michelleThis book arrived at just the right time—and yet, also, a little too late. As I weigh whether to remain in the humanitarian space, it served as a reminder of the people and the work that first called me to this field. I love my work, and I love serving. But for much of the voting population in the United States, with its relentless ICE raids, the revival of Guantanamo Bay, and savage calls for deportation, it feels like the spiritual lens came a little bit too late.
As the title suggests, The Asylum Seekers is about those seeking asylum in the United States. Through immersive, narrative-driven reporting, journalist and Episcopalian priest Cristina Rathbone documents the lives of Mexican asylum seekers in Juárez, living in tent camps along the Mexico-U.S. border in 2019-2020. She spent much of her time walking families to the border, hoping her clerical position might lend some weight to their request to enter the United States. She also spent a lot of time with the children, organizing daily English lessons and chances for their innocence to come back to the front. The time with the children were spent drawing and singing so that they could for however briefly forget both what had happened and what was coming.
Rathbone is not perfect. She is emotional, angry, confused, guilty, and, at times, she feels useless, burnt out, and lost. She serves as a listener and the stories recounted to her and the scars shown to her weigh heavily. Sometimes, the weight of it all builds inside her, and she has to go home to decompress. I loved this. Too often, journalistic accounts are cold, dry, and so data-driven that the humanity is lost. For those of us who work in this space, we know that it is emotionally heavy work. We always feel like it is not enough. Humanitarians are not perfect and it was so refreshing to read about someone who doesn’t hide it but embraces it and just tries to do her very best in this “tiny work.”
#bookstadon #theasylumseekers #books #alwaysreading
As the title suggests, The Asylum Seekers is about those seeking asylum in the United States. Through immersive, narrative-driven reporting, journalist and Episcopalian priest Cristina Rathbone documents the lives of Mexican asylum seekers in Juárez, living in tent camps along the Mexico-U.S. border in 2019-2020. She spent much of her time walking families to the border, hoping her clerical position might lend some weight to their request to enter the United States. She also spent a lot of time with the children, organizing daily English lessons and chances for their innocence to come back to the front. The time with the children were spent drawing and singing so that they could for however briefly forget both what had happened and what was coming.
Rathbone is not perfect. She is emotional, angry, confused, guilty, and, at times, she feels useless, burnt out, and lost. She serves as a listener and the stories recounted to her and the scars shown to her weigh heavily. Sometimes, the weight of it all builds inside her, and she has to go home to decompress. I loved this. Too often, journalistic accounts are cold, dry, and so data-driven that the humanity is lost. For those of us who work in this space, we know that it is emotionally heavy work. We always feel like it is not enough. Humanitarians are not perfect and it was so refreshing to read about someone who doesn’t hide it but embraces it and just tries to do her very best in this “tiny work.”
#bookstadon #theasylumseekers #books #alwaysreading
