Mia's Diary

Chapter 27

We have to keep hoping.

Luis is right. It kind of pains me to say that. But he is.

I’m back in my room in the main part of the house. Uncle RW and my mom decided we didn’t have to stay down in the dungeon any longer, although Bethany’s there taking care of Sam.

She says it’s quieter and she doesn’t want to try to move Sam just yet.

Everyone’s still worried about Sam, though they think the yarrow poultices are working. Her fever is down.

I’m scared for her. She lost her job to save Luis and me, and now she’s risked her life protesting. Uncle RW let it slip that she’s been rescuing others that the immigration police have targeted, which is why she’s now wanted by the law.

She’s a middle school social studies teacher! She’s not a criminal! She loves history and she taught us about our government and how wonderful democracy is.

Or was.

I’m not sure what we have now. I read the news accounts online of what’s going on around the country and it’s not the U.S. I know. The people in power seem to hate everyone who is different from them.

How long will this go on?

We’ve been here for months now, and the situation’s just getting worse.

I have to have hope.

I have to hope.

Otherwise, I just fall apart. I never thought about the word “despair” before and what it means. My life was good, though I didn’t always realize it. But now I understand despair and I don’t want to let myself give up.

I miss my dad so much, and I don’t even want to think about what Luis is going through without any of his family. He’s especially worried about his Abuela – his grandma – he taught me that Spanish word, at least.

She’s old and he doesn’t think she could last in detention.

From what I’ve heard, no one could do well in the detention centers they have. And it sounds like they’re building more and more of them. Why? Are they going to deport or imprison every person with brown skin in the country?

Who hates us so much? Do my White friends secretly hate me? I am starting to wonder. Do their parents hate my parents for being Hispanic and Native?

I don’t understand why.

We’re all people and we need to be kind to one another.

I know there are good people out there. Sam and Uncle RW and Bethany have all been good and kind and brave.

I just have to hope that there are lots of other good people out there. That not all of them are filled with the hate I see in the immigration police and in the heads of our government.

There were thousands, maybe even millions, of people who’ve protested. Bethany said she’d never seen so many people gathered together in Kansas City before. And it was like that all across the country, according to some of the news reports.

So today’s word is hope. My mom’s favorite poet is Mary Oliver – she brought some of her books with her when she packed to come here.

She’s shared some of the poems with me. She puts a sticky note on the page and leaves the book in my room. One of them that I liked is this one:

What we must do,

I suppose,

is to hope the world

keeps its balance;

what we are to do, however,

with our hearts

waiting and watching—truly

I do not know.

Yeah, I do not know.

But in “Winter Hours,” there’s another line I really like:

“Hope, I think, is a screamer and a fighter.”

I like the image of that. I want to see hope as more than just a nice, sweet emotion. I want to see it as a motivator. A power. If you hope, you are powerful, you’re not just trying to cheer yourself up.

And that’s the idea in “The Hunger Games.” I hadn’t thought about those books or the movies, but I have read them all and watched them all.

President Snow talks about hope as something that’s good in small doses but is a danger to his government in large amounts, and it feels eerily parallel to our times.

I found a copy of the first book here and looked for the exact quote. “Hope. It is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective, a lot of hope is dangerous.”

I had to think about this, and wish I could ask Sam what she thinks. But if I’m right, he’s saying that people will allow themselves to be controlled by him, or the government, if they have just enough hope that things will get better.

But if they have too much hope, they might decide to rebel, to destroy the power that’s controlling them.

Too much hope. Maybe that’s what we need.