Traveling to the US-Mexico Border

Before going the on a seminar called Border Issues during my senior year of college, I had never been close to the international boundary that separates the United States from Mexico, Americans from Mexicans, the first world from the third. Or rather, I had never felt close to the border. In fact, I once spent a weekend in sunny San Diego with the Notre Dame Rowing Club. We happened to stay with an alumni family that was quite involved with border issues; they shared some of their experiences in the matter with us, even showing us pictures of the dramatic fence extending out into the Pacific Ocean that marks the end of the long Southern border that begins in El Paso. Being that the purpose of our visit was to compete in a regatta, however, my teammates and I paid but polite attention to the dramatic scene our host family laid out for us.

It seems that two key elements were missing for me to really be struck by the tragedy of the border. First, we saw only pictures of the fence, and did not put our fingers through its chain links reaching out to someone on the other side. Call me Doubting Thomas, but for me I am greatly captivated by the physical sights, scents, and aura of a particular place and specific moment in time; this makes it a challenge for me to fully sympathize with that which I see only through someone else's eyes. Second, being in San Diego for the purpose of rowing (not to mention escaping the South Bend cold in early April) lent itself to a tunnel-vision approach to the weekend. I certainly fell victim to not being open to all that the weekend had to offer, including a sobering discussion of the drastic scene being played out just one half hour south of idyllic San Diego Bay. While I came back to Notre Dame with the satisfaction of rowing well and possessing a slightly less pale complexion, I certainly did not take away any change in perspective on any serious matter.