Crossing the Border

Sipping coffee in front of my computer, I read online of the executive order to freeze the “deterrent” of family separation toward those migrants meaning to circumvent US border patrol and enter US territory silently and unnoticed. It brought to my mind old images of parents with their children in hand — those who did make it unnoticed through the border — clutching their scared toddlers and young children as they make their way in cars, trucks, or on foot through the deserts of the Southwest, a mixture of wonder, fear, and anticipation gliding up their spines, paradoxically energizing and chilling.

In fact, that’s what I was picturing when, three weeks earlier, sixteen young boys and girls from Santa Ana, CA came to the camp for a week. Like any other group of kids in their last week of 6th grade, they were by then fully in summer mode. By Tuesday afternoon, I had little energy left for them. They were loud, bursting with energy, too-easily distracted, and heard not a word of what I said. We were scheduled to go on a hike, and I wanted to get their respect before we went somewhere I could potentially lose one of them. So I tried something new.

Throughout my days there with different groups every week, I’d been seeing repeatedly that when the kids feel like you know them a little, they open up immediately towards you. Before we went anywhere, I asked all kinds of silly questions like: “are you a nice group?” “Are you a funny group?” “Who are the adventurous ones?” “Who are the inside people?” “Who should I watch out for?” (this one was especially fun for the kids to answer, as they all swore themselves to be angels, but denounced everyone else as ‘the troublemakers’)

This worked unbelievably well, as a group consensus formed that Carlos and Eddie were the troublemakers; Yania, Victoria, and Serena were the angels; Julia was an outdoorsy person; Megan and Isabella were couch potatoes; and so on. Really, I wasn’t as interested in their answers; I’d find out soon enough who they were by their actions. Instead, I privately celebrated as a kind of barrier was broken between us which allowed them to let me in a little bit. Not unconditionally, of course, but they most definitely found a level of comfort with me that allowed them to let their guards down, and not have to watch their back against me so much. It made them want to know me more as well, and I was fielding all kinds of questions as we set out on our hike.

As the mountains opened before us, they revealed a sparse landscape checkered with dead trees and burnt-up vegetation. Megan asked if it was a desert, and it wasn’t surprising she believed it to be one, especially with all the cacti flanking our path.

“Chaparral is what it’s called,” I said to her, glancing every now and then at the kids up ahead to make sure they weren’t too far away.

“The fire recently ran through here,” I told them, “otherwise the place would be a lot more green.”

“Not a desert,” agreed Julia, saying she believed deserts were located further south.

“What’s the difference?” asked Megan. Not too sure of the full distinction myself, I just told her chaparral was halfway between a forest and a desert, and hoped I was correct.

“This is what it must look like along the border,” said Luis to no one in particular, and while I silently rejoiced that no one pitched me any follow-up questions that would have exposed my ignorance, Carlos hears him and on a sudden burst of inspirations, screams wildly:

“We’re crossing the border! Everyone, we’re crossing the border!”

With that, the gauntlet was thrown, and two other boys followed him whooping down the mountainside. Suddenly, there appeared ICE agents all over the place trying to capture the little twelve year olds, while four or five girls behind me shrieked with laughter. I had no idea what to do, but realizing i had about as little experience in this subject as anyone, I held my tongue.

Luis must have noticed my discomfort, for he shouted out to his classmates to stop. “They shouldn’t be saying that because it’s disrespectful to the people who have been through that,” he said, and looks at me for confirmation.

“Maybe, it could be, Luis. I don’t know — I’ve never been in that situation before.”

He looked at me slightly quizzically, perhaps surprised at a grown up who didn’t know what was okay to say and what wasn’t. Thankfully, I didn’t just leave it at that, and I asked whether he ever knew anyone who had crossed the border.

“Yeah, me.”

Luis’ response triggered another cascade, this time of revelation. Within seconds, I found out that Yania had been brought when she was a kid, and so was Carlos, Eduardo, Victoria, Julia, and Serena, and those were just the ones who were next to me when I asked. A few others were born here months or years after their parents had settled. My eyes must have went wide then, because I didn’t respond back immediately. Instead, I just walked and listened to them tell me what they knew about the story of their arrival, of their parents’ arrival. I was genuinely absorbed by what they were telling me.

There was a part of me that couldn’t help making a comparison between myself and them. Here I was, the model of legal, of documented or status-ed American, with the birth certificate and the passport and everything. I was born here. In the mythology of natural citizenship, I was basically spawned from the dirt and gravel of the greater L.A. basin. These kids, Luis and Yania and Julia and all the others, were big question marks in my field of vision; their presence irreconcilable with what i knew to be fact: that a piece of paper is enough to claim a land and not visa-versa.

Or not?

A tug on my arm brought me back to life. Sebastian was complaining and looking his saddest about Eddie, who threw sticks on the ground at his feet, trying to trip him up. Yania and Serena were talking about their parents a couple yards back, while Julia was skipping from rock to rock beside me. I had to tell Guillermo to stop messing with the park fence, which made Eric smile with devious satisfaction at his friend’s chastisement. Carlos continued to juke his pursuers, and called back at us to join him in the game. I smiled in refusal, knowing I had to pretend to be a grown up, perhaps so they could continue to play as kids, though at that moment not so unhappy to be doing it.

My mirth melted when I noticed Lana’s glare. Her eyes followed Carlos with a hawkish intensity that missed nothing, and his hooping and hollering brought no smile to her. Transfixed by her chilling stare, I thought I saw gravity in her look, as well as a slight unhappiness. Trying to solve a problem, maybe, or put what are supposed to be two twos together that keep adding up to five; she’s looking to make sense of it all, so she absorbs every detail of what she sees, gathering everything up into that gigantic library that must be lurking behind those cavernous eyes. I’m actually apprehensive of the conclusions she may one day come to. And yet I’m eager as well. Her present silence makes me think she might one day find her voice in writing; if she does, what will she say of this place she calls home, where she is both a child and a question mark? What will she write about its people? And what will she envision as its possibilities? She will undoubtedly draw her conclusions then from her experiences now, and I hope for the sake of the people who live here that she sees love, compassion, and kindness in greater volume than violence and antagonism.