First Essay

 

When I was in high school I had the opportunity to go to Mexico to help build houses for a family in need.  I did this trip with my church youth group all four years of high school and I’m convinced it impacted my life just as much as the families we were helping.  Until then I had only crossed one “border” into a different country on a trip from California to British Columbia with my mother and stepfather.  I was about ten and we stayed in Victoria, Canada.  Fast forward to my freshman year of high school and preparing to make my first trip to Mexico.  We would be going in association with an organization called Amor Ministries that according to their website “provides mission trip opportunities to Mexico to build houses alongside families in need”.  In the Spring we made our trip and stayed in San Diego before crossing the border into Tijuana, Mexico.  California is quite a diverse state which adds to its beauty.  Once you get to San Diego though it becomes clear that you’re very close to Mexico, truly authentic Mexican food is a little more accessible and you can see some of the cultural influence a bit more.  You could say that San Diego is a “contact zone”.  Charles Long in referencing Mary Louise Pratt refers to the  “contact zone” which Pratt describes as a “space of colonial encounters, the space which peoples geographically and historically separated come into contact with each other and establish on-going relations, usually involving conditions of cercion, radical inequality, and intractable conflict” (Long 16).  

My memories of crossing the actual border into Mexico are as follows, everyone got very serious and we had to sit silently until we passed through.  The adult driving would talk to someone at the border, they would look into the car and walk around with dogs.  I’m not fully aware of exactly what was being communicated back and forth but I imagine they were saying who we were and what our purpose was there.  Once we drove across the border it was very obvious that we were in a different country.  Tijuana was dusty and the hills were covered with houses stacked one on top of another.  We would camp in tents with all the other church groups at the Amor campsite.  We didn’t shower for a week, except by dumping freezing water on ourselves and we used outhouses (which we called Banos and thought we were being cute).  After spending our first night at camp we left early to head to where we would be building the house.  Almost always the family was living in a situation where their shelter was essentially garage doors put together.  We would spend the week laying foundation, building frames of walls that would get wrapped in chicken wire and then we would stucco the exterior.  The inside was separated into three “rooms” but was still rather bare bones.

Over the time we were there we learned how to work very hard, which is always a good lesson for teenagers.  I think the most valuable lesson for me though was to witness first hand just how privileged I was.  One example of this is in the way the family made us lunch one year.  One day we were working on the house, the family made us a meal of fresh tortillas, beans and rice.  What we found out later on was that the father had spent what would be equivalent to about a month’s wages to prepare this meal which included filtered water (because they knew we were sensitive to the water there).  After a morning of hard work, it was the best meal I had ever had.  The children had very little if any toys and the family overall did not have much but they seemed happy.

When we began our drive back home, once again we saw the stark contrast while crossing over the border.  Merchants lined the road up to the border crossing selling blankets and various souvenirs.  After waiting in line and crossing in silence, we entered San Diego and in our naive and ignorant teenage minds, felt relieved to be back in “civilization” with flushing toilets and running water once again.  What we had not really thought about much before that experience was that those very basic things that existed in our homes were in fact a privilege.  I think that in some sense we might have even seen ourselves as “better” because we lived in comfort and it didn’t take too long for the novelty of that trip to wear off before we were once again thinking about what new things we wanted or whatever high school drama was taking place.

A few years ago my family lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan and we experienced another “border” of sorts.  We lived in a rather nice neighborhood and our kids attended an elementary school several blocks away.  Our kids (being mostly white and ¼ Thai) were actually in the minority at this school that was made up of mostly black and latino students.  When we would reach the street that our church was on and then cross over to the street the school was on, we crossed a very clear yet invisible border where the houses were a little more run down, the cars were older and most of the families were not white.  Why did this line exist?  I don’t really know the history behind the area to answer that question but it was very disturbing to witness.  My husband was a seminary student so the only reason we lived in this nice, large house on the “other side” was because the landlord was connected to the seminary and gave us a deal.  This border of sorts was not physical, there was no line to wait in and you didn’t need your ID to cross; this border was more of an economical and racial one.  This was a border that very clearly demonstrated the effects of systemic racism.

The experiences I had with “borders” as mentioned above are understood well through the lens of power as Trouillot describes in Silencing the Past:

The production of a historical narrative cannot be studied, therefore, through a mere chronology of silences...they only crystallize aspects of historical production that best expose when and where power gets into the story….Power is constitutive of the story.  Tracking power through various “moments” simply helps emphasize the fundamentally processual character of historical production, to insist that what history is matters less than how history works; that power itself works together with history...A warning from Foucault is helpful: “I don’t believe that the question of ‘who exercises power?’ can be resolved unless that other question ‘how does it happen?’ is resolved at the same time.  Power does not enter the story once and for all, but at different times and from different angles.  It precedes the narrative proper, contributes to its creation and to its interpretation...In history, power begins at the source (Trouillot 28).

I do not know enough about the history of the United States, Mexico or specifically Grand Rapids, Michigan to speculate as to when, where and how power entered the story but even in my ignorance it is clear that it played and continues to play a role.  The one common thread that I can see is the status, wealth and privilege of white people over the “other”.  There is a clear border drawn, whether physical or figurative between those that are white, have citizenship, “good” jobs and money and those that are not white, do not have citizenship in the US and/or live in poverty.  I’m sure that if I traveled around the United States I would see “borders” like I saw in Michigan everywhere.  At some point in the story there was a group of people that held their position in society over another and the latter lost a piece of their humanity as a result.  Thus we have systemic racism in the U.S.  Whether overtly or unknowingly, this posturing continues today and though it is mind boggling to me, we still have white supremacy.

I believe that if we are to heal and move forward, we must learn about our true history no matter how painful and be willing to humble ourselves and listen.  If we are unwilling to hear the stories of our neighbors, the true stories, and the ways that power has been used to weaken, lessen and destroy opportunity; we will not be able to truly abolish racism in this country.  I am learning in this course that borders are not necessarily a good or bad thing but something to be aware of and sensitive to why they exist.

Works Cited

Long, Charles, “Religious Interpretations of America”- Ellipsis: The Collected Writings of Charles H. Long p.16

Trouillot, Michel-Rolph, Silencing The Past: Power And The Production of History p.28