Reflections on a Summer in the Sonoran Desert, Part Five

In my experience, the world of academia can very easily come to see itself as an end in itself. I have friends and colleagues who will happily debate an esoteric question for hours, finding joy in the purely intellectual realm of the conversation. I walk the aisles of the library and shake my head in wonder that someone cared enough to write hundreds of pages about topics that are so seemingly irrelevant. I hesitate to condemn absolutely, because I understand the thirst for knowledge and the joy of learning, testing, challenging, and debating. But when I sit by the side of the road with someone like Martín, when I listen to the sorrow in the voice of someone like Rubén, or share in the indignation at human injustice with someone like Jesus, I cannot find much value in dedicating one’s life to words and thoughts, but never actions. I find a tremendous challenge in the words of Ghandi: “Whenever you are in doubt… apply the following test. Recall the fact of the poorest and weakest man you may have seen, and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be any use to him.” This is a radical prioritization; it is mirrored in the preferential option for the poor that is spoken of by liberation theology. Perhaps when the world we live in is a more just one there will be a place for dedicating resources to knowledge as nothing more than an end in itself. Until then, there is a very legitimate critique of the inefficacy of systems of higher education that do not use knowledge as a tool for social change to benefit those who are oppressed and marginalized.
Some of the people I am most inspired by are those who are led by their hearts, and are committed to bringing about a better world that they believe to be possible, but whose work is also informed by an intellectual analysis that comes directly from this commitment and vision of the world as they want it to be. This combination, which is all too rare, is what I struggle to find in my own life and work. I hope that my experiences providing humanitarian aid in the desert along the U.S.-Mexico border, coupled with the opportunities I have had to explore deeper structural questions at an intellectual level, will lead me to action that is thoughtful and effective. Being at the border, along with finishing a graduate education, has taught me that there are no easy answers. How to remain committed to the individuals whose stories I have come to know in the desert, but to see things in the broader sense, to work to change policies and to shape the future of a world that will be more just, more humane? After two years of graduate school and three summers at the border, I know beyond a doubt that I will grapple with these questions for the rest of my life.