February newsletter, better late than never - Katie in Mexico

07-08 Mexico - Katie and Sarah
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Breaking down the border
Cuernavaca, Mexico Newsletter
February 2008
By Katie

My experience in Mexico is constantly challenging me to see the familiar through new eyes. From daily interactions with friends and my host family to discussing major socio-economic-political issues with the volunteer group, I am confronting new ways of thinking about the realities of our world while also confronting my own perspectives that I have grown up hearing and believing. As I reflected in one of my previous newsletters, “I am because you are.” Through a daily existence in a country, culture, and people that are different than me, I am more aware of who I am and what advantages I have from being born a white, middle-class, university-educated female in the United States. I am becoming aware of how my comfortable lifestyle is made possible by the working hands of people from every corner of this earth. I am realizing how my way of looking at something is not the only way, nor is it the best way. I am finding an infinite array of shades of gray in a world that sometimes tries to be black and white.

At the end of February, our volunteer group went to the US-Mexican border to learn about immigration, border policies, and to confront new perspectives on this particularly familiar issue. It is a common topic of debate in the United States, one on which almost everyone has a few opinions. Walking into this year in Mexico, I was confronted with an overwhelming amount of new information, stories, and views on immigration… but this time from the other side of the Wall. The perspective that I brought with me to Mexico was shattered. Now I am picking up those pieces and gluing them together with the pieces of my Mexican mentality to find a truth that resonates on both sides of the border within me.

I find that I am struck with a mix of emotions when reflecting on my constantly evolving understanding of immigration. I am frustrated and hopeless with the governments that fail to protect the needs of the people by creating or allowing dangerous policies to pass or by keeping already flawed policies in place. I am in awe of the resilience of the people who live in a system of injustice but fight a daily struggle of survival in jobs that are more strenuous than I can imagine for wages that I am too spoiled to ever consider. I am empathetic to those who are forced to immigrate, the last option to keep their family alive, and I find myself hoping and praying that they will cross safely and find a job. I am outraged by the ineffective waste of money that the US has thrown at “tightening border security” which has done nothing to curb migration but has forced migrants to risk their lives to cross dangerous desert passes resulting in hundreds of deaths every year. I am heartbroken when hearing about families that have suffered the loss of a father or a son or a brother who tried to cross. I was ashamed of my home when a Mexican asked me, “Why do you hate us?”

The migrants searching for work are hungry and have no hope of finding decent wages at home. After exhausting all other options, they have to leave their family and their home to enter into a country that openly discriminates and rejects them – migration isn’t a desirable choice, it is the last choice. Nonetheless, they are willing to risk their life spending several days crossing dangerous parts of the desert to feed themselves and their families. They aren’t criminals; they are victims of flawed trade agreements and government policies. They are in need.

It makes me wonder what role I will have now that my eyes have been opened to a new view of immigration. How will I live into my new understanding of the reality of immigration and what will I do with it? Doing or saying nothing is not an option for me, the call is just to clear to ignore. The call to serve my brothers and sisters transcends borders, racial lines, and language or cultural barriers. How will I follow my faith and the call to serve the “least of these my brothers?” (Matthew 25:40) How will I serve the stranger in the midst from my home in the Midwest?

The past six months, and especially our border trip, have remolded my understanding and my opinions about immigration. It is a situation that is too multi-faceted for me to sum up in a newsletter. Trust me, I tried - it was 5 pages and I could have written more. I have created a few entries in my blog about various aspects of immigration and I passionately invite you to explore some of the information and my reflections there.