Las Cosas, Cosas Son: The Things We Give Up to Be Here

At detention centers, these prized possessions go straight into the trash. A devastating omen for the way immigrants are treated in this country.

Las cosas, cosas son. My parents have been telling me this since I can remember. Things can be replaced. Lives can’t. We’re not supposed to care about what happens to stuff, as long as everyone we love is alive. We’re not supposed to mourn things. And yet, objects make up such a big part of our stories, they explain so much about our worries, interests, and dreams.

When I conjure the memory of Chacaltaya in my minds-eye, I see pure bliss. Emerald-green grass and gargantuan mountains are surrounding our home, holding us in a loving embrace. I’m inside the three-story house overlooking the Valley of Aburrá, breathing in the crisp air of Medellin, the city of eternal Spring. I’m playing in the life-sized wooden dollhouse we got from El Niño Dios one Christmas, then my sisters and I are dancing on top of the sturdy leather couch in the living room, to the sound of Pies Descalzos, Shakira’s best album by far. I’m picking guayabitas from the shrub-covered hill that propped up our house, sticking my baby teeth into their ripe red skin to reveal luscious whiteness. Sometimes, after a bite, a small white worm pops its head out, almost smiling at me, and I feel a little bad when I devour him too.

That house was our home before everything changed. Before Shakira began singing in English. Before we boarded a plane with a one-way ticket to South Florida. Before my dad’s life was in danger.

One night, I’m falling asleep to my mom’s voice in Chacaltaya, and the next morning I’m waking up at a distant relative’s house in South Florida. All of a sudden, the entire set of my life is zapped to reveal new scenery. Zap. Colossal mountains replaced by monotonous flatlands. Zap. Crisp weather exchanged for unbearable heat and bone-chilling air conditioning. Zap. Song-like accents swapped for a slower language, in which everyone’s tongues seem to have been stung by bees. Zap. The brick house on the hill, gone forever, replaced with ungodly amounts of drywall.

And still, the most important part, the characters, remain the same. Dad, mom, my two sisters, and I, we’re safe. Las cosas, cosas son, adults relentlessly say, although their glassy eyes suggest a different story.

*

I can’t hold back my tears the first time I catch a glimpse of Tom Kiefer’s “El Sueño Americano.” There’s artfully arranged CDs, toothbrushes, bibles, condoms, mirrors, sunglasses, hair combs, makeup, keychains, bottles, chocolate bars, Virgenes de Guadalupe, wallets, rosaries, a love note for Blanca, and a piece of fabric with a woven message that reads “siempre te amaré.” The resemblance to holocaust museum exhibitions sends chills down my spine, and I can’t stop thinking about the people who owned these objects, about the gruesome destiny imposed on them.

When a person arrives at an immigration detention center in the United States, they’re stripped of all “non-essential” possessions, as if in jail. The difference is, in jail, at least your items will theoretically be returned to you after your sentence is served. At detention centers, these prized possessions go straight into the trash. A devastating omen for the way immigrants are treated in this country.

Kiefer was a janitor at a US Customs and Border Protection Center in Arizona when he began salvaging thousands of items belonging to detained immigrants. I read online that at first, he couldn’t bear to see the amount of food going to waste, so his intention was simply to donate the confiscated food to local food banks. Progressively, as he salvaged more and more things, he decided to arrange and photograph them at his home studio. This set of photographs became the ongoing project entitled “El Sueño Americano.”

I’ve always resented the concept of the “American Dream.” I dislike the way it glamorizes something so painful and full of sacrifice. I detest the way it slightly suggests that the decision to come to the United States is more of a childish impulse than a life or death matter, how it fails to recognize that for many immigrants, the actual dream would have been to stay safe in our home countries, close to the people we love and the things we once cherished.

I’ve always resented the concept of the “American Dream.” I dislike the way it glamorizes something so painful and full of sacrifice.

Though I recognize Kiefer’s laudable intentions and the importance of what he’s doing to shed light on the subject of migration in the US, I’m troubled by the fact that he’s a white American man. It hurts to see that the only way these stories can be told is through a lens of this sort. The irony that a man like him gets to collect and beautifully arrange these talismans of love and loss and call them art, when immigrant people are being caged at the border, is not lost on me.

One article about Kiefer’s work in Los Angeles Magazine gruesomely notes, “one man’s trash is another man’s art.” As if these items meant nothing to the people who decided to carry them on this unpredictable trip across the border. Completely obviating the fact that these things weren’t willingly thrown into a dumpster, but pried from their owner’s hands.

We’ve all played that game at some point or another. Your house is on fire, and you can only save one thing. What do you choose? Now, imagine, for a moment, your homeland is on fire. What goes into a bag when you’re running for your family’s life? The people who owned the objects photographed in Kiefer’s work chose things they deemed valuable enough to bring along, only to come here to a system that arbitrarily considers them non-essential. Them, as in the items and the people.

Curiously, what stuck out the most when contemplating Kiefer’s photographs were the stories left untold, the things that didn’t make it across the border, the entire lives left behind that will never appear in front of a lens. Overcome with sorrow, I couldn’t help but reflect on the thousands of things given up for an intangible promise, for a measly shot at the so-called American Dream.

Capitalism, the bedrock of this dream, is a system based on the idea that nothing is more important than private property. Yet, we rarely question who has to see things as mere things in this country, and who gets to keep and maintain possessions as precious objects to be valued and protected at all costs.

*

I don’t want to build a parallel between my story and that of the immigrants who are caged at detention centers. I recognize my experience is nothing like theirs. My family had economic privilege very few immigrants do, and our triumphs because of it are yet another testament to the fact that the American Dream is a rigged system.

In fact, a few months after our arrival, when we settled into a rental house in El Doral, Florida, my parents were able to bring many of our things on a cargo ship. To my five-year-old self, these salvaged portraits, picture books, and decorations weren’t just mere objects, they were invaluable mementos that made the new house feel more like home. Their presence helped create a sense of safety and ameliorate the pain of losing Chacaltaya, and everything else we gave up to be here.

Thoughts about the personal relationship to our things as immigrants had been mostly absent from my psyche until I came across Kiefer’s work, and perhaps that in itself is proof of the value of his photography. I had a visceral reaction to each image. I couldn’t help but think about the worries, hopes, and dreams of the human beings who once owned the objects now being photographed. I imagined them nervously packing their bags, carefully categorizing jewelry, make-up, stuffed animals, and CD collections as necessities, turning to their bibles, rosaries, and love letters in the midst of despair. I couldn’t help but picture that devastating moment when the America they thought would save them, did nothing of the sort, and instead, took away the last of their most prized possessions. All of this inevitably led me to reflect that things aren’t always just things and that the mantra my parents have been repeating since forever is yet another one of those stories we tell ourselves in order to keep moving forward.