The Mexican drug war is fueled by American consumption of Mexican drugs — Americans are stoners, one in five of us use pot, says New Yorker writer Steve Coll. Where does our pot come from? Mexico, mostly. Read Coll’s smart commentary here. http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2011/11/mexico-drug-war.html

Migrants crossing Arizona’s parched borderlands this month have been dying at an unusually high rate, The Arizona Daily Star’s Brady McCombs reports today.

“The fact that the deaths continue at such high numbers despite widespread indications that fewer people are crossing the border has led many experts to conclude that illegal border crossers face a deadlier trek than ever across Arizona’s desert,” McCombs writes.

It is hot in the desert.

Migrants who can’t keep up with groups are left to die.

If you haven’t seen the newspaper’s database on migrant crossing deaths, it is a worthwhile resource.

In Phoenix, with upcoming hearings on whether SB1070 should be enjoined, and heated primaries focused on illegal immigration, the “deadlier trek” is sometimes forgotten. Or the global forces that drive illegal immigration, which I write about in one chapter in my book.

“ILLEGAL, LIFE AND DEATH IN ARIZONA’S IMMIGRATION WAR ZONE”

By Terry Greene Sterling

I have been covering the immigration battles in Arizona for the last year and a half. This book was written after many, many hours in the trenches. This is the cover.

The book comes out in June, but you can buy it now here.

Please join me on this intimate journey. The people in the shadows want you to know their stories.

TERRY GREENE STERLING: MEDITATIONS ON ILLEGAL  THE BOOK,  LIFE AND DEATH IN THE UNDOCUMENTED UNDERGROUND, WRITING, MINUTEMEN, AND GONGS.

I worked for over a year on what seemed to be a never-ending project,  the book about undocumented immigrants in the Phoenix area.

I reported like crazy. This picture  shows me reporting. Yep, you got it. The grey-haired woman with the notebook. I took a lot of notes. I translated from Spanish to English as I took notes. Then, at night, I went over all my reporting and then I closed my eyes and listened to Tibetan gong sounds on my iPhone.

Then the next day, I’d write. This picture below shows me writing. Or, at least, thinking about writing.

And this picture below shows me relaxing with my husband after I finished the book for real.

I relaxed for two weeks. You didn’t see me on these pages. You would have seen me in the Sonoran Desert, though, hiking around, looking for Mexican poppies and lupine.

It was my first real vacation in over a year.

The book won’t come out until August, so now  it’s time to write again. I’m working on a post about Minutemen. Stay tuned. I will be back really, really soon. Just as soon as I get a couple of documents.

And down the road, as we near publication dates, I will  redesign the website, too, so you will be able to meet the real-life characters in the book via video and podcasts. And, also, I really want to take polls. I want to see what you think about, say, Minutemen.

Would you like to read about them and their connections to highly placed politicos in Arizona?

I hope so, because that is the topic of my  next post.

Friends, I am in the middle of the last-minute revisions to my book about undocumented immigrants in Phoenix.

Until I finish in the next ten days or so,  I won’t be able to write much here.

The object below is a toilet paper rose.

Photo by Terry Greene Sterling

If  you can guess, via the comments section below, who generally makes these roses, and where, and why,  you are a very smart person. I dare you!

The people in the shadows often pray to the Virgin of Guadalupe. They pray to the brown Virgen because after all she is a mom, the one who cares, the one who loves them unconditionally and will intercede on their behalf with all the male deities in her family. The Virgen has brown skin, just like the people in the shadows. She has suffered, just as they suffer. And because she is a mother figure, they can talk to her just as they talk to their human mothers.

And she’ll listen, and do all she can for them, because she loves them that much.

During the time of the rosarios, the Virgen is taken from home to home. She stays for one  night at each home, and the people in the shadows say a rosary to her. The next day, she’s taken to another home. Another rosary is said in her honor in the new home. And so it goes.  In Phoenix, a lot of  the homes the Virgen visits belong to people on the edge. The recession, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and the harshest laws in the nation against undocumented people have all taken their toll. But the  Virgen loves the people in the shadows, and they love her, and sometimes honestly that’s all they need. Here is a picture of the Virgen at one of the homes in Phoenix. She stands on an altar  outside a house trailer. The people inside don’t have money to buy food. But they give thanks to their  Virgencita anyway.

La Virgencita in Phoenix -- Photo by Terry Greene Sterling

The feast day of the  Virgin of Guadalupe is December 12, and that is the last day of the rosario. As the feast day approaches, many of the people in the shadows take joy in the matachine dancers. You can read historical context of the matachines here. These dancers dance in gratitude to the Virgin of Guadalupe.  And the dancers aren’t professionals, but the people in the shadows themselves.

Sometimes, they dance in the day. And sometimes, they dance in the night.

Matachine Dancers in Phoenix Photo by Terry Greene Sterling

On December 6, the matachine dancers assembled at the Immaculate Heart Catholic Church in Phoenix. (This was a church built many years ago because Mexicans weren’t all that welcome in white Catholic churches. Hey, it’s Phoenix. What did you expect?) The matachine dancers danced all the way to the headquarters of the  Diocese of Phoenix, where they were blessed by the bishop. I think this was about mile or so of dancing. I videotaped it on my iPhone, and made a movie out of it, which you will see below. It reminded me how privileged I am to write a book and tell the untold stories of the people in the shadows. For me, it is such an honor to write a book for a non-Spanish speaking audience, a book that  conveys how undocumented immigrants live, love, sin, hope and pray. And one of the lessons I’ve come away with is this: You don’t need a lot of stuff  to celebrate and give thanks.  You just need to sing and dance.

So now, from the hidden worlds of the undocumented immigrant to you–an iPhone video.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZab6PeGL9c

Merry Christmas from Terry Greene Sterling. Merry Christmas! Sing! Dance! Be grateful!

Al Sharpton came to Pilgrim’s Rest Baptist Church in Phoenix today to beef up an already incredibly vibrant activist community that supports comprehensive immigration reform.  You can read about his visit here.

What you won’t read about is the little lady with the straw hat. She stood outside the church, part of a very small (less than a dozen) gaggle of supporters showing their approval of  Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

The little lady wore a pink shirt and baggy slacks and multi-toned (brown, grey, black, white?) walking shoes. She looked like a grandmother a la Ozzie and Harriet.

She told me she helped support a “colony of cats” in her neighborhood. She said the thirty-four or so cats had been trapped and neutered and released back into her neighborhood.  She explained  that if she were to insert  another bunch of cats into  the established  colony of neutered cats, there would be “chaos.”

And that hypothetical cat-chaos scenario  is emblematic of  what happens in the USA when unauthorized immigrants enter the country, she confided. 

“Write that down,” she said.

So I did.

A toy truck.  A framed photograph. A pair of athletic shoes. An asthma inhaler.

This shrine of immigrant trash was created from belongings  collected in the southern Arizona border.

Who left these belongings in the desert?

Why?