by Marisa Treviño
The premise for the Web site PostSecret is simple enough. People mail in their secrets anonymously on the back of postcards.
When you read the scanned cards on the site, why these people want to remain anonymous is usually apparent.
One postcard has left no doubt. It bares more than a simple secret, Its message reads:
“I have lived in San Francisco since I was young…I am illegal…I am not wanted here, don’t belong anywhere. This summer I plan to jump off the Golden Gate…”
Since its posting on June 6, there has been a global outpouring of kindness toward the writer. Strangers have proffered advice, assurances and even offers of new places, other cities, to call home.
A Facebook group called “please don’t jump” was quickly created. In one day, 11,000 people joined. The “wall” is filled with short posts of support and love. The last time I checked, the figure passed 60,000 members.
Kimberly Furnell of British Colombia, mother of an infant child, created her page on the day the secret was posted. She wrote, “I found this secret so dev astating, I couldn’t stand to just read it and navigate away from the page, so I figured I would start a group here in hope that the person who wrote it would see it and reconsider.”
Another, Katelyn Roberts, created a video of members on the bridge holding balloons, writing messages with colored chalk.
In this age of social media, the postcard continues to invite passion. The organizer of a page called Together for Life! (Come Together on the Golden Gate Bridge) wrote: “I am hoping that this will help the writer of the postcard understand that it doesn’t matter who you are or what others say, but where you feel at home that determines where you belong.”
For undocumented immigrants— especially those still very young who were brought to this country as infants — this sense of not belonging or, worse, not being wanted, is an all too real emotion. It is compounded by insensitive state legislators and ignorant, often vicious rhetoric.
It’s hard enough for an adult to remain strong in the face of such attacks, but for a young person who has known no other country but the United States, it is a nightmare with no way to wake up.
The media and the public they feed have allowed the immigration debate to be stripped of its human factor. The hurt is being inflicted on the most vulnerable of our population.
The San Francisco girl’s secret — her cry for help — opened the floodgates.
Immigration-restrictionist “patriots,” as they like to refer to themselves, can’t be as many as the growing list of compassionate people who keep posting their words of encouragement and love on that Facebook wall.
Even if a small group is doing its best to rip it from foundation, this country still has heart. Hispanic Link.
(Marisa Treviño, of Rowlett, Texas. founded the site www.LatinaLista.net several years ago. She is a contributing columnist to Hispanic Link News Service.) ©2010
