Transcending Border, Healing the World

Here’s what I said in church on Sunday. Many thanks to Jill, Brooke, Lisa & others who gave feedback & translation help, and to the Euro-caucus of Deporten a La Migra for starting on talking points—some of which are directly incorporated into my speech.

I welcome feedback.

Transcending Borders, Healing the World, 6/12/2005 service at First Unitarian Church of Oakland


Snapshot 1: Easter Sunday in El Salvador, 1998. It’s my second day in the country, I’m dressed up like a good Presbyterian on Easter, and I manage to find the neighborhood Catholic church. The service was uncomfortable for me – I was very overdressed, I didn’t understand what was happening, and I was incredibly embarrassed to be a rich gringa who didn’t put anything in the offering plate because I hadn’t exchanged any money yet.

Snapshot 2: the Mexican-US border in Naco, Arizona, or Sonora on the Mexican side, April of this year. There is a 15 foot high metal fence along the border until about a mile outside of Naco. It’s there, at the end of the fence that we join an interfaith vigil. 200 of us hold hands literally across the border. Many are wearing tshirts that say “Dios no tiene fronteras”, or “God has no borders,” as the border patrol sits nearby, watching.

These are 2 snapshots in my own mental scrapbook. Let me tell you more of the story that weaves them together.

When I set foot in that church on my second day in El Salvador, I quickly realized that knowing Spanish words and grammar were nothing without cultural fluency. While I went to El Salvador to improve my Spanish, I learned what it is to wash clothes by hand, to frugally use water saved in buckets because you don’t know when the tap will work again, to enjoy avocados and mangos fresh from the tree, and I learned a bit the tremendous history of people fighting for justice and dignity.

I also experienced the joys of singing songs of liberation, the healing power of laughter, and living in a truly child-friendly world.

But there was a darker side to my learning. The civil war in the 1980’s, funded in large part by US tax dollars, tore apart families and communities, leaving a legacy of pervasive violence and poverty, and the noose of “neoliberalismo” that the US maintains today under the guise of “free trade”.


I saw people living in cardboard shacks in the dump with the vultures, I worked with prisoners who had stolen only $20, and I read story after story about murders and robberies. You can imagine that returning to the opulence and luxury of being of Stanford University student was quite a jarring experience

I viscerally felt the way that humanity is being crushed daily by poverty, imperialism, racism, patriarchy, homophobia, capitalism, ableism, war, the list goes on and on.

Sometimes I allow myself to slip into denial about the state of the world. I seek solace in my own comfortable situation and I don’t think about my time in El Salvador, the trip to the border in Arizona, the panhandler on the street, or the students I’ve worked with who will never have the opportunity to go to college.

Other times, I can’t help but feel the intensity of the suffering, and my own complicity in its causes. Words cannot describe the deep sorrow & rage I felt as we drove through the desert to the US Mexico border in April, thinking about people trying to cross not just the border, but the miles and miles of life-sucking desert around it. People are dying there every day! When we arrived at the border, I broke down in sobs and sunk into a friend’s embrace.

For me to not get eaten up by the injustice, yet also stay out of denial; to be able to deal with the sorrow, rage, and grief; to be able to keep struggling, day after day, I need to constantly fan the flames of hope and faith in a just world.

But how?

For me, I fan those flames by organizing for a better world and by participating in this community of faith.


I knew some of the healing power of working collectively for justice even before I went to El Salvador. My commitment to organizing only deepened over the last 5 years while working to build and train a multi-racial, bilingual group of high school students to fight for an equitable education system. Transcending borders of language and race, we were doing our part to heal the world, and it helped sustained my sense of hope.


Finding a spiritual place of renewal took a little longer. By the time I went to El Salvador, I no longer considered myself Christian, although I was drawn to liberation theology and connections with deeply Christian compañeros there. Upon my return, I went to a Presbyterian church for a while, but it wasn’t quite right. Then, after September 11th, I started attending the San Jose Unitarian church. Unlike the Presbyterian church in which I grew up, there I had found a place where I could fully embrace the principles and use them as guide in my life.

In the past 4 years, Uniterain Universalism has become an important pillar of my faith and hope. Worshipping in beloved community here on Sundays recharges my internal batteries to continue the daily lucha, or struggle, to heal the world. It connects me with a greater sense of purpose and the Divine. And it helps keep me from slipping into the comfort of denial by challenging me to live up to our principles.*


And wow, what a challenge.

I think about all the immigrants whose inherent worth and dignity is completely trampled every day by unpaid wages, English only laws, neighbors hostile to day laborers on the street, or our Governor inviting the vigilante Minutemen to patrol the California border, as they did in Arizona.

But what can I do?
How do I promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person?*
What does it mean to struggle for justice, equity, and compassion in human relations?*


For me, it has meant going to a country that had the highest murder rate in the world, and learning all that I could, including the destructive role of the US government in Salvadoran peoples efforts to work for justice, equity, and compassion.

For me, it means working to improve my Spanish in order to communicate in a respectful, complete way with folks in the latino immigrant community.


For me, it meant a 36 hour car ride to Arizona to attend the border vigil and help organize a press conference to support organizers fighting 20 bills assaulting basic human rights for immigrants there.

For me, it meant occasionally attending the 9:15 Spanish service at First Unitarian in San Jose and supporting other Spanish Speaking Ministry events there.


For me, it means thinking about the possibilities for our own church get to know our local Korean, Ethiopian, or Latino communities.

For me, it means listening to those most affected – in this case, immigrants, and following their leadership to move towards a more just world.

For me, it means making the connections between the fight for immigrant rights and equality for transgendered folk, disabled people, poor folks, people of color, women, lesbians, gays, queers, and children.

For me, what I can do is work for a world without borders where everyone’s needs are met.

What can you do to transcend borders and heal the world?


*A little Unitarian Universalist lingo, for those unfamiliar; UUs have 7 principles that we seek to affirm and promote—these form the bedrock of UU “theology.” Two of them that I rely on here are
- The inherent worth and dignity of every person
- Justice equity and compassion in human relations