Children Deserve a Childhood

My little sister and I in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. 1983. All rights mine.

Fort Sill, Oklahoma might not sound like a fairytale place to grow up. It is a field artillery base for the U.S. Army a little more than an hour’s drive from Oklahoma City. But it was idyllic. And the 1,400 children being detained¹ there won’t get to love it like I did.

I was three years old when we moved back to the U.S. My first blurry memories are in tornado alley, my mom hanging the sheets out on the line to dry. Almost everything seemed like the same Dust Bowl color palette— the particular geography of Oklahoma, the small mounds of dirt that appeared every morning after the armadillos dug at night, Army bases in general, and the 80s overall — so much of my childhood was the same orange and browns of old pictures. But there were also velvety purple irises, dress blues, the different camouflage greens on BDUs, my sister’s white-blonde hair.

It was fun. And we were safe.

The few fears I grew up with underscore what a safe childhood should look like — precautious about unavoidable dangers but not a chronic state of terror, panic, devastation, danger and uncertainty. No one’s childhood should be singularly defined and shaped by fleeing violence or abject poverty only to be caged like criminals while you seek refuge or your parents apply for asylum. Children shouldn’t have to be hypervigilant. Hypervigilance wrecks the psyche, stunts development, and creates lasting trauma.

Happy kids in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. All rights mine.

My dad played drums in a garage band next door. My mom made chocolate chip cookies. We only had to be afraid of tornados and scorpions and how exactly Santa Claus was going to come since we didn’t have a fireplace.

Like most kids, I was scared of snakes and spiders too. We had a field full of those purple irises behind the house. I heard the rattle once. I never saw it but ran the seemingly interminable distance to the backdoor as fast as I could. I knew without thinking that I had a safe home. I had somewhere safe to run to.

Even though we were scared of the tornados and tarantulas, we were never scared of being separated from our parents. Anything we feared had a solution. Santa was magic, so he didn’t actually need a chimney. For everything else, the adults had a plan, and we all followed it together. We had tornado drills and dads that killed spiders. (I escort spiders outside now.)

And not surprisingly, I didn’t even know I spent my early years on the same Army base where the American government incarcerated Japanese American families. We did not learn that at Geronimo Road Elementary School. I was today years old when I learned that. But we can’t whitewash that undeniable legacy of our land-of-the-free hypocrisy any more than we should be arguing about who deserves to be saved. And safe.

No matter where they grow up, children deserve backyards and tire swings, neighbors to play with and trees to climb. But most importantly, everywhere and always, children deserve to be safe with their families.

Survival shouldn’t be predicated on citizenship. But we are denying basic human decency to traumatized people solely because of their nationalities.

When we politicize people the vulnerable suffer the most.

Children who should be laughing in the sun, playing with their siblings, making new friends, and learning to ride bikes are instead being kept in wire pens and sleeping on the floor with mylar blankets. Some facilities don’t allow them to talk to each other. Some siblings have reported not being allowed to hug each other.² We need to be minimizing their trauma not inventing cruel ways to maximize it. Doesn’t the “greatest country in the world” have the capacity to at least mitigate damages?

Unaccompanied minors should be cared for to the best of our humanity, ability and infrastructure. And that requires budgeting for it. Why should “we” have to pay for “them”? Because they’re humans. Full stop. And families who risk this journey and cross illegally can still be detained together. With soap and without ankle monitors.

That children deserve a safe and loving childhood is not some idealized cotton candy fantasy. It is a fact. At a bare minimum it is a goal worth prioritizing. Politicize that. A childhood like I had in Fort Sill shouldn’t be a memory enjoyed just by the lucky ones with the right paperwork, the ones who were free to be kids and have fun.

Americans love giving Oscars to movies like Schindler’s List and posting RIP praise to so many other heroes who saved children during WWII³ and damning those who didn’t⁴ — decades after the danger has been defeated. But for tens of thousands of children (and their parents) that danger is now.

Even if these 1,400 children don’t get to spend their Oklahoma summers kicking the water off their toes in a plastic pool they shouldn’t be separated from their parents. And they damn sure shouldn’t be incarcerated.

[embed]Life Would Be More Beautiful If Children Were Detained with Their Parents Who will protect them from the harsh reality we’re creating?medium.com

[embed]Highlights Magazine Schooled Catholics on How to Advocate for Children This Week I want children to be as well cared for in custody as I was when I was a kid at the dentist reading fun magazines in…medium.com

[embed]1. Trump Administration to Hold Migrant Children at Base That Served as WWII Japanese Internment Camp The Trump Administration has opted to use an Army base in Oklahoma to hold growing numbers of immigrant children in its…time.com

[embed]2. Migrant children who were detained say they weren’t allowed to hug each other, run, cry, or use… Migrant children separated from their families have a long list of rules and aren’t allowed to hug their siblings, run…www.businessinsider.com

[embed]3. Nicholas Winton, Savior of Children During Holocaust, Dies at 106 LONDON — He was just a 29-year-old clerk at the London Stock Exchange when he faced the challenge of a lifetime…www.nbcnews.com

[embed]4. A Ship of Jewish Refugees Was Refused U.S. Landing in 1939. This Was Their Fate As the M.S. St. Louis cruised off the coast of Miami in June 1939, its passengers could see the lights of the city…www.history.com