As I stood in front of the U.S.-Mexico border wall in January, the knot in my chest tightened. This human-made wall was now personal and felt contradictory to the feeling of oneness I experienced with the many people I encountered earlier in the week.
The Winter Immersion Program (WIP) is an immersion program here at St. Joe’s that invites students to live out “faith that does justice” by encountering God’s love in the relationships made along “el camino” (the way) as well as living out justice-centered values upon return. I have had the privilege of being part of WIP for the past two years, in January 2023 as a participant in the one week El Salvador immersion, and January this year as a Peer Minister for the one week El Paso, Texas immersion.
The words of Mother Teresa, “If we have no peace it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other,” have continued to ring through my head since returning home. I have been grappling with living in an increasingly disconnected world while also having experienced a simple yet profound feeling of oneness on the immersion.
A moment of belonging that particularly stands out to me occurred on my first night in El Paso. My WIP group had shared a meal with a couple from Venezuela at Annunciation House, an organization that offers hospitality to migrants in El Paso.
As we sat around the table and enjoyed our meal together, they talked about their plans to get married, the story of how they met. At the time, the couple was five months pregnant with their baby. Although I could not understand most of what they said since I don’t speak Spanish, I vividly remember the joy that radiated off them from across the table. A deeper sense of what it means to belong started to grow in me as, in that moment, we belonged to each other.
This encounter, among many others, has pushed me to lean more deeply into this sort of belonging. In the U.S., we unfortunately choose separation and detachment when moments of unity and belonging like this are possible. As we approach the upcoming presidential election, it is my goal to continue to humanize migration, a topic that has become increasingly politicized. We must remember that migration is not just about policy; it is about people and recognizing the humanity in everyone even when we may appear to be “different” from one another.