on crossing ii, 11/08/05

Customs agents in the Rio Grande Valley apparently have great difficulty understanding why a fair-skinned cyclist born in Mesa, Arizona would be so far from home.  Usually they give me the once-over. Then the twice-over.  Thrice.  They ask me what I was doing in Mexico, how long I was there, with whom I was there (like that is any of their business), where I’m from, where I was born, if I speak Spanish, if I speak Spanish well, where I learned to speak Spanish, what college I attended, what my college’s mascot is… the list goes on and on.   

I get why this information is so important: this is my country, but I don’t belong down here.  At least that’s what it looks like.  I could be anybody from anywhere, with any intention. 

After a day in Matamoros, I was crossing back into the United States by car with three others.  The driver and shotgun were dark-haired, dark-eyed Latinas, while the passengers in the rear, myself and another Latina, were much more lighter skinned.  The customs agent asked for our identification, and we gave it, but he didn’t even say a word to the two in front. 

Lately, when agents ask if I speak Spanish, I say “sometimes”.   And when they ask whom I was with?  “Friends.”   If I had been to Mexico before?  “I was just there today, actually.”   

The process is arbitrary, as is polite compliance and buffoonery.  Locals complain about border guards and their glibness, if not harassment, as well—if it’s not for one reason, it’s another.  Apparently it goes with the territory.  Some locals choose cross the line less frequently, a few give up their trips entirely, and the vast majority can’t even cross to begin with. 

Sparky the Sun Devil. 

on crossing, mid-summer 06

I gave out socks.  Lots of socks.

I was volunteering with No More Deaths in Agua Prieta.  The organization had just opened a hospitality center for migrants recently apprehended and returned from the United States.   It was late at night when I was crossing back into Douglas, to go to sleep. 

The customs official asked for my documentation at the port of entry.  I gave it.  He knew me and our group from our many trips back and forth. 

“So you’re helping the Mexicans?” he asked.

“Yep.”

“And I bet you think that you’re doing some good, aren’t you?”

I had helped clean out blisters on the migrants’ feet.  “Yep.”

“You know,” he said, “Americans need help too.  Maybe you should spend more time on this side of the line.”  He handed me back my passport. 

“Thanks,” I said, “and I do a lot of work on the American side as well.  But I don’t need a prick like you to tell me what I should be doing with my time.”

I returned to the volunteer house and soon fell asleep, my sleeping bag stretched across a bare, worn mattress.  I had more work to do the next day.

4/29/06, the last day of the april campaign (pt. 2)

On their final evening shift, the Minutemen set up their “Bravo Line” out on King's Anvil Ranch, and another seven cars took off for their “Charlie Line”, Coleman Road.  When they arrived at their usual position, three cars left to a second location—“Charlie Two”.  Along with two of my close friends from home, I followed them until two of the cars turned down into a wash.  “Pineapple Six” and “Scorpion”, two of the Minutemen leaders, were in the third car, and they stopped into the middle of the narrow road with apparent vehicular difficulties.   We had seen this stunt before.

"Oh dear," Piña said, in his giggling drawl.  "I don't know how to fix this.  I'm not a mechanic."  He danced around the propped hood of his vehicle.  "Oh dear."

After several minutes (and Ray's very loud and very fake call to the Sheriff's Department for assistance), the two lead cars returned, and Piña’s vehicle miraculously started once again. 

As the three cars took off toward the main lines, we noted that they were conspicuously empty of their passengers.  So we continued on the road in search of the vanished Minutemen.  They had been dressed in full camouflage, and we assumed that they were on the north side of King’s state trust land, ready to hunt some migrants.

After several minutes without any success, one of my friends heard the squawk of a walkie-talkie off in the distance.  My other friend slowed down his car, and the first sat on the hood, like a tracker in the bush.  After a stretch, he found some footprints along a road curling against the mountains.  We ditched the vehicle and followed the footprints under a barb-wire fence.  A little overzealous, we crossed it, heard a walkie-talkie at full volume, assumed that the two groups had found each other, returned to the north side of the line, and scampered up the Coyote Mountains for a better vantage point.  From the heights, we spotted four Minutemen. 

We watched them until nightfall, but the foothills blocked much of our view.  We heard on their radios that they had detained four migrants—that they were seated in front of them.  We couldn't see their detainees, and there wasn't much we could do.

Soon, the Sheriff's Department arrived and told us that we trespassing and that we had to leave immediately.  We had maps of the private property and state trust land and knew that we were in the clear.  Not wanting to pursue any conversation about our brief incursion onto King property, however, my friends and I left for home.  The migrants apparently remained in the Minutemen's custody. 

Ray arrived and remained at the scene.  He reported to us that a Border Patrol vehicle entered the area but soon left, unable to find the Minutemen and migrants in the bush.  He doesn't know what happened to the migrants, that is, if there were any.

4/29/06, the last day of the april campaign

On the last day of their April campaign, the Minutemen were bolder than usual. 

On the “Alpha Line” (Elkhorn Ranch Road), two Minuteman cars pulled a quarter mile off the main road into the desert.  A group of nine migrants came up to them, lost but not entirely depleted.  They asked for directions northward, not know that the Minuteman had already called Border Patrol to return them to their country of origin. 

When legal observers informed the migrants of the situation, the group became very upset.   One woman cried continuously.  Another told us of the poor treatment she had received from the Border Patrol on a previous attempt.  Two men look at us sullenly, not saying a word.

A mother carried her one-year-old on her back.  The baby started crying, perhaps dehydrated, but certainly agitated in the company of legal observers, Minutemen, Border Patrol and one loud, angry helicopter.  Repeatedly, One Minuteman directed us to "impress upon the mother" that, for the sake of the child, she should not cross the desert again.  As if she didn't know already. 

Why did you call the Border Patrol?, the group asked.  We're just looking for work and something for our families. 

The Minuteman said that he was concerned that a terrorist might cross the border.  Ray asked if the baby looked like a terrorist to him. 

Minuteman volunteer takes press pass from journalist, 4/4/06

Minuteman volunteer takes press pass from journalist

Susan Carroll
Republic Tucson Bureau
Apr. 4, 2006 10:55 AM

A Canadian journalist was stripped of his Minuteman Civil Defense Corp press pass on Tuesday morning after interviewing members of the ACLU outside the patrol area.

Stacey O'Connell, the field director for Arizona's arm of the volunteer border patrol effort, said that the situation was being handled internally and offered to give the journalist, Derek Lundy, his press pass back after being contacted by The Arizona Republic.

Lundy, who is riding along the U.S.-Mexico border on a motorcycle for a non-fiction book, said a female volunteer took away a press credential issued by the Minuteman organization after he walked over to interview American Civil Liberties Union volunteers and then walked back to get his motorcycle on
Tuesday morning.

A handful of ACLU volunteers were standing outside the ranchland where the Minutemen have set up, roughly 35 miles southwest of Tucson, to watch for undocumented immigrants and report them to the U.S. Border Patrol.

"I think it's absurd," Lundy said. "I don't see any rational basis for it.  That's certainly an undemocratic response."

After the incident, the woman offered to give Lundy his press credentials back, he said. Lundy said she told him he had violated a list of rules he had never seen.

In order for members of the media to observe the Minuteman group on private property, journalists are required to fill out a form and receive a Minuteman press pass.

O'Connell, the director, said that taking away Lundy's access was a mistake. Part of the Minuteman organization's stated mission is to bring media attention to the situation along the border. The group launched its third, month-long patrol on April 1.

"We expect (the media) to be able to do their jobs, and if they want to go out and see what the Minutemen do, and go out and report on the ACLU or anybody else, that's perfectly fine as well," he said. "We understand your position. You have to cover both sides, and we don't want to prevent anyone from
doing their jobs."

Lundy decided he didn't want the pass back; he's moving on to another stretch of the border.

Ray Ybarra, who is coordinating the ACLU volunteer legal observer program, said a young, documentary filmmaker was forced by a Minuteman volunteer to erase a portion of her tape on Saturday. O'Connell denied that, saying it "never happened."

kpho story on the minuteman of one, 5/8/06

This story is great, not only because they use footage from legal observers, but also because they take the time to go beyond the quick soundbites and find the real motivations and actions of vigilantes.

5/8/06. 

KPHO: Reporters who bother to spend time with the Minutemen and dig a little deeper are finding that the organization isn't as forthright as it seems.

In Washington State, for instance, Minuteman organizers insist they're only concerned about border security. But that doesn't explain why one of their supporters is running an initiative that would strip illegal immigrants of the ability to obtain government benefits, including welfare and health care.

Down in Phoenix, an investigative TV crew from KPHO went undercover and discovered that, when the cameras go off, the Minutemen are talking a much different ball game than their preferred public image of upstanding, concerned citizens.  These are anti-immigration vigilantes, taking action, mobilizing in the Arizona desert, driven by a conviction.

Pineapple 6: "These f___ing Mexicans. They will kill you. They don't give a f__k." That Mexican immigrants are public enemy number one.

Fred Puckett:  "And once you shoot a couple of these son of a b@#$%es, they'll think twice."'

KPHO:  Even worse are the spinoff groups that piggyback off the Minuteman propaganda and then draw the more radical actors into their ranks: 'Another vigilante group - expelled from this operation - was operating nearby.

Pineapple 6:  "They're carrying automatic weapons and they're chasing guys down and tracking them, then they tie them up."

KPHO:  The next day, we set out to find the so-called "Rogue Minutemen."

Fred Puckett: "Hi guys. I'm Fred Puckett, Minuteman of One."

KPHO:  Puckett calls his group "Minuteman of One."

Puckett:  "We don't have no by-laws.. we don't have nothin'. We go out in two-man teams and we hit them like we did 40-years ago in Vietnam."

KPHO:  Members of Minuteman of One have a controversial M-O. They carry assault rifles when they're out on patrol, they don't hesitate to follow migrants or smugglers and they've been known to "confiscate" food, water and the luggage they come across.

Puckett: "We believe our country is being destroyed from the inside. Anything south of I-10 is a third world nation."'

KPHO:  The KPHO team last year did the same thing and found similar results."

press on the minutemen, 4/21/06

The relationship between the Minutemen and the ACLU:  I can't say that it's antagonistic, but it ain't exactly friendly. 

Here's a fun thing for you to do on your day off from work: make your way down to Three Points and ask some Minutemen what they think of the ACLU. Better yet, tell them that you're from the ACLU and listen to their response. Inform them that the long-haired hippie in the Honda Civic sent you, that you don't really know him, and that he's doing some really great work. See what happens.

Chances are you won't get a straight response from any Minuteman on the first overture. You might see him or her (the title isn't exactly politically correct) steam a little bit from a distance, but not much more. If you want to talk with a Minuteman, you have some hurdles to jump first.

Obstacle one: the credentials.

The Minutemen have established their headquarters at a private ranch 'round mile marker thirty-four, Sasabe Road. That ranch is guarded by a gun-toting Minuteman in a blue truck. He won't let you in the complex unless you have authorization.  You, the journalist, researcher or aspiring writer, need an official Minuteman press pass. Without one, you're out of luck.  You're not going to find a ticket window at this show.

Obstacle two: “the mission”.

You decide to ixnay your plan to enter the complex and, instead, speak with them while they're on their patrols. Let's say that you go down Sasabe to mile marker twenty-five, Elkhorn Ranch.

To your surprise, you're greeting not with the friendly "Neighborhood Watch" group that they advertise but two men with hip-belted sidearms, camouflage pants and hats, tan-colored shirts, video cameras and, the kicker, bullet-proof vests. They step out into the road to see who you are, they take your license plate number, they radio their "sector leader", the slow talking "Liberty" or the gruff "Pineapple 6". You try to strike up a conversation with them, but they don't really discuss their activities. They don't want to disrupt "the mission."

Obstacle three: the bushmen.

You turn back around and make your exit, slightly frustrated and somewhat disturbed. Who the hell are these guys?you think to yourself. They seem to have come from nowhere. They sure as hell weren't carrying any visible identification, and you couldn't exactly see their license plate numbers. You didn't even see a car. How were you to know that they backed it thirty yards into the desert and dropped a green army-issue parachute over the top as cover?

Obstacle four: who the hell are you?

Terrorists aren’t welcome.  Unauthorized immigrants aren’t welcome.  Legal Observers aren’t welcome.  You’re not welcome.  The slope is slippery in Minuteman Land.  This is the front line in the war against undocumented immigration.  The invaders are never too far away.

But there is a way around all of this.  This is your country, after all.  You have a constitutional, God-given right to your own land.  Rule of law.  Buy a State Trust Land permit, and strap on your gun.  Declare your rights.  Be a real American.  Maybe then, you’ll have something to talk about with the Minutemen. 

Just remember, these stripes don’t run.  And neither will you.

in the white house press room, 5/11/07

Cyclist for Social Change strikes again.  I'm about thirty feet from G Dub.  I got in with my friend as a photographer.  I have neither a camera nor official credentials, and they still let me in.  So much for security.

We're just waiting to hear what else he has to say about border and immigration policy—the 370 feet of fencing proposed in a recent amendment, guest worker programs, etc.  Exciting.

If I’m able to get my question in, I’m going to ask him to pull my finger.

----

Forgive my cynical response.  I don't mean to criticize you directly—God knows I would be there asking G Dub to pull my finger if given the chance—but just a thought to through out there:

In waiting to hear what G Dub has to say about border policy, aren’t those at the press gathering following the familiar path of putting  on “social dialogue” (i.e. talking/listening to the rich, powerful and devious) in front of demonstrating autonomy?

Others would call this “legitimating the oppressor” or “playing Uncle Tom”.  I just get the impression that these press gatherings are used to create the appearance of dialogue and accountability, given that the state is rapidly moving towards a violent border discourse and setting up the legal instruments to make it possible to turn talk into action.  I assume that you know damn well what the state is doing on the border, and, unfortunately, asking a question (even a serious one that slams G Dub) won't make a damn bit off difference or hold a bit of accountability.  Given this, I am suggesting, perhaps, that taking part in these false democratic rituals does more to legitimate power structures than question them.

If you really did ask G Dub to pull your finger, then I retract all of the above.

--eric

dangerous to your health, 5/10/07

The border between the United States and Mexico is 1951 miles long.  At the western end, fifteen-foot-tall steel beams wade out into the waters of the Pacific.  Seagulls perch upon their crowns, rolling tides eat at their sides, and children slip back and forth between them.  For two dollars, ice cream and elote vendors extend their hands through, with a smirk.  The beams are in on the joke.

In the distance, dolphins swim across the border into Mexico, illegally.  To the south, families whack at beach balls.  And to the north, a sign reads “Stay out of the water: Dangerous to your health”. 

A Border Patrol agent tells me to stay away from the wall.  “They might throw rocks at you,” he says.  I lick at my popsicle.  Rice flavored. 

-

My girlfriend and I pull off the road and search for a lay-up site, where migrants molt before moving on to cooler climates.  A Border Patrol agent pulls up behind us and asks what we’re doing.  We present sandwiches.  “Having lunch,” I say.  He doesn’t need to know any more than that. 

“Well, be careful,” he implores.  “There are a lot of dangerous people out here.”

Minutes later I am driving up and down the Arivaca highway, disoriented.  I pull into a local restaurant to ask for directions, and a woman in her mid-forties approaches.  Her shorts are too short.  She tells me that I need to turn around.

“And watch out for the Border Patrol agents,” she says.  “They can drive real dangerous out here.”

-

Sometimes I think about buying an empanada cart.  I think I’d wheel it everywhere.

screwed in austin, 10/12/05

I’m heading to Houston tomorrow, god willing.  Someone stole my bike while i was sleeping the other night.  I locked it to a barb wire fence while i slept 30 yards away and, needless to say, someone snipped the fence and took my bike, lock and all.  Relatively fucked, i called a friend in Austin.  She picked me up, and I’ve been back at the hostel since.  I’ve built up a new bike though (actually, i mostly watched others as they built it up for me), and I’m getting ready to head out to a Chicano-Latino leadership conference this weekend.  It could be shit, but I’m hoping it's worth it.

That’s about all I’ve got to say about the project/my life right now. The idea of "don't let anybody talk you out of this" is all that keeps me going sometimes.  I’ve got a drive and goal, but shit like this really demands that i step outside of myself to figure out what the hell I’m doing.  So far, project's still a go.

by dan, 11/8/06

Don Jesús Villa (right), son of General Pancho Villa, with Don Juan Chávez of the Indigenous National Congress in Gómez Palacio, Durango.
Foto: D.R. 2006 Anna Mauri

by bill and al, 11/8/06

by rodrigo, 11/10/06

by rodrigo

Ride my bike in Reynosa?

Well, let me put it you this way: there’s a twenty mile stretch just south of Reynosa that locals refer to as the “Death Highway”.  The road is windy, the lanes are narrow, and the drivers can be reckless.  At one point, the road climbs sharply up the side of a hill and descends just as rapidly.  Venturesome motorists often fly over the hump and are unable to regain control upon landing.  On either side of the incline are three roadside crosses.  To my count, there were about a dozen more scattered along the road.   

So do I ride my bicycle through Mexico? Hell no. 

letter to eric, 3/27/06

Eric,

I’m writing you this email to let you know that this dead man has really fucked me up.  It didn't before, but it is now.

I haven't had time to process it--seeing him, smelling him.  Bouncing back and forth between my favorite chemically contaminated community of mission and Tucson with their no more deaths, i haven't taken time to let this all--my life, these travels, this weight—sink in.  It has.

I’m going to give you something, and i don't think that I’m going to give it to anyone else.  No promises.

"All I want to do is shout and sing and laugh and cry and dance, dance, dance.  Dance.  Dance in full-on sweat. Dance with my face buried in some woman's hair, my body pressed against hers.  Dance
until the throbbing music becomes my throbbing body.  Boom.  Boom. Boom.  Dance until my legs go tired, my arms go limp, my feet burn and I sit, wasted and euphoric.

I want my body to ache, and I want to be completely, utterly depleted.

I want to dance just to remember that I'm alive.

Jesus, what a privilege.  To be alive and to be healthy.  To have a family and friends that are alive and healthy.  Well fed.  Housed.  Privileged."

It's not just the dead man: it's the poor and the mother fuckers who ignore them.  It’s the contaminated and the lawyers who take advantage of them.  It’s you and me and those who actually want to do something, anything, and those who just don't care.

I'm crying the middle of a restaurant, and the waitress keeps asking me "if everything's okay."  How
ridiculous.

Merry margarita,

ryan

an ode to the man face-down in the rio grande

An Ode to the Man Face Down in the Rio Grande

Dated March fifteenth, 2006.

This passage comes from time spent with STEER, the Laredo-based South Texas Environmental Education and Research program.  Eight to ten million gallons of raw sewage are pumped into the Rio Grande, known in Mexico as the Río Bravo, each day.  Combined with chemical runoff from U.S.-based warehouses, the contamination poses major environmental and health risks.

This greatest risk of the day, however, turned out to be the river itself.

- - - - -

Yesterday I saw the body of a dead man on the Rio Grande.

I was with a college group  collecting water samples.  Upstream, a group of children started shouting at us, "hay un mojado", "hay un mojado"--"there's a wet", "there's a crosser".  Our group didn't know what to make of this at first.  Were the kids really saying what we thought
they were saying?  Did they really mean what we thought they meant?

I started walking towards the kids, alone, as they began coming our way. When we met, all suspicions were confirmed.  With a modest net in tow, they intended to go fishing.  Their unfortunate catch of the day: an "hombre muerto"--a "dead man".

I walked up the river with them.  We strode down the shore, chattering, crawled under a barb wire fence and jumped over gullies.  The walk seemed so deliberate, so anxious.

We arrived at the body, and we stopped.  Just stopped.  The kind of dramatic pause that you see in the movies, when the detectives walk into the room with the corpse and halt in mid-stride, transfixed.  They take slow looks around and even slower steps forward.  Whispering about in
furtive hypotheses, they return to normal time.

The body was red and black, burnt by the sun and charred with decay.  The man's hands--surely he was a man at one point--were taut and sinewy.  You could see his bones through thin layers of muscle.  His torso was bloated, raw and yellowish by the waistline.  A hole in his exposed back, along his spine and directly between his shoulder blades, was bubbling like some festering geyser.  The man's body was giving one last and long exhale.

I called 9-1-1.  I took pictures.  The children walked away, perched on a small island in the distance.

I looked at the body, face down and unmoving.  Get up, I couldn't help thinking.  Why wouldn't he get up?  Get up.

He didn't.

The college students arrived and milled about, some close and some far, but all within eyeshot.  Would he get up for them?

He didn't.

* * * * *

There are two stories to this man's death.  The first is the one you might expect.  He drowned.

According to official counts by the Border Patrol, four-hundred and seventy-two people died trying to cross the Rio Grande/Río Bravo into the United States last year, forty-nine in Laredo. Unofficial counts put the total much higher--around eight-hundred. Oft-referred to "mojados" cross for many reasons: some haul drugs, more reunite with family and most seek jobs.  The river can be unforgiving in these ventures.  It swells with irrigation water, whorls in unseen whirlpools and charges with undercurrents.  Most know its dangers, but few expect to confront
them.

Face-down in the mud, this man had no other choice.

The second story: he was murdered.

Next to the man was a shopping cart, upturned and sinking into the earth along with its unanticipated partner.  Had one wanted to kill the man and discard of the body in the river, a shopping cart might have been a sufficient, however unlikely, vehicle to navigate the maze of
undergrowth in the hills above.  A final heave of the cart might have left the man prone, sprawled and perpendicular to the shoreline.

This year, an average of two homicides are committed in Nuevo Laredo every three days.  Chalk up the murders to exceptional drug-related violence.  Some of that violence has spilled over into its American sister, Laredo, but at a number that pales in comparison: twenty-one.

Chances are, the man died while trying to cross the river.  Homicides are relatively rare occurrences in Laredo, the body lacked visible signs of trauma, the cart would have been difficult if not impossible to squeeze through thick scrub, and the river was strong enough to carry both cart and body miles from upstream.  .

I'll never know for sure.

* * * * *

As I walked back downstream, past the bras and panties, shorts, candy wrappers and plastic bags of the successful, I spoke with a director of the college program.  A decade-long regular of the water sampling trips, this was his third run-in with would-have-been crossers.  The first was a body, much like the one we just saw.  The second was a skeleton, bleached by the sun and adorned with a burial shroud of swimming trunks.

He wishes that migrants could find a safer way to cross.

"You know what the weird thing is?", he asked.  "We talk about the wages in Mexico, as far as NAFTA and all that. I'll tell you my personal opinion.  Even if they raise wages some, some of the companies are moving because they still can't compete.  They still have to move to other parts of the world, where labor's even cheaper. And they're not paying much here, y'know?"

He stopped and turned around, facing me.  "It all comes back to the consumer," he said.

"How much are you willing to pay?"

* * * * *

While the college group finished collecting samples, I sat and wrote, trying to collect my thoughts.

Hundreds of migrants must have passed through that spot--an enclave of desert thicket, discarded clothing and trash bags, trash bags and more trash bags.  Water-proof carry-alls for each person who swam the river.

Trash bags were everywhere: at my feet, among the empty bags of Ramen and potatoe chips; at
my side, wrapped around the trunk of a tree; and overhead among dense, interlocking branches, dangling like cheap party decorations and dancing like phantoms.

I scribbled haltingly, imagining forty-nine bodies stacked one by one by one, placed next to each other in a long string of compounded, irreconcilable failure--the deaths multiplied, riverside. I thought of migrants back home in Arizona--two-hundred and eighty-two of them this last year--emptied, withered and wasted, leaning against saguaros and swimming through sandy deserts.  I thought of the man upstream, and after a while I didn't think any more.

I looked to my right and saw the river.  It seemed so peaceful.  Peaceful, comforting and inviting.

* * * * *

The death wasn't reported in the American news today.  Bodies in the river don't usually make the five o'clock.

A Nuevo Laredo-based paper, La Tarde, carried a story about the "Mortal Río Bravo"--the "deadly Rio Grande".  The headline on the cover: "Six undocumented immigrants have died in the murderous waters of the Rio Grande, in only the last two and a half months.  The river has become deadly for those migrants who desire to attain the 'American Dream'."

What that dream is, I don't know.  The America I know is torn between border enforcement policies and DREAM Act legislation, free trade and free movement of workers, the threat of narco-terrorism and the boon of international money remittances.

If the American Dream means money and success, then one must consider who is earning the money and how he is successful.  Is he the migrant who sends money back to her family in his country of origin?  Are they the business owners, profiteering off of a group often referred to as a
"shadow society"?  Or are they the drug runners, the human traffickers and the corrupt border officials?  The landscapers, the hotel maids and the restaurant cooks?  The consumer who buys the fruit, or the worker who picks it?

Is success measured in in raw profit, or is it measured in mouths fed?   Is “success” making it into the upper-middle class of American society, or is it just making it across the river?

If the "American Dream" means something else--a core value of achievement despite all obstacles--then perhaps we have to rethink our highly militarized border and police-state enforcement policies: constructing a seven-hundred-mile-long series of walls, the further restriction of humanitarian aid laws, criminal prosecution of naturalized family members (children) for harboring undocumented relatives-turned felons (parents), and local police enforcement of federal-level responsibilities.  Perhaps we need to stop dreaming and wake up, get up, and face the reality our policy drowns people in a river.

For many, the American Dream isn't defined by luck or good fortune.  It's defined by opposition.  It’s defined by what goes unsaid.

* * * * *

As we bounced along the dirt road leading back to the city, our university van came upon two squad cars meandering down to the river.  A lone policewoman drove by in the first car.  Four men drove by in the second—two officers in the front, and another two twenty-something men in the back (or were they two of the children?).  The drivers stopped to discuss the whereabouts
of the body.  

I imagine that there were no other questions.  There was no investigation.  For them, cased closed: the man had drowned.

The cars began to pull away.  With nothing else to say, I stuck my head out the window in the rear of the van: "it's down by the shopping cart.  The shopping cart."

Heads nodded in each of the three cars.  We all knew.

* * * * *

Today, in passing, I told a man about the dead body on the river.  "Yeah," he said.  "That happens a lot."  He turned away and went on with his business.

"Another floater," he mumbled.

* * * * *

Get up.

Mi estancia en la comunidad zapatista, 2-27

Xela, 2-27

Primero, tenemos que empezar con el entendimiento que no haya ni una sola “comunidad zapatista”.  Los Zapatistas están conectados por una lucha común, o sea, contra el neoliberalismo y sus “cuatro ruedas” (explotación, despojo, desprecio y represión), y por democracia, justicia y libertad.  Las comunidades en sí son completamente diferentes.  A veces se puede medir la diferencia en minutos, desde los treinta minutos que exige la caminata desde un pueblo al otro.  A veces se calcula en kilómetros: hay Zapatistas de la ciudad y Zapatistas y Zapatistas del campo.  Son indígenas y son pobres, pero más que todo son hermanos y hermanas—“compañeros y compañeras”, como dice el “Sub”—luchando por un futuro de dignidad.

Los Zapatistas saben que se camino es largo y duro, eso ya está claro.  Salieron en las vísperas de 1994, pero y se habían estado organizando desde hace diez años.  Amigos en Guadalupe Tepeyac decían que vieron al “Sub” por primera vez en 1974, aún más antes.  Tras estos años, muchos han perdido  sus vidas, otros ya han salido de la organización y otros compañeros llegan todavía.  Ahora, buscan empezar un gran rebelión, y vamos a ver si el gobierno mexicano, el “mal gobierno”, y la maquina económica global pueden callarlos. 

Concretamente, aprendí cuatro cosas de los Zapatistas.  Primero, que el mero revolucionario no es él que toma un fusil de protesta ni por un día ni por una semana.  Su corolario es, segundo, que ese hombre o esa mujer es él quien trabaja sus tierras y participa en su organización, día tras día, año tras año, hasta que se realicen sus metas comunales y esperanzas imposibles.  Rebeliones y revoluciones, armadas o no, vienen y van.  Es la palabra, el compromiso, que se queda.  Es la determinación que es la arma.

Tercero, no todo es lo que parece, aún en las comunidades Zapatistas.  Ellos pueden decirle como es y como lo ven, pero es usted que tiene que pensar en donde se queda la verdad.  Sus comunidades son espejos a las nuestras.  Existen como testimonios de éxitos y errores pero más que nada sirven para ver a quienes somos y, tal vez, podemos ser. 

Por fin, aprendí que no estoy solo, o sea, que no estamos solos.  Estamos conectados por circunstancias, luchas y conflictos que a veces no entendemos bien—dijo una señora, “allí vimos la enfermedad, y en ella misma encontramos la solución”.  Entre un Zapatista, un Guatemalteco y un Americano, de cualquier origen, existe gente.  Está en entender eso que se descubre lo que es nuestra fuerza más formidable: nuestra humanidad.  

I'm still alive, 2/19/07

To anybody who received an email from my parents over the past two weeks wondering where the hell I was, I'm alive.  I managed to find my way to Xela, Guatemala, where I write you now.  That's as brief of an update as you get.  I've attached a short and sweet quintet of stories from the last few months.  Read 'em and weep.  I hope that you all are well.

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THE SUBCOMANDANTE MARCOS GAVE ME THE FINGER.

Not really.  The Zapatista leader gave a lot of us the finger.  In mid-November, the EZLN celebrated its 23rd year in existence, and their 13th in public.  The Sub, the Comandante Germán and the karavana arrived in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, where it all started. 

We celebrated as any good rebels should celebrate, of course, with a big ass cake that said "Feliz Cumpleaños, EZLN".  Germán and Marcos took a knife to cut the cake together.  They held it, quavering, as they joked with the alternative press corps huddled in front of them.  The karavanistas began to shout "mor-di-da, mor-di-da", expecting to plunge the two's faces into the cake with an expectant "bite".  The Subcomandante Marcos looked up and gave us the finger.  The wrinkles around his eyes suggested a smile, and he walked away.

SO YOUR DAUGHTER'S A PIG.

The Other Campaign wrapped up the tour in Mexico City, and after a stay I made my way to Guerrero to visit some friends.  The problem is that the majority of them don't speak Spanish.  They speak Nahuatl, and to say that my Nahuatl is rusty is an understatement.  Such would assume that there is something left to rust.

I arrived and saw my old host family.  I had lived and studied with them two years before.  We were all excited to see each other, including the kids.  Sonia, one of the older ones, came out to greet me.  She gave me a big smile and her mother, Eulalia, pulled her close.  "Look," she said.  "It's Sonia.  She's a pig."

"A pig?", I asked.  "She's a girl."  In my best Nahuatl, "a good girl."

"No, she's a pig.  Many pigs."  Eulalia held up six fingers to illustrate the point. I looked at Sonia, still grinning, and I reluctantly conceded.

Later my Nahuatl-speaking friends told me that Eulalia had said that "when Sonia grows up and marries, the family will sacrifice many pigs in her honor because she is so beautiful." 

"So she's not a pig," I told them. 

"No," they said. "She's a good girl."

ZAPATISTAS, PRÍISTAS AND MACHETES, OH MY.

I still can't tell you exactly what happened, because I'm not entirely sure.  I woke up one morning to shouting in La Realidad, one of the Zapatista caracoles, or international meeting places.  I was in my tent in the middle of a field enclosed by a school and other buildings.  On my left, I heard "this is our land.  You already have a school."  On my right, shouts rang in response: "we fought in the war of the land as well.  We are entitled to it."  "We will solve this with dialogue," one group said.  "We will solve this with force," rallied the other.  I stayed in my tent, blind and listening. 

Soon the crowd calmed down and I crawled out.  The director of a movie production company approached me.  He and his crew arrived to film, of all things, a Zapatista love story.  "I can't believe that you were in the middle of all that," he said. 

"What do you mean?", I asked. 

"You know.  With the machetes." 

The ex-Zapatista Príistas had taken over the school, one of the filming locations, in a successful attempt to delay the movie.  They had done it with a show of machetes.  The Zapatistas grabbed theirs in return, and I was in the middle of it all, alone and too dumb to get away.  I left the next day.

LA LUCHA SIGUE Y SIGUE... THE WAR RAGES ON...

The first time that I played basketball with Zapatistas it was in Oventik, another caracol about an hour away from San Cristóbal, the capital.  I played one-on-one with a man a littler older than I, and he nearly blanked me eight to one.  So the second time 'round, in the jungles of Guadalupe Tepeyac, I decided to give these Zapatistas my best passing, shooting, scoring Steve Nash.  I was a man born unto the best team in the NBA, and these rebel farmers were going to know it.

After our first-game win in double elimination, I quickly realized that I, surprisingly, was no Steve Nash.  Nor a Boris Diaw, Amare Stoudamire or Raja Bell.  I thought that I might have had a chance at Shawn Marion, but that would have meant that I would have played well, which I didn't.  Instead, the Zapatistas benched me by halftime, the lone player of a six-man team riding the pine. 

After the narrow win, I decided to bounce back and play campesino style (it was then that I also realized how inappropriate the term "jungle ball" was).  I rebounded, played defense, ran the court and otherwise hacked, fouled, scratched and clawed until I regained my spot in the rotation.  I knocked over a row of giggling teenage girls after diving for a loose ball.  The town mayor-sheriff told me to stop pushing him.  A teammate looked at me through his one good eye as we were sprinting back on defense.  "You're beginning to understand," he said.  And I was.  I should have learned the first time.  Zapatistas know basketball.

We lost the last two hard-fought games by two points a piece.  We all played our pasamontañas off.  Bruised and battered, none of us could walk the next day.  

CROSSING THE BORDER.  THE OTHER BORDER.  INTO GUATEMALA.

I had thought that I knew enough about borders and crossing borders to make my way into Guatemala without a problem.  I soon discovered that I was, on the contrary, the white-skinned American equivalent of a two-pound succulent hunk of prime rib, and everybody was just licking their lips, waiting to eat me up.

And so they did.  The Mexican government got me for a twenty-dollar exit stamp, a cash changer weaseled a smooth thirty-percent interest out of our transaction, and a bus driver, well, the story goes something like this:

I was trying to get to Xela to visit a friend, Carolyn Beal, in the Peace Corps.  To get there, I had to go through Huehuetenago first.  I asked the bus driver if his route went straight through on to Xela.  "Sure," he said with a laugh.  "It just costs more."  About four times as much as everybody else was paying.  Not thinking the man to be a cunniving, backstabbing chicken bus bandit, I handed over my forty quetzales (about five bucks) and trusted him even after everyone else had exited the bus.  I thought that I was weird when he asked me to step down from the bus and wait on the curb for moment, but I did it.  And as I watched the bus pull away, I thought to myself what a dipshit I am. 

Later a security guard in Xela laughed at me when I couldn't find a working ATM.  I was 0 for 4 on the day until he fished two quetzales out of his pocket so that I could hop on a combi and find another one.  1 for 4, I called it a day.  Welcome to Guatemala. 

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THE POSDATA

Thus I arrive in Xela, leaner, meaner, a basketball-playing fool with a revolutionary edge, a Spanish-squawking Arizonan with an ear for conversation and an eye for disaster.  I'm good here, and coming home soon.  Among the indigenous, the mainstream and the international, this is one of the most diverse and welcoming cities that I have ever been in.  An organization back home has even decided to fund me my stay for another few weeks.  I'll be studying at a local Spanish-language school to tune up my linguistic war drum, and rumor has it that they're going to connect me with a local human rights organization that works with migrants.

I have more friends coming in town soon, the weather's great, and I'm chasing after an amazingly nice, beautiful and wonderful girl from Denmark. The world's an oyster, and I'm slurping it up.  

See you all stateside soon. 

With much love, peace and rebeldía,

Your Cyclist for Social Change who left the bicycle two countries behind

Suggestions? 9/30/05

Sr. Urrea,

 

My name is Ryan Riedel.  I write to you because you have been a particular point of inspiration for an upcoming endeavor, and I'm hoping that you might have some advice and constructive criticism about the project I'm going to undertake.

 

To make a long story short, I'm planning on riding a mountain bike along the entire 1951 miles of the U.S./Mexico border, volunteering with various social service and human rights organizations and collecting narratives for a book.  My aims are two-fold: to not only better educate myself about border life and culture but also develop a work so that others may also share in the conversations that will come about.  The project should take at least three months, although I imagine that it will last much longer.

 

This idea came from three sources.  The first was a conversation that I had with a 21-year-old who was cycling from San Francisco to Boston.  The second was my own personal interest in the border (my mom's side of the family is from Nogales, Arizona), and the third was a seed of a thought that came about after reading _Behind the Wire_.  I really admire your work, and I'm thinking of doing something similar.

 

I plan on recording narratives with handheld recording device--stories of individuals' particular experiences, their thoughts on particular problems along the border, the kind of change they want to see in their communities, etc.  Aftering collecting those narratives, I hope to compile them into a book.  I'm still thinking about whether or not I want to make this a book of short stories. I don't want to distort anybody's voice, however I do think that it would be appropriate to include information about the circumstances in which a particular individual and myself came to meet.  The idea is that I don't want to make this a "cold" book--just a bunch of dialogues packaged together--or a book that focuses on me and my learning experience and my journey.  I want to make this book relatively warm and accessible to a diverse audience.

 

I should start this trip sometime early next week.  My idea is that this trip will tell me what kind of work is appropriate, meaning so say that I think that the book will develop a bit more organically once I'm actually on the road.  I'm just looking for some feedback from someone who "knows".

 

If you have the time and inclination, please drop me a line at this email address.  I also have a blog set up.  I'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have.

 

Thank you very much for your time.  Again, I really think a lot of you and work.  Best of luck in future writings.

 

Ryan

the plan, 8/29/05

"This is a journey.  Don't even hesitate in doing it.  You've already taken the first step in considering it."

My friends,

This email is half catch-up and half open petition.  I am currently working at the Sierra Trading Post in Cheyenne, Wyoming and living with one of my best and most gracious friends, Adam Keizer.  Some of you might remember that I had a plan to build a something-or-other in Mexico after I graduated and another to volunteer in Guatemala.  For a number of reasons, the former is still up in the air, while the latter is on hold. I've got another plan, and I need your help to make it happen.

I intend to ride a bicycle along the entire U.S./Mexico border for three months, volunteering along the way and writing a book of short stories about the people with whom I come into contact.   My aim is to better understand the effects of U.S. and Mexican immigration policy, while actively helping out nonprofit and bi-national communities.   In compiling stories, I plan to ask people what they have to say about the border—where they came from, what they've experienced and where they're going.  My dream is to eventually educate people about border life and challenge them to consider their role as global, rather than strictly national or local, citizens.

THE INEVITABLE LIFE AFTER COLLEGE

There's something about post-graduate life that leaves me laughing.  You spend four, five years planning on doing something or being somewhere after graduating—in short, having some path laid out.  That didn't quite happen for me.   I ended up spending a month wallowing in front of a T.V. in Arizona, another at youth leadership camps and visiting family, and another still in Cheyenne, riding mechanical bulls, drinking more Budweiser than I ever did in college and selling shoes at an outdoor retail store.   Who the hell graduates college as an honors student with two degrees and winds up working retail?  Wasn't I supposed to besomebody?

I guess the honest answer is no.  And yes.  Working and volunteering at those camps, I rediscovered a direction that I had lost sight of in my last year of school.   There is something about "youth" and "leader" that is interminably inspiring.  In Colorado, I grew closer to a family that I hadn't seen in ten years.   I now have irrefutable evidence that you all can blame my dad and his side for my sense of humor.  By just not going home when I said I would—by ditching two great friends and staying in town with another after Cheyenne Frontier Days ended—I've been able to tuck away some money, enjoy the company of some overwhelmingly supportive friends, and engage in many unexpected conversations that turned out to be life changing.   The wandering path I've led the past few months has taught me that I'm no "somebody"—just another guy looking for new experiences, to be closer to family and to make a difference in the world.  Somewhere along the line I realized how easy it was to do all three, and this, I realize, might separate me from many.  Such a realization makes me a humble "someone".

NOW TO DO "SOMETHING" AND BE "SOMEWHERE"…

I heard a guy speak just recently, and he said "if you pray, then move your feet."  For long enough now, I've been volunteering and working with different organizations that serve homeless and Spanish-speaking communities.   From that involvement, I've seen how much work still needs to be done—how much we, as aware and socially-responsible individuals, can care for and enable the neediest in our communities, from "top" to "bottom".

Now, the U.S./Mexico border is becoming an increasingly crazy place.  Civilian militia groups are popping up, targeting migrant groups who are trying to cross the border in search of better job opportunities and lives for their families back home.   In Arizona, thousands of would-be migrants have died in the desert, while honest individuals are prosecuted in federal courts for taking severely dehydrated survivors to hospitals.   In Texas, young women are dying by the hundreds as victims of violent acts right under the noses of two governments.  On both sides, issues of xenophobia and community health are of increasing concern, as the U.S. and Mexican governments recognize but do little to attend to shared epidemics of racism and poverty. These are just some examples.

For a while now, I've prayed for solutions to these problems but have done very little to affect any real change.   Eventually I see myself working along the border more formally as a social worker, educator and activist, but for now I've set my sights on "moving my feet."  I plan on pedaling, meeting people and helping out along the way.   I know that something needs to be done, and I know that the border offers so much life and culture.  I've just got to see it all for myself, mile by mile.

THE JOURNEY AND THE PETITION

This is where I need your help.  I have some ideas of and connections to places where I want to travel/document/help.   Intuition tells me that I'll also discover a lot along the way.  To make this trip work, though, I figure the best place to start is with the many people who, in some way or another, have contributed to this venture—you all.   I ask you simply, do you know of any places where I can volunteer, stay and learn for a week at a time?  Do you know of any people that I should talk to?  Can you think of anybody on the border with a worthwhile story to tell?

My basic plan goes something like this: travel (by car) from Cheyenne to Austin, TX on the 21st of September for a music festival.   From there, I intend to meet with faculty at UT Austin and the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group that is highly involved in human rights issues on the border. After that, I'll start the bike trip though Corpus Cristi to Brownsville/Matamoros on the Gulf, eventually making my way over to El Paso/Juarez on the other side of the state to talk with people about the feminicides and community health issues.   The middle of the state is open territory. 

I have no plans for New Mexico, i.e. I'd greatly appreciate suggestions.  In Arizona, I've got some early leads in the Douglas/Agua Prieta area working with a company that exports fair trade coffee beans.   I also am looking to help out with No More Deaths (Ni Una Mas) and Humane Borders, two groups in the Tucson/Nogales/Naco region that have done a lot of work with migrants crossing though the southern deserts.   I'm still searching for opportunities and interviews in the Yuma/San Luis/Somerton as well as Mexicalli and Tecate.  There are a couple of places in which I could serve in Tijuana and San Diego, although I don't really have anything solid to go on just yet (other than, again, the AFSC).  After three months, I will re-evaluate my goals and make a decision to continue the journey, stay in one place or consider another project.

RIDING WITH MY HEAD ON STRAIGHT

Some of you will say that I'm insane for doing this: the border is 1,580 miles long, I'm out of shape, I'll be traveling alone, the trip is too dangerous, I don't know shit about bikes and bicycling, I don't know shit about writing, I don't know enough Spanish, it's going to be fall/winter, I'm going to be cold, etc.   Some of these criticisms I can't get around: this isn't the safest of trips, I know, but others I'm willing to simply ignore as acceptable risks that I will struggle, work and learn through.   The thing about being on the road is that you're never quite alone: someone is almost always around to help.  I'm counting on that "almost always".  Faith in community is what is going to make this project succeed.  Or fail.

Again, this is where you all come in.  Although money isn't really an issue right now, I'm sure that it will be later.   I have saved up and am willing to finance this entire trip on my own.  However, I am actively looking for sponsors .  If you or any individual/organization you know of is willing to support this project, I would greatly appreciate your help.  I currently work at an outlet outdoor store, and I have a fantastic discount on gear.   Sponsorship would entail staking a financial claim to the equipment necessary for the trip: socks, bicycle shorts, a helmet, etc.  I imagine that gear costs (including bicycle) would total around a conservative $600, so any tax-deductible donations that a corporate body, nonprofit or individual would like to make would help immensely.   I will have a list of needed items in an email soon to come.

I'm also looking to write along the way via webblog and paper publications that take even an inkling of interest in the journey e.g. Arizona Highways, La Voz, the Arizona Republic, Latino Perspectives, etc.  If you have any other press-related connections or suggestions, please let me know.   I also plan to take pictures and put together a visual presentation that recounts the places and faces that will compose and illustrate the project.  Finding a publisher, to note, is something that I'm going to have to work out on the way.  

A GUY'S GOT TO HAVE A DREAM, RIGHT?

This is my plan and this is my dream.  I want to know what individuals along the border have to say about their own communities in their own words, not from a textbook or news blurb.   I hope to be able to help them as they see fit and eventually educate and encourage others to do the same.  I dream that I can engender free thought and social activism to the benefit of individuals and cultures along the border and beyond.

Taking this trip and writing this book is one way to accomplish this dream.  It is my way.   I have no ambitions of being a Che Guevarra, a Lance Armstrong or a Kurt Vonnegut.  I have ambitions to live a life of service as the person that I am and hope to become, alternately ambitious, respectful and considerate.

Somebody once said that your success is directly proportionate to the amount of help you are willing to ask of those around you.   You all have had a profound impact upon my life thus far, so I am entirely willing to ask you of your help and guidance still.  For this project to be successful, it must be about more than me and my project and my journey.   It must be about you; it must be about us; it must be about diminishing thethem.  I invite any suggestions and criticisms that you have.