The school year in Peru starts next Monday, so life is
finally settling into more of a pattern here in the Mountain House. Last
Saturday, we sat down as a JV (Jesuit Volunteer) community to check in about
each of our understandings of the four pillars of JVC: community, spirituality,
simple living, and social justice. We reflected on both our current
understanding of each value as well as our hopes for how those values might be
lived out in our community over the next year.
When the conversation turned to social justice, I thought at
first that I wouldn’t have much to say. I’m still only just beginning to
understand the social reality of the community in Andahuaylillas. I can’t yet
name many of the issues of social justice present here, and the ones I am aware
of I’ve learned second-hand. I have so much still to learn, and so, as one of
my communitymates expressed, most of what I think of when I reflect on social
justice as a value is my role as a student here in Peru. I’m sure I will have
many teachers in the next two years that will teach me in many different ways
about what it’s like to live in Peru.
But in reflecting more on these first three months living in
Andahuaylillas, I’ve realized that I have learned a lot about what social
justice means in this context, though that understanding has come in unexpected
ways.
In many ways, the past three months has been a time of a lot
of frustration. The process of becoming a resident of Peru has involved
multiple 24-hour bus trips, long lines, much confusion, and a seemingly endless
and jumbled array of bureaucratic hoops to jump through. We never seem to be in
the right place with the right documents, and I swear one of the immigration
officials savors the task of telling us that sorry, we need to come back again
with yet another change in our paperwork. Aside from that, I’ve been sick a
couple of times and haven’t necessarily received the same quality of care that
I would have access to in the US. I’ve struggled with feelings of isolation that
come from living in a small rural town where the ways I look and speak mean
that it’s easy for people to identify me as an outsider.
What I’ve learned about social justice so far can be
directly tied to all of the ways that I’ve struggled so far in this experience.
There have been more than a few instances during my time here that have made me
feel something along the lines of, “oh shit,
what have I gotten myself into?” But it’s those same times that have provided
the most occasions for reflection and ultimately (I hope) have fostered an
increase in my capacity for empathy and invited me into greater solidarity with
this community. I understand just a tiny bit better what it might be like to go
through the immigration process in the US, the injustice of unequal access to
quality healthcare, and the experience of being a visible minority within a particular
community.
Perhaps more significantly, those same experiences of
personal struggle and frustration have shed light on the enormous amount of
privilege I bring with me to my time as a JV. This is a reality that I’ve
chosen to participate in for a finite amount of time, and I hope to experience
it as deeply and whole-heartedly as I can, but I also have to recognize the
immense privilege present in that choice alone. The immigration process here
has been kind of like a long, drawn-out trip to the DMV—but ultimately I’m
confident that once all of the paperwork is sorted out I’ll be approved to
stay, which is more than a great many migrants can say. I also know that I have
a safe place to return to at the end of my time in Peru, unlike many refugees
going through the same processes. The annoyance of intestinal infections and
subsequent visits to the clinic is bothersome, but as a JV I have excellent health
insurance that allows me to access medical care whenever I need it, as well as
any medication I might need. And although the standard of care may be different
from what I’m used to back at home, it’s also far beyond what many of the
people in my current community and the global community have access to. It’s
made me especially aware of what a privilege it is to have access to clean,
safe drinking water both here in Peru and in the US, and to be able to take
steps to improve the quality of that water when necessary. The isolation and
loneliness I’ve sometimes felt here are real and valid feelings, but I will
never know what it’s like to face systemic injustices based on the color of my
skin. If anything, being white and from the US in this community means that I’m
often given special treatment, like being told to skip lines at the clinic or
being entrusted with more responsibility at the parish.
The pillar of social justice in my time as a JV so far has
been an exercise in keeping things in perspective. When issues of justice
affect my life here, while I want to honor the feelings and struggles that
surface for me, I’m also trying to continuously remind myself of the broader
picture. What does that issue of justice look like on a greater scale, and who
might it be impacting more than it’s impacting me? How can I turn that
frustration into an occasion to enter more deeply into an understanding of both
my own privilege and the reality of the community I’ve entered into?
When I really reflect on my struggles in that way, I’m
grateful for the opportunity to better understand both my own reality and that
of the people whose community I am slowly becoming a part of. An expanding
capacity for empathy and increased understanding of self and the world—God is
totally at work here, through all of the growing pains. And isn’t that why I
came here in the first place?
