FREE//GRATUITO
PUBLISHED BY ACCIÓN LATINA
May 4-17, 2023
Vol. 53 No. 9
JUST GOALS:
IMMIGRANTS, ACTIVISTS FIND HOPE, LIBERATION THROUGH SOCCER
PUROS GOLES:
INMIGRANTES Y ACTIVISTAS BUSCAN ALCANZAR ESPERANZA Y LIBERACIÓN CON EL FÚTBOL Mara Cavallaro
Mara Cavallaro El Tecolote
El Tecolote
Mara Cavallaro is El Tecolote’s Report for America Corps Member who reports on mental health and healthcare inequality in the Latinx community.
Mara Cavallaro es miembro de Report for America y reporta para El Tecolote sobre la salud mental y la desigualdad en la atención médica en la comunidad Latinx.
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he first time Pedro Ayón and Serafín Andrade played soccer together, they were in an ICE detention facility in McFarland, California. For a few hours a day, during designated ‘yard times,’ they were allowed to be outside — as long as there was an officer to escort them through the hallway and another to watch them outdoors. Games were five on five, or six on six — whoever wanted to play, and have a brief escape from the inhumane conditions of detention. Inside the Golden State Annex, Ayón would help detainees who didn’t speak English with medical requests, translations, letter-writing, and commissary purchases. “I was a leader. I did what I could to help out … because there’s a lot of need,” he told El Tecolote. But after six months, guards woke him in the middle of the night with the news that he, Serafín, and a group of others were being transferred. “[It was] out of nowhere,” Ayón says. “That’s how unjust and unfair the system is. They’re cruel.” The next morning, Pedro was moved to the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Facility in Bakersfield, another private, for-profit prison. And though Golden State was far from pleasant, he had gotten used to it. Mesa Verde was smaller, the hallways were too narrow, and the windows were permanently fogged — so you couldn’t actually look outside. The food had insects, the walls had black mold, and those who worked cleaning the dormitories made only a dollar a day. “It was one of my worst experiences,” Ayón remembers. But he played soccer there too, with Serafín, and with the Mesa Verde guys. It’s what kept them united — and hopeful. In December of 2021, four months after winning his case against deportation and over nine months after first being detained by ICE, Ayón was finally released. Around the same time, some 300 miles north, Ricardo Vasquez Cruz was freed after being alone in Yuba County Jail — the last immigrant detained there before Yuba shut down, was repopulated, and then finally terminated its contract with ICE. A year later, Serafín Andrade was released from Mesa Verde. Last Sunday, April 30, Pedro and Serafín played together for the first time since being detained. The two of them, Ricardo, and others formerly detained by ICE at Mesa Verde, Golden State, and Yuba played together, outside for real, at the California
Pedro Ayón dribla el balón esquivando a otro jugador durante las semifinales del Torneo por la Liberación Just Goals Soccer. Pedro Ayón dribbles the ball past another player during the semifinals of CCIJ’s Soccer Tournament for Liberation in Alameda on April 30. Photo: Abraham Fuentes Collaborative for Immigrant Justice (CCIJ)’s inaugural soccer tournament for liberation. Their teams, the SúperLíderes and Los Campeones, were two of sixteen to compete for the small prize of a trophy and the main goal of ending immigrant detention in California. +++ In Alameda, the morning of the tournament began with a gray sky. Players walked beneath a thick sheet of clouds and fog to registration tents at the Oakland Roots fields, and then sat down on the grass to get ready. Before tying their cleats, some raised socks over shin guards, and others over ankle monitors. They warmed up, passed, dribbled, and juggled. By the end of the tournament’s first round, the sun was out. Laura Duarte Bateman, the CCIJ’s communications manager, ran around the fields with a scoresheet, pausing to say something to a volunteer referee before pointing a team in the direction of their match. “Es un sueño hecho realidad,” she said later through a megaphone — a dream come true, a day of joy after years of advocacy. It was during the CCIJ’s campaign to Free the Yuba Eleven, after a conversation with Ricardo Vasquez Cruz, that Duarte Bateman first had the idea for a tournament. On one of their phone calls, Ricardo mentioned that he loved soccer — and Laura,
Miembros del CCIJ y activistas por los derechos de los inmigrantes, junto a ex reclusos de ICE —entre ellos Pedro Ayón, Adan Castillo, Eladio Cortes Morales, y Jose Rubén Hernández Gomez — luego del Torneo por la Liberación. Members of CCIJ and immigrant rights activists pose with folks formerly detained by ICE—including Pedro Ayón, Adan Castillo, Eladio Cortes Morales, and Jose Rubén Hernández Gomez after CCIJ’s Soccer Tournament for Liberation on April 30. Photo: Abraham Fuentes who had grown up playing in Colombia, loved it too. From then on, she would check the score of the important La Liga games before every visit to a detention center, to give the people she met with something to speak about besides the trauma of being detained. For a lot of them, Laura said, “soccer symbolized hope.” Ricardo once told her the only goal he still needed to score was against ICE. When Ricardo, the last of the
Yuba Eleven, was finally released, Duarte Bateman and Edwin Carmona-Cruz, the CCIJ’s community engagement director, began organizing the competition. It was to be part fundraiser, part community building event. All adults who supported the mission of ending immigrant detention were invited to fundraise for an entry fee and play — and teams started pouring in. There was one See CCIJ, page 9
a primera vez que Pedro Ayón y Serafín Andrade jugaron fútbol juntos, estaban en un centro de detención de ICE en McFarland, California. Algunas horas al día, durante el “tiempo de patio” designado, se les permitía estar afuera, siempre que hubiera un oficial para escoltarlos por el pasillo y otro para vigilarlos. Los juegos eran cinco contra cinco o seis contra seis, cualquiera que quisiera jugar y tener un breve escape de las inhumanas condiciones de detención. Dentro del Centro Correccional Golden State Annex, Ayón ayudaría a los detenidos que no hablaban inglés con solicitudes médicas, traducciones, redacción de cartas y compras. “Yo era un líder. Hice lo que pude para ayudar, porque hay mucha necesidad”, le dijo a El Tecolote. Pero después de seis meses, los guardias lo despertaron en medio de la noche con la noticia de que él, Serafín y un grupo más serían trasladados. “[Fue] de la nada. Así de injusto es el sistema. Son crueles”. A la mañana siguiente, Pedro fue trasladado a las instalaciones de procesamiento de ICE de Mesa Verde en Bakersfield, otra prisión privada. Y aunque la Golden State no es agradable, se había acostumbrado. La de Mesa Verde era más pequeña, los pasillos demasiado angostos y las ventanas permanentemente empañadas, por lo que era difícil mirar hacia afuera. La comida tenía insectos, las paredes moho y los que trabajaban limpiando los dormitorios ganaban sólo un dólar al día. “Fue una de mis peores experiencias”, recuerda Ayón. Pero ahí también jugaba fútbol, con Serafín y con los de Mesa Verde. Es lo que los mantuvo unidos y esperanzados. En diciembre de 2021, 4 meses después de ganar su caso contra la deportación y más de nueve meses después de haber sido detenido por primera vez, Ayón finalmente fue liberado. Casi al mismo tiempo, a 482 kilómetros al norte, Ricardo Vásquez Cruz fue liberado después de estar solo en la cárcel del condado de Yuba, de ser el último inmigrante detenido de que cerrara, de ser repoblada y, finalmente, rescindir su contrato con ICE. Un año después, Serafín Andrade fue liberado de Mesa Verde. El domingo pasado, 30 de abril, Pedro y Serafín jugaron juntos por primera vez desde su detención. Ambos, junto a Ricardo y otros previamente detenidos en los centros Mesa Verde, Golden State y Yuba jugaron Vea GOLES, página 9