The Succulent Seer: politics

Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts

June 23, 2013

Winds of Change | On the Current CIR Debate | Amor and Exile

**Note: This is probably more subject matter than should have gone in one blog post. Time is more precious than ever, and I've been more exhausted in the last 3 weeks than I can remember being since college over 15 years ago. There's so much to say, too little time, and some trains are fast departing from the stations of my life that I can't afford to miss. But I wanted to simultaneously speak to recent accomplishments with Amor and Exile and going to D.C., the perspective of many years having observed and been a victim of immigration politics, and also acknowledge that my intense involvement in this issue, to the exclusion of other, more earthy parts of my life, has taken a toll, and I'm in the process of achieving a new equilibrium.**

Cycles are being completed and new chapters are opening in my life, and for this I am grateful. But in many ways, some things are as they always were.

I recently traveled to Washington, D.C. to deliver a copy of the book I co-wrote with Nathaniel Hoffman, Amor and Exile: True Stories of Love Across America's Borders. The trip, which in essence launched the publication of our book, was many things to me at once: a dream come true to tell my story to our nation, a collaborative vision seen through to completion, an eye-opening experience about the way politics are done in my country, and a reminder that I must continue to find grounding in my daily life back home.

Nearly 12 years ago, I began dating my husband and discovered what we were up against in terms of immigration laws that effectively shut out a large number of North Americans from access to legal immigration to the United States, even when married to American citizens.

Almost 6 years ago, despite the successful protest of the passage of even harsher immigration laws (HR 4437), which would have made it a felony to merely be in association with my husband, we came to the conclusion that the only way for my husband to obtain legal status was to move abroad to his home country of Mexico. We packed our belongings and moved south, where we've been ever since.

A few years after we moved here, I began seriously contemplating the possibility of writing about my story. Everytime I told our story about why we'd moved here to someone, they'd respond, "But you're married!?" as if it was a no-brainer that my husband should have U.S. papers. It drove me crazy that nobody understood why things just weren't that simple. On one hand, part of me wanted to wash my hands of the issue entirely, just focus on my field (ecology) and pursue my dreams of a green business or non-profit in a country that sorely needs environmental conservation work. I did restore a good part of our land with greywater and organic vegetable production. I did publish a short collection of regional recipes using Mexican native food plants (The Bajio's Bounty). And I remained tangentially involved in the environmental movement here in Querétaro. But the pull of fate in the direction of writing a memoir and adding my voice to the millions of disenfranchised by U.S. immigration law was too strong. I kept adding to my many notebooks of visions I was having about "telling a story about migration."

In winter of 2011, only a few months after my daughter was born, I began writing my part for Amor and Exile. Ever since then, my life as been drawn inexorably deeper into the path of advocacy on behalf of families like mine. Starting with the story that is now part of Chapter 9 of Amor and Exile, entitled "Alienation," in which I tell of our passage south to Mexico, I began the laborious task of encapsulating my most painful struggles and my lofty ideals (of the ones that still remain) into prose, exposing them to my coauthor's critiquing and making them universally understandable, as opposed to making sense only to me. The first years were an internal struggle—overcoming the fears and anxieties with making our story. I first received great support from family, friends, my coauthor Nathaniel, and then from a therapist who helped me creatively work through my trauma and heal many hurt parts of having to leave my country to keep my family together, essentially against my will.

Our manuscript was finally done in December 2012. It represented two and a half years of writing and collaborative editing. In the first few months that we began "shopping around" our manuscript with our agent, was when all the Comprehensive Immigration Reform debate hit Congress. I'd written my story without any specific political language, mainly because it was telling a past story, also because it was anyone's guess as to when actual reform could happen. Moreover, as I tell in the book, part of my personal peacemaking has had to do with separating my political hopes from my own personal goals and motivations—in other words, I can't pin my personal happiness on political outcomes.

That being said, I'm well aware of what the current debate represents and I would be amiss to not be a part of it. It's been satisfying to be able to make contact with many individuals who are advocating on behalf of families like ours. Coming in contact with dozens of families like mine has renewed my resolve to continue speaking out on this subject—even though the "best" reforms available (waiver reform) really would only allow my family to apply for a waiver a couple years earlier. It's too little too late for us—but it could be a lot for some families.

Being in D.C.—getting the community support to go there as a result of our Indiegogo campaign to "Send Amor and Exile to Washington"—was an incredibly uplifting experience. Going from totally disempowered, silenced for so many years due to my family's lack of legal recourse—to dialoguing with Capitol staffers and representatives themselves was to come full circle in terms of where I was and where I now am. We have no guarantee that our efforts will actually make any difference in the long run in terms of policy, but I am convinced that at least in terms of personal views, dozens of individuals have been affected as a result of our work. And I can only pray that it will continue to have an impact in the long term.

Because ultimately, as things are currently being played out in the Senate, it is truly a political game in which our lives hang in the balance. A game whose players have no problem sacrificing billions of taxpayer dollars for even higher and more electrified fences in the name of immigration reform—always with the risk that every compromise will never be enough to satisfy the most extreme negotiators. I'm personally more skeptical about the long-term positive impact of the most recent version of SB 744 (if the Corker-Hoeven amendment to spend $30 billion in additional "border security" is included) compared to the original version. It's the product of compromise that might get some of us home a little sooner, that might prevent some of us from having to go into exile, but my question is, how will it affect generations of migrants, citizens of both countries even, to come?

It's really easy to fall in the trap of thinking about only our own families' problems, I did this for many years as I pitied myself and couldn't imagine how I was going to make my life work in a foreign country. I saw myself as somewhat different than the rest, when in reality, we're all in the same boat. I am so thankful to my fellow friends in exile for opening my eyes about that. What I dread happening is that we, the exiled or separated, forget to think of those who will come after us, as we are thrown a bone, while draconian regulations continue to be passed.

What concerns me about the passage of an SB 744 with extreme border militarization clauses is because of the reasons these regulations are being written in. Does this version of immigration policy engender cross-cultural understanding and reduce the likelihood of attempted illegal immigration to the U.S? Probably not. Would using that money instead on international programs that improve the standard of living in foreign countries, create programs for individuals to more easily access legal immigration channels to the U.S. have more positive effect in the long run? Most likely. But those type of answers aren't as politically sexy as more choppers and barbed wire, when catering to the xenophobic crowd in the U.S.

Much of our populace is still stuck, lamentably, in a culturally insensitive rut that is costing us the ability to move forward as a nation, embrace our immigrant roots, our immigrant present, and our immigrant future. We welcome those who have the financial resources (or luck in the lotteries) to make it across the border "legitimately," but we reject many who are the salt of the earth. Those of us who have acknowledged the migratory and highly adaptable nature of our continent will keep working toward true change, at great personal sacrifice, sorrow, and even joy sometimes, no matter what the outcome on Capitol Hill.

May 16, 2013

Amor and Exile's Launch | Send Amor and Exile to Washington

It's exciting to find out that some dreams do come true. A vision to tell a story about migration is being made possible, by divining with the creative spirit within, a lot of hard collaborative work with my coauthor Nathaniel Hoffman, an excellent technical support crew, die-hard fans and advocates, and now, an outpouring of support from the community. Amor and Exile is being born at this very moment.

Our initial campaign started this past weekend on Indiegogo. It's called "Send Amor and Exile to Washington." You can help us launch our book and ensure that Congress hears about American families divided and exiled by U.S. immigration law. Send a copy of the new book, Amor and Exile, to Washington with our IndieGoGo campaign: http://igg.me/at/amorandexile/x/3194161 Be sure to watch the video, it features yours truly and my coauthor Nate. :)

Thanks to all our contributors in the first five days, we've reached 50% of our campaign goal and have raised enough to send enough books to all 100 Senators—but we need help with the rest of Congress!

Here's the summary of the book from the back cover:
Across the United States, American citizens are forced underground, exiled abroad and separated from their spouses for a surprising reason. Amor and Exile is the story of American citizens—including Veronica, Ben, J.W., and Nicole—who fall in love with undocumented immigrants only to find themselves trapped in a legal labyrinth, stymied by their country’s de facto exclusion of their partners. Journalist Nathaniel Hoffman visited both sides of the border to document the lives of these couples caught in the crossfire of America’s high stakes political fight over immigration. In his disarming and precise style, Hoffman also traces the historical relationship between immigration, love and marriage. Lending an authentic voice to Amor and Exile, coauthor Nicole Salgado delivers a searing first-person account of life in the U.S. with her husband while he was undocumented, her tortured decision to leave the country with him, and their seven years of exile and starting over together in Mexico. Amor and Exile tells of love that transcends borders—a story shared by hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens—cutting through the immigration debate rhetoric and providing a courageous perspective for one of the most vexing policy problems of our time.

I'm not one to brag much, but I'm pretty excited about the initial critical feedback we've been getting from some fairly big names in immigration/civil liberties journalism. You can read it here. Thanks to all our supporters...we're really excited to see our several years of writing come to fruition!

May 10, 2013

Mamá de dos lugares

Ayer tuve dos momentos de confusión y no fue debido al vértigo que he tenido por las ultimas tres semanas.

El primer momento fue por la mañana cuando unas amigas me invitaron a reunir con ellas y los pequeños este domingo que viene. Dijeron algo como "porque el viernes es día de las madres." Pensé, queeeé? El domingo es día de las madres. Y así es, en los Estados Unidos, el segundo domingo de mayo. Pero yo vivo en México, y rápidamente recordé que el día de las madres es el 10 de mayo, lo cual es hoy este año.
Luego, estuve trabajando mucho mas tarde que debía, cuando dos compañeras mexicanas me mandaron un mensaje por Facebook diciendo "Felicidades en tu día mañana!" Y de nuevo me quedé así como, "mi día? de qué hablan? a poco creen que es mi cumpleaños?" Pero esta vez la sensación de confusión desvaneció mas rápido cuando me di cuenta que estaban hablando de día de las madres.
Si preguntas porque me cuesta tanto recordar que 10 de mayo es día de las madres aquí, puedo decir que por un lado, aunque he estado en México por casi siete años, solo he pasado dos días de las madres como madre aquí, antes de ayer, porque mi hija aún es chiquita. Así que aún no es un día festivo a que me acostumbro ser celebrada personalmente. Y por el otro lado, mi esposo es una persona muy buena, pero por la manera que sus papás le criaron, no tiende a celebrar mucho los días festivos.
Pero les dije gracias a mis amigas de todas formas, y me quedé impactada que unas mujeres jóvenes, sin hijos propios, tomarían la iniciativa para felicitarme aunque no somos familiares. Incluso observé que las mujeres felicitaron las madres de cada una, en un intercambio mutuo de aprecio para las madres que dieron vida a sus amigas.
Lo último fue algo que jamás he observado en mi país de nacimiento. En Estados Unidos, en mi experiencia, todos sabemos cuando es Día de las Madres, pero celebramos a nuestras propias madres, tal vez abuelas o una tía. Al recibir los afectuosos saludos de parte de mis amigas por ser madre, me quedé pensando en las diferencias de las dos culturas. Llegué a la conclusión que, como había pensado en tiempos anteriores cuando mi hija era recién nacida, que de ciertas formas, ser padres en un país como México tiene ciertas ventajas.
Claro que aún existe el machismo y la desigualdad. Sin embargo,las mujeres han luchado en todos ámbitos a través de las generaciones y yo he observado a más y más padres ayudando con la crianza de sus peques como nunca antes, y eso ha sido una experiencia satisfactoria.
Incluso hay un fenómeno que nunca deja de impresionarme cuando lo veo: niños adolescentes caminando por las calles agarrando la mano de su madre, o con su brazo en el de ella, cercanamente a su lado. Yo recuerdo en Estados Unidos, siendo adolescente, lo mas lejos de tus padres que puedes estar, mejor. Al ver los niños teniendo tanto aprecio, tanta ternura para sus madres, me siento un alivio sin explicación, y creo que tiene que ver con la esperanza que, posiblemente, mi hija podría no rechazarme tanto como los adolescentes Estadounidenses tienden a rechazar sus padres cuando lleguen a ese edad.
No tengo las respuestas para explicar las diferencias, y estoy segura que hay otros factores que afectan el balance entre ventajas y desventajas de ser madre en cada una de las culturas. Pero estoy agradecida que tengo la oportunidad de ver otro modelo que él que siempre viví al otro lado. Y aunque ahora estoy muy lejos de mi propia madre, tendré aún mas aprecio por el rol que tuvo en mi vida y mas aprecio por el ciclo qué decidí seguir al tener mi propia hija hace casi tres años.
Les doy las gracias a las dos, a toda la gente que me han apoyado en ese trayectoria. Siendo una madre no es algo fácil, pero es uno de las mejores decisiones que he tomado en mi vida. Ser madre coincidió con muchas cosas nuevas para mí: llegué a ser coautora de un libro de nuevo, conseguí ciudadanía mexicana, y empezé a trabajar mas, para sacar mi familia adelante. Siendo madre me ha impulsado hacer todo lo que hago con más pasión porque ahora no solo tengo una idea teórico de dejar una huella en este mundo, sé que cada cosa que hago será trasmitida a mi hija y quiero que ella tenga la oportunidad de vivir en un mundo lleno con más paz y belleza que violencia y destrucción. Y por eso agradezco cada día que he tenido la bendición de ser no solamente una hija, pero también una madre—independientemente de si el conjunto de felicitaciones sucede a través de dos dias o sólo uno.

March 4, 2013

Wasp stings and Seguro Popular | Mexico vs. U.S. 1-0

Some family of mine visited for the first time this past week. As is apt to happen, when comparing the U.S. and Mexico, we got off on a spirited detour about the direction in which the U.S. government is headed.
I had remarked how ironic it was that the direction of the effect of current U.S. policies (slashing essential public programs, failing to support universal education, lining the pockets of the wealthy, etc.) are sending our country down a similar path as Mexico, where growth is occurring in some sectors, but because of the monopolies and corrupt bureacracies, a lot of the "progress" truly benefits only the rich, leaving the majority of the country stuck about 40 years in the past, maybe more.
My motivation in saying something like that was probably stemming from a sense of helplessness at only being able to watch what goes down in the U.S. from afar, also a fear that things I most cherished about my home country, like great free education, are at risk.

But then something hit me—part of my imaginary equation was off, and not in the direction I'd anticipated. Just the day prior, I'd visited the Queretaro General Hospital ER for a large wasp sting that had gotten worse and infected. I was seen immediately, administered a shot to reduce the reaction, and sent home with medicine—all in under 1 hour's time, and all free, under the Seguro Popular federal medical care program.

I first enrolled in 2010, before my daughter was born. I'd been able to pay for private doctor's office visits out of pocket up until then, but was worried about potential accidents, my inability to afford private medical insurance, and wanted a sort of catastrophic family medical insurance. So far we've only used it for severe insect bites—Margo also got treated for one, last year, when he was stung by a scorpion. But it's a relief to think it's there when we need it.
Suddenly, on my imaginary scoreboard between the U.S. and Mexico federal benefits to my family, I was left staring at a big fat 1-0, with Mexico on the unexpected left hand side.
Inside, I felt outraged, shocked, even a little dismayed. How could it be that the glorious U.S. of A could be down on the count, and of all rivals, with Mexico? There had to be something I was missing.
I racked my brains for things the U.S. federal government had done for me (a direct benefit, not some sort of trickle-down benefit) and my inner conscience immediately felt lame doing so, especially after hearing the words of JFK, "ask not what your country can do for you," first inside my own head, and then from my uncle sitting next to me as he invoked the time of the Kennedys.
It was as if I had an inner anti-governmental critic meter and some alarm was getting sounded. Over the years my morality meter had driven me to do well in school, honor my family, work, pay taxes, volunteer, sit on boards of directors. It had allowed me to practice freedom of speech by being critical of government policies, an environmental activist, and even challenge the morality of current U.S. immigration policies. But somehow wondering what direct personal benefit I'd gotten with my U.S. membership card felt sacrilegious. What felt especially weird was having spent the last 7 years up in arms about not being able to go back home to the U.S. with my husband and daughter, as a complete family unit. It was a very weird feeling indeed.
But what was worse was not finding any answer to counter my suspicion, that the score was still 1-0. All I could think of was having to pay taxes since I started getting W-2s when I was 16 years old. The next thing I thought of was my $20,000 college scholarship through the National Science Scholars Program that had gotten revoked as a result of Newt Gingrich's contract with America the summer of 1995, leaving me with just under that amount of debt 3.5 years later after graduating.
The response to my question I posed to my family was disturbingly spare. After asking in earnest for the third time if I was being rash, if I was missing something, my uncle said, "Let it go already...you may just have to accept that things aren't really what you thought."
That seems to go without saying—this isn't the first time that the dual allegiance I've been obliged to forge in the throes of forced expatriation has caused me to question everything I've known to be true.
That part of me that still wants to see that scoreboard blowing up on the right hand side is not just juvenile fantasy, but self-preservation, in that restoring something from ruins is usually a lot harder than preventing something from falling apart in the first place. On the other hand, maybe a middle ground would be to allow something to grow and evolve. That's been my wish ever since it became clear to me at 12 years old that our country's oil-dependent economy would need to sprout new wings and let the dinosaurs go the way of oblivion. What saddens me as an adult is that the country I thought the most innovative and capable of progress—my own—still really has so far to go.

September 15, 2012

Musings on the Eve of Mexican Independence Day | Binational Family Conversations on Race and Identity

Tonight is the eve of Mexican Independence Day.
According to Wikipedia, "Mexico, in the second article of its Constitution, is defined as a "pluricultural" nation in recognition of the diverse ethnic groups that constitute it, and in which the indigenous peoples are the original foundation."

So, like its sister country to the north, Mexico is a free state that shook off its European colonial monarchy, that also shares a vast diversity of native North American as well as Old World cultural heritage. But in my opinion, Mexico appear to differ from the U.S. in that a smaller percentage of its people seem to make a point of embracing their racial roots.
My observations are probably skewed by where I've lived previously in the U.S.—mostly in liberal urban areas, and now Mexico—in a region characterized by heavy colonial influence compared to states like Oaxaca or Chiapas where indigenous influence is stronger.
But either way, I’ve always noticed how differently people choose to identify themselves culturally or racially. I know that whole college courses and even degrees are dedicated to this type of topic, and I've had very little formal study of it. But as a dual citizen with two feet planted in both my birth country of the U.S. and my home country of Mexico, with a binational and bilingual daughter and a Mexican husband, these type of questions will never cease to pique my interest.

A few days ago, my little family and I were listening to music while having lunch. My 2 year old daughter, sitting in her highchair, began bobbing her head to the rhythms of Jay-Z & Alicia Keys' Empire State of Mind.

My husband Margo asked her if she was from New York, and then answered for her "no, you're from Queretaro."

I said, "yeah, well, she's from NY through me—her mama's from NY!" We both laughed.

As I went over to stir the nopales I was cooking, I thought about how there are millions of people who call themselves African American, even though they themselves aren't from Africa nor do they even have recent relatives from there, although their distant ancestors came from there many generations ago.

"Can you imagine if someone's great-great-great-great-grandparent was from Mexico, do you think they'd call themselves Mexican American?" I asked my husband.

To use myself as an example, my great-grandparents on my father's side are from Mexico, and I even became a naturalized Mexican citizen last year through marriage with my husband. But I haven't yet referred to myself as Mexican American.

Margo is a born and bred Queretano. "Yeah right...they'd probably call themselves something else," he said.

"Probably white," I replied, "Or Hispanic," I ventured.

I was thinking of my own "whiteness." After growing up of German and Mexican ancestry in a heavily Italian and Polish neighborhood in Upstate New York, most people assumed Salgado was Italian. On college applications, I checked off "other" and wrote in 3 different races—white/Caucasian, Hispanic, and Native American, to reflect my mixed European ancestry and the mixed mestizo ancestry. Mestizo refers to the indigenous Mexican Indian/Spanish blend that characterizes the great majority of Mexican people, but many people call Mexicans or other Latin Americans "Spanish." In fact, that's the definition of the regularly used term Hispanic.

Why is that? Why do people choose to identify themselves with one ancestry over another? The answers should be fairly obvious, but there seem to be a lot of exceptions to the rule, depending on where you're from or where you grow up.

"Does that mean that most Mexican Americans have less pride in their heritage than most African Americans?" I asked my husband. I wasn't thinking of the Chicano pride movement back in the 70's, but modern Mexican Americans by definition (such as myself)—I'm not sure if the pride in cultural heritage extends as uniformly to 3rd or 4th generation individuals these days as it does with other minority groups.

"I think so," he said. "I think it's because we have a lot of discrimination in this culture. A lot of Mexicans are embarrassed to say they're indios (Indians or native peoples) because they've been prejudiced against them for so long. So people say they've got a Spanish grandfather, grandmother, etc."
Margo's family didn't exactly raise him to take pride in his Otomi roots, in fact they whipped him to get him to go to Catholic church every Sunday and kiss his godparents' hands. But somehow he saw past the religious zealotry to become more of a free-thinker as a teenager.

"I wonder if because of the civil rights movement in the U.S., people feel safer to show off their heritage," I mused. "If you have an indigenous grandfather or grandmother, you're likely to tell everyone about it, be proud of it."

And yet, in the next song, Lakota singer/songwriter John Trudell laments the isolation of native people of the United States. "Industrial reservations, tyranny stakes its claims. Blue Indians, emotional siege in civilized state....glory and gold lead a desperate chase. Blue Indian, melting pot, ruling classes, haves and have nots." It's from his album Blue Indians, and it's got a lot of good food for thought.

Today for our Independence Eve dinner, my husband made vegetable noodle soup and bean tacos while I worked on finishing a translation for a botanical garden in Sinaloa state. The document I was working on described historical figures in Mexican botany—from Mexican explorers to the Jesuits to Mexican female scientists and even a researcher from Arizona.
When I told my husband about what I was working on, he wondered aloud ¨You mean like conquistadores? The enslavers?"
"No..." I admonished him. "The people were just interested in plants." Safe assumption, right? Being a plant person myself...
Instead of heading out to the festivities downtown, we avoided the crowds and drunk drivers and went for a walk out in his father's cornfield. Back home, I made Mexican chocolate.
I can't claim to truly understand the reasons behind why we choose to embrace some parts of ourselves or why we wish to cast aside the others. But I am glad that I can ask these questions and explore them freely with my partner so we can at least come close to modeling honesty, respect, and pride for our ancestry with our daughter wherever possible—no matter how tangled or frayed our roots end up throughout our lives.

June 30, 2012

Patience, Public Health Care, and No More Mr. Nice People—VOTA MAÑANA PAISANOS

I'm not usually a proponent of time flying, but we are well ready for June to be OVER. Life ain't often a bowl of cherries here, but June seemed to be particularly rough for this family. Heck, it's been a rough spring. After the fire from the lightning strike, then it was Margo's finger. Then a round of Giardia for us all. Then I got food poisoning. Baby fell down and split her lip. I finally went to a naturopath and my tummy is feeling much better, but then Margo got stung by a scorpion. I'm looking forward to turning the page on the calendar.

As if all this wasn't enough, Thursday, Margo's 75-year old father got into a serious accident in his truck when he was headed out to his cornfields. I asked Margo, "what the hell, do we have a hex on us or something?" Margo, who doesn't have a superstitious bone in his body, replied deadpan "maybe it's time for you to get out your brujeria," referring to my incense. The idea of a shamanic limpia doesn't sound half bad right now. Too bad it's too late for the elections tomorrow.

Amidst all this chaos, I've been working busily on my last chapter in Amor and Exile, an emotional task in and of itself. Part of me is desperate to finish and get it over with, part of me is breathlessly excited to figure out how we're going to publish, and a little bit of me is sad that such an absorbing and satisfying project will soon come to an end.

In the book, one of the biggest changes I've noted in myself in the nearly six years since I had to relocate to Mexico is that I've (forcibly) become a more patient person. I say forcibly because I haven't always accepted that change in myself, especially when running up against bureacratic red tape that I've encountered in Mexican institutions. But since there's a different pace of life here than the one I was raised in in New York, I've had no choice but to be patient with my in-laws, with friends, coworkers, land titles, myself even. And I do think I'm a slightly better person as a result.

But I'd be lying if I said I've become uniformly patient with everything across the board. I might be more patient with individuals, for example tonight when we went to get a haircut with Margo's cousin. We called at 5:30 to see if she was free, and she replied come at 6:30. But when we got there at that time, she was coloring one woman's hair and cutting another's, while another was waiting in front of us. I did get a little huffy, but I also did calm down and wait—until a little after 7 pm. After all, you can't beat a haircut for $2 bucks. And it's not like we had anything better to do.

You see, I can be patient when I'm just killing time waiting for something else. I'm talking about waiting for news about Margo's father, mi suegro. And I'm finding that I'm not quite so patient when it comes to health matters. Ever since his accident Thursday morning, we've been waiting for something concrete to happen in his treatment, a sign that he'll definitely be OK. But now, almost 60 hours later, there's still no green light on his surgery to fix two crushed vertebrae in his neck (C4 & C5), no assurance he won't be coming home on a respirator.

Unfortunately, it's not a matter I have much power to affect—not from an logistical nor from an economic standpoint. Maybe that's what upsets me so much about it. The whole situation reminds me of what happened when Margo's mother had a stroke—the entire family just waited patiently while she was channeled back and forth between the clinic and home and to various practitioners who failed to consider her need for rehabilitation urgent. No one was happy that she was ill, but neither did anyone seem as upset as me that it was taking so long for her to get sent to physical therapy. Eventually, almost two months after her stroke, she did get sent to therapy, and recovered a good deal of the use of her left side, but she's still too weak to cook or clean for herself, and her quality of life has significantly diminished. Of course it's impossible to know if this is because of the delay in therapy.

In the case of my suegro, he was taken directly from the site of the accident to the state hospital. There, they decided they'd transfer him to the hospital where he's insured as a pensioner (IMSS, stands for Instituto Medico de Seguro Social). It took TWELVE hours and more than 6 visits back and forth between clinics and copy shops for Margo to get the necessary paperwork to get his father moved. By the time he was transferred, it was almost 11 pm. More than half a day had passed since his accident.

All the while, they had full knowledge that he had broken or dislocated vertebrae. It was the opinion of the treating ER doctor who received him that he'd need to be sent to Mexico City for treatment, they didn't have the right equipment in Queretaro. Even so, it took another EIGHTEEN HOURS, to Friday 6 pm, for the attending neurologist to evaluate his scans and confirm that he'd need to be sent to the specialist hospital 3 hours away in Mexico City. He wasn't sent until 11 pm that night, by ambulance.

Meanwhile, what's incredible is that my suegro was totally conscious, aside from catnaps, and could move all parts of his body. But just a tiny lesson in vertebral anatomy belies the heavy risk of his situation—whether spinal cord damage is sustained above or below the C6 vertebra (his fractures are at C4 & 5) determines whether you'll become a paraplegic or a quadriplegic. Even so, despite now being at the trauma center in Mexico City since 2 am this morning, he STILL hasn't received a green light for the surgery. We were under the impression that with the determination sent from Queretaro, he'd be seen immediately upon arrival. Not so.

As of 8 pm this evening, now almost 60 hours since his accident, the word is that he is still in observation and they are evaluating his tomography to see if his vertebral fractures are due to an old injury or the car crash. WTF? Prior to the crash, he is one of the most physically fit members of this family who never complains of aches or pains, and after the crash he had bruises all over his body, a 3-inch laceration on the back of his head and bleeding on the brain (not to mention the previous hospital had already determined the necessity of surgical vertebral replacement). Does this require a rocket scientist?

Why they are taking their time on this is beyond my capability of understanding. When I say this to Margo, or his brother who accompanied him to the DF, they respond that there are a lot of other people with worse injuries in line in front of them. Now, I understand the need for triage, and I don't know exactly what their system is here at the IMSS trauma centers, but if you continually put someone in line behind every more traumatic patient that arrives, you'll be waiting all year because car accidents are one of the top causes of death here. And sadly, exceedingly long waits appear to be the norm, as I found on one forum with comments about IMSS service at that particular hospital.

As soon as I heard about the crash, I immediately recommended a private hospital. I raised the same issue with my suegra's stroke 2 years ago, and I received the same response this week: "where else would we take him?" And I say, to Hospital Angeles? Medica Tec 100? (The first rate hospitals in this city). I then get the same response: "but they're too expensive." And then I try to give up the suggestion, respect their decision (although I really can't get it out of my head). The reason I'm frustrated is because I see a family, a matrix of people, who could get access to the necessary resources but don't consider them an option for a case like this, where their health hangs in the balance. Margo's father has several landholdings, a herd of cows, and several vehicles and pieces of valuable heavy machinery that could easily be cashed in for better treatment. To Margo's credit, he's tried to recommend long-term planning for emergencies/retirement age before, but his ideas probably seem foreign to a family who's always lived from hand to mouth (or maybe they sound too much like his wife's). But the brothers who drive those vehicles and operate that heavy machinery that their father bought haven't volunteered to sell a single one—just a few hours ago I saw one getting drunk and the other has only called once in the last 48 hours.

I try to respect the family's acceptance of the need to just wait, emulate their patience, but it's so hard, especially when I suspect it's completely unnecessary, and just an artifact of a several-decades long habit of complacency. When I think about my father-in-law laying there in a hospital bed, a millimeter away from becoming quadriplegic, I just can't accept that patiently waiting is the only option. But why is it that I'm the only one who seems so intent that there's several ways that this situation could be made better? I try to breathe deeply, ask my husband how he feels. He replies simply, "frustrated." I empathize, deeply. Even though my father-in-law and I are not close, he does not deserve to suffer. I want to see him come home walking—still be able to eat my baked goods he can sniff from a football field away, play with his granddaughter. Or realize what he's been missing by spending so much time on the farm and not with his enormous family.

I'll take some lessons away from this experience, toward my own family's health. For the last couple years, we've been enrolled in the even more basic Seguro Popular universal health care system here in Mexico. I've considered it backup catastrophic insurance, and the truth is it's come in handy a couple times, like when Margo got stung by a scorpion—we didn't pay a dime. We usually pay out of pocket for private doctors' visits. When I had my appendix out last year, it caught me by surprise, and I had to borrow money from my parents to have the surgery in a private clinic. Afterwards, I started thinking, maybe I should have sucked it up and gone to the public hospital. But now, after seeing firsthand what happens in the case of a true emergency, how proper care is delayed again and again, I don't feel quite the same conviction. My only other option is private health insurance—the kind that Americans are now forced to carry, for their own benefit. I'm not obligated to have it, and I'm not even sure I could afford it, but it's something I want to look into.

When I told this to Margo, he cynically replied, "it'd be just the same service, you'll see." Somehow I doubt that. The difference between the service I've received at the IMSS clinics (I did enroll when Margo had a company job a few years ago, just to "check it out") and the private clinics is like night and day.

I've been told this it how it works in the public health system. That's it's good service but that it takes a long time. I'm afraid that in some cases, taking a long time is not good enough. Sometimes it's just not better late than never—it's got to be NOW.

p.s. I would have thought that on the eve of the 2012 Mexican presidential elections, I'd be blogging about that topic instead. But almost everyday of this month, with the exception of a few Facebook posts here and there, the personal has forced its way into precedence over the political in my life. I feel a bit badly about that. But it's also my first presidential election as a newly naturalized Mexican citizen and part of me thinks it's important to not just vote, but absorb the whole panorama before I start shooting my mouth off. On the other hand, I see a lot of parallels between this "exceedingly patient" syndrome I've encountered, and the citizenry's de facto acceptance of continual abuses of corruption and mismanagement of public funds at the hands of a government and media endowed with a significantly lopsided amount of power. Let's not be patient, paisanos—let's get change where it's needed, NOW.

May 1, 2012

The Power of the 'Net (vote for me if you haven't yet, please! :-)

Note: if you just clicked to vote, the link's at the bottom of the post! :-)

It never ceases to amaze me how the Internet allows me to maintain one foot in the U.S. and one foot in Mexico. I know, this is going to sound like an Internet commercial. Whether it's video chatting with the fam over Skype, or keeping tabs on friends via Facebook, or just imagine—how did we survive without EMAIL? Well, I did survive for four years without Internet, actually. It's just that in those 4 long, dry years of having to use only cybercafes down the street, I developed such a craving for connection with the culture I'd left in the U.S. that when I finally got it back, it probably looked like a long dried-up alcoholic going back to the bottle.

When I told a friend a couple years back how happy I was to be getting Internet the week before my daughter was to be born, she chastized me a little, saying the first month was for bonding with my baby. Well, I did bond quite intensely with my daughter, but felt guilty enough about my time spent sending pics to my circle in the U.S. that I mentioned it to my mom. She responded simply that the person who'd poo-poo'd my Internet zeal probably had never lived far away from her family or in a foreign country for any significant amount of time. About her, who knows. Some people might be happy to be distanced from people, have an excuse to not be in touch. But for me, all I know is that I am truly grateful for a way to stay in touch with the community that I love so well that otherwise I'd have no means of staying connected with.

I was reminded of this when driving to work the other day, when I almost hit a huge cardboard box with styrofoam peanuts spilling out all over the highway. My immediate thought was, oops, there goes someone's Mother's Day present. Countless times before, Margo and I tried to send a box from the U.S. to Mexico, or someone tried to send us a package or a letter from the States to here, with no luck. The Mexican Postal Service, which must rely on burros to some extent (the four-legged animals, not people, lest anyone think I'm insulting postal workers), is notorious for mysteriously losing mail, or delivering mail many months later. Needless to say it's easy to quickly get fed up with this option and my penpals quit palling me. Fedex and UPS are out of the question, charging more than 30 dollars for a mere envelope.

Makes you wonder how NAFTA is such a moneymaker, with all that international transport that's cruising up and down the continent, huh? Share a little of the cheap freight fees with the little people, guys!

Anyways, to make a long story short, all these years of staying connected online have led to me sharing a good deal of my life online, both the personal and the political. I now blog regularly on two blogs while maintaining my projects website. The other day, my coauthor of Amor and Exile, Nate Hoffman, nominated me for a Netroots Nation Scholarship as an Immigration Scholar. It's an opportunity to attend a national progressive conference in Providence, RI in June, and meet other grassroots/online activists. I wasn't 100% it was something I could be competitive at, but, at least in these first 24 hours, I've been pleasantly surprised.

Not only was I surprised at the application/profile statement I was able to put together, and that among the many hats I wear I actually am a bonafide blogger, but I am totally touched by the outpouring of support from my community who's voting for me. In an exile situation that is often disorienting culturally and professionally, even if I don't win the scholarship, it'll be heartening to know that at least some of my efforts to clarify who I am and what I stand for are reaching their target—my extended community.

p.s. if it's May 2 or prior, you can still vote for me at http://democracyforamerica.com/netroots_nation_scholarships/1776-nicole-salgado

April 28, 2011

Exciting News: AmorandExile.com Goes Live

It's been many years in the making...but I am finally going public and sharing the story behind my move to Mexico with my husband Margarito in the book Amor and Exile—ours is one of several couples' profiled by my coauthor and friend, journalist Nathaniel Hoffman—I'll be contributing several chapters in 1st person. You can find more information about the book, its coauthors, and related stories and links on amorandexile.com, which we're publicly unveiling today! Looking forward to your feedback!

I began blogging about our impending move in the summer of 2006- chronicled here in the Succulent Seer archives. That said, I first envisioned a memoir book project as early as 2007...around the same time my colleague Nathaniel developed a strong interest in chronicling the stories of other couples in similar situations as ours. Now, Nathaniel and I are committed to creating a powerful journalistic and first-hand treatment of the situation that thousands of couples find themselves in America and abroad- a difficulty (sometimes impossibility) in adjusting the status of the undocumented partner despite the other partner's American citizenship.

I am very excited about this collaboration and the continued writing process—after all, we have only just begun! Although Succulent Seer will continue to be my personal blog, there will definitely be some cross-pollination between the two sites- I'll have periodic updates about the book project here, and you can also find Amor and Exile on Facebook, where you can follow our latest happenings and comments from others involved in the project.

April 17, 2011

Lying to Ourselves

On the north side of the "Western" Hemisphere there is a trilateral juxtaposition of geopolitical boundaries referred to as Canada, United States, and Mexico-which really is a landmass called North America- perhaps it is most accurately known as Turtle Island, as many First Nation and bioregionalist people have called it....

In any case, for reasons you can find in myriad history books and magazines, the center geographical space in that landmass -the United States- long ago a thriving hub of fairly freely moving indigenous communities and commerce routes for the entire continent, has in 500 years become a magnet for migrants worldwide. At first this was met with suspicion (then welcome for some) on the part of the indigenous people. It would be outside the scope of my ability to fully summarize the variety of indigenous reactions to the European entry and later violent conquest of their lands. But suffice it to say that these people remain, for better or for worse, in their ancestral lands, while the "white man" now claims original stake to the country of which it technically, was once merely a guest.

The persons in control of these geopolitical zones, no matter what color their skin, now demand duly stamped pieces of paper to prove a person's right to move autonomously across arbitrary lines determined by "national laws," and "executive powers" and woe to the person who does not, in their eyes, meet the qualifications of someone fit to travel freely across those lines.

Isn't that ironic? It's as if someone came into your home against your will, you tried to be nice to them, but they eventually killed half your family, set up shop in your front yard, and then proceeded to dictate who could come over to party at your house and then acted like you never had anything to do with the situation and that what they were doing was perfectly justified. This might sound like a bit of a weird interpretation of national borders and immigration law to you. But it's because we, with average lifespans of about 80 years, and our greatly enhanced modern ability to forget the lessons of history, can very easily overlook all that's happened on this corner of the world in the last 500+ years. It's especially easy for us to act as if we are absolutely entitled to those papers and the rights that come with them, especially when it means our right to a Spring Break vacation in Cabo- but not a Northward vacation for the Southern folks that'll be serving your all-inclusive Brunch.

I might be a little more bitter than most because, although I myself am not restrained in my movement because I hail from the middle latitudes by birth, was lucky enough to experience birth in the brain center of this get rich quick and easy scheme, my husband happened to be born en el otro lado (on the other side) to parents also of el otro lado and for that reason (and many other I have not mentioned nor have space and time to do so here) he is not deemed appropriate for northern travel and instance. My daughter, oddly, is. That's because although she was also born en el otro lado like her dad, she also hailed from my this middle latitude mother's womb- but I digress.

The reason why I write is because three occurrences converge in space and time in this little person's life that make me reflect on the idiocy of current immigration law:

My husband (who for at least the next 5 years won't be able to begin to apply for a U.S. visa & for that reason can't legally travel there) was denied a Canadian tourist visa earlier this month. Bottom line results of this small act are; he probably will never see my grandmother again (she is almost 90 and can't come here to Mexico), and I will be forced to travel alone with our infant daughter north so she can meet her great-grandaughter, unless some small miracle happens and some angels come to help me.
A high-profile Dreamer (student immigration rights activist in the U.S.) is being very seriously threatened with deportation http://prernalal.com/2011/04/gw-law-student-prepares-for-the-trial-of-her-life/
A good friend of ours, who has not seen my husband since we moved here to Mexico in 2006, is visiting us for Spring Break. In reminiscing about what our life used to be up in the U.S., I am forced to remember all the things I miss- but also what makes me most angry about this truly unjust situation.

Honestly, as Americans we have more rights and privileges than we know what to do with. But despite this, we are probably the #1 complainers in the world. (Do they have stats on that? I am pretty sure we are at least ranked one of the most unhappy cultures) At what cost do we alienate the rest of the world, convincing our neighbors to do the same, even to our best and brightest, whether they have exactly the right order of stamps on their multiple sheafs of paper. When will we grow up and see that, playground rules aside, we're not doing ourselves any favors by continuing to lie to ourselves that we're all about "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," but that what we're really about is getting whatever we want, when we want it, no matter who we have to step on to get it, and that we are exporting that way of life around the world and then wondering why we have so much violence and so many problems?

January 3, 2011

Selected Blog Archives from 2006-2010 (Yahoo)

These posts encompass the time from when I first moved to Mexico with my husband Margarito, to our first winter with our daughter. Together, they cover a lot of territory!

2006