The Wall I Pretended Not to See

A half hour from my house stands an icon I used to rarely think about. It doesn’t look like much: stopped cars on a wide freeway, a low-lying government building. And in red letters, on a white overhang, a sign: Mexico.

The San Ysidro Port of Entry is considered one of the busiest border crossings in the world. About 300,000 people commute back and forth every day through this entry point between San Diego and Tijuana. The political boundary between the US and Mexico also marks the border with the greatest economic disparity of the world.

Growing up white in San Diego, I mostly ignored the border. Ignored the city and its restaurants, and hotels. Ignored the violence, ignored the plight of people deported, ignored the brutal iron wall that stands sentry in the waves on a beautiful beach in the borderland.

Why would I go to Tijuana, when everything I thought I needed was on this side of the fence? Why would I think about the border when it so rarely touched my life?

This isn’t true of every white person. I have friends who regularly travel to Baja—to surf, to vacation, to serve, to explore. Others seek out cheap medicine or healthcare, or the raucous, infamous Tijuana nightlife.

But despite my fluent Spanish, and growing up within spitting distance of a Spanish-speaking country, I’d only visited Tijuana twice—once as a kid, and once after college. I didn’t like it much either time—the pushy vendors, the activity we chose (shopping), the sense that “real” Mexico was further away, in the historic cities at Mexico’s center.

So like a lot of people in my hometown, I just didn’t think much about Tijuana, much like you ignore like an occasionally itchy tag in the back of a shirt.

A few years ago, though, I started attending a local Spanish-language church, and the border—so close, and so far away—got more uncomfortable. Less like an annoyance, and more like a wound. Less like someone else’s problem, and more like my own.

Why, I wondered, did I feel so disconnected to my sister city? Why, as a fluent Spanish speaker, had I only visited twice? Why, when I had gone, did I feel so uncomfortable?

What was wrong with Tijuana? No. What was wrong with me?

The spiked iron wall in the ocean divided family after family in my congregation. Women in my Bible study couldn’t go to serve on missions in their native country because they were undocumented, and would not be able to return. How could I pretend to ignore what the border meant to real human beings?

An undocumented  friend in my Bible study—I’ll call her M—sends her American-born daughters to visit their grandparents in Mexico every summer. M celebrates the closeness those visits create. But her daughter had a milestone birthday, and her dearest wish was to celebrate with her entire family, all in one place.

That simply isn’t possible. M and her husband can’t leave unless they exit permanently and yank their kids away from their native soil.

Another friend discovered she had liver cancer. Unable to afford treatment in the States, she went back to the public health system in Mexico. Her husband of decades couldn’t go with her; his income supported them both. When she grew worse and died near Mexico City, there was no way for him to return for her funeral.  No way for him to say goodbye.

I live without these restrictions. Why had I chosen to stay away?

Last fall, hoping to turn towards Tijuana, I asked my friend Lety if she and her husband, Juan Daniel, might visit the city with my daughters and me for a morning. We took the I-5 I’ve traveled thousands of times in my life until we passed the red letters marking our entry into Mexico. The road curved to slow motorists for potential stops, and then, so simply, so oddly, we were in a completely different country.

It’s so much weirder than taking a plane. It points out the split personalities that our borders create. Same land, same chaparral scrub brush, same rainfall, same ocean waves. Two completely different planets.

Perhaps the in-my-face abruptness is another reason I hesitate to cross.

That morning, I  expected to host, but in typical Latino fashion, Lety and Juan Daniel treated us to a generous hospitality my gringo heart still struggles to comprehend. We sampled local baked goods and toured the aquarium. We strolled through a garden, got tacos at a local stand. It was a lovely day.

Later, as we headed home, we drove along the ugly corrugated metal wall that divides the countries. I couldn’t help but notice someone had attached large white wooden crosses to it every few feet, clearly a vertical cemetery. “What are those?” I asked Juan Daniel.

“They put one up every time someone dies crossing,” he said.

I breathed in. The wall and its crosses stretched to a vanishing point on the horizon.  I had never seen them before.

How could I have known all that I didn’t know? My blind spots blinded me.

Writing this, I imagine my blind spots, my fear, my nervousness about the border—even after visiting—like invisible crosses on my side of the wall. I think about how hard it is, even sharing a language, to cross the invisible borders at my church. How the dividing lines of ethnicity, culture, privilege, and class can divide me from women who are my sisters.

It’s easier to turn away. Easier for me to stay afraid, to stay blind, to stay away from the borderland. To think of “illegals” instead of friends. To sigh about political rhetoric and skip to the next article instead of listening to real stories.

But I am so tired of being rich, and white, and blind. So tired of not admitting to myself how much my fear impoverishes me. So tired of trying to limit my world, instead of embracing the enormous open doorway that is right in front of me. I’m ready to face the border and the richness that awaits on the other side.

Border Field State Park / Imperial Beach, San Diego, California

Border Field State Park / Imperial Beach, San Diego, California by Tony Webster

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Heather

Heather Caliri is a writer from San Diego who knows first-hand how tiny steps of bravery can transform lives. She loves breakfast, advice columns, and non-violent murder mysteries. Get her short e-book, “How To Become Braver,” for free here.

Bridges and Steel

I couldn’t believe I was crying. “Stop it,” I chided myself internally,     trying to stem the flow, “it’s just a song for kids. You’re being ridiculous.” I shifted in my folding chair, brought my sleeve up to my cheek, and hoped that no one was looking. “C’mon. Hold it together.”

I knew the song well; they were coming up on the last refrain. Soon it would be over. Soon the first-graders would file off the stage and sit with their teacher.

If I could just get through the last refrain, I would be okay.

* * * * *

It didn’t begin this way. That day, the crying day, was a Thursday afternoon in mid-March, and I was attending the dress rehearsal for my daughter’s annual spring musical. She goes to the Pittsburgh Urban Christian School, or PUCS, where each year students, staff, and volunteers create and perform an impressive all-school musical production. Its theme coincides with that year’s all-school unit, which have been, in our K-2 tenure; ‘Superheros’, ‘Farms’, and now, ‘Bridges and Steel.’

IMG_0047This year’s theme is particularly appropriate for Pittsburgh–a city that has almost as many bridges as Venice, a city that once ran on the steel mills, and a city where many key institutions (Carnegie museums and libraries, Frick and Mellon parks) pay homage to industrial barons of the last century. In Pittsburgh, bridges and steel are everywhere, connecting everything.

However, when it came to the musical, the theme didn’t seem so promising. Last year, during ‘Farms’, our daughter got to be a singing chicken–a hard act to follow. “This year is going to be so booore-ing,” she pronounced, sometime in grey January. “How can you even write a musical about bridges and steel?” To add insult to injury, her class was assigned a song about the physics of bridge-building, which, she reminded us often, was not her favorite.

Still, by early March, our whole family was chanting lyrics about tension and compression over our daily oatmeal. This is something I love about Spring Production. Every year there are songs about scientific concepts, historical figures and events, and literary references. The kids hardly realize they’re learning, or, even better, they come to associate learning with enjoyment.

PUCS is one sneaky school.

And so, by mid-March, when we saw the entire production, I wasn’t surprised to learn–through bouncy tunes and exuberant choreography–about the composition of steel, working conditions in the mills, and the history of several local bridges. Also, because many of the steel workers came from other countries, there was this song about immigration.

Like all Spring Production songs, I first heard it over breakfast. It was the first-graders’ number, but every kid learned every song, and this one was particularly catchy. It also had a lot of big words in the verses, so it required lots of practice.

They traveled from Czech Republic, China and Japan. Others came on boats from Poland and Ireland. Scandinavians came to work with their strong hands. Hungarians worked in the mills with the Africans.

“Daddy is a Scandinavian” I told the girls, “see his strong hands?” I smiled, but the kids didn’t. “Mama, this is serious,” my eight-year-old informed me, “I have to practice.”

Eastern Europe was the home of the Slovakians. Eager workers from the mountains were the Carpathians. From down south came Cubans and Mexicans. Expecting jobs and good wages were Italians.

And every morning, the girls’ singing was mixed with news from the radio. I suspect this contrast was the seed of my tears.

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The first-graders were, of course, adorable.

Each carried a sign representing a place. One by one, they came forward and bowed proudly to the audience. Ireland and Hungary; Slovakia and Cuba. Several kids represented the continent of Africa. The first-graders were diverse too, though not matched ethnically to their signs. A precocious girl with dark skin got a big laugh when she threw an exaggerated kiss into the air. Italy!

I laughed with the crowd, but the refrain was coming, and so I braced myself. I had to. I was already shaken.

Just twelve hours before the Spring Production dress rehearsal, there was a horrible shooting in Wilkinsburg, the neighborhood where PUCS is located. The ‘urban’ in the school’s name is no accident; the school intentionally exists in a distressed area of the city, attempting to integrate people as well as it integrates curriculum. The latter is far easier than the former. 

And this morning, the tragic Wilkinsburg news had been mixed with the national and global news, now too familiar. The rhetoric of the politicians, the fear of those who are not like ‘us’, the refugees and tragedies, the call for walls. All the actions and reactions, all mixed up, turning everything I believed into a children’s song–cute, but irrelevant.

The last refrain came.

Men and women, boys and girls. They all came for a better life. Many feared the differences in others, and that caused lots of strife. If America is a melting pot, then we are all equal. So God, please help us all build bridges between people.    

This time, it got me.  I tried to keep from embarrassing myself. “Stop it… It’s just a kid’s song… just a kid’s song.” But even as struggled for control, I prayed the last line. Or. Maybe the last line prayed me.

Even now, I can’t seem to get it out of my head.

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jen bio YAH

Song lyrics by Suzie Salo; music by Rachel Matos.