July 14, 2018: What does immigration have to do with women living with HIV? According to PWN-USA Texas members—everything.
Tana Pradia and Jessi Mona Cartwright-Biggs hopped on a bus to Brownsville, Texas, June 28 to protest the administration’s immigration policy of separating migrant children, including hundreds under 5 years old, from their families and detaining them in separate facilities, in many cases thousands of miles apart.
Jessi Mona explained her decision to join the protest: “I heard and saw what was happening to the children and their parents. The injustice was unbelievable. When I saw protestors trying to block a bus filled with children from leaving the border, I was wishing I could have been there on the front line in solidarity! I wanted to go and be a participant in that struggle for justice, and I was available to make the trip.”
Tana stated, “This is an outrage for mothers and fathers to see their children taken away and not know if they will ever see them again. This is heartbreaking to me as a mother to have these children go through the trauma of being apart from their parents. The damage that is being done to their children emotionally is heartbreaking.”
Jessi Mona described the mood of the participants as “social and definitely purposeful.” What impacted her the most? “The injustice of what was being done, the insanity of how one could and would conceive of such a cruel act, and the privilege and entitlement that would allow ‘them’ to carry it out and obviously sleep very well at night! I am motivated to impress upon my community that the solution to this madness is to vote and nothing less. The vote is all we’ve got!”
Tana’s hope? “After the protests going on around the country, I hope these families will be reunited quickly.”
The takeaway for Jessi Mona is, “Freedom ain’t free… No one is coming to ‘save’ me. I am the one I have been waiting for, so I have to get busy and look around the neighborhood to see what I can do.”
