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Today we had the privilege of going to see artifacts made by women and children of Mayan descent. The organization that we talked with was Weaving for Justice, which is a non-profit organization that sells a variety of things made by weavers in Chiapas. The organization sends all the proceeds back to the predominantly-female weavers. Throughout the museum we got to learn about the history of weaving and the challenges the women have faced in order to preserve their traditions. Despite the struggles they have dealt with, the women are still able to successfully pass along their traditions through their children, such as, weaving, embroidering, and wearing traditional clothing. We also had the chance to explore different pottery, ranging from ancient pieces to newer ones, from different parts of Mexico. This was an amazing experience because we got to learn about communities further from the border and how the issues surrounding the border affected these Mayan communities. Many students ...

Driving through the sandy streets of Ciudad Juarez, observing the welcoming community, and following along the inconsistent steel border, I felt a confluence of emotions. As students of Lakeside, conversations surrounding privilege are abundant and familiar - but talking can only get you so far. Today we took the extra step, or an hour-long drive, and finally crossed the border, a day we had all been waiting for. We were exposed to the life that could’ve been.  After eating a delicious, home-cooked meal encompassing flavorful taquitos, colorful hibiscus tea, and a diverse palette of sauces we engaged in discussion with two powerful local women, Estella and Berta, who run Biblioteca Para La Vida. The two had moved roughly 30 years ago, each with five children in search of land and in hope of a life with opportunity. Battling major setbacks such as a lack of food, water, electricity, money and even a house fire, their four-by-four wood panel houses withstood the hardships, but most i...

Throughout the trip, I have seen many different basketball hoops. Some – like the hoop on which we played with students from California – stand on blue and green courts, vibrant and cheerful. Other hoops sit atop dusty school playgrounds. But some, like the hoops in the dim, weathered gym that has been converted to a shelter for undocumented immigrants, are taped up and broken. The people that sit under them are simply trying to survive – they have no time to play basketball.  I have begun to realize the immense and unearned privilege that I gained from being born in the United States. By day five, after witnessing the struggles that so many face immigrating to this country, I started to feel helpless. With each presentation, I become more enraged. Yesterday, for example, we spoke to a University of Texas at El Paso professor who explained that, despite the fact that U.S. foreign policy caused much of the turmoil that forces Latin Americans to immigrate, the country refuses to he...

To start day 5 of our trip, we had an early morning before driving to El Paso. We talked to 2 border patrol agents, before heading over to a restaurant called Mayapan, which provides training and work for displaced female factory workers who were unemployed when factories moved to the economic free zone south of the border. After that, we visited the Chamizal National Memorial and learned about the Chamizal Dispute. Finally, we got coffee at a Vyable Cafe before heading over to UTEP to talk to a professor of Chicano studies.  Talking to Border Patrol was an interesting experience because a lot of us came into it with a somewhat negative impression of what they do. However, the border agents made it clear that they are proud of the work they do. They described how their commitment to their work helps save lives. At one point, a member of another group that was attending the talk asked how many lives they’ve saved, and the agent responded “We do it every day.”  The most interes...

Today was an action packed day for our group. We started off the day early in a district courtroom, and were able to attend a handful of online court sessions reviewing various cases. The common themes among the cases were ‘Re-entry into the United states after deportation’ and ‘Conspiring to import aliens’. Both of these cases were very interesting to hear about, as we were able to hear examples of maximum punishments for each of these offenses, and how these punishments changed between each different case. One prominent aspect of the punishments that a lot of us noticed was the prominent fines. For one case involving fentanyl, the court said that the maximum fine would be 5 million dollars. After all of the cases, the magistrate judge who was handling the docket gave us the opportunity to ask questions. When prompted about the fines, he stated that oftentimes the maximum fines aren’t even approached, and that sometimes fines aren’t even designated.  After the court case, we got t...

Today was the second day of our trip, and also Easter Sunday. The first thing that we did was attend a church service at Iglesia Luterana Cristo Rey (a lutheran church) and participated in their bilingual Easter service. There were two pastors, Rose Mary Sanchez-Guzman and Juan De Dios Lopez, and both rotated between speaking Spanish and English and all the songs were in Spanish. While not all of our group is religious, or speaks Spanish, the service was very powerful and we all came away with many takeaways. One especially poignant moment for me was Pastor Rose Mary’s sermon, when she connected the followers of Jesus and their fears in the moments after his death for being prosecuted due to their faith with the fear of many of the undocumented immigrants in the greater El Paso area. Additionally, she spoke of the fear in the hearts of people in countries facing violence and turmoil, as well as in the US and many issues facing her community such as drug abuse, gun violence, and covid. ...