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15 : Living as a Wetback—Swimming the Rio Grande
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15: J!ivinr as a7f(/hackcLimminr the !]lio 9ranie "You put a million men along this border. It won)t stop them from coming across.» - W G. Luckey, border patrolman "rr J here are a million people coming over," border patrolman W.G. (Bill) Luckey told me, as I rode in a van with him along the U.S.-Mexico border. "And they have a million ways to cross." I did not tell Luckey, but I too wanted to be one of those million, to attempt to cross without documents, as did the wetbacks. And why was this seed planted within me as what I wanted most in life to do? A desire rising no doubt from questions. Once the land I was traversing with Bill Luckey belonged to Mexico, and then Americans took it and it became our land. And at times Americans sent representatives to Mexico and urged Mexicans to come here and work. Now I watched border patrolmen such as Luckey apprehend, handcuff and jail the Mexicans. I was a part of the history of U.S.-Mexican relations. If I better understood this history, would I not better understand myself? I had heard about "the olden days" from my father. "When I was growing up, the United States did not have illegal aliens," he once told me. He reminded me that 153 154 In Their Shoes most early immigrants, as our own forebears, came from Europe, and the gates were so open that almost anyone with steamship fare could make it here. The Statue of Liberty welcomed the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to be free. My ancestors, the Europeans and especially Anglo-Saxons, were warmly received as legal immigrants. President Kennedy summed up this experience for all Americans when he said, "We are a nation of immigrants." Now we live in a different era from my father's time. The United States, like most other countries, has quotas. Authorities require documents. But those without documents cross in record numbers, no one ever being able to give a definite figure of how many illegals there are in the United States. Estimates vary from two to twenty million. In Washington, D.C., before leaving for the U.S.Mexico border, I got acquainted with Raul Yzaguirre, head of the National Council of La Raza, an organization working for Hispanic rights. I arranged to stay awhile in the home of his sister, Teresa Tijerina, in the Texas border town of McAllen. One day, leaving all my personal possessions in Teresa's home, I boarded a bus crowded with Mexicans. I carried no identification papers whatsoever, but I knew that entering Mexico would be the easy part. The bus rolled up to the port of entry and guards waved us through. Immediately we were in Mexico, in a town called Reynosa, where I stepped off the bus, without passport, Social Security card, traveler's checks, Visa or American Express, only some bills and a little change in my pocket. I was dressed simply in old slacks and a blouse. I had told Teresa that I would be gone for awhile and would return for my personal belongings, but she had no idea of my whereabouts . I notified no one in the United States where I was or what I was doing. Moreover, I knew no one in the [18.191.174.168] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 21:06 GMT) Living as a Wetback-Swimming the Rio Grande 155 Mexican town. I stood for a moment, lonely, reduced in spirit to a being smaller than a grain of sand. I walked to a park, and, sitting on a bench, I overheard two men talking in Spanish, a language that, over many years, I have come to understand. They were planning a crossing. One said he wasn't well, he couldn't go. I concentrated on the other. He was about five-foot-eight, in his mid-twenties, with a serious face, Indian features, with aquiline nose, high cheekbones and abundant, straight black hair. Instinctively, I felt I could trust him with my life. I was aware that it often is the stranger who proves to be my brother, my friend. The other man was leaving when I approached. Nodding toward the nearby Rio Grande River, I asked in Spanish, "Is it difficult?" "You want to cross?" "Yes." "To get a job or something?" "Something," I said. I dropped my head in silence. Perhaps my silence and bowed...