Day 9

For the final day of our trip, we began with going to none other than our favorite farmers market in Las Cruces. As we strolled through the endless streets of tents and performers, I couldn’t help but to feel sentimental. It has only been a week since we came, but it feels like we have lived a lifetime. This time, greeting the same lady that sold us hot sauce and watching that upbeat violinist jump around again, the exploratory feeling was replaced with a feeling of familiarity, like we now know our way around town.

After returning from the farmers market, we cleaned up the house and welcomed Carmen, who led us in preparing gorditas for lunch, a traditional Mexican dish. We diced tomatoes, skinned potatoes, and made tortillas all while enjoying everyone's new favorite music: Cumbia. It was so good, we could not resist getting up and having a Cumbia dance party. Marta and Andres taught us the stepping patterns, and even Carmen stopped cooking to come join us. Finally, after finishing the gorditas and eating one of the best meals I’ve ever had, we had the privilege of hearing from Carmen about her experience as an immigrant. Before Carmen came to the US, she had everything in Juarez. A house, a job, a community, all one could ask for. However, after she adopted her youngest daughter who was born with a disability, she was forced to immigrate to the United States with a visa in search of healthcare to save her daughter's life. 

Immigration brought endless hardships in her life, but she was grateful for those who supported her throughout her journey. After 9/11 when immigration laws became more strict, all three of her sons were deported. In an interview to get her green card, she was asked why she didn't stay in Mexico. She responded, “If they told you your child was sick and a doctor in China could save them, would a wall or a river stop you? A mother will do anything for their child.” 

To end the penultimate day of our trip, we drove up to White Sands National Park. Before coming, I envisioned endless dunes of sand multiple stories tall. Little did I know it would be exactly as I imagined. We went sledding down the dunes, and enjoyed hours playing in the sand under the sun. As I walked to the top of a dune as the sun approached the horizon, I beheld a panoramic view of the park. I couldn’t help but to think back to what Carmen told us earlier. It doesn’t matter who you are, we are all brothers and sisters. The divisions of our society are created by no one but ourselves. I looked up to the sky and saw no borders. The beauties of our world such as these dunes should belong to all. 

Joseph C

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 6

Image
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...
Read more

Day 7

Image
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...
Read more

Day 4

Image
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...
Read more