PROMISED LAND

The anti-Semitism of today … is no object in itself. It is nothing but a wrench to unscrew, bit by bit, the whole machinery of our civilization. Or, to use an up-to-date simile, Anti-Semitism is like a hand grenade tossed over the wall to work havoc and confusion in the camp of democracy. That is its real and main purpose.

-Thomas Mann, 1930

We’re taking people out of the country — you wouldn’t believe how bad these people are. These aren’t people. These are animals

-D Trump, 2017

The sky is blue and the air is too when she sees them. The grass is green and her eyes go grey when she sees them. The girl sees that group of them there on her street and her heart speeds forward and she flies to her house, she flies there, her feet wings; she is inside now, her chest heaving.

She pushes the door shut behind herself, breathing in spasms, a fast and shallow breathing that makes her dizzy.  She hears their knocks, their animal yells.  She shuts her eyes hard; she has to think. Fast and violent they knock. They are knocking. It is not knocking; they bang. They bang and they bang. They are searching. She has to think. Her heart pounds. The closet is stupid. It is too simple. That is where they will look. Right away they will rush to look in a closet. They will tear open the door with loaded rifle in hand and they will stick it into her side as they scream in barks at her. If she hides in a closet. She must think. A cupboard! the cupboard, how brilliant! She scrambles into the kitchen. She makes herself into a ball. She is 19, but she scrunches up small and pulls the cabinet door toward herself from inside. She is a terrified ball scrunched hard and tight and she can hear them banging, still, at her door. They bash it in. She hears them bash the door in, and then down. The door on the ground now, they are tearing through her house and she holds her breath tight. She must hold it as long as she can, though she is shaking. She must shut her eyes and hold it and hold it and hold her breathing until there is nothing.

Five days ago they took her brother. They have already taken her brother.  They took her father too then. They called them animals, criminals. They turned them into criminals just by calling them that. That is how language works the girl understands. She knows about language. They were here illegally, the angry men yelled, THAT MAKES YOU A CRIMINAL, the angry men yelled. PUT UP YOUR HANDS! ALIEN!!

Hands in the air, they shoved her old father into the ground. They kicked at her old father. She heard the thud.

But Daniela, she is a dreamer. She remembers she is a dreamer. They did not take her that day because of this fact. She closes her eyes and in her mind she sees all the things she wants and has wanted and she knows what she must do. She must go speak before people. There will be cameras and a crowd and she will tell all those people the story of her father. The story of her brother. She will tell how she hid in the cupboard. She stopped breathing. For what seemed like many many minutes she stopped breathing in that cupboard while the angry men searched for her. She heard their enraged grunts as they tore her house apart.

It was hard for her to speak on the day that she spoke before people. It was hard. She had thought she would cy as she said things. But she didn’t.  She wants to be a teacher, she told everyone, their faces jutting eager up at her. She wants to teach young people math. Daniela finishes speaking. Was that her voice which was just speaking? She looks down, into the mic. Shy again. The shy girl she was before they kicked her father. She reaches out, her hand searching for something; her fingers touch the mic. People cheer and she is confused. She smiles a little and allows herself to feel happy for one moment.

She shouldn’t have done that she will think later. She should not have allowed herself to feel anything. She was walking with a friend, and she allowed herself to feel happy. And it was then that they fell upon her. They charged at her and they shoved her friend away, and Daniela’s face contorted in confusion. Her friend cried out her name, Daniela!, as the angry men grabbed her, Daniela!, as they thrust her hands behind her back so hard she thought her shoulder would snap. And with that pain she stopped hearing her name.

She is a straight A honor student, she wants to say. She has just told the eager faces this fact. She just wants to be a math teacher.  Her father has worked hard all his life. She wants to tell them this too. Her father works and he works, cutting dead birds open, deboning the chicken that all of you eat, she wants to say. It is hard work, everyday work, Daniela wants to cry. He stinks of it. She cries when she thinks it. But she knows it will not matter what she says to these men. She is arrested.

This President sees every instance of resistance as a personal slight, and many understand Daniela’s arrest as retaliatory; for girls are not allowed to speak. If a girl who is a dreamer does not have the money to file her paperwork on time, she will be arrested. Especially if she dares to think that she can speak. No lapse will be forgiven.

And in jail Daniela sweeps the floors… as she thinks of the blue sky and the green grass that she knows still grows outside as she cleans the bathrooms and helps in the kitchen. She wonders after her father as she helps mend the fences and then before bedtime cuts the other prisoner’s hair. She is a prisoner and a slave both, for this prison makes a profit out of making criminals of people like her. This is the system that separates mothers from children so they can work harder. They take their babies from them so that the women can work. They tear their babies from their arms, mother and child both weeping, and then they call the mothers beasts and they make them work for a dollar a day. These prisons give so much money to the angry man who is a president now. Daniela knows that the prisons helped elect that man; and she knows they make a profit out of making criminals of people like her.

Daniela knows too that her story is not the hardest. Daniela knows this. It is only one story. The mothers with infants who have been torn from their arms make her feel ashamed. She has to turn her eyes away.

She has heard that the government has lost thousands of these torn away children. She has heard that many are forced to work on farms, for long twelve-hour days. There is no pay for these torn away children, only tears and pain and motherless nights. Daniela knows that her story is not the hardest. It is only one story.

Daniela was fourteen when her parents brought her here… they propped her up on stories of Mickey Mouse, and ice cream cones, and hot dogs and parades, and then, after they finished their vacation, they decided they could stay. Should they stay? Maybe they had always known that they would stay, her parents. They stayed and they got jobs deboning dead birds for 11 cents a pound. Be careful you do not cut your hands instead of their thighs, Daniela’s father told her brother when he too went to work there at fifteen … be cautious with those cutting slicing knives.

For Daniela Vargas

Veronica Gonzalez Peña

May, 2018