Mi Querida Frontera
My Letter to the Mexico-U.S. Border
Mi querida frontera,
The time has come for us to talk. I feel that we need to clear the air between us. We go way back. I know you remember. My father lived right next to you in Tijuana until the late 1970s, when he moved a few miles north to the U.S. with his family. You met my grandpa in the 1940s when he walked across you to work in the California fields, before he became a janitor once he moved to the United States permanently. You welcomed my grandpa and made things relatively easy for my dad. Now, I hardly recognize you — or, perhaps, you have changed.
We were close once. I grew up with you — literally. For the first fifteen years of my life, we only lived three miles apart. But the events of 9/11 changed our lives forever. I was exactly 4 months old on that day. You were much older, but after that, you changed.
Your increased fortification and the time it took to travel back and forth to Tijuana meant that for years, I almost only ever saw one side of you, despite the fact that we were neighbors. I became very familiar with this side of you. When I went to the beach, I’d visit you. You had always been bigger, taller, and stronger, of course, but you were also growing at a much faster rate than I was. I could hear the Border Patrol helicopters always watching over you… and watching out for people who look like me and other members of my family. The constant buzz became the soundtrack to my childhood. Not a day went by that I didn’t hear the helicopters as I played make-believe, and then, once I was older, as I did my homework.
In high school, I lived 8 miles away from the line that divides Mexico from the United States. Like some of my cousins, many of my classmates crossed you every day and spent hours doing so. Their parents also go back and forth between Tijuana and San Diego, like my grandpa before them, and my dad in his youth. Many of these people are those that keep San Diego fed and clean. They make sure vast numbers of San Diego’s children are taken care of and that the region’s lawns are perfectly manicured. They wash the dishes and they build the homes. They work as doctors, lawyers, teachers, nurses, and entrepreneurs. Today… you are being told to keep people like us out, even though you, the border, crossed us, and as Dolores Huerta told us, the power is in our bodies.
Is this truly your fault? All I know is that for those of us who are your neighbors, you are more than a fence or a wall. You are not only the checkpoint. You are the desert, the chaparral, the sand, the estuary, the ocean. You are la frontera, which both transcends — and relies on — geography. You can separate people, but you also bring us together. You are the place where we live, the place we call home, “this thin edge of barbwire” as Gloria Anzaldúa once wrote… which is why we miss your welcome.
With love,
Raquel
