CROSSING BORDERS; ENCOUNTERING OTHERS

I thought that I had seen it all up until recently. I have had the opportunity to travel widely, and I was convinced that I knew what the world had to offer. But after traveling with RJ Media to Tijuana, Mexico, I realized that I haven’t yet begun to scratch the surface.

When Regis Jesuit first introduced the Crossing Borders trip, I knew immediately that I wanted to go. I had the opportunity to do an exchange program to Mexico during my sophomore year here, and I was extremely passionate about what was happening at the border. However, I don’t think that anything could have prepared me for what I saw during the week I spent in Tijuana.

After we walked across the border on the second day, we headed straight to the Deported Veterans Office. As a military kid, this hit home. Men and women like Hector Lopez, who had served their country, some for more than 15 years, being deported from a country they were willing to give their lives for. Hector Lopez joined the U.S. military in 1982. After leaving the military, he was diagnosed with PTSD and turned to marijuana to self-medicate. Instead of getting desperately needed help, he was sent to Mexico, a country he had no real recollection of, having to leave his wife and children behind. After many years, his wife moved to Mexico to be with him. Hearing his story was the first time I cried during the trip; it would not be the last. I was overwhelmed with a feeling of helplessness and anger that accompanied me most of the rest of the week.

We next traveled to a women's and children's shelter in the city run by a single Catholic nun. It was built for 40, but currently was housing more than 100 people. Most of the women here have fled violence in Central America or southern Mexico and are waiting for their asylum hearings. There, I met two women with whom I spent hours listening their stories. I found the story of one of the young women particularly upsetting.

Aida, a professor dedicated to teaching children with special needs, is now fleeing Venezuela because of the current political and economic struggles and living at this shelter in Tijuana while seeking asylum. She has nowhere else to go. The feeling of displacement—of having one’s entire life uprooted and not knowing what to do—she lives with constantly is beyond my comprehension. Talking to these women made me recognize my privilege. I have won the birth lottery. This privilege has long been something I have been aware of, but I was abruptly confronted with it again in that moment.

Throughout the next week I found myself repeatedly challenged by this privilege—when we went to the border and planted carrots in Friendship Park; when we celebrated Mass across a wall; or when we were serving breakfast a food bank just before getting on the airplane to come home. My research paper due the next day seemed to be much less important. That fight that I had with my best friend no longer was the end of the world. Seeing that trauma put a lot of what my life looks like into perspective.

We also became quite close with Carla and her son Kenneth, friends of our host family who stayed with us during much of our time in Tijuana. Carla fled Honduras after some of her family members were killed and she found herself in mortal danger. She had applied for asylum but was deported back to Honduras. She had spent the summer making her way back to Mexico. In Tijuana, I was able to spend a lot of time with her son, Kenneth, six years old and full of energy. He wanted to help and to be a part of whatever we were doing. For me, he signified hope in a situation that seemed hopeless. Honestly how someone can see him and decide that he isn’t worth saving is heartbreaking. But that is at the root of the problem—they don’t see him. They don't sit and eat tacos with him or play in the water fountain at the museum with him. Through the bureaucracy and politicizing of the immigration process, society has stripped away Kenneth’s humanity. He deserves more than that; everyone deserves more than that.

This trip taught me so much about myself. It also gave me an opportunity to see injustice first-hand and put a face to it. People are no longer migrants, they are Kenneth; they are no longer veterans who have been deported, they are Hector; they are no longer displaced women, they are Aida.

Pope Francis says, “Migrants and refugees are not pawns on the chessboard of humanity. They are children, women and men who leave or are forced to leave their homes for various reasons, who share a legitimate desire for knowing and having, but above all for being more.” As the people of God, we are called to treat everyone with the dignity and respect they deserve. God calls us to seek out injustice and towork to stop it. This trip taught me to do just that. It taught me how to be a changemaker within my community, and the importance of recognizing the dignity that each of us has.

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