Today the world’s busiest border is closed while men, women and children are being attacked. Last night, I crossed back into into the United States at the border at San Ysidro after spending three days cooking and preparing a Thanksgiving meal for these migrants who have come under fire while protesting, all while trying to seek legal asylum.
For the second time in the past four days, the border is closed. The media is reporting a group broke through militarized efforts to keep them at bay, away from the border. According to some who live at the border, a few tried to break through the fence and other friends who live there say they are protesting. They are holding hand-painted American flags, chanting “we are not criminals, we are international workers” as rubber bullets are being fired at them and gas is being released by the very country they are trying so desperately to enter. A few people from the caravan threw rocks, while another tried to reach land to seek asylum. A team of CBP, police and military have shut down the Las Americas Mall on the U.S. side and police are currently telling everyone to leave the area. But our country is not under attack. Our country is simply standing for what it has always stood for: a beacon of hope and a ray of light for those seeking a better life.
The only attack on the U.S. is coming from the racism, exclusionism and xenophobia that aims to kill Horatio Alger’s tale of the American Dream. That aims to be the nail in the coffin of what America once stood for—the same words that are written on the tablets of the Statue of Liberty. The only attack on America is from the gun it is pointing at itself aimed at the American values and morals that were once encompassed in a holiday called “Thanksgiving”.
In elementary school we are taught that Thanksgiving is celebration to remember to give thanks, to gather, share and to commemorate the “First Thanksgiving”. The Pilgrims of Plymouth, Massachusetts sat around a table with 90 Native Americans to give thanks to the harvest that year in 1621. They celebrated an earnest relationship between the pilgrims and the local native Americans who had taught the immigrants how to survive by planting corn and catching eel as well as providing supplies when those brought from England were insufficient.
Every year, a country founded by European ancestors celebrates a holiday where we were once the hungry, the poor, the dying—the people who needed help from those who knew the land and had the knowledge to survive. These pilgrims sought this help in order to survive because the dream of a better life in a new place outweighed the prospects of going back to where they came from. These hopes and dreams of those European immigrants are not much different than those of the immigrants and asylum seekers currently residing in Tijuana hoping for the chance of a better life. That is why I chose to celebrate my Thanksgiving by making food for the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free teeming at the border in Tijuana.
I had awoke at 3 a.m. a couple days before Thanksgiving and turned to the news on my phone to pass the early morning hours before falling back asleep. The news was riddled with a demonization of the “migrant caravan” and a few videos of actual people making this trek who are fleeing a collapsing economy, violent gangs and a corrupt government that the U.S. is responsible for. I felt a deep punch to my gut and I knew I couldn’t stomach the hypocrisy of celebrating the upcoming holiday gathered around a table gorging myself on food, “celebrating” European immigrants being welcomed to this land while our current American government and media demonized a group of migrants trying to find a better, safer life. With a personal family history that dates back to the Mayflower, I couldn’t find any honor in celebrating those who paved the way for me to exist in this country when we have people just 15 miles away from my house seeking the same opportunities for their children and future descendents. As little of an impact I knew I would make, I decided to make a traditional Thanksgiving meal and build a bridge instead of a wall and let the migrants know that not all of America felt they should be unwelcomed.
The First Thanksgiving took place over the course of three days, coincidentally it took three days to gather food, cook, and gather a few crazy people to help me cook and deliver the food to some of the migrants. I had called my friends at The Heart & Trotter Butchery to see if I can swing by and pick up a couple leftover turkeys for the cause and they graciously handed over three twenty pound turkeys and for 17 hours I cooked 60 pounds of Turkey, way more green bean casserole than I’d like to admit and some mashed potatoes. Amplified donated some boxes to package the food into and on Thanksgiving Day as I was finishing up the food I got a call from James saying there was extra Turkeys and he was going to cook eight more turkeys to help out and that he’d help deliver the food as well. It reminded me of that recent TED Talk of how crazy people start things all the time, but you really need the crazier, second person to follow suit to really make something happen and James was my second crazy person.
The next call I received was from Marla Gamez, a journalist and friend currently in TJ working with different shelters to help the migrants and who would help me figure out where to deliver the food. She explained that the border had been closed and there was fear of a potential clash at the border and that I should not come on Thanksgiving Day. She had been working with some of the more vulnerable people of the group: women, children and people of the LGBTQ community. She said they were trying to lie low and to wait until Saturday to deliver the food. I was slightly disappointed, but this really meant that I had more time and could just finish the eight more turkeys with less of a hectic schedule.
Everyday up until yesterday was consumed with trying to cook as much food as humanly possible. Despite the reports of some people in Tijuana also being upset at the mass amount of people in the city, my good friend Ruffo Ibarra who owns Oryx Capital in Tijuana signed on to help me heat up the food and give us a place to individually package the food into 250 boxes. Of course, being Ruffo, he couldn’t just reheat food. He recreated all the food, adding bone marrow to the turkey to add moisture, french honey to the cranberry sauce and mushrooms and spices to the green bean casserole to create a “Tex-mex” casserole and I had found my third crazy friend to help with the endeavor to celebrate the true meaning of Thanksgiving. When his staff came in for work they looked shocked that the kitchen had been taken over, but they quickly helped us finish the food before service began. How useless I felt in that moment as eight different people I’d barely met who just came in for another day of work, was the source of an immense amount of joy for Thanksgiving and pride for my good friend in what a great staff he has.
Over 36 hours of cooking 11 free-range turkeys, three crazy people, eight surprised kitchen staff and one passionate journalist later, we arrived at a local shelter with 250 individual packages of Thanksgiving dinner. All the work, all the effort and we realized it wasn’t enough. The shelter was teeming with hungry, tired, beat down men, women and children. There was a clinic next to the shelter for the migrants. A chorus of coughing echoed against the shy chatter. These people were some of the most vulnerable in the caravan group and there was a sea of them. Stained clothing, dirt on their faces - it was obvious they’d come a long way but were holding out to truly rest as we could tell their journey was far from over.
As we set up a table to serve the food they organized a line with women and children to be served first and a second line for the men, if there was food leftover. I had half expected a frenzy to occur, hungry people grabbing for what they could, but it never happened. They waited in line, graciously each asking or gesturing for permission to take a box of food. We had to start purposefully handing to the food to them as to say, “Yes, take this. It is meant for you” and the food was gone in less than ten minutes and it was nowhere near enough. This shelter represented just a small percentage of the whole group who was there and the more that are on their way—seeking a better life.
As we approached the border last night there was a strange taste in the air. There was a strange familiarity of the usual border line vendors hustling to sell illuminated balloons and ceramic Jesus statues and for a moment I felt like maybe everything would work out. As we approached the port of entry however, it was clear this was not the same as any other day crossing the border. The vendors hadn’t taken a break because they knew some sort of peace I didn’t, they didn’t stop hustling because they couldn’t afford to. Even with the “Welcome to the United States of America” signs covered in shiny barbed wire looming over them, they were there hustling as if it were just the same as always. And when the Border Patrol came out in full riot gear, and when the police came out in full riot gear, and when the military marched out in a single file lines between the thousands of vehicles waiting in line—they graciously moved aside to continue their hustle. I couldn’t help but wonder how they felt about what was happening. I wonder what they think now, today that the border is closed and they can’t make a dollar from a burrito, or sell a sombrero to a tourist. I wonder where the puppies are that were being sold and if they found homes last night.
The “migrant caravan” of “dangerous people” as our “president” likes to call them are not dangerous - hell they’re not even rude. Yesterday, they barely wanted to look me in the face, almost as if they were undeserving of food. Yesterday children smiled as they ate from the small boxes. Today they are raising hand-painted American flags as rubber bullets are flying towards them, children are crying as they are met with tear gas and all I am left with is a feeling of “it wasn’t enough”. All I can hope is that a few people seeking a better life can have a little more energy from yesterday’s meal to fuel their fight for a better life than where they came from.
“Fake News,” screams our 45th president of the United States of America. Anything against him, anything against his agenda is labeled “Fake News.” Right now, as I type this, the media is reporting “clashes” between the migrant refugees from Central America and saying they “broke through” the police line in Tijuana to reach the border fence. These people are protesting, chanting, “we are not criminals” and they are being attacked with tear gas and with rubber bullets while headlines read, “Migrants Rush the U.S. Border.” These words are harmful, these phrases incite fear and they are not warranted. This is the only “Fake News” I see.
#MakeThanksgivingGreatAgain
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