June 27, 2018 The Skanner Page 9
News
Hope, Despair in Poetry by Immigrant
Children in US Lockup
AP PHOTO/ZACHARY WAJSGRAS
Poems from immigrants detained at the Shenandoah Valley Juvenile
Center were compiled into a book last year
The Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center is shown Wednesday, June 20, 2018 in Staunton, Va. The
young immigrants held without their parents in prison-like conditions at a juvenile detention
center in the mountains of Virginia express despair. Some cling to pleasant memories from
home. For a select few, there is hope.
By Jake Pearson
Associated Press
NEW YORK — The young immi-
grants held in prison-like condi-
tions at a juvenile detention cen-
ter in the mountains of Virginia
express despair. Some cling to
pleasant memories from home.
For a select few, there is hope.
For a handful of immigrants
who came to the U.S. from Central
America — many as unaccompa-
nied minors — poetry has given
them a chance to tell the world
both about their journeys north —
and through the byzantine immi-
“
A lot happens
in life, most of it
sad, an occasion-
al happiness,
and sometimes
you have no
choice but to
play the clown
gration system.
“A lot happens in life, most of it
sad, an occasional happiness, and
sometimes you have no choice but
to play the clown and laugh on the
outside, even though inside we
feel less than failures,” wrote one
of them in a poem titled “The Fu-
ture.”
The collection of poems in
“Dreaming America,” published
last year, was assembled by a
Washington and Lee University
professor and students who visit-
ed the Shenandoah Valley Juvenile
Center in Staunton, Virginia, lock-
up and helped the young immi-
grants put pencil to paper, giving
voice to a largely unheard popula-
tion at the center of an increasing-
ly heated U.S. policy debate.
The Associated Press report-
ed Thursday that immigrants as
young as 14 at the center said they
were beaten, locked away in soli-
tary confinement for long periods
of time and left alone naked in cold
cells. Their claims were included
in a federal civil rights lawsuit
filed in October. The AP’s report-
ing also cited an adult who saw
bruises and broken bones the chil-
dren said were caused by guards.
In court filings, officials at the de-
tention facility denied all the alle-
gations of physical abuse, which
the lawsuit asserts happened be-
tween 2015 to 2018, during both
the Obama and Trump adminis-
trations.
Republicans and Democrats in
Washington said the allega-
tions described by the AP were
alarming, and Virginia’s gover-
nor on Thursday ordered state
officials to investigate the abuse
claims.
The writings in “Dreaming
America” offer another kind of
sworn testimony than what is
detailed in the court files, said
poet Jimmy Santiago Baca, who
visited the center last year and
worked with the immigrants on
their poems.
“Every single kid in there
acknowledged it was despair
without an outlet, it was a dark
tomorrow without a voice,” he
said.
In a poem titled “Hi, Love,” one
of the immigrants wrote: “Bit-
terness, thank you for feeding
me and giving me life. Without
you I don’t know what I’d be, I’d
be someone without emotions,
without reason to exist or rea-
son to live.”
In an untitled poem, another
child wrote about trying to end
his life six times.
“I don’t know what will hap-
pen with my life,” wrote yet
another teen, in a poem called
“I have a dream...” ‘’But I don’t
worry about that. My life has
been a disaster and I don’t think
that will change.”
None of the poems’ authors
is identified and the facility in
Virginia was not identified in
the book.
Cristina Casado, who manag-
es the Office of Refugee Reset-
tlement program at the Shenan-
doah Valley Juvenile Center,
wrote in a postscript of the 111-
page book that the children had
behavioral or criminal histo-
ries and experienced trauma in
their home countries. She said,
“working with these children in
a secure environment is a diffi-
cult but extremely rewarding
The Skanner
Report is
experience.”
The book’s publisher, Larry
Moffi, said that so far “Dreaming
America” sold about 1,500 copies,
and all proceeds from the $16 sales
were donated to a Washington le-
gal clinic representing the immi-
grants in their deportation pro-
ceedings.
“They were so excited to have this
book,” Moffi said. The immigrants
were given copies of “Dreaming
America” after it was published
last fall. “It’s the first book they’d
ever had and they’re in it.”
Not all the poems dwell on the
bleakness of their journeys north
and confinement since.
In “My Dog Spay,” one immigrant
wrote about the joy of his long-lost
pet.
“Being without him now makes
me feel like I have nothing in my
life,” he wrote. “And when we see
each other he’s going to be so hap-
py he’ll start jumping like crazy.”
Another immigrant directly ad-
dresses President Donald Trump.
“You don’t know what you’re
doing/ It’s your fault we’re being
booted/ It’s our jobs we’re losing/
Damn fool, why you hassling us,”
he wrote.
Suspect in
Charlottesville
Attack Charged
With Hate
Crimes
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) —
A reputed Hitler admirer accused
of plowing a car into a crowd of
protesters in Charlottesville, kill-
ing a young woman, was charged
Wednesday with federal hate
crimes in a case that stirred accu-
sations last summer that President
Donald Trump was giving a free
pass to racists.
James Alex Fields Jr., who al-
ready faced murder and other
charges under Virginia law, was
indicted on 30 additional feder-
al charges stemming from the
2017 attack that killed 32-year-old
Heather Heyer and injured doz-
ens of others who had gathered to
protest a rally of white national-
ists.
“At the Department of Justice,
we remain resolute that hateful
ideologies will not have the last
word and that their adherents will
not get away with violent crimes
against those they target,” Attor-
ney General Jeff Sessions said in
a statement. “Last summer’s vio-
lence in Charlottesville cut short a
promising young life and shocked
the nation.”
With his statement and the deci-
sion to bring the charges, Sessions
struck a sharply different tone
than the president, who sparked
an uproar last year when he
blamed the violence at the rally on
“both sides.”
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