Beyond Saguero Bliss

I'm standing at another crossroads, la otra encrucijada. I am alone again, but this time I have no guitar in my hands. From the Rio Grande/Bravo the multinational forest of US/Mexico borderland stretches out before me. I have arrived at the banks of decision , muddied by the struggle as hands and hearts gasp for last breaths in the chilly waters of her currents. This river is split down the middle and owned by two countries, patrolled by one. This river-receiver splits a whole land in two. I search through the half eaten elotes (corn cobs), the multicolor plastic bags hurled up into tree branches by an errant windstorm or car tires, looking for a sign of movement.

In this deserted park, residents of Nuevo Laredo are taking Sunday, parked in vehicles with little bands of people, all too aware of this psychological journey. Yet just one mile across asphalt and river the same land offers a different landscape. As I turn river rocks over in my fingers and contemplate how people who have never learned to swim ford the stream tied to car tires, I am again struck by the answer to the question...why would you cross a river you can't swim across?


I traveled through Texas to complete my trip from Maine to Mexico, and to look at programs that assist migrants across the most dangerous leg of the journey. My first stop in US borderland was Laredo, TX and it's twin, Nuevo Laredo in Mexico. As luck would have it, I met a young woman in New Orleans who invited me to stay with her family, her Mexican parents and their Mexican-American children in Laredo. My first night with the Hernandez family convinced me that I would do anything to stall my departure. They were warm, open-hearted folks with a foot on both sides of the debate. Interestingly enough, they have two daughters working as civil servants, one as a probation officer, and the other as a parole officer. They have a range of experiences with US Border Patrol. They would become my escorts into Mexico.

Fernando and his wife work in Mexico and live in Texas, as many Mexican families have done for years. Their children were all born in the US, and my friend in New Orleans grew up without learning the language of her parents. In fact, we train as interpreters together, and I often catch her inventing words in Spanish. Reflected in her language is the survival of her parents; to become more "American" meant having greater benefits in this society.

Between dinners of stuffed chiles and hot Mexican chocolate and bread, slumbers filled with dreams of cactus fields and native drumbeats, I find "New" Laredo. Traveling with Fernando I visit a social worker friend of his at a public hospital, a crowded waiting room in the middle of the city. This gentleman describes what it is like to work with a population dependent on travel to the US. He is a team of one, and I apologize to at least ten people as he ushers me into his office for an appointment. His primary responsibility is to talk to people about benefits, but he sees a lot of mothers caught in the real war at the border, the drug war.

We travel to the Casa del Migrante, a drop-in center for migrants at all stages of the journey. I speak with a young man there, himself a Mexican native who lived in Chicago for years. I feel very much at home in their kitchen, where there is an industrial-sized pot cooking for many, the smell of burnt rice warm and inviting. The Casa provides housing, food, resources.

Over the border back into her US counterpart, Laredo, we have no trouble passing through immigration. Mine is an unearned privilege, I think, as I watch the faces of my hosts turn to relief as we pass the checkpoint.And they do this everyday....

Back in town I ask a young man what you could do for fun here. He suggests I climb up to the top of the highest building in town and check out the Border Patrol checkpoints. Hmmm.....

A call from a friend in El Paso sets my next course, and I have to say goodbye to the Hernandez family. But not before the grandmother in the family, a shy, girlish woman in her seventies, presses a twenty into my hand. Get yourself something on the road, she says...I know she somehow means to keep me safer.