separated from her children. She was listed officially as having come into the country alone and her boys were listed officially as “unaccompanied alien minors.” Her story is as long and involved as Juan’s and Eddie’s, and it would be difficult for the reader not to admire her courage and the spiritual and practical guidance, inspiration and support she gave other detainees.
Lucretia Hernandez Mack was born in Guatemala. Her mother, a noted anthropologist who worked and reported on indigenous populations in the country, was assassinated – stabbed by undercover agents twenty-seven times – for her work. Instead of forcing Lucretia into hiding, this act radicalized her (and her aunt). In a country replete with corruption and where no dividing line seemed to separate the underworld criminals from the politicians, military and police, Lucretia pursued judicial recourse for the murder of her mother and otherwise made a successful life for herself.
Beyond becoming acquainted with some remarkable people, the stories of torture, displacement and outright genocide are sobering. Just as distressing is the knowledge that much of what was billed as anti-communist, anti-gang, gang, law and order militarism was bought and paid for with our tax dollars. And while we funded autocrats, trained and supported Central American militaries and police departments, we were rejecting claims of 98 to 99% of Salvadorans and Guatemalans seeking asylum as a result of the violence we enabled, even encouraged. The racist aspect of immigration policy was also made clear in the book, such as when during the Nixon Administration “while Cubans were immediately admitted and set on a path to permanent residency within a year, the Haitians were thrown into detention centers.” (p. 112)
The book also elaborates on racism within Central America, especially regarding indigenous populations and people of color. When a woman of Garifuna background was deported back to Mexico, she was transported to a migrant shelter that was full. She roamed the streets, and eventually hired a smuggler who delivered her to Mexican federal policemen, where she was forced to engage in oral sex and repeatedly raped. Another horror story involved a pregnant woman who was forced to lie on her back while two men straddled a bed board, repeatedly putting pressure on the fulcrum that was her stomach. These are just two of many horror stories in this book that reminds us that violent depravity and debauchery are not relics of the past. As stated by Victor Fankl, “every nation is in principle capable of a holocaust.”
In Chapter 30, there is an interesting elaboration of the spread of “call centers” in Central America, where labor was cheaper and bi-lingual deportees were seeking work. This is one of the jobs Eddie took before becoming a producer. But there was a lot of turnover, “’There were so many employees from Sykes getting killed, they didn’t want to talk about it no more,’ Eddie said.” Thirty people traveled with him on his deportation flight. “Fewer than five were still alive.” (p. 269). Reading this reminded me of convict leasing. Not to minimize the possibility that management in El Salvador may have been sympathetic, from a corporate perspective, the value of lives of those employed by the call center, mostly deportees from America who spoke English and Spanish, were likely minimized since the supply must have seemed endless, just like the situation after the Civil War with convict leasing.
In Chapter 34 there was another interesting report on a meeting between President Obama and a group of national immigration advocates. As the discussion evolved to the border, one of the advocates asked Obama to consider the human cost of immigration policy and another advocate asked the President, who had become derisively referred to as the “deporter in chief,” how he slept at night. The mood turned solemn and Obama responded that children born in places outside the U.S. face dangers that those within do not and “I can’t fix that for you.” (p. 306) I found it interesting that Obama opened a door that no one walked through. If he could not fix it, could we at least begin to understand not only the pull of immigration, but the push, and the role the United States has had, historically, in creating the circumstances for driving people from their homes, communities and cultural ties.
Regarding this subject, there was elaboration on the role Vice President Kamala Harris played when asked by President Biden to look into the causes of our crisis at the border. I was always critical that nothing came of this, and blamed her lack of interest for that deficiency. However, details of the challenges she confronted regarding the political leadership in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala were well documented and provided me with a better understanding of why she was not successful and why the effort was short-lived.
The numbers and abuses during the Trump administration are still fresh in many of our minds. But I never realized the extent to which outright disregard for people coming from Central America and subsequently deported endangered so many, with fatal results, during the COVID pandemic. And, except for his penchant for pulling strings in the background, Stephen Miller is portrayed as someone who would likely be as comfortable in the Reich Cabinet of National Salvation as he was as a member of Trump’s administration.
This book will not be read by many people. It is long and disturbing and filled with truth. Anyone who reads through to the end, cannot help but feel the humanity that we have crushed beneath us. And yet, with all the hellish murder of bishops, raping of nuns, assassinations of political leaders, and ongoing daily terror exacted against common folk just trying to make a living, there is restorative light and redeeming hope in the stories of those who rose above the stench of corruption and degradation to make a life for themselves, their families, their communities, their people and humanity. I highly recommend this book.