Regional, day four: Boquillas del Carmen

This entry was originally written in my journal during a regional geology trip to West Texas from March 12-19, 2011. For the complete list of regional geo blog posts, click here.

day 4: in Big Bend National Park

Backstory: Big Bend National Park is right on the US-Mexico border—the Rio Grande, which runs through the park, is the official dividing line between the US and Mexico. Across the river, there’s a town in Mexico called Boquillas del Carmen. The people there used to make their living off of tourists from the park—they would take people across the river on horses and sell crafts and food to visitors. However, in 2002, the border was closed due to security concerns after 9/11, making all commerce between the town’s inhabitants and Americans across the river illegal.

Since the closure, most of the families have left, and the inhabitants are forced to leave crafts out on the trails around the Rio Grande and ask for donations, all while surrounded by signs instructing park visitors that buying anything from a Mexican national is a crime. The federal government has announced plans to re-open the border sometime soon.

While hiking in the park, I had a brief conversation with a man from the town named Felipe. This entry is based on that conversation.

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I have no words to even adequately begin to apologize to the people of Boquillas del Carmen for the US’s idiotic, criminally insane culture and the security, immigration and anti-drug policies that come along with it.

And then if I really think about it, the list of people I need to apologize to stretched so far I can’t see the end anywhere in sight. I owe an apology to the indigenous communities here before me, to the descendants of black slaves who worked backbreaking days to amass wealth for my ancestors, to the people of the Niger Delta, to the women raped in the Congo because of civil unrest caused by the curse of having resources my country needs, to every salmon dead so I can charge my phone with cheap hydropower, to the natural communities that lived on the land my house is on, to people who starve to death or die of malaria because they can’t afford health care or food that costs 1/100th of what I’m willing to spend on a smoothie or another piece of clothing I don’t really need…

And I know guilt does no good. I know I didn’t create these systems. I know that focusing on the big picture is far more important, and that the most self-serving, awful thing those in power have done to keep us from fighting back is to convince us that our individual choices can somehow, magically, save the world.

But then someone looks you in the face, and says nothing about this. He doesn’t talk about capitalism, immigration policy or NAFTA. He looks at me, hand on his horse, and says simply, “No hay mucho trabajo.” Is it hard to survive? “Si, es dificil.” And that’s all. He seems uncomfortable when my questions get more general, when they touch on illegal people, on migrant farmworkers. Maybe it’s my poor Spanish, or maybe he’s just tired at the end of the day. Maybe it’s just that I have the luxury to sit around and daydream about bringing capitalism down, but he’s too busy dealing with its daily realities to help a white girl feel less guilty.