Remembering the 5,000 Dead on U.S. Border

Playas de Tijuana. November 1, 2008. Slightly over 5,000 men, women and children have died trying to cross into the United States since operation Gate Keeper began in the early '90s. Is it just another statistic? Mental figures, without flesh and bones, without laughter and dreams; do we conceptually stroke our brains; while our hearts atrophy?

What is it about the modern soul that can process obscene, tragic data and merely transfer it to utilitarian process (like the cursor flicking before me on the computer monitor); an intellectual concept, another stored tidbit of information, always gathering – never transforming?

For me, ever time I read the accelerating reports of immigrant deaths; a great sadness for little Maria and Gina, like great spasms of reflux oozes from deep inside. Also, a great hatred of the Ugly American in me; its greed, selfishness and arrogance, pushes me forward toward common Mexican citizenship with my lover.

It was several years ago that I met Carlos near the Zocalo Plaza in Mexico City. A hustler at night, he attended the University during the day. For several years, he had been supporting his sisters after their parents went north, Otra Lado, to find work. They had disappeared into the vast deserts; never a word, they were gone. Maria and Gina, showed me their single, faded, black-and-white photo of their parents. They were trying desperately to hold on to brief memories. There was a small shrine; cheap candles, a broken crucifix on a wobbly table in their one room shack, perched on the side of a deep ravine.

So today, standing in Tijuana, with my Mexican family; I watch as Border Angels put names on the paper ribbons, attach them to that perverted fence to show the world that some of us will never forget the deaths and that we will fight like hell for those to come. Here, this morning, the day before Dia de los Muertos, human rights supporters have gathered on both sides of the fence to hear Enrique Morones, founder of Border Angels, tell international media, including a news crew from CNN, that his group will continue "savings lives and making a difference."

As I look through the fence which slices through Border Field Park, the cruelty of the North American heart shows itself in the plastic mesh that is draped across the old fence, forcing activists to congregate in a small area near the monument. For decades, since the State of California dedicated this spot as an official state park, dubbing it "Friendship Park" separated families have come here to touch one another. Husband and wives kissed through the wire mesh, doting grand-mothers, sitting in folding chairs could watch their grand-children play and grow through the years. Families passed food and dreams back and forth; a tiny space of connection and hope.

Yet, paranoid, exploitative officials at Homeland Security have been given liberty to destroy the very concept of Mexican-U.S. friendship by building a secondary fence through the center of the park, like something out of a Terminator movie, creating a 90-foot-wide wasteland, a militarized no-mans-land which is staffed by machines. Their metal inards controlling motion sensors, lights, sirens - an anti-human matrix.

But as human beings are oppressed and exploited, so too is the Earth. Homeland Security has begun to rip and claw at the environment of the entire border area, particularly in the sensitive Tijuana River National Estuarine Reserve. They plan to extend their militarized zone from Border Field Park to the San Ysidro Border Crossing by filling in canyons, blocking off creeks and leveling hills.

The Estuary is a valuable wildlife habitat located near where the Tijuana River dips into the territorial United States before spilling into the Pacific Ocean. Its sand dunes and salt marshes are refuge for critically threatened and endangered birds such as the Western Snowy Plover, the California Least Tern and the Light-footed Clapper Rail.

As I lean against the border monument of Italian Marble, assembled in 1851 to be walked around and admired; I touch my Mexican lover's shoulder and glare at the chain-link fence that separates one side from the other, which cleaves the North American heart from the Mexican soul. What a sick, degenerate race of nationals we have become!

Those who can find the courage to care must continue to support groups like Border Angels. Everyday they are out in the deserts, where temperatures can reach 127 degrees, creating water stations. Perhaps, if they had been there when Maria and Gina's parents attempted to cross? Meanwhile, Border Angels also establish winter stations, with storage bins of heavy clothes, food and water, in San Diego mountain areas. They need financial support and volunteers. Go to http://www.borderangles.org, together we can save a life. Perhaps we can even save the lives of parents.