What a week in Arizona! 

Each day, I had the honor of driving the second white van filled with our caravan of students, with Mrs. Chapman as co-pilot, trying to keep pace with our guide, Ms. Kenenna Amuize, a Lasallian Volunteer. How many red lights did we infringe upon to keep up? Sorry, Arizona drivers.

In all seriousness, I did get a little nervous every time we drove up to a check-point. I promised my 86-year old Mexican-American father that I would carry my U.S. passport with me at all times. He was fortunate to have been born in Franklin Park, IL in 1928. But my grandparents, Vicente Martinez and Francisco Rivera, were Mexican citizens, who arrived in Chicago in 1918 to work on the railroads. To this day, I'm not sure whether my grandmother (who died in Chicago in 1983) had a green card, or was an "illegal alien" [I hate that term. No human being is illegal in God's eyes! We are all "aliens" on our earthly journey to the Promised Land, that God has waiting for us at the end of our lives.]

My grandparents and dad were economically repatriated back to Mexico from Chicago when the Depression hit--there were no jobs for Mexicans, let alone Americans; even though my father held U.S. citizenship, he grew up in a Mexican culture in central Mexico (Guanajuato province) and later moved North, where he crossed the border daily at the bridge separating Ciudad Juarez/El Paso, as a migrant worker, picking in the fields. His family was welcomed back to Chicago as the WWII war economy expanded, necessitating additional workers.

How ironic, that I had a van-load of high school kids at the border, who were the same age as my father, when he crossed the border on a daily basis. For security reasons, we could only look through the iron gates from the Nogales, U.S. side. I felt a tinge of sadness when we carried on a conversation through the perforated wall with a little boy and girl getting out of school in Nogales, Mexico. [I was reminded of my one week visit to Berlin while on a Fulbright Scholarship, in April of 1988, crossing the Berlin wall at Checkpoint Charlie.] This too, is a city artificially divided by a random "line in the sand." What was our excuse? Keeping out Mexican Communists?

Back to the driving--a couple times the Border Patrol stopped us at checkpoints, asking if we were all U.S. Citizens. One of our girls had become a U.S. citizen within the past year. Another girl asked Ms. Amuize ahead of time, "Should I bring my Green Card with me?" Ms. Amuize herself, is a Nigerian citizen. The Border Patrol was probably eyeing our white van, wondering if we were smuggling illegal migrants. As the officer looked into our van, he saw numerous dark faces. We had spent the day in the canyons of Arivaca dropping off water, for potential immigrants working their way up, al norte, to a chance at a better life. Were we being watched? Was it simply a chance encounter, when a U.S. Border Patrol helicopter flew over our trail of 10 people? I waved to the chopper yelling "Somos illegales." I don't think he heard me, or my tone of sarcasm and protest. (Our guides were former political activists, John Heid and Stephen, the former guide active in the Plowshares Movement in the 1970's.)

Back to the driving--70 years ago, if stopped, my father would have protested, "I'm a U.S. citizen."

95 years ago, my grandfathers would have said, "we're heading north to build and maintain your railroads,  "pero somos mexicanos." In 2013, I'm stopped and asked about my citizenship, and I whisper to myself, "I'm befuddled by the whole situation in Nogales and Arizona. Why don't we recognize the human dignity of these people; why are people like 14-year old Josseline Quintero, dying in the Arivacan wilderness?" 

Someday, God (joined by St. Peter at the golden fence) will be awaiting our arrival at the border to heaven, we who are pilgrims on our journey toward eternal life. God will not need to rely on infa-red imaging goggles or censors in the sand to tell Him we've crossed the border from this life to eternal life. What will you say to God about your actions in the desert? Did you help Jesus when he was thirsty? when Jesus is disguised as a Latin-American immigrant?

In God's eyes, "Ningun ser humano es ilegal! No human being is illegal!" 

-Live Jesus in our Hearts!