On Travel and Identity: Questions Born On The Road

Landscape near Tucson, Arizona.

This summer I've been busy, and it's finally caught up to me. Between my last post and today Fresno's climate has increased from "tolerably warm" to "oppressively broiling," several summer blockbusters have been released to either box-office records or critical acclaim, (guess which one I preferred), and the nation reels in the wake of yet another terrorist massacre at the hands of a gun-wielding white supremacist. On one of my trips midway through June, I listened to eyewitness reports on public radio and nearly had to pull my car over because I was crying so bitterly. Through the hours of the night and the early morning rays of the sun my prayers rise with so many around the world, both in my neighborhood and abroad.

Though my privilege and education insulate me from many of my brothers and sisters who experience suffering daily, I stand in solidarity with them, as I've chosen a journey that puts me in intimate contact with them. To me, this refusal to allow a sedentary existence gives me the opportunity for communion with Christ as he was in his earliest, most vulnerable days. During June my church prayed for refugees displaced around the world, migrants searching for work, and others displaced from their homelands for economic, political, or violence-related reasons. Jesus himself was displaced to Egypt as his family fled the violence that the state levied in the face of a threat to its power. Today estimates range in the millions of people displaced in Syria and Iraq from ongoing civil and international war. It reminds me that every action I take, every breath I breathe, and every time I look across the expanse of stars scattered across the night, that I am connected to every soul that calls this creation home. In the wake of Pope Francis' encyclical 'Laudato Si,' we are admonished to take very seriously not just the physical world but the systems that can hold captive so many who are vulnerable to exploitation. In the West, our history of exploration and colonization has left us with the ghosts of cultures once proud and now borders on the tyrannical in terms of its influence over the global network of trade and commerce. What can I do to cultivate peace, to nurture hope in a world so divided and fractured? What does my own story, my own geography, my own people have to say to this most human of conditions?

Travel gives me the opportunity to reflect on such questions, albeit indirectly. Whenever I come to a new place I'm afforded a unique window into its culture, its history, and the influences that present themselves as parts of that locale's personality. Through this experience, I learn more about myself. Cities are like people, complex webs in that they are shaped by so many moving parts day in and out. In late May and early June I travelled to Boston for the first time, meeting my family and some old family friends in this great historic city. Yes, we got to see brick, wood, and mortar monuments to the cradle of our nation's independence: places where the words "liberty" and "freedom" became rights to be held even at the cost of one's own life. We also saw the layers of peoples that make that city unique, from the North End's sprawling streets filled with Italian immigrants owning bakeries, restaurants, cafes, and other ventures, to the South Side's famous Irish community that gives us that fabulous accent we can all hear in our heads thanks to Mark Wahlberg. I had some great food, toured some cool places, and enjoyed weather that wasn't too horrible, especially as a break from the aforementioned oven of the Valley. Still, the place seemed alien to me. This was a completely different America from the one I inhabited. For one, its historical culture is not shaped by the Spanish missionaries and Indigenous communities like the West, but rather the Puritan colonies striving to create an altogether different society from that of the Fathers that built the missions. Today it is a decidedly post-Christian world, where the largest number of churches, rising in their historic splendor, represent the liberal Congregationalist brand of mainline Protestant religion, and the Unitarian churches have forsaken their Christian identity entirely. The immigrant landscape is also different. Instead of Mexican and Central American service workers in the restaurants and hotels, we met South Americans and people from the Caribbean, the latest layer to the evolving fabric of this city's mosaic. Cambridge was a pleasant surprise; I found it friendly and accessible despite housing some of the most elite and renowned institutions of higher education in the world. I think a much needed time spent with a close friend helped diffuse some of the cultural dissonance. My judgment? It would be hard for me to live in Boston, but the food, drink, and public transportation make it a hard sell. I never say never.

Returning to the West Coast for some time spent among my colleagues (for a staff conference, of course) I realized how much I cherish an environment of fervent and multifaceted faith. My years as a student in InterVarsity were critical to help me grow spiritually and as a leader, but now that I'm on staff I am connected to a community that helps me in ways I never thought possible. I was able to bust out my electric guitar once again and play with a group of talented musicians (not always a given in my worship leading experience), and relax with my books on the beach (did I mention this conference takes place on the secluded desert of Santa Catalina Island?). It was a respite in the middle of a long time traveling.

I returned to a flurry of ministry activity as our program, the Pink House, wrapped up and the residents moved out after an intense time of debrief, celebration, and tearful goodbyes. I barely had time to catch my breath when I was on the road again to celebrate one of my best friends' weddings. As a best man I had the honor to deliver the ring to him during the ceremony, and we followed with a beautiful time of food, drink, dancing, and time spent among friends. Some of it felt like a college reunion where I was able to again recognize the beauty of my time in San Luis Obispo as a student. At the same time, I had the chance to process with some of my friends who I hadn't seen in years. These companions, gay, straight, Black, Asian, and everywhere in between, again enrich my world.

My latest journey saw me return to the Southwest, the perennial place of my pilgrimage, where my family celebrated my grandmother's eightieth birthday. Cousins, aunts, and uncles gathered to cook some good food and enjoy the spectacular scenery of West Tucson. Though a bit removed from our ancestral home of Western New Mexico, it is a place of surreal beauty: sky islands stretching thousands of feet into the air, thunderheads charged with lightning, saguaros scattered across the desert hills, and a myriad of creatures that share the landscape with us. This time I took advantage of my uncle's bookshelf to investigate some literature that ranges beyond a purely academic interest for me. One was a collection of stories, myths, and legends of various Indian and Native peoples of North America. They are a fascinating window into a worldview that shaped many of my ancestors. You see, a significant portion of my blood is Indigenous, and for all my digging into my multiethnic identity, this is a journey for me that is very new. Some members of my family (like my uncle, who is a respected lawyer and scholar for the rights of Indigenous peoples worldwide) have done more work than others to uncover the bonds that link us to a particular land, place, language, and culture. In our case, it is complicated by the fact that many of ours, the Chiricahua Apache, were systematically exterminated in an ongoing genocide perpetrated by the American government. Such difficult circumstances shape the tragic intersection of colonial power and Native self determination, a reality that influences even the Christian faith that forms my own spiritual foundation. How can I come to terms with the blood of my ancestors which cries out from the desert soil, spilled by those claiming allegiance to a Christ and tradition that supposedly stands with the poor, oppressed, and needy? The Apache were wandering, itinerant people, and surely belong to the consciousness of the Galilean who had no place to rest his head. Yet history took its course, and I find as many dead ends as I find meaningful places to search for this reconciliation.

Apache dancer.

The hour grows late, and I must leave the rest of my thoughts to another, hopefully longer, post which can help me process this new journey. I have not lost hope. Yet my worldview is expanding. My heart is at home in the landscape travelled by those people of Arizona, New Mexico, and Chihuahua. Can this search offer more than tears and tragedy? I have to believe so.