My second (and final) year begins

Hello to all my faithful readers (my parents at this point, I think)!

In many ways, I returned to Amate to bring a little continuity to my life. Ever since I left home for college, I've been moving around constantly to new dorms, cities, etc. In some ways, I thought Amate would be a comfortable option. It didn't exactly work like that.

The biggest shock has definitely been my new housemates. As much as I attempted to prepare myself, I wasn't ready to meet 10 new people and immediately put them into a central role in my life. Forming a new community is very similar to breaking up with your significant other and begin dating other people. You sit at the dinner table with new people and know that this person will soon hold a very dear place in your life--however, that is just not the case quite yet. It is even more challenging considering your ex-girlfriend (1st community) lives in Chicago and you really didn't break up for good. Whenever I see Jessie or Jen in other communities, we exchange pained looks. It's a rough transition.

Work hasn't been an easy transition either. The first day was wonderful: it was like returning home to a family of wonderful people working so hard for others. However, we've had major budget issues over the summer, and it's very strange to see someone else in my desk.

Despite my whining, I'm excited to be back. I ultimately returned because I needed one more year for personal growth. I felt I learned a lot about the world last year, and I'd like to spend this year learning more about myself. I also have a new goal: hope.

We met for orientation to discuss "social justice." Social justice, to me, is a the "sexy" issue in the church right now. It attracts a peculiar group of people--activists. The ideas are inflaming due to the extreme possibilities of large-scale restructuring. We wouldn't need a Kovler Center if mental health facilities were freely offered to anyone and immigration reform addressed the hardships our clients face. Last year brought about a major setback, however. Without getting too political, I felt betrayed by the new Health Care Law. I voted for Obama almost entirely because he was striving to implement major reforms in our health care system. There was talk about a public option and health insurance for all. Unfortunately, the very first thing to go was health insurance for undocumented immigrants (aka my clients). Afterwards went the public option, and we were left with an ugly, complicated system that basically helped the insurance companies more than the American people. Power mobilized to help the people helped those already with power and money.

Dad, I now understand why you are a conservative. I still think the Republicans are just as bad though, ;)

So I went through my "fake Catholic Worker" stage next. I obsessed over the notion of individual and personal justice. Want to help the poor--invite them into your home. Don't rely on large structures to solve your problems. I began to read Stanley Hauerwaus and Shane Clairborne but only on a very shallow level. I realized I wanted to live the philosophies of Dorothy Day, but I had never ever read her works. In reality, she does want us to work on the smaller scales but not to ignore large scales. She constantly practiced civil disobedience against unjust structures. It was more nuanced than I was willing to admit.

Taking my fake philosophy to its extreme means to have no hope. To think that political structures will side against the poor is (sadly) realistic, but it doesn't always have to be like that. England left India after Gandhi and the Civil Rights Legislation was passed after the heroic work of MLK Jr. However, is racism dead? Of course not. It's about a balance and to always strive for hope that things can be better while remembering:

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation
in realizing that. This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well. It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.

Amen, Oscar Romero.

Here's to my second year! May God bless it with prayer, service, community, and above all--hope.

Year in Review

Well, I'm pretty sure I've lost all of the people who may have been following my blog since I haven't written anything since MLK Jr day.

As a brief update: I have decided to return for a second year with Amate House. As this year was wrapping up, I began to look for job positions throughout the midwest. I really began to struggle because I really didn't know what to look for. I chose Amate House because it was a great program that could give me medical experience for medical school. Midway through this year, it became apparent that medical school is no longer the frontrunner in my mind. I haven't completely ruled it out as a possibility, but it occurred to me that I need more time to recognize what my interests and passions are.

Amate House has been a wonderful experience for me; it provides a venue in which I can examine who I am as a person and what my goals are in life. Planning ahead is a real struggle for me because I constantly worry about making the "wrong" decision. Another year will challenge me to fight my weaknesses and have a clearer picture of my future plans.

I'll update more this week. I'd like to talk about things that occurred this last 5 months or so.

Stay tuned.

MLK Jr. In-Service Day

So after only 1 full week back at work, it's already time for a three-day weekend. Initially, I was disappointed to see that we had an Amate event on Monday because work fatigue is really making me long for real vacations. Amate events are wonderful but they are by no means vacations.

I decided I really wanted to get the most out of the in-service day so on Sunday I read some speeches by MLK Jr. I of course read the famed "I have a dream speech" but I also came across a speech called "Beyond Vietnam" that stunned me.

(full text here: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm)

When McCain was running for President, some criticized him for voting against making today a federal holiday. McCain's argument was he was against the government doing a lot of symbolic actions. I have a lot of respect for McCain and understand that we have a congress who only last year passed initiatives recognizing Christianity, Islam, and Judaism as "great religions" and that symbolic gestures can get ridiculous so while I disagree I can at least understand the sentiment. The US govt does waste a lot of time on symbolic gestures. However, many other people voted against the holiday because MLK was a "communist" and "just stirred up trouble." After reading the speech, I understood what the issue was really about.

In his speech on Vietnam, MLK acknowledged for the first time that he fervently believed that the Vietnam War was extremely immoral. He fiercely criticized how much money was being spent at the cost of both the poor in Vietnam and the poor in the United States. He stated in his speech that a "nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." Our current government spends anywhere from 20-54% of our spending on military spending (depending on who you ask), and we account for 47% of the world's military spending. For a nation that is not even in a Cold War it's simply inexcusable. To be blunt, I fail to see how a "Christian nation" could even defend those numbers.

In addition, he was quite radical about major societal reconstructions. Here's one of his most powerful quotes: "A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring." It seems to me that this following quote (found in Batman Begins) is quite applicable: "You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become a villain."

Dad and Billy, I hope I haven't lost you yet. Just stick with it because it gets more positive.

So today was a wonderfully positive day. It was a day to focus on social justice through reflective thought. We left the city and went to a retreat center near Wisconsin. We were instructed to spend three hours in silence. Journaling, reading, or meditating was encouraged. I spend the first hour in Eucharistic Adoration, spent the second hour reading a wonderful article called "The Burden of Nonviolence" and spent the last hour in the seminary's mass. The article examined fatigue in nonviolence from the perspective of a nun that's spent her life fighting the nuclear arms race. She reminds us that "the one carrying the greatest burden is the one carrying no burden at all." What she means is while the fight for justice can be a heavy burden, living a life where nonviolence is considered a joke is even worse because you can't even bring yourself to trust others. It was helpful because it spoke to a lot of frustrations in the torture field. Progress often seems impossible as your own government threatens to cut funding every year and refuses to investigate the past injustices in prisons on American military bases in Europe and Cuba. The article did wonders for my attitude.

After lunch, we discussed areas of injustice we see at work. It's a tough issue for me because I see our work at Kovler as purely reactionary. We don't really campaign against torture, but instead we merely help survivors piece their lives back together. I feel like I'm fishing for garbage in a river when maybe we should be closing the factories upstream that pollute.

In addition, MLK day is a great day to wonder how Catholics or Christians in general can bring about a positive change. Currently in Catholicism, there are two conflicting paradigms: Liberation Theology (which advocates political activism) and Evangelical Catholicism (which advocates withdrawing from the political structure; i.e. the Catholic Worker Movement). Studying Liberation Theology is empowering because it emphasizes bringing large structural changes to society. However, the Catholic Worker reminds us that Jesus never said that we should "take Rome for Christ" but rather give up all possessions and minister to communities. They believe the Church should distance itself from the state and the idea of a "Christian nation" has failed time and time again. It points to the fact that the Southern Baptist Convention declared the invasion of Iraq in 2003 as "just and necessary." I fail to see how a preemptive war that left over 100,000 civilians dead fits into Christ's message of radical nonviolence. It's a difficult question and both sides have a plethora of theories and writings to defend their respective sides. It's a question that's been on my mind since I took Professor Baxter's class on Catholicism in American Politics. I imagine the balance is found somewhere in the middle, but it's a subject to which I shall return.

All in all, I've decided MLK day is a wonderful day for everyone to examine the Church's role in social justice issues. He was a true Christian that ultimately died in the fight against injustice. He rightly should be celebrated.

Pros and Cons of Open Communication

Amate REALLY stresses striving for complete openness in the community. I would argue from my experience that it's the most important part of community living. It occasionally hits me that I didn't choose to room with any of my housemates-- none of did. Instead, we allowed ourselves to be open to rooming with anyone.

Community living requires heaps of flexibility. I quickly realized that I probably wouldn't necessarily be great friends with every single person in my community outside of Amate House. Nevertheless, I spend hours with these people so it's impossible just to "tolerate" someone. Communication allows deep and highly personal discussions. Things that irritate you about your roommates should most likely be addressed verbally. It sounds cruel, but I remember I once annoyed Becca by getting something out of her room when she wasn't around. She, being a wise second-year Amatian, sat be down and explained why it bothered her. It was a little thing, but it was nice to express both sides of the issue so no resentment could build up.

While little things maybe could (or even should) go unsaid, big issues are really difficult to confront.

We had a house meeting on Thursday, a sort of "State of the House" address by anyone wishing to speak their mind. Two difficult issues arose.

1. People either commute via CTA, walk, or drive to work. If you drive, the car is yours during the day and the gas is paid by Amate. If you drive anywhere else, the cars are considered communal and you are charged $0.25 per mile. Pretty fair system, but it's trickier with the CTA passes. The four of us that commute are given 30 day passes. Up until this point, the four of us have kept our passes on the weekend and loan them out if anyone needs one. On Thursday, a few of the drivers said that they don't understand why CTA passes are not communal like the cars. They felt CTA passes should be deposited by the car keys once the workday ended. Ultimately, it comes down to a power issue over who control the passes. It seems like a minor issue, but the El costs $2.25 per ride. If you want to go downtown, it automatically costs almost $5 every time which quickly ads up when you only make $100 per month. A lot of annoyance was released on both sides. No resolution was reached.

2. Probably the most difficult issue is that everyone had different expectations coming into this year. We were told that we could only leave the community for 10 days total throughout the year. Some people have been gone for over 15 days already and we're only half way through. I expressed my frustration that while I'm glad people get to see family each month, it's sometimes difficult for me to see everyone leave while I only get to see my family about once every 6 months. This conversation carried a lot of emotion and many feelings were hurt. No resolution was reached here either.

It was my first realization that sometimes things just won't be worked out. I know this probably sounds melodramatic, but we really all invest a lot of emotion into this experience. Communal living is wonderful, but it takes so much work. I guess I'm starting to wonder where you go when there's no place else to go? When you've said all their is to be said and there's no reconciliation, what happens? I feel in most instances you just go your separate way, but in communal living, there's no place to go. I think it shows why communal living is so powerful because you can't simply walk away. Everything must be dealt with.

Fatigue and Serenity

My parents warned me before graduating that the next few years in my life were among the most difficult to cope with. I would have to agree already. Working forty hours a week was demanding from the first day onward, but a deep fatigue begins to settle after several months.

(This intro is partially to explain away my lack of writing. I thank all those who hassled me over the break about writing more. It worked; here I am).

So the general fatigue is partly due to routine. This job particularly has its routines that are broken up by major crises. The working world is tough; there's definitely an adjustment that needs to take place.

At Kovler, there is a deeper fatigue that sets in: fatigue in facing such tragedy. My new position (we rotate services at Kovler every three months) is to assess eligibility. Any referral that Kovler receives goes through me. I sit down with potential clients to see whether they are eligible for services. To be eligible, the client must have been tortured by the US definition (severe physical or emotional pain, torturer acting under the color of law, not by lawful sanctions, outside US).

The purpose of these meetings is two-fold: we are federally funded so the gov't wants to know whether we are using their money correctly, but more importantly, torture is a very unique trauma. Clients deal with a lot of guilt that others of similar traumas do not. Where government officials can beat up anyone on the streets, it is different when someone is singled out and targeted. Our clients often deal with guilt because they know that if they weren't in the opposition party/Muslim/homosexual/Hutu etc, etc, etc that it wouldn't have happened. We are really best suited to treat torture and torture alone.

So these meetings are really emotional. We meet for about 30 minutes, and it is my job to find out whether they were tortured. I need to ask specific questions to know the severity of the torture and the purpose behind it. These meetings are extremely painful for the client and very stressful for me as well. It's not easy to hear these stories, and fatigue settles in some days.

My dad was really helpful over break by helping me to focus on the positive. He reminded me that I didn't torture them and I didn't create the unjust immigration system that prevents them from progressing both mentally and economically. It's on days like these that I find help in the Serenity prayer.

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

I always thought it was limiting to assume that things couldn't be changed. When I was younger, I preferred the Calvin and Hobbes prayer:

God grant me

the strength to change what I can;

the inability to accept what I can’t;

and the incapacity to tell the difference.

While Calvin's prayer has it's appeal, it falls short because there are things I simply cannot change. I cannot make court days come faster or move just a week later; I can't get my client who's dying an appointment with a cardiologist any faster. I do what I can, and take it one day at a time trying to use what skills I have to better those I see. It's all any of us can do in this line of work, and we rejoice in the days our clients are granted asylum or see that doctor. Just the other day, one of our most dire clients walked in and announced that the new year is here and the past is behind us! To see a client with no home, no family and no hope have such a drastic change in a mere 4 months is truly miraculous.

Torture Survivors: Recognizing Special Needs

This post will be a summary of a lecture given my Mary Fabri. (Here is a NPR story on the Kovler Center! Mario is my supervisor and Mary (the lecturer) is my major boss. http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/Program_WV.aspx?episode=13687 )

Mary Fabri is the Senior Clinical Director at Marjorie Kovler Center and is considered an international expert in torture treatment. She's a pretty incredible person and been an advocate for survivors for years and years. Here is a summary of her lecture with my own thoughts added in italics.

1. Types of Torture
a. Physical- How it's usually depicted in TV and films.
b. Psychological- Much more effective and longer lasting.
c. Sexual-common in both genders
d. Deprivation (social, sensory, sleep, hygiene, health, nutrition)


2. Realities for Refugees and Asylum Seekers


a. There are no safe places
(1) One thing to keep in mind with torture survivors is that they have forever loss their sense of home. Picture your own government betraying your trust by torturing you and forcing you into exile. Your sense of homeland, motherland, fatherland is lost forever. Torture survivors have serious trust issues. This fact adds a lot of pressure. When you forget to call a client to remind him/her of an appointment, it's a small act of betrayal. On the other hand, trust doesn't just come from being polite and smiling a lot. It takes years of kindness and support.

b. Separation from family, friends, community- Imagine leaving your family for a weekend. Now picture leaving for 6-12 years (the typical average for our clients). Just imagine the stress. When families are reunited, it can actually be immensely stressful for everyone involved.

c. Deep sense of being different
(1) 90% of our female clients have been raped. Rape victims often feel perpetually violated.
(2) Psychological torture involves dehumanization. When you are screaming at and described as nothing more than a cockroach, some part of you believes it. After all, how could any normal human be treated like that? Torture is so effective because the horrific acts humans do is beyond cruel. It's simply unimaginable.



3. Triple Trauma Paradigm

a. Traumatic event- As Westerns, the diagnosis for our clients is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Well the diagnosis is helpful, there are several problems with this diagnosis for torture survivors:
(a) First of all, the diagnosis criteria for PTSD were made from studies involving American rape victims or American veterans returning from war. The diagnosis criteria was not involve a wide variety of cultures and situations.
(b) The use of the word "post" is highly misleading. As will see in the triple paradigm, trauma persists beyond the actual torture.
(c) The use of "disorder" is also misleading. These reactions are not a disorder but a normal, biological reaction. The experience of torture is so surreal the brain really struggles to cope with it. A common reaction to torture survivors is "flashbacks." Flashbacks can strike after the smallest stimulus and are so vivid the survivor believes he/she is re-experiencing the torture. Psychologists tell us the brain is replaying the event in an attempt to understand what happened.

b. Flight- Think of how traumatic hiring a human smuggler would be. Imagine putting thousands of dollars into a man's hand who could easily kill you, rob you, rape you or even sell you. Also, think of victims of domestic abuse; actually leaving the abusive spouse is considered to be one of the most difficult parts of spousal abuse. The flight itself is traumatic.
c. Resettlement and acculturation- I think you can imagine with this part. I've tried in my previous posts and will continue to attempt to explain the traumatic difficulties of asylum seekers on a daily basis while they attempt to resettle.



4. Three major Sequelae of Torture- These are the three abnormal conditions commonly found in torture survivors.


a. Avoidance- A very common tactic used by many people in a wide variety of traumas. Painful memories are difficult to burden so many people attempt to shed them. Survivors avoid talking about the experiences or even their home country in general. Survivors also withdraw emotionally from their surroundings (CAT scans of survivors' brains have found the pre-frontal cortex and hippocampus (where emotions are relayed through out the brain) actually shrink). Many survivors begin actively destroying their memory. Testifying in court as to what occurred in their past is often impossible. In addition, many of my clients consistently forget to come to doctor's appointments. I used to think it was just a cultural thing for some or even just common memory problems many people have. In reality, some clients spend so much time actively destroying their memory that the memory ceases to properly function.

b. Hyperarousal. In addition to the shrinkage of the prefrontal cortex, CAT scans have found that the amygdala (fear center in brain) in survivors are abnormally large. Many clients rarely sleep. Some clients never sleep normally again for the rest of their life. In Long Way Gone (memoir of a child soldier) he admits to never sleeping more than 3 hours a night (in addition to all their other problems, fear and anxiety become way worse without sleep). Hyperarousal is a biological response to a threat to the survival of the body. The problem with many survivors is they were persecuted for years so they can't quit that state. Concentration is difficult and GI problems are VERY common (I see it all the time when scheduling medical appointments).

c. Depression. Many survivors find no joy in life anymore. A common experience for our clients is a professional with a family is forced to flee. They left their family behind (if they're alive at all) and are forced to live in a country where they know almost no one, don't speak the language, and if they're employed at all work in a job way below their skill level. The simple fact is many survivors of torture wish they had died at the hands of their torturers. The sense of loss is simply too great.


5. Altered Self-Concept. Many survivors no longer know themselves. Many describe undergoing a personality change or feel damaged and contaminated. This loss of personality is the lasting damage of psychological torture.


Feel free to ask any questions! I'll post the answers in the comment section.

My Education in Mental Health

One of the unique opportunities this year at my site is that the Kovler Center has hired two therapist intern. With their hiring comes about 10 orientation sessions to help them learn more about counseling torture victims. One of my supervisors asked Phil (the other Amate volunteer) and me to join. We have and have learned a lot! I am going to summarize a bit from my sessions.

1. Working with Interpreters

One of the difficulties about therapy in this line of work is significant language barriers. Any professional that works with clients opens up a dangerous possibility of misinterpretation. Lawyers talk through interpreters when building an immigration case; doctors talk through interpreters when attempting to diagnose (which makes tests such as Alzheimer's exams nearly impossible); therapists talk through interpreters to help clients suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

When watching a movie on the asylum process, a big component of that movie was showing the danger of poor interpreters. Immigration cases hinge on details and a sloppy or an untrained interpreter can ruin an entire case.

Dates and details can be essential. For example (this story isn't really about interpreting exactly, but it will help paint a bigger picture), one woman from Eastern Europe immigrated to the United States and applied for asylum. She claimed she was persecuted because she was an Anglican. The Asylum Officer (AO) asked her who the head of the Anglican Church was. She responded Bishop George. The AO deferred her appeal for asylum to an immigration judge (essentially a "no" that gets appealed). The AO said in the video that any Anglican would know the Archbishop of Canterbury is the head of the Anglican Church. In fact, Bishop George was the head of the Anglican Church in Eastern Europe. She was delayed several years due to a misunderstanding.

Interpreting is extremely difficult because it's very subjective. When people ask for language skills, people with a basic proficiency will often claim fluency and volunteer to interpret. However, the amount of skill required by interpreting is way beyond mere proficiency. The subtleties of languages are immense and diagnosing PTSD relies on those nuances. (For example, a common question is whether the patient experiences feelings of nervousness. In French, a common translation of nervous is "nerveuse" when in reality "inquiet" would be more accurate. Nerveuse could best be translated as "highly strung" which is not what we understand nervousness to be. Nervousness is more correctly thought of as a discomfort instead of a severe anxiety. Sorry, long diatribe.) A professional in this line of work needs to be frank with interpreters and be aware. Obvious omissions or false interpretations should be confronted A lot is at stake.

2. Immigration Law

Depaul Law School invited us to attend an immigration class. If you bore easily, feel free to skip this section.

I forget whether I described this path earlier but a typical torture survivor flees his (or her, I'm going to just say his for ease) country illegally because the gov't would forbid them from leaving.

Typically, smuggling a human costs anywhere up to $10,000. Upon entering illegally, if they are detained but they present a "credible fear" of returning to home country the US will ask if they would like to seek asylum. They apply usually with a pro bono lawyer. The client needs to show an immigration judge that his life would be at risk by returning. When building a case, the lawyer needs an affidavit. If it becomes apparent to the lawyer that tortured occurred, the client will be referred to us.
The basic guide for a successful asylum case is ensuring that evidence of persecution or future persecution is presented and there is a cohesive story. To provide evidence of trauma, professionals collect physiological and/or medical forensic evidence. If the lawyer can show a "well-founded fear" of returning, the judge will grant the client asylum, and he will be on the path to citizenship.


3. Cross Cultural Boundaries

One of the difficulties with therapy is that it mimics interrogation. Picture the two scenarios, both involve the client facing an authoritative figure who asks probing questions. Therefore, it is essential that therapists let clients control the meeting. Where do you meet, sit, etc. Control needs to be in the clients hands.

4. Occupational Therapy

Surprisingly one of the best sessions was on occupational therapy. I had never heard of occupational therapy before, but I learned that it's about more than jobs. One of the hardest things for immigrants in general is returning to a sense of "normalcy." I shall say this story as an example.

In the early stages of the Kovler Center, the therapists encountered a large scale problem. Some Latino immigrants were unable to raise their kids effectively due to their trauma. They were so afraid of burdening their kids they kept their distance.

(As a side note, a really difficult aspect of immigration is kids learn languages much faster. As a result, it is common to see a role reversal in parenthood. Kids often are taking their parents to appointments and translating. It creates a very difficult dynamic because rather having the kids grow, they need to provide and essentially parent their parents. It's difficult to see).

So back to the Latino family: as a result of the parents coping with their own trauma, the children were falling into bad habits. There days were spent either in front of the TV or roaming the streets with unsavory characters. During therapy sessions, the parents confessed their anguish over the very likely possibility that their children would soon join gangs. The therapists turned to an occupational therapist.

After severe shifts such as immigration, torture (or even graduating from college for that matter) it requires observing oneself to establish how to spend one's time. To all my fellow grads, I think we could really learn a lot from an occupational therapist. So many of my weekends in college were spent clustering with friends, homework, or regular extracurricular activities. When you lose the regularity of school and band practices you lose your identity in a sense. Weekends here are occasionally aimlessly spent waiting for the week to start. Occupational therapists work to help clients realize their own power of situations. Children don't have to resort to TV just because they are no longer in their own country. The therapist worked with the children and helped them recreate their childhood in a new location. They began to play sports and celebrate festivals. By realizing that they can control their environment, the children could build their life back.

5. Psychological effects of torture

I will write on this subject tomorrow. There's a lot to it!