APEX Express – 03.28.24 – Stories from the Southern Border

KPFA - APEX Express

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.

This year, more than 24,000 Chinese migrants have made the dangerous 60-mile trek through the Darien Gap to cross the U.S.-Mexico border.

For this episode of AACRE Thursday, host Cheryl is joined by Annette Wong, Kelly Wong, and Kennis Chen, members of Chinese for Affirmative Action’s Immigrant Rights and Chinese Digital Engagement teams who flew down to the San Diego Migrant Welcome Center early March to meet the influx of Chinese migrants who would have otherwise had to rely on Google Translate for support.

In the three days the team was in San Diego, they had met people from all over the world. There were Vietnamese speakers, Arabic; Gujarati, Portuguese, in addition to Chinese, Spanish, and English. But according to CAA’s Managing Director of Programs, Annette Wong, “what folks were coming and looking for– it’s very much the same story. Economic opportunity. And family reunification.”

Important Resources:

• Chinese for Affirmative Action website
• Chinese for Affirmative Action Instagram
• Justice Patch article
• Kelly and Kennis’ Podcast: 第二十一集 | 美墨邊境走線者的故事: 追逐夢想與更美好生活 | EP21 | Chasing Dreams & A Better Life: Chinese Migrants at the Southern Border

Transcript

Cheryl Truong: Good evening, everyone. You were currently tuned in to APEX express on 94.1 KPFA. We are bringing you an Asian-American and Pacific Islander point of view from the bay and around the world. I’m your host, Cheryl Truong. And tonight is an AACRE night, a series on APEX express, where I highlight groups from within the AACRE network, AACRE being short for Asian Americans for civil rights and equality. APEX express is proud to be part of the acre network.

I am so excited to introduce you all to the guests on tonight’s show. They are from Chinese for Affirmative Action, You’ll hear it referred to as CAA all throughout tonight’s episode. They are people whose work I really admire and I feel so lucky to work closely with them through the AACRE Network.

A little bit of history. CAA was founded in 1969 and has for five decades now been a progressive voice in an on behalf of the broader API community. The advocate for systemic change that protects immigrant rights, promotes language diversity, and remedies racial and social injustice.

Early this March members from the Immigrant Rights and Chinese Digital Engagement Teams from CAA flew down to the San Diego Migrant Welcome Center to meet the influx of Chinese migrants who are crossing the Southern border. This year. More than 24,000 Chinese migrants have made the dangerous 60 mile Trek. Through the Darien gap to cross the U S Mexico border. The San Diego Migrant Center is only the first stop for thousands of migrants entering the United States, and is for many only the beginning of an even longer and greater journey.

Annette Wong: Earlier 2023, the immigrant rights team at CAA started to receive more and more calls from Chinese community members that were seeking asylum.

And so this kind of raised a flag for us to inquire a little bit more about why is this happening? Where is this coming from? Are other organizations that are similarly situated seeing the same trend? So we have been working with a couple partners that also do similarly kind of immigrant legal services in the Chinese community, and we also asked them, “Are you seeing the same uptick?” And the same kind of issue arising for them as well, where they’re getting this increase in calls of Chinese asylum seekers who are sharing a very similar story of coming in through the southern border.

And so, as a result, we started to pay more attention to what the news was reporting out about that phenomenon and paying attention more to what we’re also seeing in terms of the local impact in San Francisco.

Cheryl Truong: Speaking currently is Annette Wong. The managing director of programs at CAA.

Annette Wong: in the fall of 2023 a group called the Haitian Bridge Alliance reached out. At the time they were working out of the San Diego Migrant Welcome Center And provide services to migrants that are arriving from the southern border in San Diego. There were many groups that were staffing the center, but none of the groups were Chinese speaking, so they were having a lot of difficulty communicating with Chinese community members that were coming through. And yeah, that was how we got plugged in.

In December of 2023. We went down for our first trip.

Kennis Chen: when IR team first go down to San Diego last December, I was like so excited.

I was like, Oh, let me hear more about the stories. And this March, we have budget for one of the CDE advocate could go down there with IR team and see what is going on. And luckily, that person is me.

Definitely this time is more chaotic than last time. And I will say for me is. It’s both physically and mentally a challenge because I have many cultural and well language connection with those migrants, so I feel a lot for them. It’s an issue, but it also gives me some hope when seeing them.

Cheryl Truong: Speaking now is Kennis Chen, who is one of three members of the CDE team at CAA. CDE which stands for Chinese digital engagement. The CDE team does a lot of incredible work debunking right-wing misinformation and lifting up progressive viewpoints in Chinese language spaces, such as WeChat and Weibo which is a Chinese micro-blogging site whose name I, just Googled how to pronounce, and am probably saying wrong anyway.

Kennis who is absolutely my inspiration for being powerfully multilingual actually wrote about CAA’s experiences in San Diego in an article on JusticePatch.org, which is one of CAA’s Chinese language websites that has become a trusted source of in-language information for thousands of viewers. Because Justice Patch is not subject to the political censorship that occurs on platforms like WeChat, readers actually have access to a wider selection of content. Including more progressive commentary, fact checks, and news alerts. I’ll have Kennis’s article linked in the show notes and I’ll also have information on the ways you can stay engaged with CAA’s Chinese Digital Engagement work. For those interested in reading the article, but are like me and can’t read Chinese, the article actually has cool pictures in it. And if you scroll all the way to the bottom, you’ll actually see a list of English articles that were cited and used as resources when writing the article.

Speaking next is my dear colleague Kelly Wong, who is. part of CA’s immigrant rights team. the IR team as you’ll hear it referred to throughout the show.

Kelly Wong: When the Immigrant Rights team went last December, San Diego still funded a Migrant Welcome Center that’s allowed a migrants that were released from Customs and Border Protection, so, short for CBP. When they released the migrants last December, we have the center where the migrants can go there take some rest, and try to figure out what the next move would be. But this time, it’s a lot harder. In March the county government decided to pull out funding for the migrant center. As a result, the migrants actually didn’t get to drop off at the center anymore. They would just be released on the street and that make the whole situation a lot harder.

I didn’t join the group last time, so for me it is also my first time going to San Diego. I heard so much from my teammates as to what had happened before. And obviously from the news as well. So part of me is a little anxious, not gonna lie, just to not knowing what to do on the spot.

And I already foresee that it’s going to be a lot of challenges with languages because it’s not just Chinese migrants that’s going to be there, right? It’s going to be people from around the world that cross the border. So I think part of me is really anxious. But at the same time, I also really want to talk to migrants directly because, many things were said on the news, narratives, but these are actual human beings and people, right?

So I wanted to know what motivated them to come here, their journey, and literally just how are they doing? So part of me is curious, but at the same time, also nervous for them. And kind of trying to prepare myself for the worst. Just like what Kennis was saying, I am naturally a empathetic person, especially as an immigrant myself. So mixed feelings of anticipating the work, not knowing, preparing for the emotionally taxing work that we’re about to do.

Kennis Chen: Our plan was kind of changed last minute because we didn’t know when we planned the trip there will no longer be a Welcome Center. Our team has to be split to separate our work in different transit centers.

So I didn’t expect that will be that many unexpected situation coming up.

My work on a daily basis for Chinese Digital Engagement team, is mostly on social media or monitoring the digital space. Especially because this year is election year, people are using their immigration topic as a political driven tool to get anti immigrant sentiment from people. On social media space we can see a lot of inhuman narrative flowing around. Like, Oh, these people are just number– they are not human. There are like 100 millions people coming to the border. So called border crisis. But when we go down there, I feel like these people could be my parents, you know. Some folks, they’re similar age as my parents and suffer a lot to come here. We need to show more empathy to them.

If we look at the broader picture, people migrant for a place to another place. We’re all looking for the good stuff. No one want to came to the state to do bad things, you know. Everyone wants came here for maybe a better future for the next generation, maybe a more stable financial situation for their family. Many of them just scared of the thing happening in their home country, and they don’t feel safe, or they don’t feel financially secure or politically secure; that they feel like I have to leave this place. Immigration or migration is not an easy choice for an individual. Those migrants, they have to Separate from their family for who knows how long.

When they made that decision they need to have the mentality that they probably need to suffer a lot, and they suffer for the good. We really need to see them as human. Human want to live in a safer place, live in a more financially stable place.

That’s why they want to come to another country. American is a place that people think is the best country in the world. It’s illustrated by the mainstream media or illustrated by people’s imagination. True or not, but people think it that way, for example, me as a Chinese, growing up, we think American people so free and people has money to eat and everything.

We need to understand more of their reason to come to the state, other than, oh, people come here want to do crime, which is not true at all.

Kelly Wong: Lots of them, that being said, we are restricted to talking to people that speak Chinese, have struggles back home economically and coming here to make a better living and to create a better future for their families.

I met a young Chinese immigrants woman between 25 to 35 years old. I met her at, one of the transit center that she got dropped off at. Her whole journey took roughly 20 days from China to a Western country to Panama. And then from there Basically going through different Latin American countries by vehicles.

The whole journey was really rough for her as a single woman. She was staying in refugee camps and really shady motels. Eventually she landed in Mexico, walking, hiking for two to three hours before crossing the border to San Diego.

She is a single mom and her family suffer from bondage issues back home. She doesn’t clarify what it is exactly. And she wants to earn some money on the East coast through a friend’s connection, to take care of her nine year old child in China.

Her husband, her child’s father is not in the picture anymore. So she’s the sole provider for the family. And she actually does not plan to stay in the U. S. permanently because eventually she wants to reunite with her child back in China. She also mentioned that the economy’s got worse during COVID in China, and that’s why the financial situation back home is more dire. And that’s kind of prompt her to think outside the box to try to make this journey.

Her experiences during the journey was really rough because she didn’t get enough money to fly directly to Mexico, like lots of migrants do. If you have more money, you flew directly to Mexico and then rest there for a little bit and then walk for two to three hours or maybe a day to cross the border and that is actually relatively safe and not as rough. But for her because she doesn’t have enough money, she have to go through the whole journey from Panama all the way to Mexico before crossing.

She encountered a lots of robberies, and cops in those country asking for money to cross certain areas and constantly staying on the street, refugee camps.

And those places are open areas. Anything could have happened hto er or her peers. That was the kind of insecurity that she has been experiencing. Her belongings were all stolen at one point, including her passport, which is actually relatively common in these kind of journey.

My interaction with her is actually pretty memorable for me. She was very confused. She didn’t even know that she was in California. She thought she was somewhere in the on the east coast. But despite feeling confused and scared, she’s relatively calm and just really grateful for us being there able to speak Chinese with her, explaining where she’s at, directing her to the airport to her destination and all of that. And even though she was really confused and lost during that journey, she managed to take care of other people too.

She talk about coming across with a 65 years old grandmother during detention. That grandmother was also Chinese and was separated from the rest of her family– two children, a daughter-in-Law, and her son. They actually went through the whole journey through the jungle to get to San Diego.

The grandmother was left alone at the detention center because She had troubles doing fingerprinting. The rest of the family were before the grandmother. The Young Chinese immigrants woman was the only one that were able to communicate in Chinese, So she was there for the grandmother, guide her through different things, calm her down when she was feeling emotional thinking she will never see her family again.

I think that really shows their resilience, how strong they are. Even though they are suffering a lot and going through a lot, they still were able to take care of one another, care for other people.

Me and this person, we sat down for two hours. We talked just like a human beings. She actually speak Cantonese too, since she from the Guangdong region and remind me of my friends because she’s not too old, you know, like she’s really young, just like our age. So I just really can’t imagine What she has been through as a young woman myself as well.

The entire time I was by her side, guiding her. Eventually she took a shuttle to the airport and we actually both felt a little bit emotional when we parted ways, because we just connected. She gave me the warmest hug and told me that she’s grateful for seeing us there and hoping that we can keep the work going to help other people.

And, of course that really left a mark in my heart; that brief encounter with her. That was something that I still think about sometimes and make me emotional. Hopefully can humanize these people more than what was reported on the news.

Kennis Chen: There was a young girl, maybe 20 something. Young girl. We were talking just chitchatting. And then she asked, how long have you been in the U S and I say, probably almost 10 years. And then that girl was saying, if I came here when I was in middle school, then I probably will be here for 10 years as well.

Her response really inspired me to think if I didn’t have the privilege to come to study for college, will I be her? Will I be in a situation that I probably also need to cross the border, go through her journey to came to this day.

And sometimes, people’s life is sometimes only is about luck. It’s not how hard I work. My background or my family already determined something for me. They could provide me for college. I don’t need to work myself for college. I don’t need to pay for student loan and those kind of stuff.

If I was that girl, I probably would be in the same situation. Or if I was that uncle, I probably will did the same choice as well. I think sometimes when we think about immigration and migration, we think about so called American born, maybe they’re just lucky to be born as American. It’s nothing about they’re better than other people, it’s just they have the luck to be born in the state, and they’re born with voting rights. They’re born with democracy. It’s not like other people don’t deserve this good stuff. If they choose to believe in a better life, they should have the choice to do so.

Kelly Wong: I think as an immigrant, like what Kennis just talked about, we both came here as a student and with the support from our parents and financial security that we get a job eventually here, and settle in the U. S.

It’s really easy to fall into the mainstream narrative of differentiating good migrants from the bad ones. From the quote unquote illegal ones, right? And not gonna lie, before entering this kind of work, that’s how I feel, too I don’t really know why people make those choices to go undocumented across the border.

But then, came to work for Chinese for Affirmative Action, CAA. My line of work is serving migrants from different backgrounds, and that’s when I realized the privilege that Kennis was talking about. I never have to make those choices of should I go through those journey to come here, should I overstay so I can make a living here or getting separated from my loved ones. That would never happen in my life because of my privilege.

And I think lots of migrants or immigrants that were able to make it here in a more regular ways often think that, because we went through so much ourselves to get here, we deserve those spaces versus those who crossed the border irregularly, or, those who goes undocumented, that they do not deserve the same thing that we both we all desire, right?

So when I speak to the migrants that I serve here in San Francisco, and then at the border, both regular or irregular, it’s the same story. Same as the story that me and Kennis have. We come here because we want a better future for ourselves. And as much as America also too has a broken system, there’s some really beautiful, beautiful things about the U. S. too. Not everything is true from what we learned since a kid about America, but this is true that it’s a land of opportunities; a land of democracy, maybe not the perfect ones, but they do have democracy here. And something that lots of people don’t get to enjoy back home.

So these migrants that cross the border, they very much know these things and decide to pursue and have that for our children. So I think My lived experiences and my line of work really informed how I see them right now at the border.

Instead of thinking that we are better than them because we are quote unquote legal, I actually think that we’re all the same essentially. And as, immigrants communities, especially Chinese migrants communities, we should help each other out instead of putting each other down or, categorizing people using certain stereotypes.

Annette Wong: I think the one thing that We encounter that is difficult for people to understand is that the reasons that people are coming here today are very similar to the reasons that people have come for generations, centuries, even. Really what they’re seeking is more economic opportunity and potentially more freedoms.

And that has not changed over time. The current lens through which people are absorbing this news is really through mainstream media. And the way that it’s painted isn’t looking at people in a very human way. This is a very bad analogy, but, like ants crawling through a log or something.

It’s like, just look at all these hordes of people is what we hear all the time. But, really it’s not different than what it has been in the past. It’s really about how it’s been sensationalized and because of the upcoming November election, how it’s being used and leveraged to push a certain political agenda on many fronts. At the end of the day, people are coming for every human reasons they’re coming because they want to survive, they want to have a better life.

For many of us who may be first, second, third generation Asian American, where our ancestors at some point had migrated, I think that that’s something that we can connect with– this idea that people want to come for a better life for their families. that’s something that often gets lost in all of the political football around the issue in particular.

Kennis Chen: When we go out to live our life, We actually maybe already met so many undocumented friends or foes. When we met people, we did not say, Hey, could you show me your immigration document?

We’re just seeing them as human beings. So we just know them as, how they work, and how we communicate, and we maybe speak each other’s language so we will see them as human beings. We will not say, oh, you are undocumented, so you are less than me. Undocumented folks, they all work very hard. And just like us, they all pay taxes, but sometimes they do not get the benefits like we have. Kelly, for Kelly’s work, for example, sometimes the Immigration Rights team will help people to renew their green card. For me, when I was a student, there are some restrictions for me to have to stay in my legal status.

For example, if I skip a semester, then I probably could not have my student visa. Then, right now, I’m having my working visa. If I, for example, move to another state, I probably could not maintain my legal status. So even though I have a so called legal status, I already see that many restrictions. So I can imagine for people who do not have a legal status, the life might be even harder for them.

I also see my privilege that holding a legal status. For example, I don’t need to worry about on the street, I.C.E. (ICE) will chase after me.

So they need to work, or they need to live. in a really careful way, then at the same time they sacrifice a lot of freedom to, for example, move to other places or do certain job or staying with their families. I feel we should learn from our privilege and also learn from our experience and to understand others.

Annette Wong: Over the course of my years doing immigrant rights work I would say that what was different for me in coming to do this type of work in particular is actually seeing a lot of the diversity of the folks that are coming through. In that diversity, though, there is a community. And I thought that that was really beautiful and something that I did not expect. I think technology and, the World Wide Web essentially has made the world a lot smaller place.

Once the buses emptied, there was a line that formed for people to go through intake. There was clearly like a food station, a restroom station, a water station. you know, but There were also places where people could charge their phones and access internet.

People that wouldn’t typically be able to communicate with one another have the technology and tools to do so. And they have just come out of this very arduous journey where they have probably a lot of shared trauma around what they saw along the way. And so there was a level of bonding between the folks that were coming through the center that I had not anticipated, but it was very beautiful to see. People that were complete strangers before, but in the process of the journey had become friends and actually built quite a bit of trust with one another. So much so that even once they arrived in the U. S., they’re discussing next steps together and making decisions together about who to trust, who not to trust, et cetera.

I remember there was this one gentleman and he came up to us and he was like, well, I’m trying to get to Los Angeles and I, I don’t really know how to get there. What are some of my options? Another woman who was standing nearby, also a Chinese migrant, we had been helping her try to get to the airport, overheard this conversation and she comes over and she’s like, Oh, actually, I know a group of folks , over on that side of the migrant center and they’re also going to LA maybe you all can catch a ride together.

People just seem so relieved to be in the United States. There was a sense of hope. Even though they were telling us we saw people that we had to leave behind in the Darien Gap. But despite seeing so much tragedy, their spirits were hopeful about what was to come here in the States.

Kelly Wong: Migrants themselves, they experience a lot of language barriers among themselves. So it’s a little hard to help each other, even if they want to, just because of the existing challenges of languages.

A lot of Hispanic migrants we’re actually waiting at the transit center for their loved ones. Many of them, for example, husband or wife got released before the other ones. So they didn’t really know how to reunite with other peoples. They end up just sitting at the transit center with other people, trying to wait for the loved ones to be released, hopefully on the same day. A couple of people, they were there for almost the entire day, maybe the day before as well, waiting for the loved ones to be released. And Instead of just waiting there doing nothing, they were actively helping each other out. I don’t speak any Spanish, but people will come to me because I had information of directions, but we don’t have enough Spanish speaking volunteers.

Spanish speaking migrants actually came to me, I can interpret for you. I remember one of them. She’s a young woman herself. She actually took the lead. Because at one point we do not have any Spanish speaking volunteers, she took the lead, copying what we told people earlier, about what’s happening.

You see solidarity; a mutual understanding of how everyone is going through, and we have to help each other out. There’s only so many volunteers there speaking limited languages. So migrants are stepping up for one another and passing those correct information to one another. And at that point I don’t see language barriers as much– just a mutual understanding that girl just came to me– don’t worry, I’m going to help.

you.. She speak more English so she can do the interpretation for me. I think that’s something that I did not anticipate. The resilience that we all have to function and to help each other out with limited resources.

Cheryl Truong: While I was listening to Kelly tell this story I felt tears coming on. Her very comment of I didn’t see language barriers as much just mutual understanding really inspires me. I am finding from these stories, from these courageous migrants. I’m going to say something really cheesy. But hear me out anyway. I am being reminded from these stories of the essence of our humanity. That when we come to one another with the deep intent to understand each other, we do, or we can, when we summoned the courage to do so.

I had a weird, but brilliant professor back in college and he. I remember he said, something like. Hopes dwelling place. Must be at the most visceral and emotional part of our being. This feels to me like a pretty promising kind of hope Doesn’t it.

More stories from the Southern border after a music break, so don’t go anywhere.

Cheryl: Welcome back. You are tuned into apex express on 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley and online at kpfa.org.. We were just listening to “Acceptance” by Gavin grant from The Khamsa Project.

Annette Wong: When you’re coming through the border and you get processed by CBP, men and women are separated and they’re processed separately. So when the buses arrive at the transit center, It’s a bus full of men and then a bus full of women, bus full of men, bus full of women. So people are essentially being separated from their family members if you’re traveling with opposite sex people.

There was one bus that got off that was predominantly women. And we saw this one Chinese woman. So we approached her, and we noticed that she was using Google translate to communicate with a Georgian family. The Georgian family, was a male and there were two females. The male looked at me and he started pointing at his ring on his ring finger.

And you know, I kind of gathered, okay, he’s looking for his wife. He can’t find his wife. And so he, he expressed that it’s actually his wife and his kid. They were talking to the Chinese woman because they were asking if the Chinese woman had seen the wife and the child in the interview process, because the husband wasn’t privy to what happened to the women.

The Chinese woman was saying yes because they started showing a photo of the wife and the child. she was like yes, I saw her. We were processed at the same time, but I don’t know what happened to her. So the Georgian family was asking, did she get on the bus with you?

And the Chinese woman said no. And the Georgian family was like, why, what happened to her? And the Chinese woman was like, I don’t know. It was really a heartbreaking kind of moment to see the desperation in people’s eyes. I was watching the Georgian family. They were approaching all the women that were waiting on the sidewalk and they were just showing this photo on the camera phone. Have you seen her? Did you see her? Just going person to person. And eventually we figured out because there was a child in the picture, those people went straight to a shelter.

The husband was relieved to find that out, took off and went to go to the shelter to try to meet them. But it was just one of those things; a very surreal and sad scene watching the family show the photo to anybody that would listen, even though they couldn’t communicate in any kind of shared language, but everybody knew what they were looking for to because other families were experiencing the same thing; separation from their family members. It’s ridiculous that people have to go through that level of anxiety, and for them I did hear that they were able to reunite within the same day. Which doesn’t always happen.

Another woman was also waiting for her husband. She had been waiting days.

Typically, at The transit center, one of the organizations would have staff who would be coordinating for the day. That staff person would be making announcements every time the buses came, handing out flyers to people, they would be directing the flow of volunteers, you do this you cover that. But at times, there were limitations on the number of staff, people were really operating on a very shoestring kind of operation where sometimes there’s only one staff person, and there’s more volunteers than there are staff.

One of the days we were at the site, it was nearing four o’clock or so and the staff person said to us I’ve been here since 7am. I have to go. There’s supposed to be another lead volunteer but they haven’t arrived yet. Can you guys just watch the situation, receive more buses, do the orientation spiel for the newly arrived folks. We had only been there for a couple days, but the fact that they were just going to leave this in our hands because they really just had no other support was not shocking necessarily, but sad how little infrastructure was in place. And it’s not the fault of the organizations. It’s really just a lack of support from the local city and county to provide infrastructure for these kinds of releases.

Annette Wong: So we’re like, yeah, sure, we’ll take care of it. They pointed me to this lady who was Sitting near all of the staff materials. I had seen her around the first day that we had been there and then of course the second day. I recognized her but I hadn’t really talked to her because she only spoke Spanish. The staff person before she left was like. This woman is actually waiting for her husband, and she’s been waiting for six days, and every day she just comes back and waits at the bus station.

And so she has come to know the process that people go through when they arrive, so she’s willing to help. So if you can utilize her support, utilize her support because she’s a Spanish speaker and none of us spoke fluent Spanish. I was grateful to have her support, but also very sad for her situation.

The fact that she had waited so long that she has no idea when her husband’s going to come, if he’s going to come. But then the fact that she wanted to help people was just also very beautiful and amazing. She and I started to coordinate because she was the only one who could communicate with the Spanish speakers that also knew how this operation runs.

So we worked very closely with her. To try to help Spanish speaking migrants arrive and be able to get to where they needed to go, whether it was the airport or the Greyhound or wherever they were headed.

There’s a lot of these, like, I wish that we didn’t have to always look for that silver lining to give us hope. Because we really shouldn’t have to deal with these kinds of situations to begin with. But it’s the reality of what’s happening now because there’s no infrastructure, there’s no process, there’s no federal immigration reform, there’s no local infrastructure to support people that are coming through. It really is just the dedication and hard work of the advocates at the organizations that are based out of San Diego that are doing this work.

Kennis Chen: I remember when I first come to the state for school and my luggage was delayed and I couldn’t find my luggage. I was so nervous because it’s completely new environment for me.

And I spoke relatively fluent English and staff couldn’t understand the English I spoke, so they couldn’t help me . You’re seeing how people are being treated when they don’t speak English, and how less information they could gather when they don’t speak the dominated language in the U. S. And the service they get is also very limited. How can we expect people to live a same life as U. S. Born folk when they do not get the same amount of information they could get her just like the example that Kelly provided. Even if you want to gather some government provided documents where you want to get public resources. The information you got just maybe 20 percent or 30 percent the same as the amount that if you could read English. It’s unfair for folks. Language and also community are super segregated in the U. S. For example, folks in Chinatown, they could only live in Chinatown because They probably don’t speak so called perfect English because it’s very hard for them to live in other area in their city. The way that we are limiting the resources for the people who in need is just so insane to me.

Kelly Wong: After going to one of the transit centers and noticing that a lot of Chinese migrants gravitate towards unlicensed drivers who are Chinese migrants themselves, because they’re the only one that are Chinese speaking.

And when they look at us, they’re confused who we are. Even though we speak Chinese, there’s still differences, right? Those drivers went through the same thing that they went through. So automatically there might be some trust over there. And we also noticed that there might be some gender dynamics there. Everyone except for one colleague, are, immigrant woman. And many of us are young woman, who back home Oftentimes not seen as authority figure, right? They just think that we’re kids, right? Some people when they see us, they might not associate us with authority or people that actually have knowledge to share

On the first date. Kennis make this suggestions of maybe we should make a big sign saying that we are volunteers and we’re here to provide some immigration services or basic information if they need it. And we have a free buses to the airport, you don’t have to pay those drivers to get to your destination.

Kennis Chen: Not saying those unlicensed drivers are bad people or something like that, but because they were the only one, they sometimes might be seen as authority because they were the only one who were there giving Chinese information.

So whatever they say might be seen as truth to those Chinese migrants. As volunteers, we definitely want Chinese migrants to get accurate and reliable resources that we can provide. So we’re there making sign and say, Hey, please talk to us. We have free shuttle bus to the airport.

Please don’t get to the unlicensed driver first, because definitely those people are making money. They’re doing business, which I respect, but I don’t want them to be the only reliable sources there.

I really see the potential threat that this driver could cause. Because again, if people want to make a living out of their challenging situation, I could not imagine what they would do. And given that because they are also migrants, they probably do not have the work permit right away so they probably need to do certain stuff to make a living. So if they would be the only resources there, then they literally could do anything. Because there’s no certain thing to prevent them to do so. Maybe a little bit extreme example could be human trafficking or stuff like that. That could also happen, so we try to hand it out. resources for anti human trafficking hotline and stuff like that to the migrants. I told them, don’t trust anything you hear. And be careful about stuff. Like for example, people try to hire you or people try to say, Oh, I could give you a job right away and stuff like that.

Maybe try to be more cautious about that.

Kelly Wong: So that’s kind of how we try to navigate that dynamics. That being said, like what Kennis was saying, we also respect those drivers are trying to make a living. At the same time, we also want to make sure those new migrants that were just released knows what’s going on and they’re actually entitled to just get on the free buses to the airport instead of paying God knows how many money they have to pay for a trip to airport or other places.

Kennis Chen: I want to compliment the mentality of those migrants. They are very strong. I could not imagine that if I go through the whole journey and then be captured in the CBP border for a couple days, how would I look? I probably would be very upset and very worried and probably anxious.

But those migrant, Every one of them, they’re so sweet and they’re so optimistic and they express so many gratitude to us. Even though they don’t speak the same language, they were like gracias. And thank you, sister. . I feel really like inspiring. even though people at their lowest, they still could share so many appreciation and gratitude to others. So I really just hope them all the best.

Kelly Wong: one point, I was helping a Muslim Arabic speaking family. I met this young girl. And she looks so confused. She was crying when she got off from the bus. So I approached her. We were able to communicate through Google Translate.

She told me, she didn’t know where her husband is. Her husband doesn’t have phones, all the phones were with her. And she doesn’t have even one dime of money, nothing. It was a desperate situation. You don’t know where your husband is. You don’t have any money. She was really panicking. I told her to, you know, stay calm. Don’t worry. Hopefully your husband will come in soon. Even though we don’t really speak the same language, she actually kept following me the entire time. She told me she wanted to stay beside me, which I was like, yeah, don’t worry.

If you feel safer, you can stay beside me. And then luckily her husband was there for the next bus. Actually, not too long and not too far away. It was, I think maybe within 30 minutes, her husband came down and I saw them reunited. I was really moved just to see them hugging.

And her husband also have some friends that also crossed the border together. So they were all reunited one big family. She came to me and just telling me sister. That’s when they start calling me and the other folks sister. Thank you so much for being there for me.

And then she told her husband what had happened. So her husband then call me sister to. And then she just gave me the warmest hug. She told me thank you so much. When I was panicking, you were there for me.

And the husband, they were so cute. They were young couples. The husband speak English and told me that they have never been apart from each other for more than one day. So the fact that they were separated for two days was very scary for both of them. And then, he tell me that she is the love of his life. Before they went onto the bus, they turn around and call me– goodbye, sister, and God bless you. To this day, it’s really moving and keep me going.

Annette Wong: I think that this idea of like family reunification is definitely one that rings true for my family as well. Not in the micro sense of , getting off of buses and looking for your family, but a lot of my family’s migration history is one of seeking family reunification.

My mom actually came to the United States to reunite with her dad, my grandfather in 1968 after the immigration act. What happened was my grandfather had come to the United States first to find a job, make some money, get the home ready to bring over my grandmother, his wife, and then their two daughters.

When my grandmother came, unfortunately my grandfather had actually. done his own thing and found himself another family. But the initial desire to come was for that a family reunification. My grandmother wanted to be with her husband. She wanted my mom and my aunt to be with their dad.

The grandmother that I just mentioned, her mother, ended up coming to the United States to reunite with my grandma and my grand uncle, her son. Within the same family, multiple points and multiple generations of family reunification being end goal and the end desire of all of this.

For these different generations, my mom was in her twenties when she came, my grandmother was in her forties. My great grandmother was older at the time.

When I think about the journeys that people took at those points in their lives, where they probably had established themselves to some extent , but, to leave all that behind, to reunite with family is something that came up during the trip as . This, constant reminder that people want to be with those that they care about. People want to be united with their family. They don’t necessarily want to have to go through all this struggle in order to do so, but that’s what love is, right? Like that’s what love is about.

Kennis Chen: I want to appreciate the volunteer there. Because though our colleague were there for like three days, we were literally so exhausted. I couldn’t feel my leg every day. Those volunteer there are from 7 a. m. to 7 p. m. every single day. when you talk to people and when you need to help people, you need to open yourself as well. So you’re being vulnerable and sometimes it’s just physically, mentally exhausted.

Many volunteer, they are women of color and they’re so strong. , I could not imagine life or the world will continue without them. They’re just like so strong, so resilient. Part of me was worried because they are all volunteer groups that doing this at their own capacity without the budget they need. And the other part of me think, whatever the challenge would be, they will find a way to get through because they are just like so strong and so human. They’re just like beautiful human. I just appreciate the opportunity to see them and work with them.

Kelly Wong: We were only there days. We were tired. I slept through the whole weekend. These people are continuously perservering every single day.

the beginning of our interview, we talked about how things just changes within a few days. We do not have migrant center anymore.

Within a few days. I don’t know how they do it. Within a few days they were able to produce info sheets from multiple languages. I stopped counting. I think at least 8 to 10 languages that I saw of how to get to airport, where you’re at, if you have questions, try to do this and that. They ran all the of shelters that host children and their parents. They managed to arrange buses from another nonprofit to transport Migrants from one transit center another one and eventually to the airport so people won’t be stuck at one place and creates issue for the local residents too .They have to react on the spot and figure out how to do all of that.

So to see how resilient, quick they are to respond to all this ongoing changes, and frankly problems one after another is, just so inspiring to me as a fellow person to also do direct services.

Annette Wong: The patchwork of immigration laws that we have holding our immigration system together has not been updated for over 20 years. It desperately needs an overhaul. When we’re talking about lack of federal action, what does that actually mean?

We’re talking about comprehensive immigration reform. The world has changed so much in the last 25, 30 years. Globalization. The economy. geopolitical relationships with other countries. Everything has changed so much yet our immigration system has not been updated to reflect it.

Ever changing needs of our world. I think that is one of the things that would help address the situation. And not in a way that is. all about punishment and punitive measures. What we’re hearing now is immigration is going to be one of the top issues for the upcoming November election, and what everybody’s talking about is cracking down on border enforcement. Nobody’s talking about where is the pathway for the 11 million? Where is the, humanitarian aid and humanitarian relief for folks that are seeking that. We’re not really hearing about that side of things.

And I think that’s where we hope to see more emphasis is on a more inclusive policy package rather than what we’re seeing now, which is just exclusion and punishment, . So, I think that’s one level of infrastructure. I think the other level of infrastructure is how do people manage, how do cities and counties manage the influxes. And then also for the receiving city– people going to places like New York, like LA, like San Francisco. Making sure that there’s infrastructure there in those cities as well, whether it is temporary shelters, whether it is immigration legal services that are free and low cost or accessing jobs while people are navigating their immigration paperwork.

There’s a lot of things that localities have been planning for, some are doing very well. Some are needing more local support in order to enact around providing support to migrants. But this kind of thing will help because when migrants can land on their feet and integrate into the local neighborhood, the local economy, et cetera, it will help make things better for everybody.

It will be a better life for the migrant. It will also be something that can help a neighborhood thrive. And so I think that’s really what we’re hoping to see in terms of investments and support for migrants that are coming into the country.

Cheryl Truong: and that’s the end of our show! Learn more about the incredible work of Chinese for affirmative action in the show notes.. Speakers and readers of Chinese will also be able to find Kennis’ justice patch article written in Chinese, as well as the podcast that Kennis and Kelly made about this very trip.

Apex express is produced by Miko Lee, Paige Chung, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar. Shekar, Anuj Vaidya, Kiki Rivera, Swati Rayasam, Nate Tan, Hien Nguyen, Nikki Chan, and Cheryl Truong

Tonight’s show was produced by me, cheryl. Thanks to the team at KPFA for all of their support. And thank you for listening!

The post APEX Express – 03.28.24 – Stories from the Southern Border appeared first on KPFA.