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