THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL

My summer’s work focused on aliens’ rights. When I try to sum up the experience, I am reminded of a scene from the most recent Indiana Jones film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

The movie takes place during the Cold War. Its plot is simple enough: a beautiful Soviet mind-warfare specialist follows the tomb raiding university professor, played by the surprisingly well-aged Harrison Ford, to the mountains of Peru in search of the origin of a legendary alien skull. This alien skull is capable of giving its possessor incredible powers. In the wrong hands, the alien skull could endanger Western civilization and all of the freedom-loving peoples of the world too.

At the film’s climax, the Soviet agent stands before a panel of aliens, in a scene not unlike a courtroom. Lusting for power, the agent confronts the aliens and demands their eternal knowledge. Unfortunately for her, she cannot free her gaze from the lock of their deliberations. In their final judgment, the alien judicial body condemns and destroys her in one intense, obliterating stare.

Then, suddenly, the alien spaceship, which until that point had been doubling as a Mayan temple, flies off into the heavens, never to return to these mundane parts. They have had enough, apparently, of the presumptuous and the ignorant who think of nothing but their own livelihood, global domination, and national security, at the expense of the less fortunate and the nobler elements of the human spirit.

While thinking about this scene, and comparing it to my experience with Latin American aliens this summer, I used Google to search for quotations about judgment and found a line from Revelations (I am not religious at all, but make the obvious connections between the purposes of secular law and religion): "And another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works." And also a passage from Matthew: "You that are accursed, depart from me…for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me."

This summer, we tried to help aliens out of indefinite and unlawful detention. It was a brutal business. So many people—many of whom I consider to be girls and boys—had been detained without notice or process.

Two sisters in particular remain with me, or plague me, depending on my mood. They were minors when they entered the country and worked in restaurants. One day, they took a trip to the Wal-Mart and were accosted by the security guard. When he discovered, as a blind mole digs, that they spoke little or no English, and could not produce proper identification papers that were to his satisfaction, he had them arrested for shoplifting—without cause, of course—as a pretext for an outlet for his contempt. These charges were eventually dropped, and the girls were held at the local jail without process or notice or anything really. No one came to visit them. No one came to talk to them. No one came to listen to them. Three months passed while they languished and suffered illegally. Who knows the things they experienced?