I Drew a Cat and Named it Monkey By: Stefanie Morse

In contemplation of another emergency situation, I waited to write for the STU Karnes Project blog until our last day. (Sorry Donna!)

Each day at Karnes was as difficult as it was transformative. Shortly after a man showed my partner Lucas and I the scars from where a gang tried to mutilate him with a machete, a small, excited boy alerted us to a work of chalk art he had completed, exclaiming proudly, “Dibujé un gato. Lo llamé Mono.” (I drew a cat. I named him ‘Monkey.’)

Each day I entered Karnes County Residential Center eager to help, yet unprepared for the imminent emotional rollercoaster inherent in the task of digging into the unhealed wounds of trauma stories in order to craft the most effective stories for their asylum claims. Each day I left feeling empty from the heartbreaking circumstances from which the asylum seekers came, and frustrated by Jeff Sessions, et al., for exacerbating the trauma manyasylum seekers experienced in their home countries.

When I feel hopeless (e.g., sit with the fathers and sons fleeing unimaginable violence, in a Karnes, a place where they are being housed in cages) it is easy to slip into a mindset where the world feels like a dark place full of bad people, who are hurting vulnerable people because they can.

But the end of the day today, the last day, I couldn’t help but remind myself of how lucky we are to have had this opportunity. We sat with some of the bravest dads in the world this week, who left everything they knew behind in order to keep their sons safe. We had the privilege of serving these people after the government stripped them of their rights, their humanity and what little family with whom they traveled to the United States.

We got to work with the RAICES team, who works tirelessly, rising to each challenge the ever-changing immigration landscape creates, all in an effort to protect human rights.

The STU Karnes Team consisted of students who unabashedly walked into situationsriddled with heartbreak and uncertainty. We did it though, because it was the right thing to do, and we have a professor who has made it her life’s work to help these vulnerable people, and to inspire her students to do the same.

In a world that has the potential to be so dark, I am grateful that I am able to remind myself that good people with beautiful hearts do exist. A world where seven-year-olds who have witnessed more violence than you and I will in our lifetimes can run up to us at the end of their school days to proudly and confidently tell us about his chalk art.

As I left the facility, bittersweet feelings of gratitude washed over me, as did the weightless ease of privilege, as I acknowledged that the time that the sweet kids and their fathers will be allowed to leave as freely as we did is still unknown.