We have now been in McAllen for a week, working at the Humanitarian Respite Center (HRC), exploring the area, and speaking with locals. In total, I would estimate we have worked about 60 hours over the course of 6 days at the HRC. My greatest take away thus far is this:

Trade your pity for partnership.

The HRC seriously relies on volunteers to help the place going, but without the staff, some of whom work “16 hours a week 7 days a week”, the HRC would not exist. When ICE drops off a new bus of immigrants at the HRC, the first person they all meet is Sister Alma Rosa who gathers them all around her in a circle as she greets them and introduces them to the HRC. “Welcome”, she says. “Thank God you made it here”. From there we have heard her say “No one here is above another because they have more. No one here is less than another because they have less. Treat each other kindly.” We’ve witnessed her sentiment in action, like men shaking hands and helping each other with childcare if there is no mother accompanying them. One particular trend of kindness I’ve tuned into is the sharing of what little everyone has with each other. There is a hygiene counter we have worked at where we hand out backpacks with bathroom basics – usually a towel, a toothbrush, shampoo and body wash – and each family unit gets one per family. We add however many toothbrushes they need per family member, but if they want more items they have to come back later. Doing so is the only way to ration the donations. Besides hygiene there is also over the counter medication. One item in high demand is Pedialyte, which most people call “suelo”. As you can imagine, everyone is pretty dehydrated, and Pedialyte is a precious resource that we are able to give out to children 12 and under. Unfortunately we cannot just hand full bottles over to people, there simply is not enough to sustain such a practice. So instead, they get dixie cups, one at a time. There was one day though that the “don’t hand bottles out” rule was not communicated to volunteers, and that’s exactly what happened – full bottles were being handed out left and right. We worried knowing there were only 20 boxes left upstairs in the warehouse with 4 bottles per box – 80 bottles for 800 people? Eeesh. No way could we afford to give individuals whole bottles for themselves. But as I walked through the main main room to go get more supplies, I noticed men and women walking around with their bottles to different families to see if their children needed Pedialyte. They were sharing with anyone and everyone. Not because they were trying to be heros, but because that’s just what you should do. From what I have witnessed at the HRC each day is that this community of immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees are acting in conscious partnership in one another’s survival.

And that is the attitude and practice I hope to see from more volunteers, especially those coming from far away, at the HRC. We have seen a LOT of naive self-righteousness from folks who come in to volunteer but enter with an attitude of “I know how to best make this place run even though I have only been here for five minutes”. The worst is when volunteers come in with an impractical hero complex, think that they are God by just handing out shoes or toothbrushes willy-nilly, and patting kids on the head and giving them a full box (THE ONLY BOX) of crayons in the entire place. “These poor people”, said one woman to me today. “They need shoes and you won’t give out the flip flops I brought? Well I’ll just bring them someplace else then”. What that woman did not understand was that yes, she had brought 40 pairs of flip flops, and yes they are needed. But there are 800+ people at the HRC. And we need the flip flops for the showers, and there have been times we have to ask people to return the flips flops so we can let others use them for the showers. No, it is not ideal, but is reality ever? The staff does everything they can to accommodate each person who comes through, but they do not hide the fact that we have to ration, and the only way to be fair is to only give out items that we can give to EVERYONE. When volunteers decide they know what is best and just start giving things out that cannot go to every person, they make staff’s job harder by setting expectations that cannot be fulfilled. Such actions are guided by pity, not empathy.

Pity is passive. Pity is self-indulgent. Pity does not honor human dignity. Pity does not serve anyone.

Empathy is active. Empathy is allyship. Empathy honors the human experience. Empathy serves everyone. The families we meet each day are brilliant, resourceful, and tenacious in their journeys to reach their final destination in the U.S. I think what I’m trying to say is that they are their own saviors and certainly do not need the savior-syndromed pity of some HRC volunteer who comes in once for a couple hours. The best way to help those coming through the Detention Centers and the HRC and who settle into cities near you is to greet them as your neighbor and friend, not someone who you have to coddle. Our job is to be a partner in their fight for a life free from poverty and violence, a fight they’ve known longer than most of us ever have.