“Let us be reminded that before there is a final solution, there must be a first solution, a second one, even a third. The move toward a final solution is not a jump. It takes one step, then another, then another.”
You might think there’s only one story in the world these days: how humanity is going to survive the global pandemic that’s got so many of us locked down or racing to stock up for the end of time.
But there was one sobering story of suffering already in full stride before anyone had ever heard of COVID-19, the coronavirus, or social distancing, and it’s sure to continue long after:
The humanitarian disaster at the US/Mexico border, a crisis cynically orchestrated by the Trump administration (which, it turns out, is competent in at least one area).
That’s the story The First Solution sets out to tell.
The tale unfolds through the voices and actions of volunteer foot soldiers I met while traveling the Tex/Mex border in January 2020. These accidental heroes are fighting a guerrilla war for human dignity, flying the tattered flag of American values as their nation’s leaders right now commit unspeakable human rights violations.
Tired of just being outraged by the smattering of news stories emanating from the border, my husband and I went there as the new year and decade dawned to see for ourselves what was happening. We planned to bear witness from Brownsville to El Paso, with a bit of “we” time in Big Bend in between. But what we witnessed was far worse than we imagined. Once stuck in with Sergio and Mike from Team Brownsville, Cindy and Madeleine of Angry Tías, Patti from the refugee camp and Joshua from the #EndMPP #RestoreAsylumNow Vigil, we couldn’t bring ourselves to leave Brownsville.
Trump & Co haven’t just stopped people at border; they’ve stopped their stories from getting across, too. At the urging of all we met, we resolved to capture them and share them in this travelogue of our road trip gone awry.
We interviewed humanitarians as well as detainees. Tangled with security personnel as we hunted up kids’ jails. Witnessed the poor excuse for due process at the border’s Kafka-esque kangaroo tent courts. We were entrusted with harrowing accounts of perseverance and survival by migrants now living in squalor in Matamoros — one of the most dangerous places on Earth, even before COVID-19 joined the Gulf cartel to pose a daily threat to their lives.
Examining the US’s troubled history with racial equality as well as its southern neighbors, and exposing the profiteers feeding off this human tragedy, I provide context for the stories of humanity and heroism highlighted in The First Solution. My goal is that you, reader, will see yourself in these stories of good people doing great things against extraordinary odds and become emboldened to act on behalf of fairness and justice and democracy as well.
The challenge is to share these stories with the world before November 2020. Which is why I’m publishing the story as I write it, here and on Medium. The stakes are just too high, and the stories too urgent, to wait for a traditional publishing deal — although one would be welcomed.
Interested parties may contact me here.