On Falling into a Routine and Shaking Things Up

There are, it seems, a few tricks to living here without losing one’s mind.

1) Sometimes there really is only so much of being treated like an animal that a person can take. Reasserting your dignity – your right to exist as you are – is just fine. Don’t be afraid to be a smart-ass. Border Patrol wants to know what you think about the “immigration problem”? Tell them your father’s an immigrant.
2) Let yourself become bored with the Border. Yeah, it’s a pain in the ass, but it’s the same, lame sort of power-tripping-America-induced pain every day. Bonus points if you can laugh at the phallic statues strategically placed on the US side.
3) Don’t forget that… Oh, yeah, we’re actually here to work! Pour yourself into that creative writing class you’ve always wanted to take.
4) Luxuriate in the 15-minute aquatic wonder that is one’s daily shower. And wash your feet and calves before you go to bed.
5) Take notes on everything. And then ramble about it all over again in your blog. The weekly mental detoxing and the solitude that it entails will do you good.
6) Read a book in your native tongue. ...Or at least pretend to be doing so until you realize that you are, in fact, reading a translation of an originally French, Hindi, or Japanese work.
7) Think of giving out your phone number as an investment in meeting people outside of the program, even if they never call again when they realize you just want to be friends. If they are okay with this, then not only are they an investment in becoming mobile independent of your family, but real keepers, too.
8) Suck it up and learn to enjoy the food. …But still jump on every chance you get to eat fruits and vegetables.
9) Realize that, since nighttime transportation is an issue, sleeping arrangements are flexible. For example, the three-nights-at-home-as-normal, two-nights-elsewhere, and two-nights-with-other-people-at-your-home formula you tried last week actually worked wonders.
10) Keep your eyes, ears, mind and heart open. You can learn something from anywhere, anything or anyone. And be irrevocably changed in the process.

The events of this weekend starkly underlined that last one for me.


I went to my first protest ever on Saturday. The fact that it was my first is kind of funny since I actually helped organize it (I did some of the translation and all of the editing for the press release announcing the event... and then got randomly interviewed by Channel 4 News). Anyways, the problem was that for the past few weeks members of the Chaparral, NM community have been subject to various violations of their civil and human rights alike . The county sheriff and his deputies had, often under false pretences and on the basis of racial profiling, been entering homes without search warrants. They then proceeded to question community members about their identification and, in many cases, went on to demand to see social security cards. In so doing, local law enforcement was taking on the role of the Migra. They either called the Migra in or arrested people themselves and drove them to Immigration detention centres. They pulled children out of school. They deported parents and left the children. They beat people. They spread threatening rumours to dissuade participation in the protest. And then they had the unmitigated gall to drive by the protest in unmarked cars but still in full uniform. The sense of intimidation and insecurity that all of this has created in Chaparral is intolerable. In one week alone, over 142 students were absent from school because families feared raids. And in some cases entire families have not left their homes in over nine days. Imagine, then, seeing over 200 people take the street anyway.

Imagine, too, Friday night, when we danced so hard that we literally shook the ground beneath our feet. Now, admittedly, there were thousands of us (and why not, since it was a free concert by two classic Mexican ska sensations). And, admittedly, it turns out that the plaza we were dancing on was perhaps not so brilliantly constructed over an underground parking lot, thus, by night’s end, leaving all of the cars below covered in a thin film of dust that had been shaken from the roof. But still… There was something rather beautiful in the notion of a rather battered people banding together to become earth shattering. Particularly since this rocking of the foundations was to be metaphorical as well. For while it’s true that a chorus of “hijo de Bush” – “son of a Bush” – got everyone particularly riled up, we danced our hardest to the more forward-looking social songs, the songs calling loudly to the stars with demands for solidaridad, libertad y justicia para todos los seres humanos, for all human beings, para todos nuestros hermanos, for all our brothers.

In short, this place is making me more generally aware and, in the process, politicizing me in ways I never anticipated. The unexpected, however, seems to be a theme here. Example:

After the protest on Saturday we crossed back into Juarez to see a pair of documentaries on Ska and Hip-hop culture in Mexico. It turns out that they were made by Roco, the lead vocalist of Maldita Vecindad which (together with Panteon Rococo) was one of the bands I'd seen on Friday. The craziness of the coincidences continues, however, when we find out that Roco is the friend of a friend of our program director. Thus, we are invited to Roco's friend's mansion for an after-party and the story ends with 7 Border Studies students having a 2-5 AM poolside discussion with Roco and a few DJs from the Distrito Federal about the socio-political art scene in Mexico. Go figure.

PS The Phrase of the Week is "Ando acapella", which literally translates to "I walk acapella", but which, figuratively, has got to be the single most clever and beautiful way of saying "I go commando" imaginable. The phrase applies to a good 6 or so out of the 20 of us so we've become rather fond of it for both its practical and intellectual value.