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The tenth soul in my En Memoriam project honoring asylum seekers who did not survive the rigors of the American border.
Johana Medina-León, Age 25
of El Salvador Died June 1, 2019 Texas Medina's journey to the U.S. had taken months. She had waited for a Mexican transitory visa for more than a month in Tapachula, Chiapas, near the Guatemalan border, Diversidad Sin Fronteras stated. The advocacy group said Medina waited nearly three months in Juárez before she was allowed to make her asylum claim to U.S. immigration officials in El Paso. Johana known to friends as "Joa," died at the Del Sol Medical Center in El Paso, Texas, after being detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement for seven weeks. Medina had been a certified nurse in El Salvador but sought asylum in the U.S. because she couldn't work as an open trans woman in the nursing profession in her home country. From April 11 to about May 23, her health deteriorated and she tested positive for HIV. She begged for medical attention that never came. In mid-May, she had passed her "credible fear" interview, which determined she would be persecuted if she returned to El Salvador, but Leon wasn't paroled until she began complaining of chest pains and was taken to Del Sol Medical Center. She passed away four days later. Johana's story HERE.  
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* La Corúa was a large, fierce looking but benevolent water serpent that lived in springs of water and protected them. They say it had a cross on its forehead and cleaned the veins of water with its long fangs or tusks. It was a shy creature but could sometimes be caught sunning on the rocks of the spring. According to Sonoran folk beliefs, if one killed the Corúa, the spring would dry up. Vanishing water sources and economic pressures have pushed the folklore of La Corúa to the dustbin of history on both sides of the border, but La Corúa remains in the minds and memories of elders in the Pimería Alta.
Serpents have been sacred for millennia to indigenous peoples throughout the Americas and are respected as guardians of water sources and bringers of rain. * Beliefs and Holy Places - A Spiritual Geography of the Pimeria Alta - James S. Griffith, University of Arizona Press, 1992 Background painting: Baboquivari Peak - the monolith landmark defining the Baboquivari mountains southwest of Tucson. The center of Tohono O'odham cosmology, it is sacred and is the home of I'itoi, their Creator and Elder Brother. The peak is visible from Casa Grande in the northwest, south into Mexico. (I'itoi is also the figure in the O'odham 'Man in the Maze' basket design.) |
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