Seeing the wall

On our trip we were able to visit the border at three different locations.  The first point of entry that we saw was in Nogales.  Most of the wall along this part of the border was made using landing strips from the Gulf War.  It is tall and metal and you cannot see through it unless you walk up to it and peer through a small hole.  It varies in height and structure all along.    

Since we were just a little ways down from the official point of entry in the town of Nogales, Arizona, there was a surplus of border patrol all along the wall.  As we drove and walked down the road, we would pass a border patrol vehicle, with an agent sitting inside, about every mile or so.  Along with that, there were National Guard members posted up on the hill right above the road watching for anyone who might be trying to get across.  Just to be clear, I have complete respect for all members of the military, but when I can see 4 National Guard just within my line of vision, I begin to question whether this is an appropriate allocation of resources, especially with the current state of our education system and lack of funding (more to come later about what I learned regarding the actual danger along the border line).  

As we were walking along the wall, we came across some women who were on their balcony cooking dinner (on the Mexico side).  They waved to us and we started a conversation with them.  It's a little difficult to tell in the picture, but the wall is so high up from where we were standing that we couldn't actually see them unless we stood pretty far back and they came to the edge of their balcony.  They were incredibly friendly and happy to talk with us.  It felt so surreal that we couldn't have a face to face conversation with these well-meaning and harmless ladies because there was a giant wall dividing us.  It felt like we were just having a friendly chat with our neighbors over the fence in the backyard, except that they couldn't actually come over.  Imagine being separated from your neighbors and never being able to have simple interactions such as borrowing an egg, or having them over for a barbecue.  What was it like for the families whose neighborhoods were divided by the wall?  Did they have kids who used to play together?  Some of my best childhood memories are playing with the other neighborhood kids.  I can't imagine what it would be like to suddenly have a wall dividing our houses and not be able to visit them anymore.  What if one day a wall went up and you could never go over to your best friend's house again to play?  What if suddenly your grandma's house was in another country, simply because a piece of scrap metal divided the two sides?  I think that most of us never really think about the border in this way; we really take for granted our ability to freely visit our friends and family.      

A little further down from what you can see in the pictures, as we got closer to the town, there were houses on the Arizona side that were right up along the border as well.  The federal government has made it so that they have control over all land within one mile of the border on the US side.  This means that even if a person owns their own private property, but it is within a mile of the border, the government has the right to use that property freely for their own patrolling purposes.  People who live along the border have to deal with constant noise and lack of privacy.  They will often wake up in the middle of the night to border patrol running through their yard or even on their roof.  In some cases, tear gas has been used, causing harm to the children and families living in those homes.  All along the wall, there are huge lights shining down at night.  The people living there say it is like daytime all the time.  As soon as it gets dark out, the big spotlights turn on and it is light all night.

We were fortunate enough to be here as the sun was setting.  One minute I was appreciating the beauty of the sun going down behind the mountains and casting a golden glow over the rolling hills.  The next minute I was realizing how ugly this whole situation is as the spotlights turned on and the reality of the separation came back.  A simple wall can take something so beautiful and turn it into something so sad and disappointing.

The next location that we visited along the border was Douglas, which is about 70 miles east of Nogales. During the day we were able to drive out of town a few miles.  Once again, the beauty of the scenery was stunning, but seemed ruined by the separation of people and communities.  I kept catching myself looking out into the hills admiring the beauty of the land, only to notice a border patrol agent driving along the road, diminishing the beauty.

That night, we visited the portion of the wall that was right in town in Douglas.  The picture I took is not very good quality, but you can get the general idea.  There is a wall already in place, but they have recently been adding to it.  They have dug a huge trench and are beginning to put up another wall on the other side (a portion of this can be seen on the right hand side of the picture).  Now instead of one wall dividing the community, there are two walls separated by a trench.  Again, I am amazed at the amount of money going into these projects, while the funding for our education is continually being cut more and more.  This second wall will supposedly make crossing harder...even though there are border patrol agents stationed all along here at all hours of the day and night.  Also notice the bright lights; these stay on throughout the whole night and are very loud because of the generators needed to keep them running.  Just beyond what you can see in the picture is a neighborhood with houses.  How would we feel about having this in our front yard all the time?

"We didn't cross the border. The border crossed us."

After spending only one week along the US/Mexico border, I feel like I have come back with an incredible amount of new knowledge.  I had the greatest experience and I learned so much.  However, I also learned just how complicated all of the issues surrounding the border are and that there absolutely are no black and white answers or solutions.  I am overwhelmed by the complexity of it all but also inspired to learn more and stay involved in bringing justice to all people.

Our first day in Arizona, we met with a woman named Lupe Castillo.  Lupe is a border activist and teaches history at Pima County Community College in Tucson.  She spent a couple of hours giving us a brief history of the border to prepare us for the rest of our week.  All of us think of the United States as developing from the east to the west, and view the area of Arizona as the "southwest" or "the rockies," looking only at how it relates to the development of the United States.  However, this area was around long before the United States and was a part of Mexico: it was "el norte" or  "the north."  Santa Fe, New Mexico, which previously belonged to Mexico, was actually established even before the settlement of Jamestown.

The US/Mexico border is just under 2,000 miles and has divided so many communities all along its length. As the United States began incorporating Texas, it began a momentum of taking over the land that is now California, Arizona, and New Mexico.  Mexico was losing so much of their land so quickly to the US, they saw no option but to form a treaty with the US; they wanted to preserve at least some of their land before they lost it all.  In order to protect their southern lands from further takeover, they signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.  In Mexico, this is known as "The North American Aggression," signaling the bitter feelings toward the oppression of the United States.  Mexicans who were living north in the area that became separated by the border were forced to become United States citizens or be sent down south.  They didn't want to lose their heritage and join American culture, but most of them didn't have a choice; they were deeply rooted in their land.  They had been occupying this area before the United States even existed.  They had to stay to keep their land rights.

As industrialization and agriculture increased, there was a great demand for more laborers in the workforce.  European immigrants were staying mostly in the east, so there was still a need for workers in the south.  Since the Chinese Exclusion Acts were enacted in 1882, the US could not bring in Chinese to do the work.  The logical place to get workers seemed to be from Mexico.  The US began going into Mexico and recruiting workers to come back and work.  Mexican workers were convenient for the US because they were easily disposable; they could use them for their labor, but push them back out with legal means as soon as they were no longer needed.  We can see a pattern of workers being brought in when the labor demand is high, taken advantage of, and deported when they are no longer needed.  Take a minute to look at this interactive map that details the pattern of immigrants coming in and out of the US:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/03/10/us/20090310-immigration-explorer.html
On the top right hand corner you can choose to either view it as percent of the population or as number of residents.  Slide the bar to see the time between 1910 and 1920.  During this time when industry was booming and many people were away fighting in World War I, the demand for labor was very high, as indicated by the high number of Latin Americans on the map.  Then if you slide the bar over to 1930, you can see the effect that the Great Depression had on immigration.  All the workers who had moved their lives over here were pushed out and sent back to Mexico.  If you then move over to 1940, you can see that the immigration picked up again.  This was during the time of World War II, and once again, much of the workforce was away at war.  Thus the United States began recruiting workers from Mexico again; During WWII, between 3-4 million workers were imported from Mexico.  The United States was able to use their power to take advantage of Mexican workers and use them at their convenience, only keeping them as long as they "needed" them. Then in 1994, with the implementation of NAFTA (I will talk more about this later), the border was open for the flow of market and goods, but not for labor.  Trade was happening freely, and small farmers in Mexico who were already struggling could no longer compete with the powerful American corporations.

This is just a little background and history on the border that helped set the stage for what we learned all week.  More to come very soon!!