Build A Wall They Said...
Recently I took a trip with my migration class to Nogales, Mexico. On this trip I saw and experienced a great deal of new and shocking things. Author Mirian Davidson talks about a lot of the things that I experienced there in her book Lives On The Line. This book helped me to shape and better understand the things I saw and experienced while I was there. My experience while not unique was incredibly profound and has shaped and changed the way that I will look at life for migrants to the United States, and their struggles to get here.
The trip started much like any other, a bumpy ride on a bus that felt like it may fall apart at any moment. After two hours on the bus I arrived in Tucson where our group split into two smaller vans that we would use for the remainder of the trip. From here we headed to the middle of the Sonoran desert where I walked paths that were frequently traveled on by migrants from Mexico. I found this trek, while short and taking place in 90 degree weather (low for Arizona standards), to be incredibly grueling. I was hit by countless jumping cactus, dehydrated, and burnt to a crisp. I remember wondering how anyone could make this journey in the peak of summer when it can easily get around 110 degrees, which is 20 degrees hotter than it was that day.
After about three quarters of a mile walking through the desert we reached a lone cross. Sticking out like a sore thumb this cross was set in place to mark where a migrant had been found dead. It was obvious how such conditions could kill someone and as I learned from man leading the hike, Brian a volunteer with the Samartins, thousands had died from this trek. The question I was left with was “why?” Why are people losing their lives just to make it into the United States? Why cross here, the border is credibly long so why here in the middle of extremely harsh conditions. The answer is found in Davidson’s book. Davidson notes that until the early 1990’s most migrants would cross in El Paso or San Diego. These locations not only have better climates for the journey to the States but also do not require making the trip through a mountain range. It was in the early 1990’s that the United States tightened up those borders, funneling people into the Tucson sector near Nogales to use the Sonoran desert's deadly conditions to deter migrants.
Because of these laws people are forced to make their way through a grueling several day long journey in the middle of one of the most deadly deserts in the United States. They often times enlist the help of coyotes, who are essentially human smugglers. This part did not really cause as much of an issue for me. I thought that it was a good idea to have someone who knew the area to help these people get here. This was until I read Davidson’s book, which talks about the abuse of people who are accompanied by the coyotes. These coyotes often rape the women or extort the people they are helping cross for even more money once they have started their journey. This was very hard for me to hear, not only are these people desperate and traveling through extremely rough conditions but they are forced to enlist the help of people who are themselves very dangerous individuals.
Many Mexican Migrants need to come to the States was further grounded by the factories I saw. These factories were set up by the United States to take advantage of low wages in Mexico. However, they have created sweatshop labor. The factories were high up on a hill on one side was multimillion dollar factories the other side homes that had been hand built, many not much bigger than shacks. I learned that the people who worked in these factories made about 4 USD every day that they worked, which did not seem too terrible until I learned that a gallon of milk cost about 3 USD. They had to work an entire day just to be able to afford milk for their family. In those type of conditions, which were created by the corporations operating under NAFTA, it is no wonder that people are willing to risk their lives in order to reach America in hopes of a better job to help their family survive.
The next part that really stood out on the trip to me was inside the city of Nogales, Mexico. It was here that we went to the memorial of a young Mexican boy, Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez, who had been gunned down by a United States Border Patrol Agent. The sight was not only sorrowing, and angering but it was also confusing to me. The Border Patrols side of the story goes that the boy had been throwing rocks over the border wall at the agent, which the agent claimed was endangering his life and gave him grounds to open fire on the boy inside Mexico. However, standing where the boy stood and looking at the wall I could not help but wonder how can this kid manage to make physics work in such a way that a rock could get close enough to this agent to endanger his life?! The wall had to have been 40 feet off the ground and maybe 20 feet in front of the child. He would have had to make this rock arch over a wall and high in the air and almost instantly stop and drop down on the agent.
The only explanation I could come up with was that this was an unjustified killing, simply put, an abuse of power. Davidson makes mention of this abuse of power in relation to other unjustified killings that occur along the border. She talks about an incident of immigrant being killed which was dubbed the “Rodney King of the Border”. The parallels that I saw there nearly blew me away. How can this be happening again? I was outraged to see this type of action happening in the early 90’s and again now. It was very hard to digest however, I do hope that this 2012 case is not like Miranda’s, in which the border agent was found not guilty. I remember standing there hoping that someone would been held accountable for the death of this poor child.
UPDATE:
As of April 23, 2018 Agent Lonnie Swartz was found not guilty.
