Eavan Boland, "Mirror. Memory"

Hi all --

Yesterday I sat in my school's library and read Valeria Luiselli's Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay In Forty Questions. As I worked through it, I posted on Bluesky about its unsparing depiction of how the U.S. treats refugees; you can read that thread here if you like:

I'd like to take the time now to outline a few of the larger themes I encountered. Luiselli writes about the brutal treatment of refugees during the Obama years. How, faced with an explosion of people fleeing gang violence, the Obama administration chose to create a "priority juvenile docket" which moved children more quickly through immigration court. (More quickly, in a number of cases, to removal.)

Luiselli worked as an interpreter for an immigration court in NYC, helping children fill out an intake form. I cannot recommend her book too highly. She does an excellent job of setting the scene and making desperate children and families present. I can't replicate how she stirs an empathy completely missing from our continual mentions of "the border" or "immigration policy." I can just tell you that here are a few things on my mind now:

1. Advocacy gets no exemption from the horrors of the system. The forty questions of the intake form were designed by those who wanted to help refugees. If the questions are answered with what can help one's case–threats to one's life in another country, a report of experiencing crime on U.S. soil–a lawyer can keep you in the country. But as you read this book, you will be thinking how tough "Why did you come to the United States?", the first question asked, can be to a child. The overarching theme of the book is that all the questions asked cannot do justice to the situations refugees face; immigration court is meant to put refugees on the defensive, in a position where they have to defend their humanity. Which leads to the second thing on my mind...
2. The U.S. is directly responsible for the conditions causing people to flee here. The U.S. is a country which never wants to apologize. Because it doesn't want to apologize, it can't understand how it creates vicious cycles. It can only keep victim blaming. Obviously the drug trade and U.S. foreign policy have forced and are forcing people out of their homes. Luiselli says that at one point, 20% of the population of El Salvador fled the country because of the Reagan-backed regime there. I am thinking about how instead of talking about reparations, we just keep getting angrier, and the term "illegal immigrant" being used for a civil misdemeanor might be the height of that denial.
3. People can do more, far more. At the end of the book, Luiselli talks about how a class she taught decided that refugees and immigrants should have more. Kids who "have been through the worst.... arrive to find an unfamiliar country and a new language, ...[and] also a group of strangers that they must now call their family." So her class formed an organization dedicated to "simple and concrete" solutions. "[I]ntensive English classes, college prep sessions, team sports, a radio program, and a civil rights and duties discussion group" (95-96). They wanted to partner with other non-profits, too. Their organization, the TIIA (Teenage Immigrant Integration Association), has been active.

I do believe attentiveness to these three things can go a long way. I interpret them as attentiveness to continual improvement as an advocate, to how the language of apology can open new doors, and to helping the helpers. I'll leave a bibliographic citation for the book in case you want to read further:

• Luiselli, V. (2017). Tell me how it ends: an essay in forty questions. Coffee House Press.

Eavan Boland, "Mirror. Memory"

As I contemplate Boland's poem, the Supreme Court of the United States is deciding whether we will continue to have birthright citizenship. (1) All those who labor like the "winter provincials" of her last two stanzas, who want to know their children will have a minimum of respect in the one country they've known, are experiencing the indignity of questioning the unquestionable.

Mirror. Memory (from A Woman Without A Country) 
Eavan Boland

The man and woman in a formal portrait
before me in the gallery,
born to the high summer of Flemish pride—

pride in their eyes, rendered with animal glues,
in the elaborate loops of their collars,
even pride in the painter

who only yesterday applied gesso
and tacked the canvas to make them ready for
a future of perpetual intrusion—

are not the ones I want to remember:
winter provincials listening for infant cries,
boiling a kettle in the predawn,

their faces misted and revealed
in the steel of it, their moment passing,
passing; nothing but sleep in their eyes.

So I'm thinking. Thinking about who counts. Who gets to be remembered. Our crass world says it is pretty much those with money. Trump gets to be POTUS and be remembered by history because of his wealth. He deserves a legacy because he could buy one if he wanted. Previous ages may not have believed money automatically deserves a legacy, but people certainly used money to buy one. "The man and woman in a formal portrait / before me in the gallery / born to the high summer of Flemish pride..."

Of course, you can say that some merely wanted to commemorate their family. A little class and status isn't so bad, no? You want to leave a dignified portrait. Lord knows I have dealt with those utterly without self-respect and that is a special kind of hell.

Boland speaks, thus, of this couple's pride. "[P]ride in their eyes," "in the elaborate loops...", "pride in the painter." For a moment there aren't just the trappings of wealth, but a guide to higher values. The care ornate dress implies; the vision which employs a painter; the worthiness evident in a glance.

The problem, at this point, is self-evident. If money enables us to see value, how can we possibly see the poor? Our own ancestors? We need rival images, paintings in phrases. Let "the steel of it," a kettle, reflect the "winter provincials" who labored for an infant's welfare. And we must search for those images, searching with a fervor we reserve for a paycheck, searching to put them in museums we build. Boland's lyric hits especially hard when I reflect on the worship of the rich and deference to their reign. They ultimately steal a lot more than money or power.

Notes

(1) If certain things are questioned, they are very difficult to get back, especially since people don't know what "due process," "equal protection of the laws," and "rights" are. A lot of people want to go the direction of asking everyone for their papers all the time or else sending them to camps. In contrast to my pessimism, Chris Geidner at Law Dork has a report saying that the birthright citizenship EO will likely be struck down by SCOTUS.