Ways of Seeing: Historical lessons on (border) politics

Last week, the Biden Administration announced that it was considering an Executive Order that would restrict asylum claims at the U.S.-Mexico border.

An old saying about not seeing the forest through the trees implies someone isn’t seeing the big picture. Recently, I had a first-hand opportunity to experience this expression.

Walking through town the last month, I saw a white woman in fully traditional Mexican dress, the kind my grandmother used to bring back to me from Mexico when I was little.

I am about to tell you a difficult story. Stay with me, please. There’s a reason I’m sharing it.

We are in the midst of a war on education. Not against all learning, but certainly against any lessons about racial injustice.

Equality is not equity. Dr. King made this point repeatedly. He argued that while white Americans were acquiring free land in the American West, Black Americans, Asians, and Latinos were cultivating that land with zero or little compensation.

As we approach the holiday season, I ache to hear my grandmothers’ voices, to hug them, to spend time with them.

Since I wrote the piece about my grandmother, I’ve been stewing about the revocation of abortion rights and reading more on the ways in which we can argue that these rights are constitutional.

In 1948, my grandmother married my grandfather. Soon after, they had their first child. He was the first of ten.

There is a lot of pain in the world right now. People continue to fall victim daily to a global pandemic. War has broken out in Europe. In our own backyard, we continue to see Black, brown, and indigenous people killed by the police.

When I moved to Vermont for college, I was 18 and had barely left Texas. My family drove me, and I was terrified when I realized how far Vermont was from home.

Recently, news and media coverage highlighted video footage and images of border agents near Del Rio, Texas, grossly abusing Haitian migrants crossing the Rio Grande into the United States.

When I sat down to write this column, I have to admit that I really struggled to decide what to write about. There’s so much going on in the world one doesn’t even know what to start with sometimes. As I thought more about it, though, and talked with frie … (read more)

Last week was cinco de mayo. For many Americans, it’s just another day. For others, it’s a day to celebrate something Mexican. Mexican culture? Mexican independence? Most Americans actually have no idea. For years, I made it a tradition to host a party ei … (read more)

A couple of weeks ago, my Grandmother died. I had to say goodbye to her on the screen of my tiny phone. She could not hear or see me, so the person in the room had to explain to her that I was on a little machine looking at her and trying to talk to her. … (read more)