Crossing with the Virgin: Stories from the Migrant Trail

Epilogue

Epilogue W e keep learning.At the end of each day on the trail, we return home overloaded with new experiences. We have learned that it doesn’t stop. Migration historically has been an integral part of the borderlands and still is. But, primarily, what we have learned is that the deaths in the desert result from a clash between the past and the present. A clash between an old restrictive way of thinking and a new inclusive reality. As with countries throughout the world, our culture is a product of all others. We see this in foreign goods we happily purchase in the markets , in scientific information discovered by the best minds from multiple nations, in the food we eat, in our multicultural arts and sports, in the people that walk our streets. Our culture is mixed; the word “immigrant ” doesn’t apply. Even during raids on the workplace by the U.S. government, officials end up apprehending people who are legal residents because officials can’t tell the difference. It is currently reported that one out of five U.S. citizens has a grandparent who came here from another country. The problem is bigger than the question, “If vegetables can cross the border, why can’t humans?” It is bigger than NAFTA, the agreement that permits U.S. corporations to undersell Mexican corn and sugarcane, causing loss of livelihood to Mexican farmers. It is bigger than building a $400 billion wall. It is bigger than immigration reform. It is bigger than a change of policies between the U.S. and Mexican governments. The problem is that the deaths on our Arizona desert are a result of a suffocating, nonfunctioning concept of “my world is better than your world.” This anachronistic thinking creates our last-ditch effort to keep people out of the United States by constructing military resistance to control a socioeconomic shift that has already occurred. Nation-states 208 stories from the migrant trail are a thing of the past. There is mass migration throughout the world as people from Africa enter Italy and Spain, Turks enter Germany, and those from Tajikistan look for work in Russia. On our U.S.–Mexican border, a wall that is medieval in structure and concept is no more than a speed bump in slowing migration from Mexico and Central and South America. We have learned here in our border community that aid from humanitarian groups is strong and is built individual by individual. People give by spending time on the desert, working to change unjust laws, or donating money. The Tohono O’Odham, whose land was divided by the international line, historically have helped people on both sides of the line. Arizona Latinos were giving support long before Anglo humanitarian groups were formed. We have learned that migration is not going away. We are now an internationally technologically savvy generation of people with a shareinformation mentality. This information-sharing activity eliminates and creates new boundaries that are not drawn on traditional world maps. To name a few changes, the new world “map” is comprised of globalization (created by individual and societal technological interaction), new forms of transportation, and communication such as satellite television, GPS tracking—so common that we have it in our pets—and instant Internet information. By letting go of the notion of nation-states, these changes create a different “map” of the world with no borderlines as we have known them, making a more interdependent world. With twentieth-century medical advancements setting the stage for an unparalleled population explosion, the high-speed exchange of personal and impersonal information, and new abilities to travel, the powerful waves of migration we now witness are not going away. Migration in many forms is here to stay. Perhaps these massive technological connections will bring solutions . Survival on this small planet carries a mandate for cooperation, tolerance, and a multilateral approach to the resolution of international conflict. With this tectonic shift in communication and global thinking, we create new ways to balance the need for international community against the old battleground of individual desire. We are in the process of creating a bridge across the no-man’s land of political polarization. The fences of isolationism no longer serve. Inclusive, solution-based thinking is a far cry from solving international problems with a fifteenfoot -tall metal wall. ...