The U.S.-Mexican border es una herida abierta where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds. And before a scab forms it hemorrhages again, the lifeblood of two worlds merging to form a third country—a border culture. Borders were set up to define the places that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them.

Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, 1987.

As we drive on U.S. highway 90, a long stretch of old road that spans the US-Mexico Border, the landscape changes from green snarled trees of the Old South to the dusty brush of the Southwest. The car’s AC billows, disillusioning us to the 104-degree temperature that hovers outside. The car becomes a small enclosed habitat, a floating homestead separate from the world. I sit softly dozing in the passenger’s seat as the scenery morphs in the distance. If I’m not careful I might miss the exact moment when the space shifts, and we begin to inhabit the border country. The dog Winston, a 38-pound black poodle who we’ve been tasked with driving across the country from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, lays knocked out cold in his crate in the back seat of the minivan. My husband drives steady, unwavering as we traverse the long stretch of highway that leads us from Louisiana to Eastern Texas.

When Our Flawed Immigration System Means a Death Sentence
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I have never been to Mexico. This is the first time I am physically near the U.S.-Mexico border. For Gloria Anzaldúa, a lesbian Chicana poet and theorist from Texas, the border is a separate place. Not a crossing, but una herida abierta; an open wound that does not heal. I can feel the atmosphere change. But at the same time our little roadster spaceship, like the pockets of the liberal East Coast, seems immune to the trauma of crossing. Like the umbra of the moon, the border stretches out to our left as we drive westward.

Although we do not plan to leave the country, we encounter several border patrol checkpoints on our southern sojourn to California. While not new, an increase in anti-immigration actions from the Trump administration has condoned highway checks some 50-100 miles from the physical border. What that means is border patrol agents and checkpoints stand sentry deep into the southern United States, a threat against undocumented border crossings.

Road signs warn us that we “must come to a stop” as we pass the border checkpoint in Texas. I see the border anew, I begin to understand the wound that Anzaldúa writes about. Each stop a reminder of the trauma of this place, like the raw, unbridled elements of the desert, threatening to break open. America’s southern boundary festers—tissue and organs of the land split open. Despite the protection of a little blue passport book, my heartbeat takes flight and bile rises in my throat.

America’s southern boundary festers—tissue and organs of the land split open.
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How can we define the places that are safe, that distinguish “us from them,” as Anzaldúa puts it? Growing up Puerto Rican and Italian in NYC, the idea of land boundaries made little sense to my hereditary landscape. That is, Puerto Rico and Sicily are both archipelagoes. Islands dotted with smaller islands. Bodies of water told my ancestors if they did not belong. The idea of a continuous landmass transected by only the immaterial was utterly foreign to me. As for growing up in NYC, your borough was your place. Manhattan and Staten Island are surrounded by water. For some, going to “the city” was akin to going abroad; think The Warriors. Although Queens and Brooklyn are physically connected, borough pride was a self-imposed boundary.

Being a light-skinned Latina I often benefit from white privilege while traveling. The NYPD is notorious for ticketing and arresting people who evade fares on the subway, or “jump the turnstile,” as well as for other minor infractions. They enforce the border of who is a good citizen and who is bad, often targeting people of color, who already are more likely to not be able to afford the fare. I have been stopped by police three times while riding on the subway. Twice for fare evasion, and once for putting my feet on the seat. Every time I was let off with a summons (fined around $60-$100). I was never arrested. I might have been poor enough to be fined, but I wonder if it was my light skin that kept me out of jail.

Stories From a Sanctuary City Courtroom
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Before we pull up to the first border checkpoint, several cameras photograph our car, license plate, and faces. It is perhaps made of concrete and brick and low-grade steel. The structure could be the entrance to a city pool, which historically kept out Black Americans. “Us and them” made solid.

The border agent, a white woman of average height with sandy brown hair, wears reflective sunglasses and a gun at her hip; she reminds me of all the ways feminism can slip into complacency. She asks if everyone in the car is a U.S. citizen. We both answer yes, indignantly as we can. However, it is a silent, ineffectual protest. She mistakes our tone for frustration of being minorly inconvenienced with a process that does that concern us. We both have U.S. birth certificates. We have nothing to fear when traveling. Carl is white. I am white enough.

The next day we continue our drive, going from western Texas, through New Mexico to Arizona. In New Mexico we again pass a border checkpoint. This time, as Carl lowers the driver’s side window, the border agent takes one look at him and waves us on through. When Carl is sitting down you cannot tell his stature rises to over six feet. He is blond and blue-eyed—the “perfect American.”

We both have US birth certificates. We have nothing to fear when traveling. Carl is white. I am white enough.
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The third time we are forced to stop is in California. The initial stop is an agricultural inspection. A few years ago California suffered a fruit fly blight when out-of-state fruit was brought in. As the car comes to a halt, an agricultural inspection agent asks, “Are there any illegal fruit or vegetables in the vehicle?” What he implies is, “Are there any illegal people in the vehicle?” We say no, as if he could detect if we were lying. The charade of this person, who looks to be no older than us and seems to have no vested interest in illegal immigration other than for a paycheck, being stationed there for the sole purpose of protecting California’s agriculture from dangerous produce, was both laughable and enraging. We knew this was a thinly veiled way to enforce the violence of citizenship.

The last and final time we pass a border checkpoint, Carl barely rolls down his window when the agent in a dull green uniform and state-authorized gun gestures us through. By this time, it is absurdly clear who the border place is safe for. We both know that if either of us looked “Mexican,” or anything but white, our road trip would have been very different. We were allowed to drive through each state, each boundary in a minivan with out-of-state license plates and a dark crate in the back seat without arousing suspicion. There was no doubt that we didn’t belong. No question of citizenship. We sat comfortable in our AC while the border loomed near, enforced by a boundary that ran in jagged, angry lines.

As the topography thinned out and expanded into rocks and cliffs, sand and brush washing out the scenery, I swear I could make out the thin red streams. I could hear la herida abiertando. I could smell the wounds festering.

The Est. collected open letters on Sessions, the recently upheld Muslim Ban, familial separation and the current administration’s response to asylum seekers and immigrants — good grief our collective heart! — to publish on a dedicated landing page as a kind of evolving pastiche of opinions and concerns, anger and empathy. Resistance is vital.

I used to be one of you.

I’m a child of the Reagan presidency.

Since I was 18, I have consistently voted for your party. That’s seven presidential election cycles where you had my vote. And not just my vote, but my support.

You lost it in 2016, but at first that felt, possibly, like a one-time thing. But in 2018, you lost it forever.

I have built my whole life around the value of globalism. I have championed the American pursuits of life, liberty, and happiness.

You are no longer capable of thinking as the leaders of the free world. You have abandoned the majority of your people to side with those who divide, fear-monger, and hate.

Your weakness in the face of tyranny will be judged by history.

Your closed-mindedness has led to a war on people who are mostly poor, mostly innocent, and mostly brown; parents seeking a better life for their families are your targets.

The vicious fallacy known as ‘Make American Great Again’ has done the opposite.
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Your support of the vicious fallacy known as “Make American Great Again” has done the opposite. In the face of mountains of data showing that immigrants add much more value to our society than they take away, you ignore fact, and spread fiction.

When I was young, I admired the party of Lincoln as what I believed was the original party of diversity. Throughout our history both parties have committed horrible acts of division, but through most of my life, I felt the Republican party ended up getting on board with progressive trends that pushed us towards equality — late and often reluctantly, but we kept striving towards the idea.

That is no longer the case. As a party we have invited in a wide range of racist, homophobic xenophobes who only want to make the divisions among Americans permanent. How can you truly look in the mirror and say you aren’t worried that you’re on the wrong side of history?

Your choice to go along with your leader to put “America First” is quickly making American alone.

We face significant challenges ahead to maintain a public safety net for most of your supporters. You lie to them every day as you take their money and allow them to believe that immigrants are deleterious, instead of educating them on how immigrants will be a vital part of the backbone of the economy and society.

Our farms, our factories, our production plants, our hospitals, and even our tech companies cannot fill all their open positions; we have hundreds of thousands of people desperate to come here to work, work hard, and work in jobs many of your supporters can’t or won’t do.

And instead of integrating them into our workforce, you condone them being put in prisons, watch as their children are taken from them and say nothing; you’ve just given up as the leader of your party leads us into darkness. (And let us not limit immigrants to those who are able to work either, who meet a subjective standard of “worthiness,” we’ve determined.)

You have not just lost my support.

You have turned me into an adversary.

The Est. collected open letters on Sessions, the recently upheld Muslim Ban, familial separation and the current administration’s response to asylum seekers and immigrants — good grief our collective heart! — to publish on a dedicated landing page as a kind of evolving pastiche of opinions and concerns, anger and empathy. Resistance is vital.

The Est. collected open letters on Sessions, familial separation and the current administration’s response to asylum seekers and immigrants — good grief our collective heart! — to publish on a dedicated landing page as a kind of evolving pastiche of opinions and concerns, anger and empathy. Resistance is vital.

Dear Mothers,

Not mine.

My mother was allowed in the country without questions — an infant in her arms. My mother was given a green card and told to go forth and prosper in the American Dream. She knew only elementary English.

My mother got a job quickly. She stayed with the same company for decades and rose through the ranks. Bootstraps. My mother had a salary; not extravagant, but enough to take care of me.

My mother became a citizen 17 years after she stepped onto American soil — never once afraid of deportation in the interim. My mother was naturalized and no one was excited but us. A quiet assumption: She was American. Like them.

A “good” immigrant with auburn hair and seafoam eyes. A model immigrant for posters hanging in U.S. Customs and Border Protection offices.

My mother is white.

I am brown.

Dear Anyone Who Is Listening
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Brown like the mothers who are seized at U.S. borders. Mothers who cannot move so freely through the world for fear of having their children ripped from their arms as they await trial for crimes they did not commit. Brown like the mothers seeking asylum. Mothers who want the same safety for their children my mother provided me. The same chance afforded to my mother as she arrived in a new country. I am brown like the mothers in holding cells, wondering if their children will survive in internment camps.

My mother’s whiteness afforded me the safety to grow up in her arms, not a cage. My mother’s whiteness afforded me protection from a system that criminalizes mothers who look like me. I am often plagued by the idea that if I were my mother, trying to do what is best for my child, my story would not be so kind.

So, Dear Mothers:

You deserve safety.
You deserve respect.
You deserve humanity.

You deserve to live a life like my immigrant mother.

Mothers, I love you.

By July Westhale

The Est. collected open letters on Sessions, familial separation and the current administration’s response to asylum seekers and immigrants — good grief our collective heart! — to publish on a dedicated landing page as a kind of evolving pastiche of opinions and concerns, anger and empathy. Resistance is vital.

Dear you,

When I was 4, my mom drew me a bath.

“Watch the water,” she said, “and come get me when it’s full.”

I’ve replayed this scene thousands of times — her piano fingers on the rusted faucet, the bathmat an inky-gray, like a fingerprinting. I remember the water filling, filling, the plastic toy boat rising victorious in the swells. I remember calling for her, and hearing only silence. I remember the water overflowing, soaking the mat, leaking down the hallway linoleum, past my sick and sleeping mother.

I don’t remember the moment the water reached our neighbor’s apartment next door, but I do remember that when Child Protective Services was called, I put my body between them and my mom.

“She was sleeping,” I said. “It’s my fault.”

I was taken to a children’s home and, screaming, dunked into a bathtub of ice water.

No one gave me information about what was happening. No one offered comfort. It seemed to me, even at the time, that those in charge thought that silence and isolation was a better solution than explanation and solace.

I had it so so so much better than any of these children in the news.

I’m so proud of my community for standing up and staying compassionate and tender. Of the radical empathy you’re showing to each other and yourselves. I’m so proud of your hand-lettered signs and your fundraising and your yelling and your insistence on better behavior, a better world.

And your stories. I’m most proud of your stories.

For those of you scared to act, or feeling dissociated, or overwhelmed —

hear my story. Take it as a place that helps creates space for whatever you’re going through. That’s what narrative can do in times like these. Take it moment by moment. In this moment, you’re listening, and that’s massive.

The Est. collected open letters on Sessions, familial separation and the current administration’s response to asylum seekers and immigrants — good grief our collective heart! — to publish on a dedicated landing page as a kind of evolving pastiche of opinions and concerns, anger and empathy. Resistance is vital.

On the thread of a truly good friend of mine—who supports the policy of Trump and Sessions—I referred to the sadism of the immigration policy.

I was responding to someone, I think a mutual friend, who claimed that the policy was for the purpose of upholding the law. The mutual friend objected, saying I was emotional and name-calling. I posted the following response to her. It is a simple fact that people I love support these horrors. I want to speak to a larger audience about this. Almost all the people who agree with me have friends who are Trump supporters.

This horror needs to be explored, I think, because I believe breaking through to the people we love who are sleepwalking to fascism is our last best hope.

Every single one of us is descended from oppressors and the oppressed. The arguments justifying cruelty circulating now were going around in Europe during Hitler’s rise to power.

Sometimes the truth comes across as an insult. In part because enough nice people were too polite to be frank with their friends who supported the nazis, it ended up with my grandparents and many, many of my family being murdered in the Holocaust. Of course my family was just one of an ocean of families comprised of gypsies, jews, homosexuals, leftists, and decent people who objected to atrocities.

I am thinking, friend of my friend, that you are highly educated and have had every opportunity to understand that the people who come to our borders are in desperate situations, and that our country is largely responsible for creating those conditions.

The sadism and callousness exhibited by a large minority of our citizens must be named. I feel solidarity with those persons whose torture you approve. Patriotism — especially in this country — requires that your feelings of solidarity with other humans be greater than your allegiance to your government, when your government turns to torture.

Sometimes the truth comes across as an insult.
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Because money plays such a big role in our elections, the significant minority of Trump supporters may continue to gain power. Clearly Trump and Sessions have no more compassion than Hitler. They have both shown it for years. This isn’t name calling, this is truth. (Name calling is that stupid stuff that Kathy Griffin and Samantha Bee do.)

We are coming to a crisis. Either good people who have been sleepwalking toward fascism will come to their senses, or all our liberties and our national decency will be gone. Then it will end very badly for all of us, you and me and all of us. But until our tenuous democracy is snuffed out, you will be hearing the truth from all sides, from the too-small majority who knows sadism when they see it.

The conditions that we have had a large hand in creating in Central America are so terrible that humans will follow the biological imperative — let’s call it God’s law — and try to save their children. The Sessions policy will not be effective in significantly deterring immigration. It will be effective in making us poorer, in many ways. Resources are being diverted from serious crime because of this policy that can’t work.

You will be confronted with this truth every day, and you won’t like it. We are connected by our mutual friend, whom I love, and who thinks I am a murderer because I don’t believe abortion is murder. Yet my family and her family have a strong affinity for each other. It does not stop me from loving her, and I don’t think it stops her from loving me. As far as I can tell, she and you have the same opinions on the immigration issues. Perhaps my family would love your family as we do her.

Until our tenuous democracy is snuffed out, you will hear the truth from the too-small majority who knows sadism when they see it.
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But that doesn’t stop this from being true: Ripping babies from their mothers is perverse and evil. Read Memory of Fire, by Eduardo Galeano, Books 1, 2 and 3. This tells the history of all the Americas from the Europeans’ first landing, in vignettes of one, two or three pages. I think that if you actually read them your heart could not remain as hard. I am sorry to have to say that your heart is hard but it is an unfortunate truth that must be said, for our present, our future, and the people referenced earlier who suffered torture and death because people were too enamored of a false civility to say these things that must be said.

If you don’t want to hear this, you are going to have to restrict yourself to the company of those who agree with you, until such time as the fascist takeover is further advanced.

I myself deal with everybody, and am open to friendships with people who think I am a murderer for believing that women have a right to safe and legal abortion. I have to, because people I love are supporting evil, and that mystery is for me a central question in understanding the world.