Mi Libertad - My Freedom

In my last post I told about some of the boys in detention that I had met and the songs that they had written for a music concert. On a return visit I asked the staff for a copy of the lyrics to the songs and they gave me the entire song book that the boys had written. Each dormitory wrote songs for the concert.  About three quarters of the songs are about girls and the rest about prison. Considering they are 14-17 year old boys, I was lucky that any of the songs talked about prison life!

The song "Visiting Day" was written by the boys of Dormitory 1 which is the "new comers' " dormitory. These kids have been in prison for maybe four or five days, which in my mind make the words of "Visiting Day" sting a bit deeper. Here is another song written by Dormitory 1 called "Mi Libertad" or "My Freedom":

“I WANT TO LEAVE THIS PLACE
SO THAT MY LIFE CAN CHANGE
TO BE DIFFERENT TO EVERYBODY
AND TO BE ABLE TO EMBRACE MY LADY
AND NEVER AGAIN TURN TO ROBBING
AND WITH MY FAMILY I CAN ENJOY
MY FREEDOM, MY FREEDOM.”

“TO GO TO SCHOOL AND STUDY
THE CHANCE TO HOOK UP WITH A GIRL
AND I CAN MAKE IT LIKE A NORMAL MAN
I START TO SING WITH ALL THE BAND
AND ALL THE BAND WILL TELL YOU
VALUE YOUR LIFE AND YOUR FREEDOM
YOUR FREEDOM, YOUR FREEDOM
YOUR FREEDOM, YOUR FREEDOM.”

My Year in Mexico's Juvenile Prisons

I knocked on the guardhouse. When the stern-faced guarded opened the gate I showed him my ID and my letter authorizing me to enter the Mexico City boys’ prison. I registered, removed my belt and left everything but my notepad and pen. Then he led me down a passageway and into the large courtyard of the juvenile prison.

The director, a slender middle-aged woman named Alejandra gave me a lengthy tour of the facility; the dining room, kitchen, courtyard, wood shop, class rooms, and dormitories. As we went to each of the eight dormitories, she would ask the boys “Are you treated well? Are you well fed? Do you have any complaints?” Yes, Yes and No were the automatic answers each time.

Some boys were playing soccer in a concrete courtyard.  Others stood in a circle joking with a guard. They all wore the same “uniform” of blue sweatpants, white t-shirts and blue flip-flops.  It left an impression of happy boy with enriching activities, kind of like summer camp.

The last stop on the tour was a guitar class. The volunteer music teacher sat with about ten boys and they all played and sang a song they had written called Visiting Day:

“I feel so sad

I am angry

Because I am here

But I trust

In my family

Even though I did not want to listen.”

“Misplaced

Out of control

I cannot be happy here

When all of my family is somewhere else

Being locked up is so hard.”

“Saturday and Sunday

Families hurry to see their kids

And try to have a good time.

Even though it is just a little while

To be together even though they are locked up.

Because it´s the law.”

“The sad rain

Of Families crying

Because they have to be separated

For all of the damage

They have caused

By following evil men.”

“They didn’t realizing

That so many people

Support and love them

When they were in the street

Always drugged

My poor mother looked

To the heavens crying.”

“Saturday and Sunday…

Because it’s the law

Because it’s the law.”

The boys had written a dozen such songs for an upcoming music program. These were not summer camp songs. “With my shadow I am not alone”, “I want to be like air to be in anyplace” and “I do not want to be chained, I do not want to die here” were some of the lines from their songs.

Once the boys found out that I was an American lawyer they all wanted to tell me their stories.  Most of them had been grabbed off the street by the police without knowing why they were being arrested. One mother, who tightly held her son’s hand, told me she had searched all over the city for him the day he disappeared and finally found him the next morning at the juvenile prison.

Most kids saw their parents every weekend on visiting day. Not Pablo.[1] Pablo was a small, smiley little thirteen-year-old. He hadn’t talked to his parents in weeks. They didn´t even know he was in prison. Pablo came from an indigenous community in the mountains of Oaxaca about eight hours from Mexico City. Despite his smile, he was scared and very alone.

The most ubiquitous image of juvenile delinquency in the Mexican media is the “niño sicario” or child assassin, a thirteen year old boy who confessed to participating in ten murders. Despite the sensational journalism surrounding this one case, 90 percent of the juveniles in Mexico City were arrested for property crimes and less than three percent for homicide.

The justice system is hard on petty criminals but ineffective at prosecuting organized crime and violent offenses. This is because prosecutors rely almost exclusively on confessions, often extracted by mistreatment or torture, but they are not experienced in building complex cases based on carefully gathered evidence. The United States Agency for International Development has been helping Mexico reform its justice system and increase the respect for human rights. But almost no resources have gone to the juvenile system.

I wished Pablo luck, just like I wished luck and said a prayer for every child I met. They would need it.

Kids in Mexico’s detention system often suffer from depression and stop going to school. Some will join gangs and be rearrested as adults for serious crimes. The lack of services to help them transition back makes Mexico’s public security problems worse by turning petty-criminals into serious adult offenders.

As I left I thanked Pablo for talking to me. He was accused of a petty theft and would normally be released on bail. But until his parents showed up and paid $450 he would stay in prison.  Pablo wasn’t alone. About ten percent of the kids here couldn’t afford to pay bail and had to stay in prison for up to six months until the end of their trials. Because it’s the law, because it’s the law.

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[1] Pablo´s name was changed to protect his identity.

"Why did you come back to Mexico?"

It seems that even more Mexicans have been asking me and my family what we decided to come back to Mexico than Americans asked us before we left. Now, mostly these are acquaintances who imagine that we must have an amazing life in the US, for whom it is unfathomable that anybody would choose to stay in Mexico when they could retreat to the paradise of America.

But  for our Mexican friends, who know that we came back without guaranteed jobs and are really taking a huge leap of faith to be here, it is even more puzzling. They are really curious about why we came back. At a recent birthday party for one of Sally's classmates, a couple of parents really wanted to get to the bottom of this with me. I had to laugh a little bit inside too when they asked, "so are you missionaries?" They could see the faith connection to what we are doing in Mexico, but couldn't quite put it together (I am still trying to figure it out for myself!).

"And why are you working with juveniles in prison?" That was the topping on the cake. Americans choosing to live in Mexico. Without a job (yet). And working with criminals. I could see the gears grinding to a halt in their heads.

When we were in Mexico last year Amanda ran into a pastor in a restaurant. He was an American missionary kid who had grown up in Mexico and married a Mexican woman. Amanda kept connection with him on Facebook and we invited them over to our house for dinner last week. He asked the same question. Why?

I told him about working in Argentina at a boys home and how it gave me a broader view of my faith and the world. I told him that I had once thought about being a preacher or pastor or even a missionary. But that wasn't where I was at any longer. But I believe that my faith compels me to use my talents and education to seek justice. That just making money and finding security in material things makes me feel empty. And I believe we are trying to do God's work. Satan wants kids to rot in prison and waste their lives. God wants kids to be surround by love. And that is why we came back to Mexico.

I guess I could have just said "I love Mexico! My work fills me with purpose."

“Now, tell me again why you are going back to Mexico”

Well, I bought our tickets to go back to Mexico today. September 18^th. We are all very excited to go back to Mexico City. And also apprehensive as our plans are much less firm than we would like. Neither Amanda nor I have a for-sure job. Amanda is starting her photography business when we get back and hoping to do lots of baptisms, weddings, quinceañeras, birthdays and family sessions.  Plus she will keep volunteering at the girls’ home. I will be working on getting the research I finished last year on kids in prison published in Mexico and presenting it at a few conferences. I also am working on some new project proposals but I don’t have any funding yet to stay long-term.

But the reaction to us going back has been…. mixed. Now, when we went to Mexico a year ago I had a Fulbright Fellowship, so it was easier to explain why we were going. Without a plan set in stone, it is a bit easier to question our wisdom about going back now. Most of the less-enthusiastic reactions have been from our “church” friends and family.

The one understandable reason for my family to live in Mexico and work with at-risk kids would be if we were MISSIONARIES (queue the angles’ “awww”). Sorry, we are not missionaries. At least not how you're thinking. We are not trying to start new churches, convince people to stop going to catholic church, street preaching, or translating the Bible into indigenous languages.

But we do believe that trying to live like Jesus means living outside our comfort zone. We do believe that we can learn something about our Maker by learning about and living in other cultures. We do believe that using our talents and passions to contribute to a more just society is following Jesus.

Ultimately, the decision to go back to Mexico was easy to make but also full of apprehension. I’ve had more sleepless nights thinking worrying about whether we would be able to make it in Mexico this coming year or not. While deciding to leave our house and jobs and move out to DC for law school was a big step, going back to Mexico is the biggest step of faith our family has taken. We have been praying a lot. We appreciate your prayers, positive thoughts, and words of encouragement.

Of course, it might not work out for us in Mexico and we will be back to the US looking for “real jobs” by January!

If My Boys Were Still Alive...

I don't believe in destiny. I don't believe how people say God has a plan for my life, at least not in the way they usually mean it. I don't believe that God directs every event.  Or that people die because it was part of "God's plan." People who smoke are more likely to die from cancer. People who don't wear their seat belts are more likely to die in a car crash. Unless you believe God just happens to "call home" more people who don't wear seat belts.

I believe that there are other ways my life could have turned out. If I had made different decisions. If random events had transpired differently. If my boys hadn't died.

It is strange to think, but I believe it is true, that if my twin boys hadn't been born at 22 weeks and died that I would not be a human rights attorney. My family would not have moved to Washington DC or, later, to Mexico. Or that we may not have had my daughter who was born 22 months after the twins died.

I imagine my life with my boys. Being exhausted by them. Watching them play together. All the things that would have been difficult and amazing about watching them grow up. They would be six or seven by now. I think I would be happier.

Mostly I think about how it changed what I believe. I used to really think that bad things wouldn't happen to me. Not that nothing bad would happen. I thought that if I did something stupid that it could turn out badly. Or that something bad could happen. But I didn't really think that something irreversibly bad would ever really happen to me. It sounds so foolish to actually write it out. But that was what I thought. Some part of me did believe in a heavenly destiny for my life and I figured it would be pretty good most all of the time.

Imagine my shock when something irreversibly and unimaginably bad did happen. My believe system was completely de-constructed. God is good... God is all powerful... God hears us and answers... God acts in the world. All these beliefs were fair game.

What I have been left with is hope. It is a word that appears a lot in the Christian Bible, but isn't a popular word among Christians because knowing is so much more important. You have to know certain things and believe them without doubt. There is a continuum between Certain Belief and Doubt. I think the way we use the word hope makes Christians think it belongs right next to Doubt on that continuum. But Hope doesn't exist on that continuum at all.

But I hope. Hope is a much scarier place to live than Certainty. Without a net. It is also less judgmental, points fingers less, lectures less.

I hope God hears me. I hope that God loves me. I hope that there is something better when I die and that on that day I will see my boys again.