Skip to main content

Hundreds of lone children kept in cages... When fact follows fiction.

It's a surreal thing to read a news article that sounds like the synopsis for Adaline.

One of the news stories that was in my feed today was the story of unaccompanied children being kept in chain link cages by Homeland Security due to illegal entry to the United States. The gist of the article, if you haven't read it, is that families who have been found to be entering the U.S. illegally are being detained. While the parents or guardians of the children are awaiting trial, their children are being sent to detention centers where they are kept in large chain-link encased holding areas. 

In Adaline, children are born into an automated society where humans are essentially bred and then curated. A collection of perfect human clones, groomed and cared for by their robot overlords for no other reason than that's what the A.I. is programmed to do. But in the real world, the kids kept in cages aren't being curated. They're being held in limbo while they wait for an unknown period of time, awaiting a fate that is both unknown and frightening.

Of course, this isn't the first time concentration camp style mass imprisonment has been used in the U.S. In Wold War II we rounded up Japanese Americans because we were sure they were in cahoots with the Japanese government who'd bombed Oahu, Hawaii. Back then, legality of residence wasn't even a consideration. Our government detained our own citizens as a knee jerk reaction for being caught off guard by a military attack.

What's interesting, comparing these two historical times, is that when the U.S. thought its own citizens were working against it, it housed families together. And now, when the emotional crisis is much less severe, the solution has been to separate children from their parents. 

In Adaline, the children have no parents. That is, they've never had them. Humans are lab experiments that are born of a petri dish. I wonder if it's more damaging to have the warmth and care of a parent stripped away, or to not know the comfort of a family at all. 

For reference, the article that I read is here: Hundreds of lone children kept in cages

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Don't Wait

I awoke Friday morning to a message from someone whose name was only vaguely familiar. Laying in bed, scrolling through Facebook on my cell phone, I opened the message. It was a quick note from a woman who was good friends with a woman who I have been close to for over a decade. I read it, and reeled with shock. My friend, a woman who had been with me through the best and worst of times, is gone. Taken from this life because of a driver who didn't stop at a stop sign on a country road. "Accidents happen," many say. It's true, but it isn't right. We never know when our time is going to be up. Today might be your last day, or mine. There's no way of predicting what will happen tomorrow... this evening... fifteen minutes from now. There are many tragedies stemming from this simple accident. First, a mother with fierce love of her two teenage children was stolen from them. A woman who was a pillar of support for so many has fallen from their list of who to cal...
2 comments
Read more

Only Two Weeks Left

Well, I've made it through the first month of fundraising for my novel, Age / Sex / Location  and the fundraising process continues to surprise me!  Through the generous backing of 8 individuals, $600 of the $5,000 I need has been raised so far and I've been told that there are more people waiting for the suspense to build a little more before adding their donation to the mix. The project has been humbling and inspiring so far; reconnecting me with old friends who are interested in what "that crazy Denise" is up to and prompting others to make steps toward realizing their dreams as well!  It is wonderful to know that whether this fundraiser is a financial success or not, there are people out there who believe in me and who take comfort in knowing that they are watching me as an encouragement in their own projects. There is still another $4,400 to raise, and my Mom has offered to get purple highlights once the fundraiser hits the goal as an incentive to anyone who...
1 comment
Read more
It has been years of writing, months of editing, and a lifetime of wishful thinking... and finally the dream has come true. Age/Sex/Location  is now available in e-reader format on Amazon.com , Smashwords.com , and will be coming soon to BarnesandNoble.com . It is very exciting, and I feel truly blessed to have come this far with my dream of becoming an author. I sincerely thank all of you for your encouragement, support, and cheer-leading. You each have helped this writer's dream become reality.
Post a Comment
Read more