Immigration Headline ], and: [ Immigration Headline ], and: “Why We’re Covering the Caravan”, and: [Immigration Headline

Abstract

[ Immigration Headline ], and: [ Immigration Headline ], and: “Why We’re Covering the Caravan”, and: [Immigration Headline] Javier Zamora (bio) [ Immigration Headline ] [ byline ]puerto barrios, gt—She knew wherepower came from. How the chord madeit bright once plugged into her wall. If shereally thought about it, the outlet looked likea frightened porcelain doll, or a gringo. She knew they couldn’t keep buying gas forthe generator. Not if the price kept increasing. There must be an easier way. Soon, mijo, we will run & slide on a longwater sidewalk, somewhere where people don’tpump water from a well. ¿Will it hurt? Her kid asked. Noooo, it’s made of plastic, a soft river, likea creek, we’ll run up, & slide belly first withother kids. Woahhh. Her kid said. What a magical place. What a brightplace with lightbulbs, streetlamps, neon, &spotlights for the latest movie premiere. Aplace with fountains, fire hydrants, swimmingpools, & hot tubs. Yes, you can slide & slide even at night,under a fake moon of lights, under a bullet-proof sky. [End Page 159] [ Immigration Headline ] [ byline ]guadalajara, mx-jal—To run away fromthe hot-headed dogs, Boys & Girls climb ontop of a tree, branch by branch. They hangfrom inside a sheet, blue like their pants. One day the tree grows fast. All the treesgrow fast. The grass too. Understandable.Guadalajara is no normal place. Differentaccents. Guadalajarans eat nopales. Punctual trainstations. Air-conditioned buses. Unlike thatprevious shithole. But México is also not the place whereBoys & Girls will enroll in school, find a job,immerse in the marketplace, permanently. Concentráte vos. Ya no hablés así maje.They tell each other. Dogs barking below in their local guao-guao, órale, guao-guao, órale, singsong. Boys & Girls, come on, vámos, adapt, please.So they practice: Con-cén-tra-te. Ó-ra-le. Gu-a-o—Gu-a-o. Ó-ra-le. They sing & repeat. Sing & repeat on top oftheir trees. Until one day, they climb down toshow off their new accents. Like kneeling inchurch. Like pledging allegiance to a sick dog. [End Page 160] “Why We’re Covering the Caravan” NYT 10-30-18 readers argue President is the caravan a tacticahead of The Times . thisAmerican caravan is news . the largest memory,made up of desperate . historymore people run , tens of millions world-wide. for years, a distraught mother lost sons . , we have written flee economiccollapse, rush before , the desperation . dangerousmigrant trail . part of coverage, will almost certainly be the north , apotential traditional pattern . [End Page 161] our reporters, photographer andvideographers enable what is driving , , . , , .the caravan . another phenomenon. , repeated theme our president’s . contrary, , fairness, , matters. we are migrantsreaders , who hope there is a secret , , president a deeperimage , . , explainedfrom a political . our . [End Page 162] [Immigration Headline] [ white savior ]manhattan, ny—At the New SanctuaryCoalition, this morning, I had never heard ofthe poet Roque Dalton. I saw a small tattooon the arm of the young man I thought wasa gangster. I’m not wrong to think this, some ofthe ones whose paperwork I help translatehave been. “It’s my country’s best poet,” theteenager said. I was surprised to know he knew poetry,or loved it enough to get a tattoo. “Los eternosindocumentados,” it read. As if he knew. As if he was ready for whatcould be his future in this country. As if heknew he would soon need my help. [End Page 163] Javier Zamora Javier Zamora was born in El Salvador and migrated to the United States when he was nine. He was a 2018–2019 Radcliffe Institute Fellow at Harvard and has been granted fellowships from CantoMundo, Colgate University, the Lannan Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Poetry Foundation, and Stanford University. Unaccompanied (Copper Canyon Press, 2017) is his first collection. He lives in Harlem, where he’s working on a memoir. More info at javierzamora.net. Copyright © 2020 The Curators of the University of Missouri