There are people from all over the world here in Youngstown. There are people who speak Spanish, people who speak Arabic, people who speak Bengali, people who speak Haitian Creole. There are people here in Youngstown who represent nearly every corner of the globe. Most of these people are not coming here on a whim. They are not coming here because they love overcast days. They are not coming here because they like the food. They are not coming here because they heard there is a really great Unitarian Universalist church in the area. They may discover all this, but this is not why they come. Many are coming here as refugees.
A refugee is a person who has been forced to leave their country to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster. An immigrant is commonly thought to be someone who leaves to embark on economic opportunity. But I would argue that many immigrants are in fact refugees fleeing artificial disaster of unending poverty. In short, many of these people are here in Youngstown to escape disaster. They are here to escape premature death. They are here to escape spiritual death that occurs from lack of mobility and opportunity. People are coming to Youngstown in an attempt to save their lives. It is not the full truth that these people have chosen to come to Youngstown. Many have entered the United States at great personal cost, and have been arrested for not having citizenship papers. They have been bussed from many different states – Massachusetts, New York, Florida, Arizona. They have been bussed to NE Correctional, a private prison on Hubbard Road, less than 5 miles from our church. Our local prison has a contract with the federal government to incarcerate those seeking refugee status, in partnership with ICE, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They are held in jail until they are able to post bail, which costs upwards of $10,000-30,000. As I said, they are here in Youngstown at great personal cost. For most of those who are incarcerated, they are unable to see their relatives or friends who live in the States, because Youngstown is a great distance from many of these states where they were first arrested.
“The essential dilemma of my life is between my deep desire to belong, and my suspicion of belonging.” – words from the novelist Jhumpa Lahiri. I think many of us are suspicious of the proposition of belonging to any group of people, because any group, no matter how noble, seems too small, too narrow. We are wary of belonging to any group that may not include all that we are, all that we could be, all that we imagine. Many are deeply ambivalent, even hostile about identifying as an American, as a democrat, as a Republican, as a member of any religion because of this deep suspicion of belonging.
There is only one group of people who can override this suspicion of belonging – those whose life depends on it. For citizens, especially citizens by birth we are left to grapple with an identity of belonging, we are left to grapple about whether these are our people. For those whose life depends on it, there is no question. There is no question that “we the people,” must include them, because there is no other viable option.
For all of us – the duration and quality of our life will depend on how we define “we the people.” It will depend on the quality and depth of our sense of belonging. If our relationship to belonging is tenuous, this will impact refugees and those in our city whose sense of belonging here is a matter of life and death.
In short, our dilemma, our suspicion about belonging, will have very real consequences for those who desperately need to belong. And yet, we cannot dismiss or cover over this fundamental dilemma. Many Amercians recognize the odd experience of feeling this country is not their own, and yet there is nowhere else for them to go. They belong only by a process of elimination, of knowing where they could no longer stay, or where their ancestors could no longer stay. Some of us are here because we or our ancestors were pushed by disaster, by circumstances that threatened their life. Some of us are here through coercion and abduction, taken and planted on foreign soil. Some of us feel like potted plants, traveling around from area to area, but never feeling rooted where we are. Some of us feel that sense of rootedness cultivated over generations in a particular place, but even rootedness does not guarantee a sense of belonging.
In some fundamental way, belonging is dependent on one thing. A sense of belonging is not solely dependent on history. A sense of belonging is not dependent on whether you were born here, or if you just arrived here this morning. A sense of belonging is not based on your knowledge of the U.S. Constitution. A sense of belonging is not dependent on your race or the color of your skin. A sense of belonging is only based on one thing: your sense. Your sense, your feelings, your visceral experience.
A sense of belonging has nothing to do with citizenship papers. A sense of belonging has nothing to with green cards or refugee status. A sense of belonging is a feeling in the gut, and suspicion in the mind, that will chart a path for you and for others. A sense of belonging may or may not be inherited.
We’ve inherited the phrase: We the people. Over the generations we have questioned and had suspicions about the meaning of this phrase. We have challenged its original intent, and we continue to challenge its meaning in the times that we are in. We are currently challenged by refugees seeking asylum in our country, seeking asylum in Youngstown and beyond. We are being challenged by rhetoric of stricter borders, of walls, and the challenge of open borders.
It is to this latter reality that I put my energy. I put my energy toward opening borders of language, borders of nations, and borders of identity. When I say ‘we the people,” I am talking about you, I am talking about me, I am talking about refugees, I am talking about so-called immigrants. When I say ‘we the people,” I am speaking about persons, individuals, each of whom is worthy of safety, protection, and possibility. When I say ‘we the people,” I don’t speak cynically or ironically. I speak into the reality that all may be free, that all may be well, that all may be happy. I speak to the vision of persons, of a nation, that cultivates a sense of belonging by aiding those in distress, aiding those whose very life is threatened by stasis and state sanctioned alienation.
When we help others feel a sense of belonging, we get a sense ourselves about what domestic tranquility feels like. When we see those who are new to this country as our people, we will become a true people. Our ambivalence about a sense of belonging is rooted in our preoccupation with false borders, narrow ideas of who is in and who is out. Alienation is rooted in seeing others as illegal aliens. There is a cure to this disease. There is a cure to a sense of alienation. There is a cure to our ambivalent sense of belonging. The cure is to do what we can to live into the fullest expression of “we the people”. We act as hosts whether or not we feel this is our home or not. We act as hosts, taking care of those who happen into our city of Youngstown.
