Between Two Borders

I grew up in the Rio Grande Valley

A border town, a half hours drive to Mexico

That was the southern border

You’d have to drive about an hour to reach the northern border

The checkpoint, as we called it

There was a toll booth with a single border patrol agent

You would roll down your driver side window so they could ask

“U.S. citizen?”

But the sound of the snarling dogs that lurched at the passenger side of your car made it hard to focus on that simple question

The men that crossed the lane in front of you with assault rifles and armored vest made it hard to answer that simple question

That was the point

To a U.S. citizen it was easy enough to overlook

But to somebody who was trying to illegally cross a border for the second time

The sound of snarling dogs

The sight of men with rifles and armored vest

Would have to contend with the fact

That all of this was for them

Borders are inherently violent

They usually represent the point in which two parties reached a stalemate in the killing of one another.

And in the same fashion that borders are born from violence

So too are they maintained by it

So when asked

“U.S. citizen”

For the ones who’d have to force a yes

For whom the thought of possibly having to run away flashed into their minds

Of the dogs sinking their teeth into their calves or forearms and jerking their heads from side to side

Of the men unloading their rifles into them if they positioned their hands in the way that these type of men wait for with great anticipation

Said yes like they believed it

They were outsiders, the fear of violence was a burden they never stopped carrying

These thoughts passed through their mind everytime they saw the green and white border patrol vehicles

Tucked away in some dirt road watching the interstate

These thoughts crossed their mind every time one of their primos had his worksite visited by ICE and disappeared thereafter

They knew violence, the nature of their labor was itself violence

They were exploitable

Because they were deportable

So they simply said “yes” and drove on