The populist movement was founded upon and emerged from the granges and cooperatives. The labor movement was founded upon and emerged from the labor unions. The civil rights movement was founded upon and emerged from the black churches of the south.
And so, if we are to engage our own movement, of our day, we must ask ourselves: from what organizations will our movement emerge? What organizations will serve as our structural and communal foundation? To think it will be the same organizations—whether cooperatives, unions, or churches—is probably folly. Most likely, our movement will emerge from organizations that seemingly have no power, that have limited political involvement, or—even—is yet to be founded, like the cooperatives of the populist movement. Or, perhaps, like the industrial labor union (like the CIO), the organization will be a radical new twist on an older form that suddenly throws open the doors of possibility.
What will our organizational base be? Well, what is our movement? Will it be relocalization, recommunalization, simplification? A bi-national movement of migrants? Is it possible that the neighborhood associations will rise in strength and prestige? Is it possible that mini-regions will organize?
Or, on another interest, can the high school students organize? Although they cannot vote, and more-often-than-not do not own property, they are minors and so are not legally accountable for their actions. They can make demands based upon creative—but still effective (which is a must)—culture jamming. Perhaps through the demanded reformation of their schools, youth could gain a sense of their power. If one person, one student doesn’t go to school, that student has problems. But, if the whole school refuses to attend classes based upon school’s demeaningness, because of the poor education, the irrelevant education they are receiving, then, in that case, the school has an issue. The school is in a tight spot based upon their school grade. What if everyone—16 to 18—hung the threat of dropping out over the heads of the administration? And, if need be, pursue their GED’s through collective education?
“School’s that bad, huh? Well, what would you change?” As the students began to realize their power, they could offer some constructive solutions to such questions because suddenly they would be afforded the privilege of answering such policy decisions. Furthermore, they would be held accountable by their own lives. They’d have to live the policy they demand. If they didn’t like it, they could change it again.
There’s potential with high schoolers to revamp the educational system in America.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Update from the Border: Prophets and Mvt, VOL VI
To Those Good Folks With Whom I Like To Exchange Stories, share ideas, and mutually engage in real work, visit and generally keep up to date:
Immigration Court.
One prosecuting attorney. Nine or ten public defenders. One interpreter. One court reporter. One "judge." Two marshalls. Nine men in organge. Eight women in red. Seventeen, all of them, in leg chains, hand cuffs anchored to a chain around their waist, with an interpreter's headset pluged into their ears. All for misdemenors.
Three to five of the criminals come forward at a time, beckoned by the judge, "innocent until proven" only in the movies.
Shuffle, shuffle.
"I may be addressing you individually or as a group. Please respond when requested." The judge told them. He tirelessly explained their rights to them: Right to remain silent. Right to a trial. Right to a lawyer. Right to present evidence.
"Please answer out loud, each and everyone of you. I need to hear from each and everyone of you. And please let me hear that you understand. If you plea guilty, you are giving up all these rights. Do you understand? Please answer out loud."
"Do you all plea guilty?"
"Do you feel that you are thinking clearly today? Do you feel there is anyone or anything influencing your decision today? Do you feel that anyone or anything has pressured you into a decision? Please let me know that you have made this decision upon your own free will? Out loud please."
"When you signed your plea agreement and your attorney explained it to you, did you have any problem understanding it? Please answer out loud. Do you understand? Do you feel you are thinking clearly today?"
"Then you agree to give up your right to appeal your 180 day sentence? Is that how you understood it? Please, I need to hear from each and every one of you."
Shuffle out.
"I will be asking you questions either as a group or as individuals. Either way, I need you to answer out loud. No. Nodding the head is not enough. I need you to answer out loud. Do you understand."
Finally the monotony of the judge's speach was interrupted: "Sir," said an organge clad man in accent-laden english, "I'm hardly understanding you."
"Well, if you are having trouble hearing from your apparatus, please inform us, and we'll assist you."
"Do any of you have any questions of me or your attorney at this time? Please answer out loud. Do you understand."
~ ~ ~
"I will be addressing you either as a group or as an individual..."
"Is that what you desire today? To appear before me today? To plea guilty and to be sentenced?"
"Well. Good luck to you all."
"Court adjorned."
~ ~ ~
It's places like this where the prophets were born. It's places like this where Jeremiah heard the Lord call him to, "uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow." It's where Micah asked, "What does the Lord require of you?" It was here that Isaiah wrote of the acceptible sacrifice and fast: "To loose the chains of injustice, untie the cords of the yoke, and to set the oppressed free." And, it's what caused Amos to shout: "Let justice roll on like a river, rigteousness like a never-failing stream."
And, when the prophets left the courtroom, the despicable and returned to the people, it was Ezekiel who spoke of the valley of the dry bones, the people seemingly unable to rise up, to fight, to create a better world: "I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. And the Lord asked me, 'Can these bones live?' And I responded, 'Only you know Lord, only you know.' Then God said to me, 'Tell the truth to these bones, raise them up with your words. Tell them, 'Oh ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life.' So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was speaking, there was a noice, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. Then God said to me, 'Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, young man, and say to it, 'This is what the Lord says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these bones that they may live.'' So I called to the wind as God had commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet-- a vast army."
~ ~ ~
Here's a little lesson from the Civil Rights Movement. From Gandhi. From Saul Alinsky, the Chicago organizer. When the authorities tell you, "Look. I'm sorry. But these are the rules. They exist for a reason." When they don't specify what that reason is, but they submittingly tell you that "They have to uphold the law," you shouldn't begrudge them. In fact, make authority stick to its rules. They have to arrest you? Okay. Fine you? Beat you? Put dogs on you? Don't begrudge them or hate them. It's their job, usually. Don't begrudge them. Overwhelm them. "Rise to the majestic heights of meeting phsyical force with soul force."
In Albany, Georgia, in Tallahassee, FL, in Rochester, NY, in Montgomery, in Harlem, in Lawrenceville, MA, Seattle, San Francisco, in West Virginia, in Swanannoa, NC, when the authorities told people trying to assert labor rights, racial, religious, class rights that they couldn't protest, sing, march, sit, stand, sleep, picket, whatever. When the authorities told them, "You can't do that. We'll have to arrest you" that's when the organizers said, "Really? Okay. Arrest 10,000 of us. Arrest our children. Arrest our grand mothers and grand fathers. While you're at it, arrest the black-folk in the next county over." And suddenly, Albany, GA's cells are filled up. Everyone's family in the world is sending letters to the Mayor's office. They're swimming in them. The economy of little Albany is about to go capoot because-- aside from the fact that everyone's employees, plus a nice selection of managers and store owners, are in jail-- anything from or headed to Albany just got put on the economic black list.
The rank and file cops didn't read the memo, so they arrested Martin Luther King, Jr while they were at it, so now little Albany's got the President of the United states breathing down its back. The judges realize, upon their frist trial with a person who's been trained in willful-ignorance and misunderstanding, that they're going to be hearing cases for people who walked on the wrong side of the street, the wrong side of a line (the wrong side of a border?) for the next 420 years. And about that time, somewhere about that time, as the rules ease over to make room for justice, a movement is born because the people realize they can achieve more than the pittance they set out to bargain for.
~ ~ ~
Like a seed waiting for spring, movement is brewing on the border.
Nathan
Immigration Court.
One prosecuting attorney. Nine or ten public defenders. One interpreter. One court reporter. One "judge." Two marshalls. Nine men in organge. Eight women in red. Seventeen, all of them, in leg chains, hand cuffs anchored to a chain around their waist, with an interpreter's headset pluged into their ears. All for misdemenors.
Three to five of the criminals come forward at a time, beckoned by the judge, "innocent until proven" only in the movies.
Shuffle, shuffle.
"I may be addressing you individually or as a group. Please respond when requested." The judge told them. He tirelessly explained their rights to them: Right to remain silent. Right to a trial. Right to a lawyer. Right to present evidence.
"Please answer out loud, each and everyone of you. I need to hear from each and everyone of you. And please let me hear that you understand. If you plea guilty, you are giving up all these rights. Do you understand? Please answer out loud."
"Do you all plea guilty?"
"Do you feel that you are thinking clearly today? Do you feel there is anyone or anything influencing your decision today? Do you feel that anyone or anything has pressured you into a decision? Please let me know that you have made this decision upon your own free will? Out loud please."
"When you signed your plea agreement and your attorney explained it to you, did you have any problem understanding it? Please answer out loud. Do you understand? Do you feel you are thinking clearly today?"
"Then you agree to give up your right to appeal your 180 day sentence? Is that how you understood it? Please, I need to hear from each and every one of you."
Shuffle out.
"I will be asking you questions either as a group or as individuals. Either way, I need you to answer out loud. No. Nodding the head is not enough. I need you to answer out loud. Do you understand."
Finally the monotony of the judge's speach was interrupted: "Sir," said an organge clad man in accent-laden english, "I'm hardly understanding you."
"Well, if you are having trouble hearing from your apparatus, please inform us, and we'll assist you."
"Do any of you have any questions of me or your attorney at this time? Please answer out loud. Do you understand."
~ ~ ~
"I will be addressing you either as a group or as an individual..."
"Is that what you desire today? To appear before me today? To plea guilty and to be sentenced?"
"Well. Good luck to you all."
"Court adjorned."
~ ~ ~
It's places like this where the prophets were born. It's places like this where Jeremiah heard the Lord call him to, "uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow." It's where Micah asked, "What does the Lord require of you?" It was here that Isaiah wrote of the acceptible sacrifice and fast: "To loose the chains of injustice, untie the cords of the yoke, and to set the oppressed free." And, it's what caused Amos to shout: "Let justice roll on like a river, rigteousness like a never-failing stream."
And, when the prophets left the courtroom, the despicable and returned to the people, it was Ezekiel who spoke of the valley of the dry bones, the people seemingly unable to rise up, to fight, to create a better world: "I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. And the Lord asked me, 'Can these bones live?' And I responded, 'Only you know Lord, only you know.' Then God said to me, 'Tell the truth to these bones, raise them up with your words. Tell them, 'Oh ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life.' So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was speaking, there was a noice, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. Then God said to me, 'Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, young man, and say to it, 'This is what the Lord says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these bones that they may live.'' So I called to the wind as God had commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet-- a vast army."
~ ~ ~
Here's a little lesson from the Civil Rights Movement. From Gandhi. From Saul Alinsky, the Chicago organizer. When the authorities tell you, "Look. I'm sorry. But these are the rules. They exist for a reason." When they don't specify what that reason is, but they submittingly tell you that "They have to uphold the law," you shouldn't begrudge them. In fact, make authority stick to its rules. They have to arrest you? Okay. Fine you? Beat you? Put dogs on you? Don't begrudge them or hate them. It's their job, usually. Don't begrudge them. Overwhelm them. "Rise to the majestic heights of meeting phsyical force with soul force."
In Albany, Georgia, in Tallahassee, FL, in Rochester, NY, in Montgomery, in Harlem, in Lawrenceville, MA, Seattle, San Francisco, in West Virginia, in Swanannoa, NC, when the authorities told people trying to assert labor rights, racial, religious, class rights that they couldn't protest, sing, march, sit, stand, sleep, picket, whatever. When the authorities told them, "You can't do that. We'll have to arrest you" that's when the organizers said, "Really? Okay. Arrest 10,000 of us. Arrest our children. Arrest our grand mothers and grand fathers. While you're at it, arrest the black-folk in the next county over." And suddenly, Albany, GA's cells are filled up. Everyone's family in the world is sending letters to the Mayor's office. They're swimming in them. The economy of little Albany is about to go capoot because-- aside from the fact that everyone's employees, plus a nice selection of managers and store owners, are in jail-- anything from or headed to Albany just got put on the economic black list.
The rank and file cops didn't read the memo, so they arrested Martin Luther King, Jr while they were at it, so now little Albany's got the President of the United states breathing down its back. The judges realize, upon their frist trial with a person who's been trained in willful-ignorance and misunderstanding, that they're going to be hearing cases for people who walked on the wrong side of the street, the wrong side of a line (the wrong side of a border?) for the next 420 years. And about that time, somewhere about that time, as the rules ease over to make room for justice, a movement is born because the people realize they can achieve more than the pittance they set out to bargain for.
~ ~ ~
Like a seed waiting for spring, movement is brewing on the border.
Nathan
Update from the Border: Why'r they coming?, VOL V
To Those Good Folks With Whom I Like To Exchange Stories, share ideas, and mutually engage in real work, visit and generally keep up to date:
The question that nobody is asking, the question that everyone should
be asking, the question that I haven't answered, the question hanging
over all the border, national and international policy, transport,
trade, economics, immigration, emigration, migration, Mexicans,
Americans, Guatemalans, El Salvadorans, Nicaraguans, rich, poor,
middle class...
The question is this: Why are they coming? Border Patrol apprehended
350,000 people last year in the Tucson sector (about 2/3 of AZ) alone.
Probably that many folks made it through. Nobody knows for sure.
220 people have died in the desert this year trying to get through.
And still they come.
We asked our Border Patrol tour guide last Monday whether he ever got
frustrated with the apparent futility of his job. "Do you ever get
frustrated because nobody seems to be doing anything about why people
are coming?" He said, "It used to bother me. But now, I just try not
to let it get to me."
Last weekend, we visited an artist's house in the desert. Every
morning when she takes her dog on a walk, she discovers items dropped,
discarded, lost by the migrants. Back packs, jackets, water jugs,
children's shoes, electrolyte packets, Tylenol, notebooks, love notes,
cloth tortilla napkins, Disney backpacks with the likes of "A Bug's
Life" and "Monster's Inc" displayed in shiny plastic (the straps
pulled up tight to fit an eight-year-old), tooth brushes, diaries,
bibles, blankets, meds, socks, blister first-aid, hats. With all the
items, she creates art pieces. One display I will remember for a long
time.
It was a simple black frame holding sun-bleach photos of a Young
woman, a sweat-stained, white bra, and a half-taken packet of birth
control. The caption told about the story of woman migrants. It said:
Most women are recommended to begin taking birth control several weeks
before their departure for the US because: the chances are they'll get
raped on the way. And, if you don't want to carry the child of your
desert crossing, then...
And, yet they come? Why on earth? What would cause people to come
knowing, anticipating rape? What force drives them north? What would
it take?
~ ~ ~
Last Tuesday, we met with the director of BorderLinks in Mexico: Kiko,
or Francisco. I didn't realize the nickname until yesterday. He was
just "Kiko."
"I hear the same story over and over again," he told us. "They keep
coming from Oaxaca, Chiapas. Everyone is from Chiapas," he
exaggerated. "It's always the same story." He tried to jump forward
to the maquilas (factories) of Nogales. But, we held him back.
"What's the story? You keep mentioning it. What is it?" we asked.
~ ~ ~
The story:
People have been struggling for generations. Some up and some downs.
But enough. Most folks in Mexico were able to live a dignified life.
They were able to feed their kids, especially the farmers. They were
able to grow enough during the growing season to last through the dry
season. On a whole, "The were pretty happy," Kiko described.
As modernity crept in, folks didn't necessarily grind their own corn
and make their own tortillas any more, but it worked out. There were
two major tortilla producers in Mexico, and the tortilla producers
were required to buy the majority of their corn from local producers.
Local. Some could come from broader Mexico. In other words, a small
portion of the corn input could be purchased from Mexican
agri-business, but most had to be bought from small, local,
(Indigenous) farmers. And even less could be purchased from the
international market. The farmers adapted to modernity, sold to the
tortilla producers, and grew dependent on this market.
Then, thing began to change rather dramatically, especially after the
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. They lost their
market share to the international market. The tortilla producers were
no longer required to purchase any of their input corn from local
producers. All Mexican farm subsidies were eliminated prior to the
ratification of NAFTA while all the US farm subsidies weren't reduced
at all. (I think this year US farm subsidies amounted to over 30
billion dollars. But, maybe I have my facts wrong.) Cheap corn
flooded the Mexican market. There's an economic word for this: it's
called "Dumping." Selling products in a foreign market below the cost
of production. It's supposedly illegal under global economic
agreements. Not under NAFTA.
"For generations," Kiko told us, "farming communities grew corn, saved
for themselves, and sold a little." Under NAFTA, they had no market.
"They couldn't compete with the big guys." Good ole economic
efficiency. Plus, prior to the ratification of NAFTA, all communally
held land (tribal land), was individualized by national decree.
"Private Property," declare the neo-classical economists, "is best for
everyone."
Speculators moved in, taxes went up. It's a story middle class
Americans are growing to dislike.
With no other option, the farmers put up their land for sale, hoping
the money would be enough for their migration to the United States.
Plus, of course, there are all those who subsisted as mechanics,
plumbers, store clerks, office workers, mule-trainers, all dependent
upon the farm economy as the foundation for their livelihood.
That's the story.
~ ~ ~
Is it a good enough reason? Well. Who's to say? There's probably a
whole lot more to it as there's a whole lot more between the lines of
that story.
Nathan
The question that nobody is asking, the question that everyone should
be asking, the question that I haven't answered, the question hanging
over all the border, national and international policy, transport,
trade, economics, immigration, emigration, migration, Mexicans,
Americans, Guatemalans, El Salvadorans, Nicaraguans, rich, poor,
middle class...
The question is this: Why are they coming? Border Patrol apprehended
350,000 people last year in the Tucson sector (about 2/3 of AZ) alone.
Probably that many folks made it through. Nobody knows for sure.
220 people have died in the desert this year trying to get through.
And still they come.
We asked our Border Patrol tour guide last Monday whether he ever got
frustrated with the apparent futility of his job. "Do you ever get
frustrated because nobody seems to be doing anything about why people
are coming?" He said, "It used to bother me. But now, I just try not
to let it get to me."
Last weekend, we visited an artist's house in the desert. Every
morning when she takes her dog on a walk, she discovers items dropped,
discarded, lost by the migrants. Back packs, jackets, water jugs,
children's shoes, electrolyte packets, Tylenol, notebooks, love notes,
cloth tortilla napkins, Disney backpacks with the likes of "A Bug's
Life" and "Monster's Inc" displayed in shiny plastic (the straps
pulled up tight to fit an eight-year-old), tooth brushes, diaries,
bibles, blankets, meds, socks, blister first-aid, hats. With all the
items, she creates art pieces. One display I will remember for a long
time.
It was a simple black frame holding sun-bleach photos of a Young
woman, a sweat-stained, white bra, and a half-taken packet of birth
control. The caption told about the story of woman migrants. It said:
Most women are recommended to begin taking birth control several weeks
before their departure for the US because: the chances are they'll get
raped on the way. And, if you don't want to carry the child of your
desert crossing, then...
And, yet they come? Why on earth? What would cause people to come
knowing, anticipating rape? What force drives them north? What would
it take?
~ ~ ~
Last Tuesday, we met with the director of BorderLinks in Mexico: Kiko,
or Francisco. I didn't realize the nickname until yesterday. He was
just "Kiko."
"I hear the same story over and over again," he told us. "They keep
coming from Oaxaca, Chiapas. Everyone is from Chiapas," he
exaggerated. "It's always the same story." He tried to jump forward
to the maquilas (factories) of Nogales. But, we held him back.
"What's the story? You keep mentioning it. What is it?" we asked.
~ ~ ~
The story:
People have been struggling for generations. Some up and some downs.
But enough. Most folks in Mexico were able to live a dignified life.
They were able to feed their kids, especially the farmers. They were
able to grow enough during the growing season to last through the dry
season. On a whole, "The were pretty happy," Kiko described.
As modernity crept in, folks didn't necessarily grind their own corn
and make their own tortillas any more, but it worked out. There were
two major tortilla producers in Mexico, and the tortilla producers
were required to buy the majority of their corn from local producers.
Local. Some could come from broader Mexico. In other words, a small
portion of the corn input could be purchased from Mexican
agri-business, but most had to be bought from small, local,
(Indigenous) farmers. And even less could be purchased from the
international market. The farmers adapted to modernity, sold to the
tortilla producers, and grew dependent on this market.
Then, thing began to change rather dramatically, especially after the
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. They lost their
market share to the international market. The tortilla producers were
no longer required to purchase any of their input corn from local
producers. All Mexican farm subsidies were eliminated prior to the
ratification of NAFTA while all the US farm subsidies weren't reduced
at all. (I think this year US farm subsidies amounted to over 30
billion dollars. But, maybe I have my facts wrong.) Cheap corn
flooded the Mexican market. There's an economic word for this: it's
called "Dumping." Selling products in a foreign market below the cost
of production. It's supposedly illegal under global economic
agreements. Not under NAFTA.
"For generations," Kiko told us, "farming communities grew corn, saved
for themselves, and sold a little." Under NAFTA, they had no market.
"They couldn't compete with the big guys." Good ole economic
efficiency. Plus, prior to the ratification of NAFTA, all communally
held land (tribal land), was individualized by national decree.
"Private Property," declare the neo-classical economists, "is best for
everyone."
Speculators moved in, taxes went up. It's a story middle class
Americans are growing to dislike.
With no other option, the farmers put up their land for sale, hoping
the money would be enough for their migration to the United States.
Plus, of course, there are all those who subsisted as mechanics,
plumbers, store clerks, office workers, mule-trainers, all dependent
upon the farm economy as the foundation for their livelihood.
That's the story.
~ ~ ~
Is it a good enough reason? Well. Who's to say? There's probably a
whole lot more to it as there's a whole lot more between the lines of
that story.
Nathan
Update from the Border: How's life?, VOL IV
To Those Good Folks With Whom I Like To Exchange Stories, share ideas, and mutually engage in real work, visit and generally keep up to date:
This past summer, I started talking with Travis, a twelve-year-old at our neighborhood block party. He lives just down the street from me. I'd been speaking with loads of adults from the neighborhood. Having seen me grow up over the years-- they didn't necessarily know my name, but they knew or knew of me because I'd had a garden in my front yard since I was eight-- they all wanted to know how I was doing. Seemed like everyone wanted a two minute summation of my life. I was worn down by the time I started talking with Travis.
"Whew, Travis," I said. "I'm wiped out. All these folks keep asking me the hardest question in the world." "Yeah? What's that?" he asked. "Oh. You know. Some form of 'How's it going? What have you been up to? How are you? What's new? How's life?'" I responded. The problem is, what folks actually mean when they ask these questions is: "It's good to see you." But I always get sidetracked by the question mark at the end, and so I try to give them an answer. All those, "How's life's" will ware you out.
"Oh, that's-" he looked down, squinted his eyebrows in dismissal. He shook his head and looked up at me smiling. "That's not a hard question. Here's what you say. Just tell them: 'Well. Hm. My family and I all ate three meals yesterday and had a couple of snacks. Each one of us got around eight hours sleep, and," he added with gusto: "And, we crapped two times. Life is good.'" The kid's right. My life is great.
~ ~ ~
In 2004, the spring of my senior year in high school, I worked in a Mexican Restaurant. The first day of work, "the guys" (the servers) assembled at the host stand-- where the cash registers were also at-- to roll silverware into napkins. I was a host. They asked me, "Tienes hermanas?" Do you have any sisters? When I told them I did, they all began smiling. "Si guey?" (pronounced like the english word "weigh.") Really? They asked me. They asked me if I had a picture of Kelley or Karen, my sisters, in my wallet. No, I told them. "No guey? No? No?!" Really? Common? Really?
The second day, they began calling me, "Cunado," brother-in-law. Everyday, they asked me for a "foto." "Que Pasa, guey. When you going to bring me a foto guey?" "Watch out man. I've got this big tray, guey. Move over guey. You have a foto guey?" "Que Pasa piche guey? Que vas hacer este noche guey? Muevete guey." What's up, guey. What are you going to do tonigh, man? Get out of my way, man. "When you going to bring me a foto of my spouse, man?" And on it went.
As it turned out, they taught me all the bad words without my knowing it. "Guey," they used like like folks say, "man" or like how California surfers use "Dude." It's a filler word, a word of affection. Imagine the teenage males in your life talking about "my boys." It's kind of like that, or at least, they used it like that. They told me it meant "Man." "Guey" actually means "castrated bull." "Hey nutless. How's it going nutless? Yeah? Eunich. Watch out, Eunich. Get out of my way, no-balls." But I didn't know it, so I blundered through spanglish throwing profanities around like a sailor. I guess I should have figured things out when they kept insisting that I not speak spanish when there were spanish patrons in the restaurant.
I didn't figure it out until I visited church friends in Puerto Rico. Another thing I learned: Don't say, "I want meat!" with gusto in Puerto Rico. It doesn't quite carry the literal translation. I'll leave that for you to chew on.
~ ~ ~
So, this story about my days in the Mexican Restaurant, La Fiesta, back in Tallahassee-- I told to a handful of guys gathered in a Casa de huespedes. Literally translated, it means, "House of Guests." Casa de Huespedes are all over Altar, Sonora- just a few miles from the Border. It's fancy name for an expensive homeless shelter. Homeless shelter by design; expensive by price. The bunks are made of wood framing and plywood. Matresses? Forget it. Count your lucky stars there's quarter inch carpet padding your backside. The cielings were 8-10 feet up. Bunks: there were four to six beds vertically, stacked like sardines.
The Casas de Huespedes of Altar, Sonora are the last resting point in Mexico for the Migrants on their journey north to the states. The Coyotes, human smugglers, recruit clients telling them their walk through the desert will only last "Five, six hours, max. We'll start tomorrow morning. You'll be in Phoenix before tomorrow evening."
It always takes three days. Increasingly, it's taking five, six, seven, eight days because of increasing Border Patrol presence,
digital surveillance, and "patriot" vigilantes along the "short" routes necessitating longer trips through the "Devil's Highway" as it's known. Migrants start with two gallons of water, which is really "too much" for their short walk in the desert.
Sweet dreams in the Casa de Huespedes. Get some rest. After all, the tired are the first to succomb to dehydration and heat exhaution in the desert.
So, I told these guys my story of the Mexican restaurant in horrendous spanish. I told them about the guys that called me "Brother-in-Law" with a wink and a request for a "foto." We laughed some more.
"How old are you?" I asked the guys. Cuantos anos tienes, guey? 22, 19, 20, 17. "Where are you going?" "New York," one guy told me. "Alabama." "Dever." "I don't know." They've got no concept of the distance. Denver, they've been convinced, is "just up the road." Florida? No problem. New York. Not too far. One of the guys, a guy from Guatemala that had tried to cross once before but was picked up by the Border Patrol, he asked me-- his name was Juan, I'm pretty sure-- "If you see a migrant in the desert, you'll call the Border Patrol?" "Yeah. Would you?" asked the 17 year old, now with scared eyes that betrayed his mexican machoism.
Seventeen. God. Kids that young aren't even in college. Not out of high school. If he weren't the one headed for the border, I'd be his role model, his protector, his big-college-aged-buddy. I'd be tutoring him, or advising him on girls at church camp. But, in this case, I've got nothing to offer. He's the one carrying his family's dreams on his back, and all I've got to offer are distances: "You know New York, it's very far. I traveled from Florida on the bus, and it took two whole days. And New York is very far. At least three, four, five days on the bus. Walking? No. No puedes. You can't. Never. Alabama? Very far. It's right next to Florida..."
The seventeen year old looked me in the face: "I could get a ride with you?" he asked. The kid had only just gotten a moustache. "No man," I told him, "we can't because of the Migra, the Border Patrol." He kept going: "I could fit under your seat? How about that? Or, how about under your van? With ropes?" "Or," someone else added, "you could paint him, so he'll be lighter skinned?"
And, to my other side, was the 22-year-old from Guatemala. He only made it one hour across the border last time before being caught. Because of the Guatemalan passport he was carrying, he wsa returned all the way home. The journey from Guatemala to Altar is three to five days on the bus. For the past two years-- since his deportation-- he'd been saving moeny to make the trip again. He knew of the Coyote fees, the required brides, the roberries, the overpriced food and lodging required of the migrants. He was among the lucky. He knew what he was getting into.
That night, at the migrant shelter, we met Angel. He's 40. He's got two little girls. Eight and 12 years-old. His family lives in Sonora. He just returned from the US three months ago after finishing a summer landscaping job in Denver. After a visit to his family, he's heading back, this time for a job working on snow removal in rich neighborhoods. He's going to go alone, he told us. People don't go alone. Being left alone in the desert is the death sentence where the devil and his demons handle the appeals. Alone with desolation, the devil, and the heat, on the way to the promised land. Though he smiles to earn his name, with the dimple-wrinkles of a wise elder, this is not a man in need of pity.
~ ~ ~
I stayed up late last Wednesday night. In the last moments before sleep, I scribbled out a few words: "Who will be caught by the Bordder Patrol? Made to show their anus? Who will be robbed? Beaten? Jailed? Abandoned in the desert? Who among those I met today will die in the crossing? Could be any of them. Ay Guey!"
~ ~ ~
Do you know what a migrant says when you ask her how's she doing? How's life? What's new?
No?
Me either. What if she actually tried to answer?
Hell, the question wares me out, and the first to succomb to heat exhaustion in the desert crossing are those who...
Nathan
This past summer, I started talking with Travis, a twelve-year-old at our neighborhood block party. He lives just down the street from me. I'd been speaking with loads of adults from the neighborhood. Having seen me grow up over the years-- they didn't necessarily know my name, but they knew or knew of me because I'd had a garden in my front yard since I was eight-- they all wanted to know how I was doing. Seemed like everyone wanted a two minute summation of my life. I was worn down by the time I started talking with Travis.
"Whew, Travis," I said. "I'm wiped out. All these folks keep asking me the hardest question in the world." "Yeah? What's that?" he asked. "Oh. You know. Some form of 'How's it going? What have you been up to? How are you? What's new? How's life?'" I responded. The problem is, what folks actually mean when they ask these questions is: "It's good to see you." But I always get sidetracked by the question mark at the end, and so I try to give them an answer. All those, "How's life's" will ware you out.
"Oh, that's-" he looked down, squinted his eyebrows in dismissal. He shook his head and looked up at me smiling. "That's not a hard question. Here's what you say. Just tell them: 'Well. Hm. My family and I all ate three meals yesterday and had a couple of snacks. Each one of us got around eight hours sleep, and," he added with gusto: "And, we crapped two times. Life is good.'" The kid's right. My life is great.
~ ~ ~
In 2004, the spring of my senior year in high school, I worked in a Mexican Restaurant. The first day of work, "the guys" (the servers) assembled at the host stand-- where the cash registers were also at-- to roll silverware into napkins. I was a host. They asked me, "Tienes hermanas?" Do you have any sisters? When I told them I did, they all began smiling. "Si guey?" (pronounced like the english word "weigh.") Really? They asked me. They asked me if I had a picture of Kelley or Karen, my sisters, in my wallet. No, I told them. "No guey? No? No?!" Really? Common? Really?
The second day, they began calling me, "Cunado," brother-in-law. Everyday, they asked me for a "foto." "Que Pasa, guey. When you going to bring me a foto guey?" "Watch out man. I've got this big tray, guey. Move over guey. You have a foto guey?" "Que Pasa piche guey? Que vas hacer este noche guey? Muevete guey." What's up, guey. What are you going to do tonigh, man? Get out of my way, man. "When you going to bring me a foto of my spouse, man?" And on it went.
As it turned out, they taught me all the bad words without my knowing it. "Guey," they used like like folks say, "man" or like how California surfers use "Dude." It's a filler word, a word of affection. Imagine the teenage males in your life talking about "my boys." It's kind of like that, or at least, they used it like that. They told me it meant "Man." "Guey" actually means "castrated bull." "Hey nutless. How's it going nutless? Yeah? Eunich. Watch out, Eunich. Get out of my way, no-balls." But I didn't know it, so I blundered through spanglish throwing profanities around like a sailor. I guess I should have figured things out when they kept insisting that I not speak spanish when there were spanish patrons in the restaurant.
I didn't figure it out until I visited church friends in Puerto Rico. Another thing I learned: Don't say, "I want meat!" with gusto in Puerto Rico. It doesn't quite carry the literal translation. I'll leave that for you to chew on.
~ ~ ~
So, this story about my days in the Mexican Restaurant, La Fiesta, back in Tallahassee-- I told to a handful of guys gathered in a Casa de huespedes. Literally translated, it means, "House of Guests." Casa de Huespedes are all over Altar, Sonora- just a few miles from the Border. It's fancy name for an expensive homeless shelter. Homeless shelter by design; expensive by price. The bunks are made of wood framing and plywood. Matresses? Forget it. Count your lucky stars there's quarter inch carpet padding your backside. The cielings were 8-10 feet up. Bunks: there were four to six beds vertically, stacked like sardines.
The Casas de Huespedes of Altar, Sonora are the last resting point in Mexico for the Migrants on their journey north to the states. The Coyotes, human smugglers, recruit clients telling them their walk through the desert will only last "Five, six hours, max. We'll start tomorrow morning. You'll be in Phoenix before tomorrow evening."
It always takes three days. Increasingly, it's taking five, six, seven, eight days because of increasing Border Patrol presence,
digital surveillance, and "patriot" vigilantes along the "short" routes necessitating longer trips through the "Devil's Highway" as it's known. Migrants start with two gallons of water, which is really "too much" for their short walk in the desert.
Sweet dreams in the Casa de Huespedes. Get some rest. After all, the tired are the first to succomb to dehydration and heat exhaution in the desert.
So, I told these guys my story of the Mexican restaurant in horrendous spanish. I told them about the guys that called me "Brother-in-Law" with a wink and a request for a "foto." We laughed some more.
"How old are you?" I asked the guys. Cuantos anos tienes, guey? 22, 19, 20, 17. "Where are you going?" "New York," one guy told me. "Alabama." "Dever." "I don't know." They've got no concept of the distance. Denver, they've been convinced, is "just up the road." Florida? No problem. New York. Not too far. One of the guys, a guy from Guatemala that had tried to cross once before but was picked up by the Border Patrol, he asked me-- his name was Juan, I'm pretty sure-- "If you see a migrant in the desert, you'll call the Border Patrol?" "Yeah. Would you?" asked the 17 year old, now with scared eyes that betrayed his mexican machoism.
Seventeen. God. Kids that young aren't even in college. Not out of high school. If he weren't the one headed for the border, I'd be his role model, his protector, his big-college-aged-buddy. I'd be tutoring him, or advising him on girls at church camp. But, in this case, I've got nothing to offer. He's the one carrying his family's dreams on his back, and all I've got to offer are distances: "You know New York, it's very far. I traveled from Florida on the bus, and it took two whole days. And New York is very far. At least three, four, five days on the bus. Walking? No. No puedes. You can't. Never. Alabama? Very far. It's right next to Florida..."
The seventeen year old looked me in the face: "I could get a ride with you?" he asked. The kid had only just gotten a moustache. "No man," I told him, "we can't because of the Migra, the Border Patrol." He kept going: "I could fit under your seat? How about that? Or, how about under your van? With ropes?" "Or," someone else added, "you could paint him, so he'll be lighter skinned?"
And, to my other side, was the 22-year-old from Guatemala. He only made it one hour across the border last time before being caught. Because of the Guatemalan passport he was carrying, he wsa returned all the way home. The journey from Guatemala to Altar is three to five days on the bus. For the past two years-- since his deportation-- he'd been saving moeny to make the trip again. He knew of the Coyote fees, the required brides, the roberries, the overpriced food and lodging required of the migrants. He was among the lucky. He knew what he was getting into.
That night, at the migrant shelter, we met Angel. He's 40. He's got two little girls. Eight and 12 years-old. His family lives in Sonora. He just returned from the US three months ago after finishing a summer landscaping job in Denver. After a visit to his family, he's heading back, this time for a job working on snow removal in rich neighborhoods. He's going to go alone, he told us. People don't go alone. Being left alone in the desert is the death sentence where the devil and his demons handle the appeals. Alone with desolation, the devil, and the heat, on the way to the promised land. Though he smiles to earn his name, with the dimple-wrinkles of a wise elder, this is not a man in need of pity.
~ ~ ~
I stayed up late last Wednesday night. In the last moments before sleep, I scribbled out a few words: "Who will be caught by the Bordder Patrol? Made to show their anus? Who will be robbed? Beaten? Jailed? Abandoned in the desert? Who among those I met today will die in the crossing? Could be any of them. Ay Guey!"
~ ~ ~
Do you know what a migrant says when you ask her how's she doing? How's life? What's new?
No?
Me either. What if she actually tried to answer?
Hell, the question wares me out, and the first to succomb to heat exhaustion in the desert crossing are those who...
Nathan
Update from the Border: Pegasus, VOL III
9/17
To Those Good Folks With Whom I Like To Exchange Stories, share ideas, and mutually engage in real work, visit and generally keep up to date:
Look. Like I mentioned in my first message, if you don't have time, let it rest un-read in your inbox. Nothing in here is going to benefit from a time-pressed skim. Take your time.
Nogales, Sonora (from my journal, Monday, Sep 10th, 2007):
I didn't even have to present my drivers license to enter Mexico.
We walked downtown, and every store had someone out front soliciting our business in Border English. "Hola." "Hey. Hey man. We got what you want." "Purses. We got purses. Only the best." "Hey man." "Pharmacy. We've got them all. Best prices. Real low." "Man? Hey man. Want to see a titty show?" "How you doing?" "Buddy. Come inside. Free shots of tequila in the back of the shop." "Brother. Brother. Hey brother. Let me show you..." "You want hats?" "Que necesitas?" "You need a hat?" You need shoes?" "You want tequila? Coca Cola? Cervesa?" "What you need?" "Let me show you..." "What you need?" "What you need?" "What you need, man?"
Sofie told us, "Look. It's not to be rude. But I learned in Europe where I traveled not to make eye contact, not to say anything. And it's not bad. It's just that way they'll leave you alone."
And so we walked straight ahead, looking ahead with no clear direction as men approached and trailed after us, eager for our business. It reminded me of my visit in 2003 to Malawi, Africa where my decisions to buy or not meant the difference between whether someone would eat or not. My decisions made the difference would determine whether their children's bellies would become even more distended or not. So, perhaps it wasn't that extreme in Nogales, but it reminded me all the
same.
As they called me "Man," "Brother" and asked me questions, I kept my resolve. I looked ahead.
Atop a hill, we stopped for the view. Nogales is a city of hills and concrete and scrap metal and rebar and concrete block. It is a town where older cars park sideways on steep hills so that on the one side, the wheels barely touch the ground. It is a metropolis of 400,000 people, one in which gringos stick out like the rich they are or at least represent. The exhaust rises in plumes, and I wonder: in what park? under what awning? in whose doorway do the homeless and homeless migrants rest-- try to rest-- for the night. The clouds grow into magnificent thunderheads over the distant rolling colinas, or hills. As the distance grows and the eye sight stretches across the plains, the casitas, or shanty-houses (salvage built), or people's homes-- they are people's homes. As the distance from town grows, the homes spread out, and there is more grass.
I noticed a taxi pull onto the road's shoulder behind us. Sofie spoke first: "Want to keep moving since there is a taxi stalking us?"
The truth be told, I am unaccustomed to so much power. We are like... like what? Everyone wants us. Or at least, they want what we have, may have, might have, probably have, or could have in our wallets. They follow after us like beaten lovers, like admirers with stars in their eyes behind their long-lost love. Except, the stars are actually a pained glint, knowing like the betrayed friend, the forgotten neighbor, that the promise of our light skin will not come true despite our purses and wallets. Their admiration is held in tension without resolve, held in check by repulsion.
Because I have seen the wall. It is not kind, nor is it a deterrent nor immigration policy. It is iron. It is Berlin. It is high. It
is hard. It is iron.
On top of the rust, someone had spray painted a few words: "Fronteras son cicatrices en la tierra." Borders are scars on the earth.
~ ~ ~
Tonight, Robert, Jenny, Sofie (the other semester students), Lauren, Manuel (these last two are BorderLinks trip leaders), and I gathered under the stars, outside at the BorderLinks compound, high on a Nogales, Sonora hill for the day's reflection.
As we sat down, I noticed Pegasus. If you don't know, it's a constellation comprised of four stars that is supposedly a flying horse. It's the same constellation, I've watched with friends at Warren Wilson. It's the same one I laughed at with Robert the other morning when we took Theresa to the air port at 4:30am. It's the same one I taught Katie, my niece. The same one I've laughed at countless times with friends bashing the imaginativeness or drunkenness of its namers. "You see those four stars up there? You know what they look like to me? A flying horse." It always makes me smile.
I leaned back in my chair peering up at the stars. I smiled in comfort. I love the stars because they look the same from anywhere.
Jenny, a resident Alien from S. Korea, mentioned that the Border Patrol Agent would never look at her. His gaze would skip her eyes. He kept waiting, she said, for the time, her time, when she would be able to ask questions, the one's she was thinking of. But, he never gave her a chance. She said she got so angry, gesturing with her hands. Perhaps without evening know it, the agent had given preferential attention-- his gaze-- to those of us who were white.
Manuel, a "green card" carrying resident of Nogales, our co-trip leader, who under the terms of his green card, is able to visit, but not to work in, the United States. Manuel waited his turn to speak as he had waited in the van at the Border Patrol station, outside.
Looking at Jenny, he said, "I know how you feel. I've been there as well. That's why I stayed outside. The Border Patrol would have looked at my green card and dismissed it. Let me tell you something..."
Manuel told us about being transported twelve hours by the Border Patrol from northern California in the back of a truck. "The trucks are divided. Up front, there's space, a/c, heat. It is good. In the back: No. When it is cold, it is cold. When it is hot, it is hot. You see this chair?" he asked, indicating the metal chairs we were sitting in. "we sat in that for twelve hours, bent. There is not space in the back of the truck."
He told us of being deported from California. He said, "I was without money, without food, without good water for 15 days." He found a juice plant where they make pineapple and other fruit juices. He found the scraps in the Dumpster.
He said he'd been caught and deported by the Border Patrol five times. The bull pens we'd seen, he'd been held in. He'd been made to strip naked in front of the Border Patrol agents. His clothes were taken from him. Then, as Robert, Lauren, and Sofie all struggled to translate, as Manuel facilitated his spoken language by bending over, he explained that he'd been made to bend over so that an agent could investigate his asshole, to look. And to feel. They were looking for drugs, he said.
He crossed the border many more times than the five times he was caught. He used to cross seasonally to work in agriculture. He picked oranges, peaches, grapes. He told us that "when it is picking season, the Border Patrol sleep in their cars. They turn their heads. But when the harvest is ended, they'll catch you. There is corruption here, in Mexico," he said, "but there is also corruption there, in the US."
More recently, a few years back, he worked in construction framing houses, doing carpentry. He chose it over agriculture because the pay was much better. Now, he works as a trip leader with BorderLinks.
The wind blew through the group. Silence blew through like a clearing of smoke. "Manuel?" I asked, "What do you want me to learn? To see?"
"Ah," he said. "That is a good question." I felt no pride, only ignorance. He paused.
With his fingers, he said, "Two things. First. Todas los Mexicanos, no son delincuentes. All us Mexicans are not delinquents. Second. We go to the states to work, and what's the crime in that?
"All the time," he continued, "they treat us like terrorists. But I have always asked, 'What kind of terrorist comes through the desert?' What kind of terrorist walks for three to eight days through the desert with nothing but a backpack and water? Knowing that they will suffer from dehydration and heat exhaustion? What kind of terrorist has to sneak through the desert? No. The terrorist comes in the airplane. The terrorist is welcomed in with a passport or visa. No. I have always asked, 'What kind of terrorist would come in through the desert?'" He paused for a moment, and then continued.
"You know. I identify myself as a migrant. I was a migrant, therefore I'll always be a migrant. Their story is my story."
I looked up at the stars. It was the only way my filled eyes wouldn't spill. I found Pegasus. I love the stars because they look the same from any--
Except, this time the they didn't. Pegasus was all blurry. Pegasus looked different from Nogales, Sonora.
Nathan
To Those Good Folks With Whom I Like To Exchange Stories, share ideas, and mutually engage in real work, visit and generally keep up to date:
Look. Like I mentioned in my first message, if you don't have time, let it rest un-read in your inbox. Nothing in here is going to benefit from a time-pressed skim. Take your time.
Nogales, Sonora (from my journal, Monday, Sep 10th, 2007):
I didn't even have to present my drivers license to enter Mexico.
We walked downtown, and every store had someone out front soliciting our business in Border English. "Hola." "Hey. Hey man. We got what you want." "Purses. We got purses. Only the best." "Hey man." "Pharmacy. We've got them all. Best prices. Real low." "Man? Hey man. Want to see a titty show?" "How you doing?" "Buddy. Come inside. Free shots of tequila in the back of the shop." "Brother. Brother. Hey brother. Let me show you..." "You want hats?" "Que necesitas?" "You need a hat?" You need shoes?" "You want tequila? Coca Cola? Cervesa?" "What you need?" "Let me show you..." "What you need?" "What you need?" "What you need, man?"
Sofie told us, "Look. It's not to be rude. But I learned in Europe where I traveled not to make eye contact, not to say anything. And it's not bad. It's just that way they'll leave you alone."
And so we walked straight ahead, looking ahead with no clear direction as men approached and trailed after us, eager for our business. It reminded me of my visit in 2003 to Malawi, Africa where my decisions to buy or not meant the difference between whether someone would eat or not. My decisions made the difference would determine whether their children's bellies would become even more distended or not. So, perhaps it wasn't that extreme in Nogales, but it reminded me all the
same.
As they called me "Man," "Brother" and asked me questions, I kept my resolve. I looked ahead.
Atop a hill, we stopped for the view. Nogales is a city of hills and concrete and scrap metal and rebar and concrete block. It is a town where older cars park sideways on steep hills so that on the one side, the wheels barely touch the ground. It is a metropolis of 400,000 people, one in which gringos stick out like the rich they are or at least represent. The exhaust rises in plumes, and I wonder: in what park? under what awning? in whose doorway do the homeless and homeless migrants rest-- try to rest-- for the night. The clouds grow into magnificent thunderheads over the distant rolling colinas, or hills. As the distance grows and the eye sight stretches across the plains, the casitas, or shanty-houses (salvage built), or people's homes-- they are people's homes. As the distance from town grows, the homes spread out, and there is more grass.
I noticed a taxi pull onto the road's shoulder behind us. Sofie spoke first: "Want to keep moving since there is a taxi stalking us?"
The truth be told, I am unaccustomed to so much power. We are like... like what? Everyone wants us. Or at least, they want what we have, may have, might have, probably have, or could have in our wallets. They follow after us like beaten lovers, like admirers with stars in their eyes behind their long-lost love. Except, the stars are actually a pained glint, knowing like the betrayed friend, the forgotten neighbor, that the promise of our light skin will not come true despite our purses and wallets. Their admiration is held in tension without resolve, held in check by repulsion.
Because I have seen the wall. It is not kind, nor is it a deterrent nor immigration policy. It is iron. It is Berlin. It is high. It
is hard. It is iron.
On top of the rust, someone had spray painted a few words: "Fronteras son cicatrices en la tierra." Borders are scars on the earth.
~ ~ ~
Tonight, Robert, Jenny, Sofie (the other semester students), Lauren, Manuel (these last two are BorderLinks trip leaders), and I gathered under the stars, outside at the BorderLinks compound, high on a Nogales, Sonora hill for the day's reflection.
As we sat down, I noticed Pegasus. If you don't know, it's a constellation comprised of four stars that is supposedly a flying horse. It's the same constellation, I've watched with friends at Warren Wilson. It's the same one I laughed at with Robert the other morning when we took Theresa to the air port at 4:30am. It's the same one I taught Katie, my niece. The same one I've laughed at countless times with friends bashing the imaginativeness or drunkenness of its namers. "You see those four stars up there? You know what they look like to me? A flying horse." It always makes me smile.
I leaned back in my chair peering up at the stars. I smiled in comfort. I love the stars because they look the same from anywhere.
Jenny, a resident Alien from S. Korea, mentioned that the Border Patrol Agent would never look at her. His gaze would skip her eyes. He kept waiting, she said, for the time, her time, when she would be able to ask questions, the one's she was thinking of. But, he never gave her a chance. She said she got so angry, gesturing with her hands. Perhaps without evening know it, the agent had given preferential attention-- his gaze-- to those of us who were white.
Manuel, a "green card" carrying resident of Nogales, our co-trip leader, who under the terms of his green card, is able to visit, but not to work in, the United States. Manuel waited his turn to speak as he had waited in the van at the Border Patrol station, outside.
Looking at Jenny, he said, "I know how you feel. I've been there as well. That's why I stayed outside. The Border Patrol would have looked at my green card and dismissed it. Let me tell you something..."
Manuel told us about being transported twelve hours by the Border Patrol from northern California in the back of a truck. "The trucks are divided. Up front, there's space, a/c, heat. It is good. In the back: No. When it is cold, it is cold. When it is hot, it is hot. You see this chair?" he asked, indicating the metal chairs we were sitting in. "we sat in that for twelve hours, bent. There is not space in the back of the truck."
He told us of being deported from California. He said, "I was without money, without food, without good water for 15 days." He found a juice plant where they make pineapple and other fruit juices. He found the scraps in the Dumpster.
He said he'd been caught and deported by the Border Patrol five times. The bull pens we'd seen, he'd been held in. He'd been made to strip naked in front of the Border Patrol agents. His clothes were taken from him. Then, as Robert, Lauren, and Sofie all struggled to translate, as Manuel facilitated his spoken language by bending over, he explained that he'd been made to bend over so that an agent could investigate his asshole, to look. And to feel. They were looking for drugs, he said.
He crossed the border many more times than the five times he was caught. He used to cross seasonally to work in agriculture. He picked oranges, peaches, grapes. He told us that "when it is picking season, the Border Patrol sleep in their cars. They turn their heads. But when the harvest is ended, they'll catch you. There is corruption here, in Mexico," he said, "but there is also corruption there, in the US."
More recently, a few years back, he worked in construction framing houses, doing carpentry. He chose it over agriculture because the pay was much better. Now, he works as a trip leader with BorderLinks.
The wind blew through the group. Silence blew through like a clearing of smoke. "Manuel?" I asked, "What do you want me to learn? To see?"
"Ah," he said. "That is a good question." I felt no pride, only ignorance. He paused.
With his fingers, he said, "Two things. First. Todas los Mexicanos, no son delincuentes. All us Mexicans are not delinquents. Second. We go to the states to work, and what's the crime in that?
"All the time," he continued, "they treat us like terrorists. But I have always asked, 'What kind of terrorist comes through the desert?' What kind of terrorist walks for three to eight days through the desert with nothing but a backpack and water? Knowing that they will suffer from dehydration and heat exhaustion? What kind of terrorist has to sneak through the desert? No. The terrorist comes in the airplane. The terrorist is welcomed in with a passport or visa. No. I have always asked, 'What kind of terrorist would come in through the desert?'" He paused for a moment, and then continued.
"You know. I identify myself as a migrant. I was a migrant, therefore I'll always be a migrant. Their story is my story."
I looked up at the stars. It was the only way my filled eyes wouldn't spill. I found Pegasus. I love the stars because they look the same from any--
Except, this time the they didn't. Pegasus was all blurry. Pegasus looked different from Nogales, Sonora.
Nathan
Update from the Border: Unresolved stories, VOL II
To Those Good Folks With Whom I Like To Exchange Stories, share ideas, and mutually engage in real work, visit and generally keep up to date:
Well. This past week, the four of us semester students went on a travel seminar, which means that we traveled and visited different folks, places, and institutions on both sides of the border. I'm not given to synopses, but I'll give you this outline. Actually, don't read it. Skip the next paragraph because all the names and folks mean nothing to you. I saw the schedule last Sunday night, and I thought about it less than I do about dinner (which, actually is NO comparison, which you'll know if you know me much at all).
Monday morning, we met with Mike Wilson, a member of the Tohono O'odham Nation (which borders Mexico) who sets up water stations for the passing migrants because of the increasing number of deaths on tribal lands. Last year: 68, due to dehydration and exposure. In the afternoon, we met with a Public Information Officer of the Border Patrol, who gave a power point, answered questions, and gave us a tour of the Nogales, AZ Border Patrol compound. In the evening, we stayed at the Mexican BorderLinks headquarters in Nogales, Sonora. Tuesday morning in Nogales, Sonora, we paid visits to No Mas Muertas (No more deaths: a humanitarian aid organization that works on both sides of the border), Grupo Beta (a governmental agency set up to assist and inform and dissuade Mexican immigrants headed for the US), and the Center for Repatriated Minors (where unaccompanied, deported minors are sent to). That night, we spent with two families high on the shanty hills of Nogales, Sonora. Wednesday morning, we met with the Mexican director of BorderLinks. Wednesday, we made our way through a monsoon on our way to Altar, Sonora which is the "waiting room for the American Dream." It's the place where all the Latino Migrants meet up to hire their coyote before hiking for between 3-8 days through the Mexican/S. Arizonan desert. We spent the night in a migrant shelter. Thursday afternoon, after speaking with migrants at the plaza in Altar, we visited with Alberto Morakis. We met him at the wall in Nogales, where he's constructed a metal and paint mural on the wall. Friday, we spent the morning in immigration court. The afternoon, we attended a presentation with Derechos Humanos (Human Rights) who document abuses (assaults, robberies, a labor) against migrants. They also work on policy reform. Last, today, Saturday, we took a trip out to Arivaca, AZ to visit an artist that has created pieces and an exhibit from all the items left by migrants in the desert: back packs, pedialyte, kids shoes, note books, bibles, embroidered love handkerchiefs, canned meat, love poems, kids back packs, jackets, blankets, shoes, letters, a pair of eye-lash curlers, birth control packets-- taken by most women two months before their journey because of almost certain rape--, the list goes on. And, last, we visited another No Mas Muertas Tent, out in the dessert that has water and food for lost, dehydrated, abandoned migrants.
Saul Alinsky, the Chicago based organizer with the Back of Our Yards organization, said, "You don't have to radicalize people," or convince them to organize. "The status quo will do that just fine on its own."
On Monday night, I told my fellow students, "You know? The hardest part about seeing all this, about passing through the border to Mexico without stopping while there's a two and one half hour line on the other side, the hardest part about talking with the well intending border patrol agent who says, "I try not to let it [the fact that our country isn't doing anything to address why people are coming, just 'prevention by deterrence" once they're on our threshold] get to me." The hardest part about being solicited by every business on the streets of Nogales because of the money that our gringo skin represents... The hardest part about all of it, is that I don't know how to tell it, to make it a story. To put it into words that I can share with my folks [in the broadest sense of the word]. I don't know how to tell the story."
I kept going. You see, I told them, a story has a certain balance. There are opposing forces. There is a flip and flop between powers. For example, fluctuating between sad and happy, serious and humor. And right now, I see only the heavy. To say things like, "Oh, but the people of Nogales are smiling" is cliche and an excuse to try to resolve one's story. It's a load of crap, when you come right down to it. Smiles and jokes are no balance to a story marked by detention centers; Berlin style iron walls with digital, heat-sensing camera towers; rampant inequality determined by 3/8 of an inch of steel landing strip left over from the Gulf and Vietnam Wars; squatter settlements made from cardboard, adobe, and scrap metal salvaged from the dump; rocks vs AK47's; and where the difference between wages is easily the difference between a day and two weeks, meanwhile the food cost more for the lower paid. Nobody likes that story. It's not balanced. And it doesn't coincide with most of our own experience, so we write it off as "third world", "oppressed people of the world" or with words like, "God, it's so awful. I don't know how people can live like that, but they're so happy. They really are."
This is going to take more than one email.
At the Border Patrol Station in Nogales, Az, we met with Agent Marcus Van Der Lee. He's a Public Information Officer, which means he's a PR expert. He knows to only offer statistical facts, and when questions are asked that perhaps request generalities, he pauses and says, "Well. Let me look," as he glances through his stat sheet, "No. I don't know the specific number on that." Even if he knows, for example, that more than 150 people have died this year crossing the Tucson sector, through the desert, if he doesn't have the exact number, that is what he'll report. I'd do the same thing in his shoes. It's his job after all.
He told us a couple of stories that I noted. He mentioned the wall separating Nogales from Nogales. "We put it up, they tear it down." He continued: "It's not supposed to be intentionally harmful, only preventative" he said. He also told us, however, that "It cut me. I was helping to build the wall, and a piece of the [climb-prevention] guard cut me. It sent me to the hospital. I went in, trying to keep myself in high spirits because I didn't want to go into shock, to pass out. I was loosing a fair amount of blood. The nurse, she asked how. She put a wet towel on my arm, and asked me how I cut my arm. I told her I'd cut it on the fence. She said, 'Oh. So, now you know how they feel.'"
He said, "I think I passed out at that point" and smiled.
Do you know? It's times like these when you can align yourself as an ally, a peer. It's time like the end of stories, when you can mark yourself as an aggressor, a person of similar understanding, or a person who just doesn't understand. Well. I didn't know the appropriate response, but I bet on the slight up-and-down nodding, with a part smile and a little nasal sigh-laugh. I had a few questions, we wanted to get a tour of the whole facility (something few people were allowed), and besides I'm a sucker for trying to break through profession-based facades.
This past year, the Border Patrol in the Tucson sector (most of S. Arizona) caught, detained, processed, and deported 350,000 migrants. Of those, 4000 of those were "criminals." Around 2000 of those 4000 people are considered criminals because they have a previous record of "illegal entry" which means entering the USA without crossing through a port of entry. 350,000. The Border Patrol is busy.
Yet, they are herding compliant sheep. Drug Lords, first of all, do not cross the border. They send their cargo on the backs of migrants who can't afford the mandatory bribe prices the desert gangs require. Drug lords do not gather in straight lines of 35 people and march through the desert. They do no sit still under the pathetic shade of 4ft mesquite trees when apprehended by Border Patrol They have automatic, long-range assault rifles. They do not go willingly with the Border Patrol. Willingly doesn't have much to do with it. They don't go. They stay home, safe, riding on the backs of migrants hungry after the American dream of hard work and success.
"Most people come to look for work," Marcus told us, "which, in most cases, is probably true. There's a certain element that tell us that because they think it's the right answer, but, in most cases..."
He took us on the tour: Through the monitor room where agents sit in front of display screens from the mounted cameras all along the border fence. They're remote controlled. From their chairs, the agents can pan, zoom-in, out. If they detect an "illegal entry" they inform the nearest ground agent in vehicle patrol along the wall. We peered inside the "arms room" where the agents check out any and all assault rifles, AK47's, hand guns, long range-scope rifles, night-vision goggles, etc that they might need on their shift. On the threshold of the "evidence room" I held 58 pounds of marijuana tightly packaged in burlap sacks, outfitted with rope back-pack straps. The smell emanating from the room was so strong it burned my nose like Vick's vapor rub. Never, in all my life, will I be in such close proximity to so much dope. 5000lbs, they told us, brought in, mostly by migrants forced to carry the loads.
And then, we went to the detention center. From my journal: "16ft chain-link fences. Razor wire. Bull pens. Six one-hundred foot benches. Bright lights. All day. All night. Port-a-potties at one end, many-times-used gallon water jugs at the other. They're "separated from their belongings" our guide told us. The folks sat on the inside, with blank stares. Their shoes had no laces. They'd been taken from them to "prevent violence" and self-hangings. Although they might get their backpack and belongings back, we learned later, their laces are not returned to them. Just outside the detention center, I saw diapers and bottles, and pads on a shelf. 'Do you have these diapers because there are children in here?' I asked. 'Yes,' he told me, 'And the feminine products, they're for... well. Females. The name kind of gives it away.'" One size fits all.
One of my favorite things about being a Warren Wilson student is that everyday, per the Warren Wilson Work Program, I have to work (15hrs/wk). I work on Landscaping, so everyday, I work three hours outside. Yes, sometimes it's hot. And I sweat. My dad, as it turns out, sweats profusely whenever he does anything physical. And my mother, well, she just sweats, a lot, all the time. She's pretty much been in menapause since she was born, or so she tells me. "Nathan. I've always been hot," she told me countless times, which is almost the same thing. Almost. So, you can imagine the propensity of my sweat glands.
But if I miss work for some reason, if I don't move and have physical activity, I get grumpy. I feel all agitated. My reading will blur into misunderstanding or worse: not-understanding. I'll pittle around, homework hounding me like a dark shadow even thought it's completely manageable. I'll drag through the day, tired, but when I try to sleep at night, I won't. I'll lay there trying to figure out what I ate, or what caffeine slipped into my body unawares, and growl at myself when finally I'll realize that I didn't do anything, that my body is still eager to move.
In attempt to draw out possible emotions, possible depth, possible stories from our Public Information Officer tour guide, I asked him, "What's the hardest part of your job?"
He said, "The most hardest part of my job- well- it's also the most exciting and physically demanding part of our job." He really likes "interrupting the delivery of their product" which in most cases is used to indicated the human "product" of Coyote smugglers. That is, migrants. He went on to say that his favorite part of the job-- "also the hardest"-- was catching people out in the desert, chasing illegal entries up mountains at a run. He loves it. I think, perhaps, he mentioned adrenaline.
And in the strangest way, I understood him. Completely.
And, at the same time, or perhaps a moment later, I remembered the detention center.
And so,
some stories are not easily resolved,
and perhaps,
just perhaps,
they are not meant to be.
Nathan
Well. This past week, the four of us semester students went on a travel seminar, which means that we traveled and visited different folks, places, and institutions on both sides of the border. I'm not given to synopses, but I'll give you this outline. Actually, don't read it. Skip the next paragraph because all the names and folks mean nothing to you. I saw the schedule last Sunday night, and I thought about it less than I do about dinner (which, actually is NO comparison, which you'll know if you know me much at all).
Monday morning, we met with Mike Wilson, a member of the Tohono O'odham Nation (which borders Mexico) who sets up water stations for the passing migrants because of the increasing number of deaths on tribal lands. Last year: 68, due to dehydration and exposure. In the afternoon, we met with a Public Information Officer of the Border Patrol, who gave a power point, answered questions, and gave us a tour of the Nogales, AZ Border Patrol compound. In the evening, we stayed at the Mexican BorderLinks headquarters in Nogales, Sonora. Tuesday morning in Nogales, Sonora, we paid visits to No Mas Muertas (No more deaths: a humanitarian aid organization that works on both sides of the border), Grupo Beta (a governmental agency set up to assist and inform and dissuade Mexican immigrants headed for the US), and the Center for Repatriated Minors (where unaccompanied, deported minors are sent to). That night, we spent with two families high on the shanty hills of Nogales, Sonora. Wednesday morning, we met with the Mexican director of BorderLinks. Wednesday, we made our way through a monsoon on our way to Altar, Sonora which is the "waiting room for the American Dream." It's the place where all the Latino Migrants meet up to hire their coyote before hiking for between 3-8 days through the Mexican/S. Arizonan desert. We spent the night in a migrant shelter. Thursday afternoon, after speaking with migrants at the plaza in Altar, we visited with Alberto Morakis. We met him at the wall in Nogales, where he's constructed a metal and paint mural on the wall. Friday, we spent the morning in immigration court. The afternoon, we attended a presentation with Derechos Humanos (Human Rights) who document abuses (assaults, robberies, a labor) against migrants. They also work on policy reform. Last, today, Saturday, we took a trip out to Arivaca, AZ to visit an artist that has created pieces and an exhibit from all the items left by migrants in the desert: back packs, pedialyte, kids shoes, note books, bibles, embroidered love handkerchiefs, canned meat, love poems, kids back packs, jackets, blankets, shoes, letters, a pair of eye-lash curlers, birth control packets-- taken by most women two months before their journey because of almost certain rape--, the list goes on. And, last, we visited another No Mas Muertas Tent, out in the dessert that has water and food for lost, dehydrated, abandoned migrants.
Saul Alinsky, the Chicago based organizer with the Back of Our Yards organization, said, "You don't have to radicalize people," or convince them to organize. "The status quo will do that just fine on its own."
On Monday night, I told my fellow students, "You know? The hardest part about seeing all this, about passing through the border to Mexico without stopping while there's a two and one half hour line on the other side, the hardest part about talking with the well intending border patrol agent who says, "I try not to let it [the fact that our country isn't doing anything to address why people are coming, just 'prevention by deterrence" once they're on our threshold] get to me." The hardest part about being solicited by every business on the streets of Nogales because of the money that our gringo skin represents... The hardest part about all of it, is that I don't know how to tell it, to make it a story. To put it into words that I can share with my folks [in the broadest sense of the word]. I don't know how to tell the story."
I kept going. You see, I told them, a story has a certain balance. There are opposing forces. There is a flip and flop between powers. For example, fluctuating between sad and happy, serious and humor. And right now, I see only the heavy. To say things like, "Oh, but the people of Nogales are smiling" is cliche and an excuse to try to resolve one's story. It's a load of crap, when you come right down to it. Smiles and jokes are no balance to a story marked by detention centers; Berlin style iron walls with digital, heat-sensing camera towers; rampant inequality determined by 3/8 of an inch of steel landing strip left over from the Gulf and Vietnam Wars; squatter settlements made from cardboard, adobe, and scrap metal salvaged from the dump; rocks vs AK47's; and where the difference between wages is easily the difference between a day and two weeks, meanwhile the food cost more for the lower paid. Nobody likes that story. It's not balanced. And it doesn't coincide with most of our own experience, so we write it off as "third world", "oppressed people of the world" or with words like, "God, it's so awful. I don't know how people can live like that, but they're so happy. They really are."
This is going to take more than one email.
At the Border Patrol Station in Nogales, Az, we met with Agent Marcus Van Der Lee. He's a Public Information Officer, which means he's a PR expert. He knows to only offer statistical facts, and when questions are asked that perhaps request generalities, he pauses and says, "Well. Let me look," as he glances through his stat sheet, "No. I don't know the specific number on that." Even if he knows, for example, that more than 150 people have died this year crossing the Tucson sector, through the desert, if he doesn't have the exact number, that is what he'll report. I'd do the same thing in his shoes. It's his job after all.
He told us a couple of stories that I noted. He mentioned the wall separating Nogales from Nogales. "We put it up, they tear it down." He continued: "It's not supposed to be intentionally harmful, only preventative" he said. He also told us, however, that "It cut me. I was helping to build the wall, and a piece of the [climb-prevention] guard cut me. It sent me to the hospital. I went in, trying to keep myself in high spirits because I didn't want to go into shock, to pass out. I was loosing a fair amount of blood. The nurse, she asked how. She put a wet towel on my arm, and asked me how I cut my arm. I told her I'd cut it on the fence. She said, 'Oh. So, now you know how they feel.'"
He said, "I think I passed out at that point" and smiled.
Do you know? It's times like these when you can align yourself as an ally, a peer. It's time like the end of stories, when you can mark yourself as an aggressor, a person of similar understanding, or a person who just doesn't understand. Well. I didn't know the appropriate response, but I bet on the slight up-and-down nodding, with a part smile and a little nasal sigh-laugh. I had a few questions, we wanted to get a tour of the whole facility (something few people were allowed), and besides I'm a sucker for trying to break through profession-based facades.
This past year, the Border Patrol in the Tucson sector (most of S. Arizona) caught, detained, processed, and deported 350,000 migrants. Of those, 4000 of those were "criminals." Around 2000 of those 4000 people are considered criminals because they have a previous record of "illegal entry" which means entering the USA without crossing through a port of entry. 350,000. The Border Patrol is busy.
Yet, they are herding compliant sheep. Drug Lords, first of all, do not cross the border. They send their cargo on the backs of migrants who can't afford the mandatory bribe prices the desert gangs require. Drug lords do not gather in straight lines of 35 people and march through the desert. They do no sit still under the pathetic shade of 4ft mesquite trees when apprehended by Border Patrol They have automatic, long-range assault rifles. They do not go willingly with the Border Patrol. Willingly doesn't have much to do with it. They don't go. They stay home, safe, riding on the backs of migrants hungry after the American dream of hard work and success.
"Most people come to look for work," Marcus told us, "which, in most cases, is probably true. There's a certain element that tell us that because they think it's the right answer, but, in most cases..."
He took us on the tour: Through the monitor room where agents sit in front of display screens from the mounted cameras all along the border fence. They're remote controlled. From their chairs, the agents can pan, zoom-in, out. If they detect an "illegal entry" they inform the nearest ground agent in vehicle patrol along the wall. We peered inside the "arms room" where the agents check out any and all assault rifles, AK47's, hand guns, long range-scope rifles, night-vision goggles, etc that they might need on their shift. On the threshold of the "evidence room" I held 58 pounds of marijuana tightly packaged in burlap sacks, outfitted with rope back-pack straps. The smell emanating from the room was so strong it burned my nose like Vick's vapor rub. Never, in all my life, will I be in such close proximity to so much dope. 5000lbs, they told us, brought in, mostly by migrants forced to carry the loads.
And then, we went to the detention center. From my journal: "16ft chain-link fences. Razor wire. Bull pens. Six one-hundred foot benches. Bright lights. All day. All night. Port-a-potties at one end, many-times-used gallon water jugs at the other. They're "separated from their belongings" our guide told us. The folks sat on the inside, with blank stares. Their shoes had no laces. They'd been taken from them to "prevent violence" and self-hangings. Although they might get their backpack and belongings back, we learned later, their laces are not returned to them. Just outside the detention center, I saw diapers and bottles, and pads on a shelf. 'Do you have these diapers because there are children in here?' I asked. 'Yes,' he told me, 'And the feminine products, they're for... well. Females. The name kind of gives it away.'" One size fits all.
One of my favorite things about being a Warren Wilson student is that everyday, per the Warren Wilson Work Program, I have to work (15hrs/wk). I work on Landscaping, so everyday, I work three hours outside. Yes, sometimes it's hot. And I sweat. My dad, as it turns out, sweats profusely whenever he does anything physical. And my mother, well, she just sweats, a lot, all the time. She's pretty much been in menapause since she was born, or so she tells me. "Nathan. I've always been hot," she told me countless times, which is almost the same thing. Almost. So, you can imagine the propensity of my sweat glands.
But if I miss work for some reason, if I don't move and have physical activity, I get grumpy. I feel all agitated. My reading will blur into misunderstanding or worse: not-understanding. I'll pittle around, homework hounding me like a dark shadow even thought it's completely manageable. I'll drag through the day, tired, but when I try to sleep at night, I won't. I'll lay there trying to figure out what I ate, or what caffeine slipped into my body unawares, and growl at myself when finally I'll realize that I didn't do anything, that my body is still eager to move.
In attempt to draw out possible emotions, possible depth, possible stories from our Public Information Officer tour guide, I asked him, "What's the hardest part of your job?"
He said, "The most hardest part of my job- well- it's also the most exciting and physically demanding part of our job." He really likes "interrupting the delivery of their product" which in most cases is used to indicated the human "product" of Coyote smugglers. That is, migrants. He went on to say that his favorite part of the job-- "also the hardest"-- was catching people out in the desert, chasing illegal entries up mountains at a run. He loves it. I think, perhaps, he mentioned adrenaline.
And in the strangest way, I understood him. Completely.
And, at the same time, or perhaps a moment later, I remembered the detention center.
And so,
some stories are not easily resolved,
and perhaps,
just perhaps,
they are not meant to be.
Nathan
Update from the Border: Pissing on the Bus, VOL I
9/1
To Those Good Folks With Whom I Like To Exchange Stories, share ideas, and mutually engage in real work, visit and generally keep up to date:
After a short ride on the greyhound, I'll be spending the fall out on the Arizona/Sonora (U.S.-Mexico) Border with an educational nonprofit called BorderLinks. For those of you who know him, Rick Ufford-Chase founded the program back in the late 1980's. This semester will serve as a study-"abroad" of sorts. I'll be out that way until December, my time split between Nogales, Mx and Tucson, US. Travel, classes, a homestay in Mexico, reading, cultural interaction, etc. Yes, by the
way, I'll receive credit hours. The plan is still for me to graduate in May.
These emails will serve as periodic updates of my time on the Border. Chances are, none of them will be pressing. They should-- if things go as planned-- be filled with impressions and stories, perhaps a few facts and summaries along the way as well. The point is, these "Updates from the Border" should not be time sensitive, do not require response (though I'll certainly engage as I can), and are intended to give you a few pictures, a few stories, perhaps a couple of laughs. So, if you're rushed on time, let it them get buried in your inbox. Find them several weeks later. Read as you have time, not a moment sooner. And, please, do not feel guilty when your cursor hovers near the delete button. We will never know all about each others' lives, and indeed, "Update emails" are hardly my favorite medium for telling stories.
Although I have not sent this email until my arrival in Tucson, AZ, I began composing it still in Tallahassee, FL.
The rush is always mental up until my bags are packed and sat next to the back door. But sit with me a moment here in Tallahassee, FL. From what I recall of southern Arizona, it is unbelievably dry, and grey, and brown, and so, I'd like to draw your attention to what is beyond my bedroom window. Out front, all along the front sidewalk our struggling-- yet green-- blueberries as well as pomegranates, muscadine grape, blackberries and pears grow ever larger. Though, to be honest, all is still very small having been planted just over a year ago. Between the sidewalk and house lies (or lays, please Joe, I still need help with those words) the remnants of one of our vegetable gardens: okra, pooped-out tomatoes, tomatillos, sweet and lemon basil. Then, of course, there are the young apples trees: four of them, and a planter box with bell peppers, chard, and kale started for a fall garden. There is other greenery: a magnificent live oak, pine trees, a giant Christmas tree planted six years ago at Christmas, sago palms, azaleas, grass. As you might guess, the food bearing greens (i.e. plants that grow food) draw my special attention.
Beyond the site of my window, what you cannot see, are the bananas, the mulberry, tangerine, orange, kumquat, loquat, grapefruit, pomello, chinquapins, persimmon, and on the list goes. Also beyond the view, is the pear tree down the street in a neighbor's yard from which Katie- my niece- and I picked pears last night in a last-minute, ditch-effort to can the love of summer, the flavor of summer. We made pear butter. Also beyond my sight, are the figs that grow in a neighbors yard around the corner, and the blueberries and grapes that grow on the edge of town. Nor can I see the rolling Tallahassee pastures, vibrantly green from the Florida Thunderstorms, graced by enormous live oaks. Tallahassee and its surroundings are positively alive with Chlorophyll.
Thursday, 1:30pm. I leave at 6pm. I'll arrive in Tucson at 7:45am, Saturday (Tucson time); 10:45 EST. 41 hours on the bus-- if things go as planned.
- - - - -
In San Antonio, my aunt and Uncle-- who live just outside town-- came down to the bus station to greet me on my way through town. I had about an hour at the station. They taught me about family: no offer, they just bought me lunch. At some point, my aunt began apologizing, offering her sympathies and her compassion that I had "so much further to go." According to her, it sounded like "a dark and stormy night" or "a long an arduous journey." Now, don't get me wrong-- its WAS long. But, it was a funny thing to be able to say in San Antonio, "Heck, I've only got 18 hours left. I'm over halfway."
In the past few weeks as I've told people that I was taking the greyhound to Tucson, they'd blink at me like a deer in the headlights: "Oh," was all they could say. And, when I paired the Greyhound with, "Yeah, I'm spending the semester on the U.S. Mexico Border," they'd get this glossy-eyed look that suggested they might never see me again. "Be safe," they say as if my death was a sure thing. Really they were saying, "I suppose if you die-- which you probably will-- it will be admirable. Nathan, well. It's been good knowing you."
All this fear of the Greyhound really puzzled me. I truly couldn't understand their vicarious fear. Look, I knew it was going to be a long ride, and I knew that my legs would get a little cramped. But, at every stop, I'd be able to get out and at least pace back in forth, which I ended up doing. By the end of the trip people would smile. "There you are again," they'd say as I walked by them again for the 17th time.
But heck. My ticket from Tallahassee to Tucson cost me $76 with fees. The cheapest flight was $460 PLUS fees. Even if I could have worked both the days of my travel... I just didn't understand the fear.
If you will spare me a little irreverence, I finally discovered why people are afraid of long Greyhound bus trips. Midway through west Texas (which is practically its own continent), I made my way to the back of the bus to the bathroom. Have you ever tried to pee standing up in the bathroom at the back of the bus? It brings whole new meaning to the phrase "Shoot a moving target." Imagine standing on the tea cups at Disney World-- a feat in itself. "Now," your bladder tells you, "Aim for-- hit, bulls-eye-- that ridiculously small, moving hole, way - down - there."
It makes perfect sense. Men are terrorized by their inevitable consternation of such an impossible feat-- peeing successfully in a moving Greyhound-- with fast heart and bitten lips. And the women? (And all the sitters): they fear the inevitable result-- the, um, "out wash"-- of such as disaster. And heck, everyone has to use the bathroom at some point, if, of course, they're traveling long distance.
Jokes aside, you want to know the truth? I think we're afraid of poor people. We're afraid of people that have less money than ourselves. We call them "dangerous" without even realizing that we've labeled-- not individuals or even groups but-- a whole class of folks. And you know why they take the Greyhound? I guess that $76, 2000-mile transportation weighs in.
Maybe they're so poor, they're "desperate." But heck, I traveled with $32 in my pocket. If I got mugged, I'd loose $32. It seems amid the housing market collapse, that we have a lot more to fear from the rich. Looks like they seduced thousands of folks into mortgages that were balanced on a shoe string. Now, folks are loosing hundreds of thousands of dollars. That's a bunch of zeros. But maybe since those crooks mug others with paper, signatures, interest rates, and contracts, somehow we still justify calling the poor "dangerous."
Well. I drank about 8 or 9 quarts of water since yesterday at noon, and I only have had to pee about twice. West Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona were unusually green, which in dessert terms, still, means brown. It's like "fish oil with a hit of lemon." It still tastes like fish oil. At sunrise, we drove through a desert boulder field. In their million years in Southern Arizona, they've seen about as much water as drops during a normal Florida Thunderstorm.
Upon arrival in Tucson, Theresa, the on-site program coordinator picked me up from the station. The sun beat down like a micro-wave heat lamp. One of the first thing she said to me was, "It's good you came in the morning. It's not so hot yet. But then, the sun has not been so intense lately. It's monsoon season. It's really humid." Humid. "Yeah right," I laughed.
Humid. Huh.
Well. I guess not everyone understands what it means to live in north Florida during August. Have you ever been in a sweat or a sauna when someone poured too much water on the rocks? And, you have to get down near the ground in order to breathe? North Florida during August.
She went on: "Everyone told me, 'Expect dry heat.' And so I expected something really intense. But it hasn't been all that extreme." Then she went on to tell me that in the desert-- that is, right here-- in the desert, the temperature is routinely around 110 to 115 degrees. And within two feet of the ground, the temperature hovers close to 130, "So if you lay down to take a rest..." She trailed off.
And yet, somehow, there's a garden out-back of the BorderLinks' compound. They've got a fig tree, and there's a pomegranate growing up along the fence. This coming Thursday morning is garden day.
A new bed, new bathroom, new kitchen, new folks, new towns, new country, new grocery, new books. But do you know? It feels just as good regardless of a little anxiety, amid exhaustion, to peel off socks that you've been wearing for 48 hours straight. There's almost nothing like it.
Except maybe lying down my tired body, which, now, I'll do.
Nathan
To Those Good Folks With Whom I Like To Exchange Stories, share ideas, and mutually engage in real work, visit and generally keep up to date:
After a short ride on the greyhound, I'll be spending the fall out on the Arizona/Sonora (U.S.-Mexico) Border with an educational nonprofit called BorderLinks. For those of you who know him, Rick Ufford-Chase founded the program back in the late 1980's. This semester will serve as a study-"abroad" of sorts. I'll be out that way until December, my time split between Nogales, Mx and Tucson, US. Travel, classes, a homestay in Mexico, reading, cultural interaction, etc. Yes, by the
way, I'll receive credit hours. The plan is still for me to graduate in May.
These emails will serve as periodic updates of my time on the Border. Chances are, none of them will be pressing. They should-- if things go as planned-- be filled with impressions and stories, perhaps a few facts and summaries along the way as well. The point is, these "Updates from the Border" should not be time sensitive, do not require response (though I'll certainly engage as I can), and are intended to give you a few pictures, a few stories, perhaps a couple of laughs. So, if you're rushed on time, let it them get buried in your inbox. Find them several weeks later. Read as you have time, not a moment sooner. And, please, do not feel guilty when your cursor hovers near the delete button. We will never know all about each others' lives, and indeed, "Update emails" are hardly my favorite medium for telling stories.
Although I have not sent this email until my arrival in Tucson, AZ, I began composing it still in Tallahassee, FL.
The rush is always mental up until my bags are packed and sat next to the back door. But sit with me a moment here in Tallahassee, FL. From what I recall of southern Arizona, it is unbelievably dry, and grey, and brown, and so, I'd like to draw your attention to what is beyond my bedroom window. Out front, all along the front sidewalk our struggling-- yet green-- blueberries as well as pomegranates, muscadine grape, blackberries and pears grow ever larger. Though, to be honest, all is still very small having been planted just over a year ago. Between the sidewalk and house lies (or lays, please Joe, I still need help with those words) the remnants of one of our vegetable gardens: okra, pooped-out tomatoes, tomatillos, sweet and lemon basil. Then, of course, there are the young apples trees: four of them, and a planter box with bell peppers, chard, and kale started for a fall garden. There is other greenery: a magnificent live oak, pine trees, a giant Christmas tree planted six years ago at Christmas, sago palms, azaleas, grass. As you might guess, the food bearing greens (i.e. plants that grow food) draw my special attention.
Beyond the site of my window, what you cannot see, are the bananas, the mulberry, tangerine, orange, kumquat, loquat, grapefruit, pomello, chinquapins, persimmon, and on the list goes. Also beyond the view, is the pear tree down the street in a neighbor's yard from which Katie- my niece- and I picked pears last night in a last-minute, ditch-effort to can the love of summer, the flavor of summer. We made pear butter. Also beyond my sight, are the figs that grow in a neighbors yard around the corner, and the blueberries and grapes that grow on the edge of town. Nor can I see the rolling Tallahassee pastures, vibrantly green from the Florida Thunderstorms, graced by enormous live oaks. Tallahassee and its surroundings are positively alive with Chlorophyll.
Thursday, 1:30pm. I leave at 6pm. I'll arrive in Tucson at 7:45am, Saturday (Tucson time); 10:45 EST. 41 hours on the bus-- if things go as planned.
- - - - -
In San Antonio, my aunt and Uncle-- who live just outside town-- came down to the bus station to greet me on my way through town. I had about an hour at the station. They taught me about family: no offer, they just bought me lunch. At some point, my aunt began apologizing, offering her sympathies and her compassion that I had "so much further to go." According to her, it sounded like "a dark and stormy night" or "a long an arduous journey." Now, don't get me wrong-- its WAS long. But, it was a funny thing to be able to say in San Antonio, "Heck, I've only got 18 hours left. I'm over halfway."
In the past few weeks as I've told people that I was taking the greyhound to Tucson, they'd blink at me like a deer in the headlights: "Oh," was all they could say. And, when I paired the Greyhound with, "Yeah, I'm spending the semester on the U.S. Mexico Border," they'd get this glossy-eyed look that suggested they might never see me again. "Be safe," they say as if my death was a sure thing. Really they were saying, "I suppose if you die-- which you probably will-- it will be admirable. Nathan, well. It's been good knowing you."
All this fear of the Greyhound really puzzled me. I truly couldn't understand their vicarious fear. Look, I knew it was going to be a long ride, and I knew that my legs would get a little cramped. But, at every stop, I'd be able to get out and at least pace back in forth, which I ended up doing. By the end of the trip people would smile. "There you are again," they'd say as I walked by them again for the 17th time.
But heck. My ticket from Tallahassee to Tucson cost me $76 with fees. The cheapest flight was $460 PLUS fees. Even if I could have worked both the days of my travel... I just didn't understand the fear.
If you will spare me a little irreverence, I finally discovered why people are afraid of long Greyhound bus trips. Midway through west Texas (which is practically its own continent), I made my way to the back of the bus to the bathroom. Have you ever tried to pee standing up in the bathroom at the back of the bus? It brings whole new meaning to the phrase "Shoot a moving target." Imagine standing on the tea cups at Disney World-- a feat in itself. "Now," your bladder tells you, "Aim for-- hit, bulls-eye-- that ridiculously small, moving hole, way - down - there."
It makes perfect sense. Men are terrorized by their inevitable consternation of such an impossible feat-- peeing successfully in a moving Greyhound-- with fast heart and bitten lips. And the women? (And all the sitters): they fear the inevitable result-- the, um, "out wash"-- of such as disaster. And heck, everyone has to use the bathroom at some point, if, of course, they're traveling long distance.
Jokes aside, you want to know the truth? I think we're afraid of poor people. We're afraid of people that have less money than ourselves. We call them "dangerous" without even realizing that we've labeled-- not individuals or even groups but-- a whole class of folks. And you know why they take the Greyhound? I guess that $76, 2000-mile transportation weighs in.
Maybe they're so poor, they're "desperate." But heck, I traveled with $32 in my pocket. If I got mugged, I'd loose $32. It seems amid the housing market collapse, that we have a lot more to fear from the rich. Looks like they seduced thousands of folks into mortgages that were balanced on a shoe string. Now, folks are loosing hundreds of thousands of dollars. That's a bunch of zeros. But maybe since those crooks mug others with paper, signatures, interest rates, and contracts, somehow we still justify calling the poor "dangerous."
Well. I drank about 8 or 9 quarts of water since yesterday at noon, and I only have had to pee about twice. West Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona were unusually green, which in dessert terms, still, means brown. It's like "fish oil with a hit of lemon." It still tastes like fish oil. At sunrise, we drove through a desert boulder field. In their million years in Southern Arizona, they've seen about as much water as drops during a normal Florida Thunderstorm.
Upon arrival in Tucson, Theresa, the on-site program coordinator picked me up from the station. The sun beat down like a micro-wave heat lamp. One of the first thing she said to me was, "It's good you came in the morning. It's not so hot yet. But then, the sun has not been so intense lately. It's monsoon season. It's really humid." Humid. "Yeah right," I laughed.
Humid. Huh.
Well. I guess not everyone understands what it means to live in north Florida during August. Have you ever been in a sweat or a sauna when someone poured too much water on the rocks? And, you have to get down near the ground in order to breathe? North Florida during August.
She went on: "Everyone told me, 'Expect dry heat.' And so I expected something really intense. But it hasn't been all that extreme." Then she went on to tell me that in the desert-- that is, right here-- in the desert, the temperature is routinely around 110 to 115 degrees. And within two feet of the ground, the temperature hovers close to 130, "So if you lay down to take a rest..." She trailed off.
And yet, somehow, there's a garden out-back of the BorderLinks' compound. They've got a fig tree, and there's a pomegranate growing up along the fence. This coming Thursday morning is garden day.
A new bed, new bathroom, new kitchen, new folks, new towns, new country, new grocery, new books. But do you know? It feels just as good regardless of a little anxiety, amid exhaustion, to peel off socks that you've been wearing for 48 hours straight. There's almost nothing like it.
Except maybe lying down my tired body, which, now, I'll do.
Nathan
A New Story
We have a story.
We.
We have a story.
Unlike a tale,
Our story has an unclear beginning,
And it will never end.
Ours is a story of things not as they should be.
Our is the story of a people,
of a world,
hungry and thirsty for shalom.
And ours is the story of the weary glance
we cast at the unimaginable mountain of shalom.
And yet,
Ours is the story of how we rose to the challenge.
Ours is the story of
yesterday,
today, and
tomorrow.
Yes, my friends.
WE.
We have a story.
Our story, God's story;
Our story of God's;
God's story of ours,
is this.
Rejoice and be exceedingly glad;
Live well:
We are the characters.
We.
We have a story.
Unlike a tale,
Our story has an unclear beginning,
And it will never end.
Ours is a story of things not as they should be.
Our is the story of a people,
of a world,
hungry and thirsty for shalom.
And ours is the story of the weary glance
we cast at the unimaginable mountain of shalom.
And yet,
Ours is the story of how we rose to the challenge.
Ours is the story of
yesterday,
today, and
tomorrow.
Yes, my friends.
WE.
We have a story.
Our story, God's story;
Our story of God's;
God's story of ours,
is this.
Rejoice and be exceedingly glad;
Live well:
We are the characters.
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