In July of 2007, just before beginning a graduate program at American University, I came to the desert for the first time. I had spent a year living in a house of hospitality for those who had recently crossed the border in Texas, and had seen the exhaustion on the faces of the men, women, and children who knocked on our door seeking food, a place to rest, sometimes medical care, after having just made it across. Every week in the house we had a community celebration and mass of thanksgiving for the safe arrival of those who had come during the previous days. Each week, one person shared their testimonio, the story of their journey across the line into the U.S. I wanted to better understand that journey that I had heard described in such compelling, often heart-wrenching words. I wanted to be a part of trying to eliminate the death and the intense suffering that were a part of the equation for so many. I spent two weeks in the desert that summer before leaving to start classes. The next summer I came back for ten weeks. My life changed during that time. Everything seemed simpler, starker. The priorities of the rest of the world were backwards. All that really mattered was water. And a heart full of love, a heart that was resilient and could be broken open time and time again. A heart capable of tremendous compassion, in the sense of “suffering with” others. I came to see how upside-down the world in general was and the reality of the border in particular. I contemplated dropping out of school, giving up everything to stay and do this work. I ultimately decided not break these commitments, but to take a year, with the promise that I would return as soon as possible. That ended up being May of this year and this is how I came to be sitting on an isolated dirt road with Martín that day.
I try to remember the lessons I have learned over the past few years as both a graduate student and a humanitarian aid worker, a scholar and an activist, the times I have had a moment of realization or a deepening of understanding that has really altered my way of seeing things. I try to make the connections between the human encounters I have had at the border and the broader questions I have grappled with in an academic context. Sometimes the correlations are clear, sometimes they are not. At times I feel that I am nothing more than the keeper of this enormous repository of stories…
So many names, so many faces… Efren and his sister Elvia, who was so scared and so grateful to find herself with other women; Ignacio with the postcards from Puebla and Cruz who believed his open and bloody feet were a punishment from God for causing his family to suffer; Benjamin from Oaxaca; Felipe who was walking all the way to Tucson and had trouble keeping his eyes open for exhaustion; Edgar who picked lemons in California; Cristína and Jorge who were soñando de agua pura (dreaming of clean water) and who vomited when they finally drank our water; Jesús and Cruz who played soccer with us; Ignacio with the sprained – perhaps broken – ankle, who kept walking; Felipe with the six-year-old daughter with neurological problems que Dios les mandó (that God had sent them) and Vicente who made us laugh; Rubén who never smiled and who would have given up days before if it weren’t for his sick mother waiting for him; Juan who sobbed as I sat with him and whose body temperature after several days of walking was 105 degrees; Juan Carlos and Javier who were just boys; Elva who was the sole woman in a group of ten men; Gemmy who we promised medical attention to as he lay prone on the desert floor, his face contorted with pain, and who was deported hours later; Felipe who was medically evacuated and Pedro who he didn’t want to be separated from (when I close my eyes, I can still see little Pedro sitting all alone after they had taken Felipe away, surrounded by people in uniforms, so far from Oaxaca); Francisco whose entire body hurt; the other Francisco with the pale face and the huge eyes who had been vomiting; the five men whose names I can’t remember who woke me up at midnight and wanted coffee; Nelson who walked out of our camp singing; Cruz who gave his shoes away to a kid he met on the trail with a sprained ankle; Lucy who was unconscious when we found her; Aurora and the little girls, 4 and 7 years old, who just wanted to draw pictures, cook Top Ramen on the camp stove, and go on frog hunts; Sara who carried her two year old daughter over two mountain ranges while wearing flip-flops; little Cristian, age 4, who walked for two days all by himself and whose face was cut and scratched from the branches along the way … How can I remember each of them forever, with their unique stories and their own individual hopes and terrors. I don’t even know where any of them are right now. Which of them would not be walking the earth at this moment if it were not for our presence in the desert? Is it even worth thinking about? Hacemos lo que hacemos, ya basta (We do what we do, that's enough).
I try to remember the lessons I have learned over the past few years as both a graduate student and a humanitarian aid worker, a scholar and an activist, the times I have had a moment of realization or a deepening of understanding that has really altered my way of seeing things. I try to make the connections between the human encounters I have had at the border and the broader questions I have grappled with in an academic context. Sometimes the correlations are clear, sometimes they are not. At times I feel that I am nothing more than the keeper of this enormous repository of stories…
So many names, so many faces… Efren and his sister Elvia, who was so scared and so grateful to find herself with other women; Ignacio with the postcards from Puebla and Cruz who believed his open and bloody feet were a punishment from God for causing his family to suffer; Benjamin from Oaxaca; Felipe who was walking all the way to Tucson and had trouble keeping his eyes open for exhaustion; Edgar who picked lemons in California; Cristína and Jorge who were soñando de agua pura (dreaming of clean water) and who vomited when they finally drank our water; Jesús and Cruz who played soccer with us; Ignacio with the sprained – perhaps broken – ankle, who kept walking; Felipe with the six-year-old daughter with neurological problems que Dios les mandó (that God had sent them) and Vicente who made us laugh; Rubén who never smiled and who would have given up days before if it weren’t for his sick mother waiting for him; Juan who sobbed as I sat with him and whose body temperature after several days of walking was 105 degrees; Juan Carlos and Javier who were just boys; Elva who was the sole woman in a group of ten men; Gemmy who we promised medical attention to as he lay prone on the desert floor, his face contorted with pain, and who was deported hours later; Felipe who was medically evacuated and Pedro who he didn’t want to be separated from (when I close my eyes, I can still see little Pedro sitting all alone after they had taken Felipe away, surrounded by people in uniforms, so far from Oaxaca); Francisco whose entire body hurt; the other Francisco with the pale face and the huge eyes who had been vomiting; the five men whose names I can’t remember who woke me up at midnight and wanted coffee; Nelson who walked out of our camp singing; Cruz who gave his shoes away to a kid he met on the trail with a sprained ankle; Lucy who was unconscious when we found her; Aurora and the little girls, 4 and 7 years old, who just wanted to draw pictures, cook Top Ramen on the camp stove, and go on frog hunts; Sara who carried her two year old daughter over two mountain ranges while wearing flip-flops; little Cristian, age 4, who walked for two days all by himself and whose face was cut and scratched from the branches along the way … How can I remember each of them forever, with their unique stories and their own individual hopes and terrors. I don’t even know where any of them are right now. Which of them would not be walking the earth at this moment if it were not for our presence in the desert? Is it even worth thinking about? Hacemos lo que hacemos, ya basta (We do what we do, that's enough).
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