Mateo grew up in El Monte. He was always a strong student, but instead of going straight to a 4-year university he enrolled at Pasadena Community College so that he could also work and help support the family. For the next five years he earned his associate’s degree in English while working full-time at Amazon and Staples, and even selling flowers on the weekends. And then his biggest dream came true: he was accepted as a transfer student to UCLA! He was so thankful to God, and his parents were so proud because he was the first in his family to go to college. He knew that the next two years would go by quickly, so he tried to make the most of it and joined several student clubs like UNICA (Unión Centroamericana de Estudiantes), Hermanos Unidos, and the Latinx Pre-Law Association. The cultural adjustment to UCLA was a little hard—he had never seen so many white people in his life and most people came from richer backgrounds—but, overall it was fine, and he met a lot of nice people of different cultural backgrounds in the residence halls.
As part of the Central American Studies minor, he took one class that changed his life. It was called Barrio Service Learning, and it paired students up with non-profit organizations who helped the community through educational mentorship, immigration services and advocacy, healthcare, and affordable housing. Mateo worked for CARECEN, the Central American Resource Center. At CARECEN, he learned how to become an immigration law paralegal, and helped community members with the renewal of their DACA applications, TPS, and even citizenship applications. He loved it, and through this internship found his life calling to become an immigration attorney.
One day during election season, however, he had a deeply troubling experience when he went back to visit his home church in Pico Union. At lunch after the service, he overheard a group of church members complain about recent immigrants from Venezuela and Honduras: “These illegals are coming here and bringing crime and violence, and bringing the economy down. Thank God for Trump. He’s going to deport all those violent criminals.” What’s crazy, Mateo thought to himself, is that these same church members came as asylum seekers to the US in the 1980’s from Central America. And if it weren’t for the Sanctuary Movement, they would have been deported.
The next Sunday, Mateo came back to church. The pastor’s sermon was about compassion for immigrants. “Just like God commanded the Israelites to show compassion to immigrants, so should we show compassion to immigrants today. In Matthew 25, Jesus also said that when we welcome the foreigner, we are also welcoming Him.” Mateo was so relieved to hear his pastor say this. But then his pastor said something quite confusing: “It’s not my job to tell you how you should vote. You should consider all the issues of society in a holistic way, don’t just vote based on one issue. As for me, I haven’t made up my mind yet. I might vote for Trump.”
The pastor’s words sunk deep into his heart. Mateo was flooded with pain and confusion. He stopped going to church.
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Sisters and brothers, these are the times we live in.
In this moment of spiritual and social confusion, I find myself resonating deeply with the disciples in Luke 8:23-24:
“A windstorm swept down on the lake, and the boat was filling with water, and they were in danger. 24 They went to him and woke him up, shouting, “Master, Master, we are perishing!”
Like the disciples in this passage, I feel the spiritual windstorm of our present moment, and my boat is sinking because it is filling rapidly with water. I find myself shouting out, gritando:
“Master, Master, we are perishing!”
“Don’t you see the millions of Latino immigrants filled with fear and terror—children missing weeks of school because they are afraid that their parents won’t be there when they return home, and clinging to their mother and father every time they hear a police or ambulance siren; don’t you see the college students who have not gone to class for the past month because they are the only documented person in their family, their parents are afraid to leave the house, and so they have inherited all of their family’s economic obligations; what about the cries of the battered wife who will not report domestic violence and no longer attends the church which previously was her only safe haven?
Lord, how is it possible that the theological formation of so many Latino Christians has become distorted to the point that they have been lulled into self-hatred and are unable to biblically discern the very ethical issues that threaten the safety of their own families and congregations?”
Jesus, I love You with all of my heart. The winds and waves have raged around me many times before, and You have never let me down. But my boat is sinking again. Thank You for your unending and perfect love which welcomes my honest lament. I look to You for rescue. We look to you for hope:
“And waking up, he rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm. 25 Then he said to them, “Where is your faith?” They were terrified and amazed and said to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water and they obey him?”
P.S.,
*****
The story of Mateo is a critical race counterstory, a modern day parable drawn from the stories I have heard in the community around me.
I am grateful to Rev. Harold Segura who pointed me and others to this passage in Luke as the basis for lament during a recent gathering of the Latino Christian National Network.