Centering, Resilience, Change of Regime

Again from the newsletter with the headings

RantWoman MUST YOU interact so intensively with EVERY article. Well, not every... but...

The article as it appeared:

After November 4

Amanda Franklin

I am deeply and increasingly afraid of November 4, November  5 and all the time leading up to and following Inauguration Day. As I have held my fear in prayer, I’ve had a result I’ve experienced before: a call to apply what was already clear in another part of my life. I have found guidance in a very odd place: people who have fled to the United States to seek political asylum here. 

One way that I coped after the 2016 election was to up my volunteer hours. In particular, I found an opening peculiarly suited to my gifts, including experience with serving kids in foster care and survivors of sexual abuse, at Refugees Northwest, a consortium of Harborview, Lutheran Community Services and the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project. I provide pro bono psychological evaluations for asylum-seekers, which the seekers may submit to immigration court to support their claims of severe harm or anticipated harm if returned to their home countries. 

What asylum-seekers have brought into focus for me is the trauma of people who run afoul politically of governments or regimes. I have talked to people who have experienced rape as an act of warfare, political torture, gruesome imprisonment, hid while watching or hearing a loved one being killed, and tried to flee from drug cartels as either a former member or as a victim. 

I offer the simple humanity of listening with an open heart and all my intellect. I see that some of these asylum-seekers do not show a diagnosable mental condition, such as post-traumatic stress disorder or depression, that speak to internal scars. These are some things I have learned from these resilient survivors, which prayer has brought to the center of my mind:

• The resilient survivors all named something higher than themselves to which they pledged allegiance. For some, this was an unshakable faith in God, which they drew on between torture sessions, or even in the midst of torture. For others, it was a similar faith in a political or social cause, particularly one which they believed would bring justice and relief to their community (whether that be opposition to an unjust government, or women’s rights in a part of the world where these are unlawful, or helping their LGBTQ brothers and sisters). They could seek comfort and meaning in this faith even at the most unimaginable times.

• The resilient survivors also typically felt well-loved and well-supported by their closest circle of family and friends, even when separated by continents and even when they had not had any contact for far too long. Our closest attachments are there to be clung to when we are most alone.

• Even the people who showed me their physical scars – some by asking my permission and then lifting up a shirt, some by talking through tears or from the far end of a thousand-yard stare – often had access, an hour later, to their sense of humor. Laughter really helps. And laughing with others intensifies its frequency.

• These resilient people had hope which had not been cut or drowned or burnt out of them. Hope can flourish in inhospitable soil, like a detention center, or a cramped apartment a world away from loved ones or stowed away in a container that is slowly crossing the sea. These were people who tended their hope, who nourished it with their memories and their vision of the future, even if they did not know if they had a role in their imagined future scenes. If faith is remaining true to what is at our core even when letting go of it seems easier, and if charity is remembering love and acting in love’s spirit even when the warm glow is not there, hope is hanging on and keeping the vision alive. It is a virtue every bit as muscular as the other two, which get more friendly press

• Paradoxically, these are people who seem less attached to outcome. The religious observers talk about accepting God’s will for their lives, and the political believers know all too well that some of them have to suffer and die. Although I only spoke with asylum-seekers who deeply want asylum, none of them could be certain of the outcome, and they had a lack of desperation which touched me: what will happen will happen.

I hope these reflections will be of use to someone besides me.

The article as distilled and riffed upon by RantWoman

What is to be done between now and next year messages delivered unto RantWoman

--Vote.Vote Conscientiously. Vote with Discernment. Even Down Ballot.

--Support GOTV efforts. Fight Voter Suppression. Pay attention to ballot integrity.

--If you have not already found an election support niche, use your search engine of choice on the term "Ballot curing" about calling people whose ballots have hit some kind of processing snag and encouraging them to contact their board of elections about how to cure the problem.

--Read up on power transitions in different countries, Latin America, Eastern Europe. A whole PhD in political science is probably not going to happen, but what lessons can be drawn from history in times of monstrous political instability?

Think role of non-violence? 

Think Rule of law?

Think conscientiously disobeying unlawful orders?

--Don't fall in love with demonstrations. Remember all those people cramming airports when President T started signing executive orders about immigration. And how much worse have things gotten since then? What can conscientious citizens do to ease the burdens imposed by current immigration laws.

--Work on being GOOD allies to people suffering more or differently than yourself.

--Plan on being in it for the long hall. The country is NOT going instantly to fix itself after the elections.

--Honor the perspective of people who immigrate to the US and often value aspects of US society far more than people who take our freedoms and culture for granted.

--Hold in the Light. RantWoman believes in the power of prayer. Around RantWoman the power of prayer frequently gets hands moving as well.

Is there anyone especially called to step forward on one of these fronts? What can and should Friends ask of each other as individuals answer their own unique calling? 

The Asylum

RantWoman has worked just enough as a spoken language interpreter shepherding meaning across linguistic boundaries in immigration settings to have opinions. RantWoman's work has encompassed asylum and some other immigration benefits such as adjustment of status based on marriage, role as a witness.  Some of RantWoman's opinions it might be more appropriate to opine in a less public setting but well, if a Friend asks RantWoman not to contact her even when to RantWoman's ear more private contact might be better, well, what could possibly go wrong?

Speaking as an interpreter, it is sometimes difficult both to render a client's utterances in sensible enough English to convey the meaning and to preserve or make decent record of moments when the client is exhibiting signs of PTSD or depression. Further, people from different cultures carry and speak of pain differently. If one does not know the right questions to ask, even the best interpreter familiar with such issues might not be in a position under standards of practice and codes of ethics to introduce that issue during an interview. Or the petitioner might feel safe enough not to be showing signs of diagnosable conditions that could be glaringly obvious at other moments.

But RantWoman, this is a very experienced psychologist. Don't you think she might already know that?

She might. RantWoman cannot tell from the article.What RantWoman can say: as far as RantWoman knows, people petitioning for asylum in the US do not have to prove they have PTSD or suffer from depression. They do have to prove they have a "Credible fear" of persecution, death if forced to return to their home country.     This can be difficult: death threats do not tend to come with signatures on paper assuming it were even possible and reasonable to preserve such papers across miles and miles of travel.

Here is where listening well and recording faithfully matter. A person applying for asylum faces the sometimes exhausting task of telling their story more than once. RantWoman gets to experience the story in two languages. Sometimes this requires twice as much emotional energy as experiencing it in one language. Simply having records of more than one person being told of the same events and the same issues can make a great deal of difference. Often in RantWoman's experience the recounting of stories will be quite lively and vivid. What will come back from an attorney  is some kind of an affidavit that buffs out a lot of the color and terminological specifics

 Except for what comes up in consumer level legal interpreting RantWoman actually does not go out looking for interpreting assignments involving mental health. 

All is not hearts and flowers.

Working on immigration issues, sometimes there are very touching love and family reunion stories. But our bigoted, xenophobic, fear mongering,  white supremmacist occupant of the White House is not incorrect: sometimes people who perpetrate crimes come through only to victimize others in the same immigrant community. Sometimes, such as the other day, a neighboring country's former defense minister gets arrested for drug trafficking. Sometimes the humble translator wakes up to the Attorney General holding a press conference related to one's work.

All of this makes RantWoman think of the different forces that drive people to cross international borders. Maybe shepherding meaning around is supposed to be enough but are there also other kinds of energy one has to muster in wider circles...?

But RantWoman WHAT ELSE are you trying to say? 

Stay tuned.

In Light and faithfulness.

RantWoman