Once upon a time, there lived a beautiful people in a land of sun. They wore clothes in all the colors of the rainbow and spoke in many different languages. But the powerful people of their land didn't like them and decided to kill them all. This went on for years and years until the land of sun became a land of fear, sadness, and hate. Many people could not find anywhere to work, so they had no money. They did not have houses and could not feed their kids. So they decided to leave their land and go north to a place that would be happy and free. It was a dangerous road and they walked for a long time, catching rides when they could. About two months later they finally got to a little town called Postville, a place where people of all different colors lived together. But it wasn't quite as wonderful as they had hoped. They had jobs so that they could pay for food and houses, but their bosses made them work very hard and very long and did bad things to them. They even made children work dangerous jobs with knives and machines. But the colorful people were happy because they had food and their children could go to school.
One day everything changed. They were working hard when they heard yells saying that ice-men were there. Some of the workers tried to run, but helicopters hovered overhead watching their every move. Others tried to hide, but there were too many ice-men looking for them. They didn't stand a chance. The ice-men handcuffed the people and made them get on a bus to go to the fairgrounds, which had been turned into a jail. At school, their kids' teachers took them into a room and told them what had happened to their parents. The kids were very scared and they cried a lot. A little boy named Arturo was happy to see his dad when he came to get him from school. But his dad did not smile at him or tell him that everything would be OK. Instead, he yelled at him to get in the car as fast as he could so the helicopters wouldn't see him. Then Arturo hid in his basement with his Dad and his brothers and sisters for a week because they were scared that the ice-men would find them. He never saw his mom again after that because she was afraid to tell the ice-men that she had kids who needed her, so they sent her back to where she came from. Arturo misses his mommy a lot, but he tries his best to be a brave little boy.
The people that the ice-men took away did not get to say goodbye to their families and they did not know if they were ok. The ice-men let many of the women go because they knew that their kids needed them, but before they left, the ice-men strapped boxes to their ankles so that they would always know where they were. At the fairgrounds, they had beds to sleep in, but nobody slept a wink because the ice-men kept coming in and taking people away to ask them why they had left the land where they were born to come to their land without asking first. The ice-men thought that they deserved to be in this land because they were born there. They did not care that the colorful people could not be safe at home and that they had nothing to eat. "Plus, we are ice, so clear and beautiful," they thought. "There must be something wrong with these colorful people. They talk funny." So the ice-men had a party because they were so happy that they had caught all of the colorful people. But when the colorful people heard them having fun they could not understand why they were happy that they had locked them away in a place where no one could hear them cry out for their wives and children.
A few days later, the ice-men took them to another jail. They locked them up and told them to sign strange papers that they did not understand. They made them take off all of their clothes except for one shirt and then made it as cold as possible. The colorful people were scared and did not know what was happening. Then, after being forced to stay awake for two days and enduring much taunting, they were taken before a judge who told them that they would have to go to jail for five months because they had stolen people's numbers. They did not know that they had taken other people's numbers, though. They bought the numbers and thought they were pretend. They wanted to say that they were sorry and that all they wanted to do was work hard, but they knew nobody would listen. So those colorful people were sent all over the land and their families did not know where they were. They were moved from place to place, and at each new place they had to take off their clothes so that people could make sure they were not hiding anything. They had to eat with their hands shackled together, and some people had to stay in rooms by themselves for weeks at a time. They started to lose hope and lose their grasp on reality. After many horrible months, some of the men were sent back to the land of sun, and their wives breathed sighs of relief even though they did not know when they would see them again. Some of the men were sent back to Postville, though, to tell about the bad things that their bosses did to them.
While they were in prison, some people who were clear like the ice-men but much nicer helped the families find out where many of missing people were. But the colorful people in Postville were still very sad that they could not see their dads, and brothers, and husbands. Some of the kids talked to their dads on the phone and they said, "Where are you Daddy? Why won't you come home?" They asked their moms why they had boxes strapped on their ankles. Their moms told their kids not to worry, trying to hide their pain as their skin burned from the heat of the strap, while they stood plugged into the wall for two hours every day. When other people saw these boxes, they whispered about the women and made them feel like murderers. The good clear people helped them get enough food and tried to help them with everything they needed. But so many people needed help that they could not do everything. The women and children needed a lot of help with the constant sadness in their minds. Some of the women's husbands who had not been taken away beat them and told them they were worthless, but no one noticed because colorful people were calling out for help all around. Throughout the land, people shouted that the ice-men were wrong to take the colorful people away, and that it is not OK to hurt families. They shouted that the colorful people's bosses had done some very bad things and that something should be done about it. But most people did not know what had happened or they forgot about the colorful people, and so they were silent. Then they heard a whisper. It said, "Please help us. We have no voice. Will you be our voice?"
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