Jesus Land

by Julia Scheeres

  I wonder what it would be like to walk with him down the streets of my adopted hometown of San Francisco, California. If we’d finally fit in here, in this mix-raced metropolis, or if we’d still draw stares.

  Most of all, however, I’d like the chance to sit down with my brother and talk everything through, to go to a bar and say “remember when” over glasses of agua de coco. Then I’d finally be able to say all the things I wasn’t brave enough to tell him when he was alive.

  David, I love you.

  AFTERWORD

  Sometimes happy endings are delayed.

  After Jesus Land was published, I began hearing from other Escuela Caribe alumni. We discussed our shared trauma and recurring nightmares, and as we networked, we found out a lot of damning things about our alma mater. We learned that in the 1970s, several newspapers printed exposés on child abuse at Escuela Caribe, and as a result, Michigan and Illinois stopped sending wards of the court there. We also learned that the U.S. Senate held hearings on Escuela Caribe’s practices of beating children, keeping them in extended solitary confinement, and censoring their communication with the outside world.

  But none of these actions closed the school. Congress was powerless to intervene; the school operated outside U.S. jurisdiction. And to distance itself from bad press, the school simply changed its name—from “Caribe Vista Youth Safari,” to “Caribe Vista,” to “Escuela Caribe.”

  Enter the internet.

  In today’s hyper-linked, hyper-sharing world, where it’s possible to track down childhood friends in three keystrokes, browse newspapers from the 1800s, and blog about bowel movements, it’s hard for places like Escuela Caribe to hide. Such places rely on secrecy and shame, and when you peel away those constructs, their true, abusive nature emerges and damns them.

  One of Escuela Caribe’s more ingenious maneuvers was to prevent any sense of solidarity among students by encouraging them to rat on each other, which, in program speak, was considered being a “helpful and positive influence.” If you stubbed your toe and yelped “shit!,” for example, I could tattle on you for cursing and score points toward my release and perhaps a free soda pop at dinner. You, on the other hand, would get your points thrashed and be forced to run up the long, painfully steep campus driveway once, or several times. Never mind trying to commiserate with fellow students about how miserable we all were, how scared, abandoned, and hopeless we all felt. You masked your feelings with a rictus grin or risked getting punished for negativity. There were no friends at Escuela Caribe; there were cellmates who wouldn’t hesitate to nark on you if it they could benefit from it, and vice versa. Getting OUT—as quickly as possible—was all that mattered.

  Online, our alumni group was finally able to communicate without fear. We ranged in age from recently-released teenagers to folks in their 50s. We lived all over the country, belonged to disparate socio-economic classes, political parties, and religious groups. Few of us had met in person. But we shared a common goal: We wanted to prevent other children from suffering the brutalities we experienced as adolescents. Escuela Caribe left a deep scar in all of us; among our ranks, there was a high incidence of suicide, drug addiction, and failed relationships. The supposedly “Christian therapeutic boarding school” was anything but. Many of us were now parents, and we considered it a moral obligation to speak out on behalf of the children confined at Escuela Caribe. We created a website, “The Truth about New Horizons Youth Ministries,” and dozens of alumni, using their real names, wrote testimonials detailing the abuse they suffered or witnessed at the school. While school administrators dismissed Jesus Land as an exaggeration and me as an “agent of Satan,” it was impossible for them to shrug off the scathing reviews of so many former clients. When people Googled “Escuela Caribe,” our website was the first result, above the school’s homepage. In 2007, a group of us travelled to Indiana to protest outside the school’s headquarters during its “Founder’s Day” celebration, and several media outlets reported on our struggle.

  Student enrollment dwindled to the single digits.

  And in December, 2011, Escuela Caribe went out of business. In a final message sent to supporters, the administration blamed a “challenging political environment.”

  Halle-fucking-lujah.

  I wish David were around to toast its demise. He was the victim of many injustices in his short life, but I believe the worst was the institutional abuse perpetrated against him at Escuela Caribe, because it was so systematic and multi-layered and inescapable. I think some of the staff truly did care for the students, but the fact that they witnessed child abuse and did not stop or report it makes them just as culpable as the perpetrators. I’ve never seen worse Christian hypocrites, and have no patience for those who would argue otherwise.

  I believe the dead live on through our actions. My brother David died 25 years ago this month. He was only 20, just a boy. It’s hard to believe that he’s been dead longer than he was alive. The wound is still fresh. I wrote Jesus Land for him. I fought to close down Escuela Caribe for him, too. Act Three of this book could be titled: Trust Your Outrage. Or simply: Revenge.

  On a much sweeter note, David Scheeres lives on in a little girl named Davia Joy Rose-Scheeres, my daughter, born June 3, the day after David’s birthday. Now 3 years old, I still sometimes call her David by accident. (Lately, however, she’s told us she wants to be called “Squeezo.”) She’s got his same mellow personality, his love of horseplay and laughter. She will be as loved and cherished as he was. She will also be protected.

  I’ve received thousands of emails from Jesus Land readers. Some say they’re writing to me in tears, mourning David’s death. I feel humbled by their response. Others try to lure me back to Christianity—those messages I just delete. Many readers say they also feel like outcasts in their hometowns, oppressed by religionists, racists, homophobes, or other pea-brained busybodies. The advice I give them is this: If you feel like a misfit in the place where you were born, move somewhere else. I did. I now reside in the most progressive town in the country—Berkeley, California. In the Kindergarten class of my firstborn, Tessa Liberty, families come in all colors, faiths, and configurations: black, white, Latino, middle-eastern, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Agnostic, Atheist. Parents who are gay, straight, divorced. It’s all-inclusive. Tessa dances hip-hop on the playground and sings the Dreidel song at camp. We live in harmony. Our family doesn’t practice a religion beyond the Golden Rule: Treat people how you’d like to be treated. It’s easy to remember.

  As I type this, Barack Obama is president. Oh how I wish David were alive to see an African American become the most powerful man in the world. He’d be so proud.

  Some readers are curious about my relationship status: I’m married to the best man on earth. It took me 35 years to find the perfect mate, a man who’s even more of a feminist than I am, but I did. Our home is filled with music, children’s art, and laughter. An overgrown flower garden blooms out back, and our girls run barefoot through the grass dressed as fairies. Talk about magic.

  Life gets better if you make it.

  Peace,

  Julia Scheeres

  August 20, 2012, Berkeley, California

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My big sister Debra, a stellar Catholic who listens without passing judgment and plays angelic flute music.

  Laura, my middle big sister, a persevering friend who shares an appreciation for Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.

  Tim Rose, for knowing best how to calm me down and for sticking by me on the machete-sharpening days. I love you.

  Joe Loya, bank robber extraordinaire-cum-author extraordinaire, my primary cheerleader for this book. ¿Quiubo huevon?

  Colleen Morton Busch, fellow Hoosier and writer, for her critiques and mountain bike riding tips.

  Planned Parenthood, for its tireless crusade to protect women’s reproductive freedom.

  My editor, Megan Hustad, and my agent, Sam Stoloff, for getting this thing published.

  AN I
NTERVIEW WITH JULIA SCHEERES

  What’s Jesus Land about?

  It’s about my close relationship with my adopted black brother David, from our strict Christian upbringing in Indiana to our stint at a religious reform school in the Dominican Republic.

  What inspired you to write Jesus Land?

  David was writing about these things before he died in a car crash at age twenty. After his funeral, I found a green notebook among his belongings in which he was writing about growing up black in a white family, about our intolerant Midwestern town, and about Escuela Caribe.

  Why did you write it as a memoir?

  David and I were the same age. From the time he was adopted as a three-year-old to his death at age twenty our lives were tightly intertwined. We sat in the same classroom throughout grade school, joined the same church groups, and attended the same reform school. Memoir seemed the natural choice to convey the intimacy and immediacy of our shared history. More than anything, Jesus Land is a love story. It’s a story about how racists and religious zealots tried to drive us apart, and we ultimately prevailed. It’s a story about a couple of misfit kids learning to survive in a hostile environment and the transcendence of sibling bonds.

  What was the inspiration for the title? How have people been reacting to it?

  I came up with the title years before the “red state” connotation entered the popular lexicon. I picked the title Jesus Land because the book deals in specious facades, like the amusement park. Beneath the much-hyped “family values” morality of the Bible Belt, you’ll find child abuse, intolerance and racism. Given the rise of the Christian Right in America, I think my book’s exploration of this sanctimony is timely.

  What are your religious leanings today?

  Devout hedonist . . . agnostic . . . secular humanist. Seriously, I hate labels. Having been brainwashed from birth as a Calvinist, it took me years to shake my religion entirely. Until recently I still prayed on airplanes, more from rote habit than a belief that a supreme being would protect the tin can I was flying in. I lost my religion by degrees. The first step was witnessing the hypocrisy of the Christians around me as a child. The second was escaping the rigid subculture I grew up in and meeting secular folks who were much more moral and trustworthy than the Christians I was told to revere. Subsequent steps were being excommunicated from my church, and then shunned by my childhood community when I dared to show up for Sunday services during a nostalgic trip back home.

  Your experiences in the book notwithstanding, have all your experiences with devout Christians been bad?

  No. My two sisters are powerful examples of laudable Christians. They adhere to the New Testament’s gentle-Jesus love-one-another philosophy and don’t ram their beliefs down people’s throats.

  Is Escuela Caribe still open?

  Yes, and it’s thriving. The school continues to be a dumping ground for the problem teenagers of rich Evangelicals. For $3,000–$6,000 a month, you can buy your kid a cot in a cramped dormitory, a lousy education, and PTSD nightmares for the rest of her life. (But at least she won’t get knocked up.) When I returned to visit the school in 2001, there were several more student homes, so between the high tuition and the staff’s missionary wages, the owners must really be raking it in. Although the administration told me things were “less physical” than when I was there—i.e., students weren’t body-slammed as much—the accounts of recent alums refute this claim.

  Did you keep in touch with any of your Escuela Caribe classmates?

  I haven’t been able to locate my former housemates, but I have connected with other alumni using the Internet. We started a Yahoo group to discuss our experiences with New Horizon Youth Ministries as well as a website to expose the truth about the reform school empire at www.nhym-alumni.org, which includes accounts of physical, sexual and psychological abuse at the hands of the staff. Given that we didn’t dare criticize the school while we were students there and were unable to confide in our classmates due to a system that rewarded narcs, these forums have been tremendously cathartic for many people.

  What has the reaction to your book been? What was the best response you have gotten? What was the worst?

  I’ve gotten a lot of e-mails from readers who identify with Jesus Land because they, too, felt like outcasts as kids because of their race or beliefs. I guess the best responses I’ve received are from people who knew David and regaled me with funny anecdotes about him that made him come alive for me again. Worst response—one Canadian reader was angry with my depiction of my Canadian housefather at Escuela Caribe. I called him some choice words that she found offensive. She failed to understand that Jesus Land is written from the perspective of a tempermental seventeen-year-old American girl. Really, I have no bone to pick with Canadian people in general.

  What was the writing process like for you? Was it hard to deal with all the memories from your childhood?

  There were times when I had to go cry in my pillow after writing down a painful scene. There were days when cleaning the cat box was more appealing than sitting down at my desk. I grew quite sick of my seventeen-year-old self by the last draft of Jesus Land. But there were also nights when I had amazing dreams about David, about adventures we had together—real or imagined—and I felt incredibly close to him the entire time I wrote the book. Unfortunately the frequent dreams stopped once I turned it in.

  Since the book’s publication have you met a lot of people who have had similar experiences?

  If you consider e-mail and online encounters real, the answer is yes. Especially alumni from Escuela Caribe.

  What advice would you give to someone who is struggling to deal with their own upbringing?

  Hang in there. Someday you’ll turn eighteen and your life will be your own. That day may seem far off now, but when it does arrive, you’ll have decades to live freely. Try to keep that in mind. Meanwhile, find someone—a sibling, friend, teacher—to confide in. This will help you keep your sanity. Speak out if you’re being emotionally, physically or sexually abused; protect the sanctity of your own body above all else. If you don’t stand up for yourself, no one else will. And always stay true to your own values, no matter how disorienting or overwhelming the forces around you. Adolescence is just a blip in the span of a lifetime. Your future is wide open. Use it wisely.

  READING GUIDE

  1.Throughout Jesus Land, Julia oscillates between close identification with David (referring to “our color,” for example), involuntary alienation from him (as when he and Jerome are pitted against the rest of the family), and intentional attempts to separate herself from him (as she does during high school). How does her perception of her relationship with David affect her perception of herself?

  2.Julia and David have very different concepts of “family.” What does it mean to be a family? Is Julia’s cynicism about it belied by any of her family relationships? Are any of them a source of strength for her? Does David’s enduring hope for an accepting, united family harm him? Is his faith in the concept ever justified?

  3.Why do you believe Julia’s parents adopted Jerome and David? How do you view those motivations in light of the outcome?

  4.Throughout Jesus Land, how do social appearances effect different characters’ decisions? In what ways do social appearances influence how the family members treat one another, both in private and in public?

  5.Julia has a number of very different sexual encounters in her memoir. How does each of them shape her views about sex? Why do you think she doesn’t tell David about Jerome?

  6.Julia and David encounter a great deal of talk about faith. What do they have faith in? How does their faith differ from that of the adults around them?

  7.After David is publicly abused at Escuela Caribe, Julia says, “It makes me wonder if he hates my whiteness and if I can be a true sister to him without sharing the trauma of his skin color, if we can ever be more than black and white, more than the surface of our skin.” How would you answer Julia? Across their story, how doe
s skin color separate and unite them?

  8.What are Julia’s attitudes toward race and how do they affect David? If Jesus Land took place today instead of in the mid-80s, would the siblings’ experiences be different?

  9.Why do you think David and Julia have such a fascination with graveyards? How are graveyards a theme throughout their lives?

  10.Julia, David, and Jerome endure a great deal of emotional and physical abuse in Jesus Land. What are their individual coping mechanisms? How and why do they vary?

  11.How is Christianity used to enforce the status quo in Indiana and Escuela Caribe? Does the rigidity of the Christian culture of Escuela Caribe ever make it easier to subvert?

  12.From early on in the book, it’s clear that religion plays a significant role in the lives of Julia’s parents. What roles does religion and spirituality play in Julia’s personal identity? Would you describe her as religious or spiritual?

  13.Throughout the book, Julia describes and names the music she is hearing. How is music used by Julia, her mother, and the people at Escuela Caribe?

  14.Julia’s mother believes David suffered from attachment disorder syndrome, which caused him to not fully integrate with their family. Julia disagrees. Where do you stand? What factors do you believe affected David’s relationships?

  15.Toward the end of the book, Julia rhetorically asks, “Is it wrong to dislike your parents? What if they disliked you first?” How would you answer her?

  16.Jesus Land is written as a memoir focused around the relationship between Julia and David. How does the form affect your reaction to the story? How would you respond differently if it had been written as a novel based on real events, an exposé of Escuela Caribe, a documentary on racism in Indiana, or some other format?

  17.What was your immediate reaction to the title Jesus Land? How did your reaction to it evolve over the course of the book?