Episode 79: Jorge Zapata

Jorge Zapata grew up on the Texas-Mexico border and lives there still, serving the refugees as they come to the area. He has firsthand insights about what it's like to be an immigrant from Central America and Mexico and how the rest of us, as U.S. citizens, can do better about welcoming them.

Listen here, read the transcript below, or click here for the full video version.

George Mason: You see their stories on the news. There's a lot of talk about immigrants, about migrants, refugees, asylees, but who are they really? Jorge Zapata works on the border. He ministers to him. He knows border patrol agents. He understands, from being right there, and living among them. He'll help us understand a little differently. Stay tuned for Good God.

George Mason: Welcome to Good God, conversations that matter about faith and public life. I'm your host George Mason and I'm pleased to welcome to the program today Jorge Zapata. Jorge, glad to have you with us.

Jorge Zapata: Thank, you sir.

George Mason: Jorge is the associate coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Texas, and the founder of Heart for Kids, a program dealing with kids along the border, especially those who are in a vulnerable state because of their migrant status and the like, so we have a lot to talk about in that regard, Jorge, because of your passion for these fellow human beings who find themselves in a migrant status, and are incredibly needy as they come to us crossing the border.

George Mason: And you've lived along the border, in Harlingen now, and continue to serve in that way, and one of the things I've learned from you is that the common representation of the circumstances along the border is not always an accurate picture.

Jorge Zapata: That's right.

George Mason: There's another story to tell, one that's based upon your living among and being present with people. What would you like people to know about the circumstances these days at the border?

Jorge Zapata: Well, the crises that we have. There's a big need. These people come with, flee from violence, and poverty, and I've heard so many stories from the Central American people and they make you cry. You have to hold back your tears and become strong because those stories are so sad. Some of those moms, what they go through, what they have seen the children go through.

Jorge Zapata: I, myself, being a migrant, I was born in Mexico. I was here undocumented from the age of ... we came over, I was one and a half years old, and I became a US citizen at the age of 12.

George Mason: Okay.

Jorge Zapata: And knowing that life, knowing that we went back and forth into Mexico, and having that fear that what if we were taken back into Mexico? What would happen to me? That was a fear, you know. And that's what we see here in the United States, the migrants that have come in, and especially the children that came in as babies. I've been a pastor for 32 years, and I helped a lot of families that just, they arrive with these babies.

Jorge Zapata: And then, why they came here? Because they were trying to give the children a better life. That's why I'm here. My dad wanted me to have a better life, and I have, so now I can relate to these migrant families that are coming into the United States right now. I know their circumstances. I have saw my parents, who went through a lot, and we had to work to help my parents.

Jorge Zapata: Now what we see on the border is, it seems like, reliving my life but through the life of a new generation, families, but now I'm right in the head. I'm on the front lines. What am I going to do about it?

George Mason: Well, you talked about the fear that you lived with for the first 12 years of your life. What does that do to a child, to a family, that lives with this constant sense of looking over their shoulder and wondering what will happen to them next?

Jorge Zapata: Well, that fear, you think about your future. You know, how long ... ? I'm going to be here. Your life is, you know, when I was here and I grew up, for me, I was an American citizen, but I was not. I grew up in kindergarten, first grade, saluted to the American flag, and pledged allegiance to the flag, and all of those songs that we sang in school. But still there was, in the back of your mind, you didn't belong here.

George Mason: Yes.

Jorge Zapata: You wish you could be here, you wish you were a citizen, but going back home, we went to reality. School was like a future, a better living, and that's where that dream of becoming someone, you know. My dad, when we went back home, he would let us know, "You want to work hard, you want to be in the sun from 6:00 in the morning to 6:00 at night, if you don't get an education, you're going to be like me."

Jorge Zapata: You know, my dad only had a first grade education.

George Mason: He was a migrant worker.

Jorge Zapata: He was. He came here-

George Mason: Agricultural.

Jorge Zapata: Yes, when the time where ... they let, they was called Braceros where they came in to work in the agriculture fields.

George Mason: So, the guest worker program.

Jorge Zapata: Yes. And my mom and him was one of them, but my mom was a US citizen living in Mexico.

George Mason: I see.

Jorge Zapata: And so my dad had lived all of his life doing this, no education at all, and didn't know how to write or read, but when we were born he wanted to give us a better life.

George Mason: We have often complicated legal status with folks, so here you are born in Mexico, living undocumented as a child, but your mother is a United States citizen, and she was living in Mexico, and then together the family is in the US but different status, and this is true for a lot of folks who are living in the shadows in the United States at this point, right?

George Mason: Wondering about what their future is, and yet they're often working and contributing, many times paying taxes, avoiding any possible confrontation with the law, and now things seem to be even more anxious for them because of the recent ICE raids, for instance, in Mississippi. What are you seeing among this population now? What are you hearing from them?

Jorge Zapata: There's fear. There's, they don't know, if they get out of the house, going to work, they're going to be stopped, and a lot of them are ... they go at the speed limit, they don't want to break the law, because, "If I get stopped, I know," you know, they're going to be pulled.

Jorge Zapata: A lot of people are living with that anxiety. The children, they have that, also, that anxiety about, "What if mom or dad is to be taken away?" You know, my mom was a US citizen, my dad wasn't.

George Mason: Yes, so you could've been separated. Your parents separated, children separated, as we have seen in these recent times with family separation. The border itself, there's the question about the nature of borders between countries. You've lived there and you see it as not something that's a strict line in the ground, but as a kind of way of looking the way people relate to one another across cultures.

George Mason: What reflections about borders can you give us from your experience?

Jorge Zapata: Well, growing up, I saw the difference. For me, it was a bridge, a river, and living in the United States, you see the abundance. The river and the valley is an agriculture community, and you see the abundance, but you cross the border, just like the moment you go into the Mexican side, you see the poverty. Right on the bridge, children and moms are asking you for money, and as you walk into the downtown area, it's totally different.

Jorge Zapata: You know, why? What makes the difference, a river? There is abundance, and on the south side of the river is poverty, and now that I've lived, when I came to pastor in East Texas, I saw that there's no difference, because you see in the city there's the rich side, and the poor side.

George Mason: Well, right, right.

Jorge Zapata: A railroad divides the community or a highway or a street divides the community. You see abundance shown, and on the poverty side, they drive and say, "Wow," they see these big houses. Nice cars. But then you go back to your neighborhood, you go into the misery, and that's what we see in the border, the changes.

George Mason: What we're really talking about is nature itself knows no borders.

Jorge Zapata: Yes.

George Mason: The river doesn't understand where it is.

Jorge Zapata: No.

George Mason: You know, the land itself doesn't understand which side of a map it's on for a country, but what we do see is economic disparity, opportunity difference, educational difference, and this comes from a long history of the way people view life together, and prosperity, and business, and investment, and all those sorts of things, so when we talk about trying to solve some of the desperation that is occurring at the border, it seems that the challenge is not just whether we have an easier access across the border, but whether there's opportunity in Mexico and in Central America for people to live and thrive in their own communities.

George Mason: How do you see addressing that as a nation that would completely change the nature of this? Do you have thoughts about that?

Jorge Zapata: Well, I always think about that. You know, when I came to pastor in East Texas, the first time I'd ever been around a lot of white people, I come from the border, and I was not a minority, I was a majority. And when I arrived to East Texas, I was a minority, and then the Hispanics started to grow, and the county officials, city officials from the city I was pastoring, they called me in, "How can we help the Hispanics?"

Jorge Zapata: And the first of all that I said, "We need to educate them on the culture." You know, because it seems like they're invading our country, they're invading our city, they're invading out towns.

George Mason: And we're hearing this language of invasion more and more.

Jorge Zapata: Yes, yes, but understand this; it already happened many years back when the migrants were coming from Europe, all right?

George Mason: Yes, when there was an invasion of North America.

Jorge Zapata: Yes, yes, but now it's Latinos that are becoming a majority, but-

George Mason: But we should also point out that Texas itself was previously latino, right? I mean, Texas, it's not as if that white American Texans were here all along.

Jorge Zapata: My cousins, all my family, comes from Spain, so my cousins that came here first, they've been here before the United States was the United States.

George Mason: Exactly.

Jorge Zapata: And my wife is Native American, you know, and she has been here, and she lived in Texas with her family, so we understand-

George Mason: So, who is an American?

Jorge Zapata: Yes, who's an American? And you know, and the other thing that I see that we call ourselves Americans, right? And we see that on TV, "We Americans," but for us, like Latinos, we live on the border, well, everybody's American. Even in Mexico. I had to tell the border patrol, when he asked me, "Are you an American citizen?" I'd say, "Sir, I'm a US citizen." If someone comes in, you ask an American citizen, he understands that he lives in the continent of American, he's an American, but you're going to put him in jail because he said he was an American.

Jorge Zapata: You need to change your vocabulary, saying, "Are you a US citizen?"

George Mason: So, words matter.

Jorge Zapata: Yes, yes. You know, it's education, and then now that we're ... I lived in East Texas, worked with a lot of Central Americans, and I understand the culture, understand why they were here. I lived on the border with the Mexican, and I learned the culture. I learned that I was not Mexican. I was more of a US citizen than a Mexican because I noticed that, "Hey, this is not my culture."

Jorge Zapata: And I thought that I was Mexican, and in my mind, my lifestyle was not Mexican.

George Mason: Let's put a comma there for a moment. We're going to take a break and come back, and I'd really like to pursue more of this language of culture. What is a culture? Because you've talked about different cultures, and I think at the heart of a lot of what's going on right now in our conversation about immigration, it's this question of culture, so let's take a break and we'll be right back. Thanks, Jorge.

George Mason: The Good God program is a project of Faith Commons, a nonprofit organization that I founded in 2018 to promote the common good. Think of a commons on a campus, and how you can bring all your faith, and people from all corners of the campus together. Think of the city that way, think of the country that way. Faith Commons aims to bring people together to promote greater understanding and peace throughout our communities. You can find more information about it at FaithCommons.org.

George Mason: We're back with Jorge Zapata who works on the border as a minister, as an agent of relief and comfort, and an encourager to those who are in our country, whose status is sometimes uncertain, and he's been teaching us a great deal, I think, about what the mentality and the experience is of migrant persons. Jorge, we were talking a bit about culture. There is a sense in which much of the anxiety of white Americans today is that there is a growing presence of Latinx persons in America bringing a different way of life with them, a different culture that is somehow infringing upon an established culture that feels more American, United States, as you said earlier.

George Mason: But culture is not an easy thing to define. When you talk about how you thought maybe that you had more of a Mexican culture but you realized that you were more part of a US culture, what would be some indicators of that? How is that different?

Jorge Zapata: Well, being around the Latinos that I was pastoring, immediately I found out that I had Mexican food from the border. It's more Tex Mex, we call it Tex Mex.

George Mason: Yes, right. Tex Mex. Not really Mexican.

Jorge Zapata: Not really Mexican, but then you come to a family that are from Mexico and their food is totally different than I used to taste, and then you visit the Latinos from Central America. It's totally different than the Mexican food, and in South America, and I started learning that my vocabulary, I was pastoring, and I was preaching, and Sunday mornings after my sermons, a lot of my church members came and said, "Pastor, I didn't understand a lot of things you were saying. Why are you saying ... ?"

George Mason: You were both speaking Spanish.

Jorge Zapata: Yes, I thought I was speaking Spanish, but I was doing a lot of Tex Mex.

George Mason: Okay.

Jorge Zapata: I had a gentleman that, he was from Solaguna, he was bilingual, he speaks perfect Spanish, and I said, "You know what? Sit in the front and get out my Tex Mex words and write them down for me." And every Sunday he had about from 50 to 60 words-

George Mason: Oh my goodness!

Jorge Zapata: That I was saying, doing my sermon, that I didn't know that ... I thought it was Spanish, you know?

George Mason: Oh, that's so interesting.

Jorge Zapata: And he was doing a great job. When I looked, I figured, "Wow. I need to correct myself. I need to start right."

George Mason: Okay, so this is an important distinction, I think. You're talking about language, you're talking about food. But when people have anxiety about culture, I don't think it's about food or language. I think there is a perception that there's a difference in our understanding of our humanity, our values, our faith, that feels threatening to us. But Jorge, do you see those differences?

George Mason: Do people value family differently? Do they value goodness and kindness differently? Or have we made something more than it is here?

Jorge Zapata: No, everything is common. There's a lot of things that are in common, it's just our economical.

George Mason: It's just economics.

Jorge Zapata: Economics.

George Mason: Right.

Jorge Zapata: You know, that ... the Latino culture, it's a very friendly culture. It's a very hardworking culture, and you know, you hardly will see Latinos asking for food on the streets because it is a big no-no.

George Mason: Yes, yes.

Jorge Zapata: You know, I remember-

George Mason: Self-reliance is a big value.

Jorge Zapata: Yes. My dad always told us, "God gave you two hands and two feet, don't ever be begging for money." You know? "You go beg for money because you're lazy," you know.

George Mason: What does it feel like to people who hear the accusation that there is an invasion of people who simply want to get public benefits, and they want handouts? What does it feel like to people who hear that?

Jorge Zapata: That is a big lie, because I was working when I was in East Texas, this is where I learned about it, working with the federal government, and state, and county, I learned a lot of the laws, and I used to interpret in the courtroom, in the district, and county, and city court, and I got to learn a lot of laws, and when the embassy program came in, I learned a lot of the re-visioned laws.

Jorge Zapata: If you were here with a green card and you applied for food stamps, you will be disqualified. You will be deported. If you applied that you want to go into a house, a government housing, if you want Medicaid or whatever, if you're a green card person, you will be disqualified from becoming a US citizen. You will be deported.

Jorge Zapata: Now, like an undocumented, he cannot apply. Anybody who works for the government, they cannot apply, and immediately-

George Mason: You're going to be deported.

Jorge Zapata: Yes, and they don't get no benefits from the government. You know? The only benefits they get is when they walk in, they put them in those processing centers. You know, they have lights, they have air conditioning, but that's the only thing. They don't have any benefits. They don't receive benefits, and that's a big line I've been hearing for so many years, and I work with the public.

Jorge Zapata: I work with families, I work with government. Along with the government. I don't work with the government, but I have helped interpret for the food stamps office when I was in East Texas, and I can assure that no one was qualified for that because you have to be a US citizen.

George Mason: This is about making political points. It's not about actually solving the problems of the people here.

Jorge Zapata: No, no, no.

George Mason: But there's another thing you and I have talked about, and that is that we have sometimes a misperception of the actual border patrol agents, and the people who are trying to enforce the laws, and to deal with those who are coming across the border in various ways. How would you characterize the difference between many people's perception of them and the reality of the people you know?

Jorge Zapata: Well, I've been dealing with the border patrol since I was a child, and they're there to protect the borders, and since I know about that, but now that I've been working on the border and now that it's, with the refugees that are coming in, I went on a tour with the border patrol, and I was in the van with them with several pastors, and this was in El Paso, Texas.

Jorge Zapata: And we got to right onto the bridge. They had apprehended 40 refugees coming from Central America, and they were already on the US side. The border patrol agent said, "You want to stop and minister to these people?" And I looked at him, "Can we do that? I thought it was against the law." He said, "No, sir, you can do it," and said, "Before you get off, look at the faces."

George Mason: Nice.

Jorge Zapata: "They're afraid. Look at the children." They're holding onto mom's leg, or the dad's leg. The young girls that were there, very cuddled into each other. Seeing that, and to understand how we can get down and minister to them, and he said, "Give them some hope."

George Mason: What we're saying here is that border patrol agents do not establish policy, they don't decide what they're supposed to do. They're simply doing their job, but there is a human kindness in them that you've seen.

Jorge Zapata: Yes, sir.

George Mason: And that we should respect in the work that they do.

Jorge Zapata: And my family, there's family members that are in the border patrol. My son-in-law, he's with the common security with US customs, and our nephew works for the border patrol and he works in the processing center, and he's burnt out. He's tired. You know, since I've been working on the border with some pastors that are helping refugees in the churches, I see pastors, I see their faces, burnt out. The volunteers in the church, burnt out.

Jorge Zapata: And it's just been two months, and I told myself, as I always observe, and I said, "If these pastors, in two months, they're burnt out, how about our border patrol agents?"

George Mason: Yes.

Jorge Zapata: They're tired. They're working long hours. You know, they are there as border patrol agents. They didn't apply to become babysitters.

George Mason: Right, right.

Jorge Zapata: They didn't apply to become social workers. They didn't apply-

George Mason: They're being asked to do things that they never had been trained to do, and the facilities and resources are makeshift, very often, and we are doing charitably with the churches, and helping organizations what can be done, but there is systemic change that has to happen, isn't there?

Jorge Zapata: The border's totally different. It's a different world than what is in Dallas, Houston, and Chicago. On the border, there's a lot of border agents that are sitting in the pews of a lot of Christian churches, and some agents, because they attend a Hispanic church, they might be sitting with some undocumented church members. And as a pastor, what do you do?

George Mason: Wow, yes.

Jorge Zapata: See, and what you hear, all these negative things they say about the border patrol, I have five agents sitting in my pews.

George Mason: And they do not look around them to try to figure out, "When services are over, how can I arrest these people?"

Jorge Zapata: They are there civilians, not as-

George Mason: Yes.

Jorge Zapata: If they were there working, like they said, "If I see my brother in Christ, and I have my uniform, and I'm doing my job, I'm going to have to apprehend him. I will hate to do that, but I was hired, and I pledged to protect the borders of the United States of America." And they're humans. They have feelings, they have children, they have a wife, they have a husband, and the border, it's different than, you know, you might have an agent here.

Jorge Zapata: But if we have agents over there, there's pastor's sons that are border patrol. a lot of them, I know a lot of border patrol that are children of some of my friends, and pastors, and deacons, and you know, but like my son-in-law. He's a customs agent, a US customs agent, and I know him as a great dad, as a great father, a great son-in-law.

Jorge Zapata: And you know, when I hear stories like this, well, it bothers me. I don't get angry. It just bothers me because those people that are, maybe a reporter came to the border and saw something, and reported it immediately, but-

George Mason: They don't see the full picture.

Jorge Zapata: No, sir. You know, I receive mission groups. I received a mission group from Tennessee, and there were about 70 of them. The majority was youth. They were all excited to come see the border wall, and they were all excited to go and see the levees and the river, because they hear about it in the news, they've seen it for so many years, and I arranged for them to do three things.

Jorge Zapata: Go feed the refugees at the McCallan, one of the Catholic charities, it was that center. Visit the border wall, and visit the Rio Grande, and it's to be educational for them. When they came and they were with the refugees, they were crying, and they said, "It's not what we hear in the news." When I took them to the border wall, we were at the end of the levee. There's cameras all over.

Jorge Zapata: Well, immediately, when they see a lot of people on the border, you see a group of people coming, well, a border patrol car came and stopped. "What are y'all doing here?" I said, "Well, I'm teaching them about the border wall, and immigration." And I asked them, "Can you do me a favor? Can you teach them about your job? What do you do?" He started telling them.

Jorge Zapata: You know, very friendly, and he said and told them, "We have refugees coming in by the hundreds, sometimes over a thousand, and also we have people crossing drugs." And they tell them about, his, his work. During the day, and during the nights, and I say, "Can they get a picture with you and the border patrol car?" And they all were standing there, and they said, "Yeah, go ahead."

Jorge Zapata: You know, it's a memory for them and-

George Mason: You're really humanizing this.

Jorge Zapata: Yes, sir.

George Mason: Or helping people to understand it differently from just the distance of their geography, and also the media in those portrayals. Jorge, there's so much more we could talk about, but you've helped us so much to understand a little differently, and thank you for the education, and we pray for you and your ministry, ongoing.

Jorge Zapata: Thank you very much.

George Mason: And we're grateful for all that you do.

Jorge Zapata: Thank you.

George Mason: God bless you.

Jorge Zapata: Thank you for inviting me.

George Mason: Okay.

Jorge Zapata: Bless you.

Jim White: Good God is created by Dr. George Mason, produced and directed by Jim White. Guest coordination and social media by Upward Strategy Group. Good God, conversations with George Mason, is the podcast devoted to bringing you ideas about God and faith and the common good. All material copyright 2019 by Faith Commons.