ACROSS THE LINES - Archive (2006-2020)

Published in The Christian Century , August 8, 2006 Last summer I was invited by a hospice chaplain to accompany him on a visit to the family of Maria Durand de Perez, a Mexican woman who had died a few weeks earlier in the border town of San Ysidro, California, at the astonishing age of 111. Knowing that I had once worked as the pastor of a Spanish-language church, the chaplain, whose name is Andy, thought that my presence might prove helpful to Angela, Maria's 78-year-old daughter, who was mourning the loss of her mother deeply. In his previous visits, Andy, who spoke only English, and Angela, who spoke only Spanish, had depended for translation on Yrma, Angela's bilingual daughter and the owner of the San Ysidro home. Andy suspected (rightly, it turned out) that Angela was longing to have a more in-depth conversation about her mother's remarkable life. At first it seemed absurd that Angela's grief was so pronounced. It was not as if she had had insufficient time to p...

Published in A & U Magazine , October, 2006 Life on the Line One HIV-positive woman’s account of crossing the U.S.–Mexico border in search of healthcare by John Fanestil Last summer I worked for a week in the mountains east of San Diego, as the volunteer chaplain at a camp for people with HIV/AIDS. There I met Lourdes Sanchez (not her real name), a twenty-four-year-old Tijuana woman who laughed when I asked her where she was from. “Yo vivo en la línea,” said Lourdes, smiling and using the Spanish slang for “border.” I live on the line. I picked up the conversation in Spanish: “Así que vives en San Diego o Tijuana?” So do you live in San Diego or Tijuana? “Los dos,” Lourdes said. Both. She went on to explain to me that she maintained residences in both Tijuana and San Ysidro, San Diego County’s border town. I found the idea fascinating, and so I asked Lourdes to sit down and tell me about herself, and to explain how it came to pass that she lived on both sides of the line. Lourdes S...