Habseligkeiten

Vinnie went to the vet today to get spayed. She was overdue. The poor cat had no idea what was about to happen to her when I grabbed her by the scruff and placed her in a cardboard carrier where she stayed, despite her desperate meows to be freed, until I got to the vet's office.

The veterinarian office was in Bisbee-San Jose, a few miles from Naco and the border. I left the house with the dogs at 8:30am and drove eastward in the cold morning air. The vet office didn’t open until 9am, and I used the free time to walk the dogs along an ATV trail nearby. The dogs were grateful, as all three of them had to poop.

It was a cold morning, our first below-40F morning this fall. The backyard grass was coated in a fine layer of frost. An even colder morning is forecasted for tonight.

I stopped at the river on the way home to give the dogs some free time to run. They hadn’t been walked in three days and their pent-up energy was visible. The Girls ran back and forth up the sandy banks of the river, chasing each other and growling in playful delight. The dogs were tracking endless scents along the immigrant trail.

It was a pleasant walk. The red-winged grasshoppers started coming out of their frosty sleep. The sun was high enough by 10am to warm up the ground. I passed a beaver dam and walked underneath the shady canopies of cottonwoods half-bare from fallen leaves.

A USBP helicopter swooped down shortly after we headed on a well-trodden immigrant trail that paralled the river. It was 10:10am. The sound reminded me briefly of the A-10 Warthogs that would take off from Baghdad whenever the base was attacked by incoming rounds. I stopped in my tracks. Was it me the agents were after? The helicopter followed the path of the River Trail further east of my position. I was walking southbound, so certainly I wasn’t too suspicious. Nor was I trespassing on private land.

I kept the dogs along a wide, dry wash and turned around when I noticed I was going too far south. Some parts of the trail were in tall reed grasses bent by human traffic. The grass was bent facing north. Trash littered in piles along the river: empty plastic bottles, candy wrappers and leftover granola bars..

The trash was even more obvious as I went back north. Backpacks, large black plastic bags (immigrants use the plastic to wrap themselves at night) and discarded plastic bottles, food bags and clothing. A pair of high heels stood by a small pile of clothes. Under-wire bras, long-sleeved sweaters and undergarments were scattered around a cottonwood.

A small black plastic bag contained penicillin tablets and other legal medicines.

Habseligkeiten, I thought. That’s German for paltry personal possessions. The word has a bittersweet ring to it. It's always in plural form. Why did that word suddenly come to my mind when I saw those scattered personal effects across the trail? Images of German World War II refugees came to mind, images of Families in war-torn Germany wandering with what few possessions they could spare after American bombing raids demolished their homes.

I grew up listening to the tragic war stories of my German grandmother, who together with my mother had to run from the American bombing raids over Magdeburg where they lived. She gathered what she could into several large bags. "Wir haben alles verloren--we lost everything" she would tell us, her eyes always drifting and her voice always quivering with the pain of distant grief.

If my own mother hadn't had the courage to flee Communist East Germany after that war, I could have been born a German. I never would have had the freedoms Americans enjoy who are born in this country. I will always be grateful to my mother for allowing me to be born an American.

Perhaps that is why, despite my anger at blatantly breaking the laws, I can not completely deny immigrants entry into the United States for a better way of life. (Or why I always want my government to reserve war as a last chance.)

I just wish they would immigrate legally. Our immigration laws must be changed to give all who request, and all those who pass background checks, entry into this country LEGALLY. That also means giving those who have already applied and who are waiting, a legal entry into this country.

One backpack contained personal identification. A photo-copied voter registration card from the Instituto Federal Electoral was folded in one side pocket. (This is a legal document for Mexican immigrants in Arizona.). The photograph on the front was of an indigenous woman, 23-year-old Maria Yesenia, from Ojo de Agua las Salinas, a small fishing community of Copala in the province of Guerrero, not far from Guatemala. She was staring at the camera when the photograph was taken, her black hair pulled to the back, exposing her gold loop earrings. On the back was a fingerprint and a holograph. I have no doubt she had little chance of advancing in life as an indigenous woman..

The other identification was an immigration permit for Elena Galvez, issued by the Secretaria de Gobernacion and stamped 27 October 2008 .

Both women were lucky to make it across before this week’s freezing temperatures.

http://mexico.pueblosamerica.com/i/ojo-de-agua-las-salinas/