Mexico: Farewell Chiapa

     Fill a space with love and it becomes a home. Meeting people, learning skills, broadening my worldview, fostering friendships, establishing my place in a community, I feel like I've spent the last 10 weeks filling Chiapa de Corzo with love. And writing to you now, some 500 km from Chiapa, I can tell you that city was, and will remain, my home in Mexico.
              The past few weeks haven't differed much from the previous ones. I continued taking salsa dance lessons from the traditional school in town three times a week with the teachers from Dunham and some locals, including my aunt. Outside of class I found myself practicing daily without even trying. The beat of the songs from class would get stuck in my head and the next thing I knew I would be salsaing in the shower or around the kitchen while I was cooking dinner. Some of those songs are simply infectious. One of the things I've come to realize is that I don't just enjoy dancing, I feel like I'm pretty darn good at it too. As our teacher introduced new moves and styles I found I was picking up the movements and the sequences with ease. I went out dancing in San Cristobal and I held my own on the dance floor of a salsa club for two straight hours surrounded by Mexicans. No strange looks, no staring, I was fitting in, so I must of been doing something right. Maybe it was some of the whiskey I had drunk or maybe it was the Mezcal everyone else had had. One thing for certain, I had an excellent time, and that experience only confirmed that I want to learn more so that I can get out and dance more.

Preston, Rocurra, Karen (Our Awesome Salsa Instructor), Myself, and Paul

      Basketball also continued to be a large part of my life. Every Tuesday and Thursday I kept playing with the guys at the deportiva. With as much as I was enjoying playing I began to think about why I didn't play basketball more before this. I could tell I was getting better stamina and my game was improving as well. Then I remembered the worst part of basketball for me - sprained fingers. In the middle of a game, I was playing center at defense and given my wingspan I often intercept passes or block shots so when my opponent rifled a pass through my zone I shot out my right hand to deflect it. I stopped the ball but with my fingers going directly into the ball, taking the brunt of the force, instead of my hand. My right ring finger swelled up like a balloon and I still have pain there some five weeks later but I didn't let that keep me from playing (probably why there's still pain there). In my final week I really began to exploit my height advantage though. Our pick up games tended to be played to five points and there were several games where I had four of those five points and one where I scored all the points for my team even. The alley-oop was in full effect (no not dunking it but I was getting close). It became comedic by the end as I was literally unstoppable on offense. It wasn't just the ego boost of playing the game that I enjoyed so much but the company of the guys I played with. They truly welcomed me into their group; talking to me about life between games, driving me home, and sometimes even staying after with me to give me pointers on how to improve my game and use my height to wreak havoc on offense (they created a monster). I got nothing but positive things to say about my basketball crew.

       

On one of my Sunday mornings I went to the pyramids with the Dunham crew and Preston. These are the same ruins I mentioned in a previous post; with some of the pyramids dating back to 700BC. We climbed up the ruins and then proceeded to do a guided meditation. Normally I'm not a big fan of the "hippie" stuff (clearing your mind, finding your breath, praying to end world hunger, sending positive energy, ya know that old chestnut) I'm much more a man of action, a man that operates on this plane in the here and now. Having said that I do believe in the importance of introspection and I think it's something we could all do a lot more of (journaling, thinking, talking out ideas with friends and family - six months of working in wilderness therapy in the desert convinced me that there is real power in intentional self-reflection). There is also a certain kind of energy that exists in a place like those pyramids, places that have so much history, kind of like walking into a Cathedral, or into a virgin forest; the very environment fosters spirituality. We sit in silence and feel the wind upon our faces, hear the squawking of the birds, and we talk about what it is we need help with in improving ourselves right now (I mention how I need to work on spending less time in my comfort zone, like sitting on this computer, and more time immersing myself in the community, making the most of this experience while I'm here). This is my second to last day with Preston and I knew then how much I'd miss having him in Chiapa with me but the road was calling him. It's not often we find people we connect with so quickly and who constantly engage us in deep conversation and ask us the tough questions while firmly supporting us with love no matter our response. The kind of people who text you early Sunday morning and ask you if you want to meditate on a pyramid; those kind of friends don't come around often.   

The one and only Preston

            On our way home from the pyramids we walk past Casa Polita, my parent's corner store, when my Mom flags me down to tell me someone had stopped by and asked me to play in a basketball game for their team that afternoon. I called the number back and had no idea who the guy on the other end was but he seemed to know me and he was telling me he had a uniform for me and that there was a scheduled game in another city that he wanted me to play in. I had no idea what I was really getting into but I agreed to meet him at 3pm and see what would happen, if nothing else this seemed like it would make a good story. The guy ended up being Gualberto, one of the locals I had played with in the Tuesday/Thursday basketball league a few times but had never really talked to much. In the car were his two little daughters and his wife, I hopped in the passenger seat and we began to drive. He quickly realized that my Spanish wasn't nearly as good as he had thought and I quickly realized he didn't speak a word of English but through the ensuing conversation I more or less understood what was about to happen. We were going to Suchiapa a rural town about 45 minutes south of Tuxtla to take part in their Sunday basketball league. Gualberto was born and raised in SuChiapa and his whole family more or less still resides there so that's why he's a part of their league and not a more local one. Upon entering Suchiapa we pass by multiple basketball courts and also stop by their deportiva, sports complex. Gualberto explains to me that basketball in this town is more popular than soccer and entering the deportiva makes that clear. A brand new gymnasium with a real wood court filled with dozens of people watching a 5th grade girls basketball game. Suchiapa is a city with a 1/8 of the population as Chiapa but eight times as nice of a facility for basketball. Also I'm surprised to see there's enough interest for their to be multiple young girls' basketball teams while Chiapa de Corzo seems to struggle to even put a highschool boy's team together. I ask him if this is where we're playing and he tells me we're playing at one of the outdoor courts this week since the school teams take precedence. 
        We get to the outdoor court and two other teams are finishing up their game. Gualberto waves and talks to everyone present. It's a very small town. It seems like everyone is a relative or a former neighbor of his. Gualberto tells me there are sixteen teams in this league each with roughly ten players, all of whom are locals except him (since he now resides in Chiapa de Corzo) and myself. Suchiapa isn't the kind of place that foreigners frequent, you don't have to pass through it to get anywhere, the economy is only agriculture, and there's really nothing to see or do (other than play basketball apparently). So here I am a giant white dude wearing my basketball jersey at the court and people are openly staring. I can see their anticipation; I'm probably the first foreigner to visit here in a while and I assume I'll be the first gringo to ever play basketball on their home court. The two teams that are just finishing are wearing jerseys of red and black, making the game slightly confusing to watch since they look more or less identical. Gualberto takes off his jacket and lo and behold his jersey is exactly the same as the other two teams that are playing - red and black. The opposing team's players start showing up; you guessed it, their jerseys have a slightly different design but once again they are red and black. The game ends, the red and black team won (ha). Gualberto tells me to hold on a second and runs over to the refs table. I see him pointing at me and speaking rapidly. I see the ref shake his head. Gualberto throws up his arms. He returns to me and asks if I have my passport with me. Seems non-Suchiapans aren't allowed to play without a form of identification. Disappointment; I have no ID on me. Gualberto gives me a smile and says it's not important because he knows the ref from childhood and he'll figure something out. I join the rest of his team on the court for warm-ups. I was told on the phone that they would have a jersey for me but no one brought an extra so here I am, a white guy with a white jersey amid a sea of red and black. Those passing by on the street begin to gather around the edge of the court; we're doing the layup drill, "it's just like 5th grade basketball Steven, except now there's some forty Mexicans staring at you instead of just the parents of the players and you're not at St. Thomas More Middle School, you're in a rural town in the middle of Chiapas Mexico." As I wait in line to do my layup a girl comes up to me and asks for a picture; haven't even begun playing yet and I'm already a fan favorite. The whistle blows, we head to our benches for the game.
    Gualberto returns from the refs table again and tells me he worked out a deal; I can play but only in the second half. With 10 players on the team it seems like a fair way to split up the time anyway, I take my seat next to Gualberto and wait. As soon as the game begins it's obvious that the other team has one really good player on which their entire team depends on, just like middle school basketball ha. The guy is stealing the ball and intercepting passes on defense while effortlessly hitting threes and making fast breaks on offense. No one's stopping him. At the end of the first quarter we're down 20 - 8 with most of the opposing team's points coming solely from this guy. We make a switch from the bench, and it turns out the new substitute is just as good of a player as the guy from the opposing team. With his help the tide of the game turns and at halftime we're tied at 30. I don't know what his name is but when he comes back to the bench I pat him on the back and call him Stephen Curry, he smiles. After a brief halftime I accompany, Gualberto, Curry, and two other teammates onto the court for the start of the second half. People are pointing, and staring, and I can feel the energy. I haven't played a serious game of basketball with a scoreboard, referees, and an actual audience since 8th grade. 
      We get the ball to begin the half and I immediately post up in the paint against my defender. Gualberto feeds me the ball and I easily complete a right handed layup using my height advantage. I run back on defense to the applause of the locals. I take up my position on the lower right. We're playing a 3-2 zone. Their offense is stretched out along the 3 point line and they're making our defense rapidly shift with their passes around the arc. The balls on the left side of the court when their best player makes a cut for the basket from the top of the key. He catches a bullet of a pass and goes in for a right handed layup. He extends his arm and the ball floats gently upward like a dream or a prayer. I can see the hope in his eyes as his gaze is fixed on the ball. All of this is happening in slow motion, I think Chariots of Fire might have even been playing in the background (if you don't recognize that song title, give it a google search and believe me you know what I'm talking about). And amidst these hopes and dreams and this moment of bliss, that's when I cut over and spike the ball to the ground as if a child had just underhand tossed me a volleyball. There were audible "OHHHHHHs" from the crowd and people jumping up and down as I destroyed his shot in an epic fashion and sent the ball bouncing into the stands. That block only cost them two points but more importantly it humiliated their best player and sent him a message. The next two quarters would follow this pattern. Gualberto started hitting me up for alley-oops and when they started double covering me I exploited their defense by feeding an open "Curry" on the arc who made them pay with his threes. I blocked their best player two more times, shutting him down on the inside and making him take longer shots. By the end it was no longer a competition, we were just having fun. Five blocks, a dozen or so rebounds, and twelve points helped propel my team to a 78 - 44 victory. I couldn't help but notice the irony of this situation. Literally the white arm of american imperialism destroying the hopes and dreams of a local group of Mexicans. Here I was a foreigner, not wearing the proper team colors, not having the proper papers, playing for another team, and simultaneously gaining the favor of the crowd - I would have hated me if I was a member of the opposing team but afterwards the red and black team greets me with smiles and handshakes and they ask me where I'm from and if I'll be back to play more. One guy even asks me if I can offer him English classes. That's some sportsmanship right there, I respect all of those guys. I join the rest of my teammates as we look at the stats and bask in our victory. At the top of the stats page I see our team name is listed as San Esteban; I wonder if it has something to do with my presence but they tell me it's been their team name for years. Funny how these things happen. 
         A few days later Gualberto invites me to go out for a drink with him. It's 3:30pm on a Wednesday but I don't have any other plans for the evening so I figure I'll join him for a beer or two. He picks me up in his car and we drive to a nearby bar. He tells me a few of his friends are waiting for us. We enter the cantina and the only occupants are a group of ten very drunk men around a table filled with fifty beer cans, all of them empty. These are his friends. Gualberto introduces me but the music is blaring so loud that I just nod and smile as I shake each man's hand. I learn that all of these men are local elementary school teachers. Given their current state it's hard to imagine that only a few hours ago they were working with young children as they now raise their beers and drunkenly sing along to the music. I'd heard before from other travelers and Mexicans that teachers have enormous power and wealth here in Mexico through their unions and tenure. Not sure what the real truth is behind teachers but everything I've experienced makes it look that way to me. They have their own political party, drive really nice cars, live in some of the best homes, work five hours a day, and can afford to spend hundreds of pesos on beer and liquor to get plastered on a week day. As with all things there's a balance. No doubt there are teachers out there who are exploiting the bureaucracy of it all, professors who are lazy and can't be touched, horrible teachers that are protected, people more concerned with themselves than the education of the students that they are paid to provide (just like in the States), and at the same time I've got so much respect for the teachers that I know are underpaid and still give so much to their students day in and day out. As I wrote in my previous blog, teachers hold one of the most difficult jobs there is, just one more reason we need to make sure the people in those positions are qualified and capable of the title they hold. These are my thoughts as I sip on my single beer and observe these boisterous men drink two or three more. 
       

Gualberto and I

Gualberto and I end up going to two other bars. The second one is basically a speakeasy. We knock on a guys door and walk through his house before coming out to a courtyard where he and his daughter are serving beer and food. The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in Mexico folks. We sit at one of the tables, eat some cheese, listen to horrible norteno music, discuss some of the differences between Mexican and American culture, and have another beer before heading out. The third bar is another speakeasy, we walk through a house and come out to another courtyard. Seated around the table is another group of very drunk and loud men, I recognize a few of them from the first bar. The only real difference now is that instead of empty beer cans around the table there are empty bottles of scotch. I don't know how they do it. It's not even 7 pm and these guys have drank more in the last three hours than most college kids do over an entire weekend. The man I sit next to ends up being the Director of Education for Chiapa and when I share that I taught English last month he immediately makes me an offer. He tells me he can provide me with books, CDs, a fully stocked classroom, and a comfortable salary. He's disappointed when I decline but he tells me whenever I want to work whether it be next week, next month, or next year there will be a job waiting for me. It's reassuring to know that I can return to Chiapa at any time and have work; then again the man is pretty drunk so perhaps he's not even the director or a teacher for that matter.  
        I'm on my third beer and getting tired of the bar scene when Gualberto asks me if I'm ready to leave. I say yes, and one of his friends joins us in the car. I thought he was dropping me off at home but instead we head to the super market and Gualberto buys a 12 pack of beer. We head to his friends house which is nearby the park. The two men immediately start downing the beers and are confused when I tell them I'm good. It's 8 o'clock but it feels more like 2 in the morning to me and the drinking is getting boring. I like having a drink every now and then, whiskey coke, brandy old fashioned, etc. but I only like drinking when I'm doing something - playing a game of cards, watching a football game, seeing some live music, dancing. Drinking for the sake of drinking, for hours at a time, while literally doing nothing drives me insane. Part of the reason I can't stand most bar scenes is because there's nothing to do, no activities, no real engagement, other than to try to painfully make small talk by shouting over the music directly into someone's ears. This guy's wife and kids are on the sofa next to us and I make some polite conversation with them, all the while thinking, what the hell are all these guys doing? They have beautiful families at home, young children who need attention and care, and this is how they're spending their free time, getting drunk? I guess it's not my place to judge, Gualberto has been nothing but kind to me, and his friend as well, but hell I'm 24 and single and I feel like I'm too old and mature to party and drink like this sometimes and here these guys are in the early 40s, married, with kids and it's just what they do. When I'm married and have kids I think it'll be a much different story. It's around 8:30 and I tell the guys I'm going to walk home; at this point it's safer and I want to process these thoughts. I arrive home to find my father and sisters gathered around the table eating quesadillas and in conversation. It's a reassuring sight to see a man with his family instead of the bottle. People are always telling me that drinking is a Mexican problem, I correct them and say it's a problem everywhere, obviously they haven't been to Wisconsin before.
            I feel slightly guilty because I skipped my Wednesday basketball practice for the above experience but I commit to attending every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday practice from here on out. We continue to practice fundamentals with dribbling drills, working on our shooting form, and running three on two fast breaks. Mario, the coach, has us running and constantly doing push ups every time we make a mistake; drop a pass or miss a lay up and it's twenty five push ups. Working together through these drills we begin to become more of a team. I'm five years older than most of the other players but age or nationality isn't important when you're striving for perfection for fear of more god awful push ups. I don't want you to get the wrong impression of Mario, he's tough, he wants the best from us, but he's probably the best coach I've ever had in regards to sports and I can't even understand half of what he says. Just goes to show it's our character and how we carry ourselves, and not our words, that really matters most. While walking home with everyone on one of the nights I ask Mario about how he got into coaching basketball. He tells me he's a gym teacher during the day, is trained to be a soccer coach, and actually doesn't even really play basketball much. Chiapa was in need of a basketball coach and there weren't any openings for soccer so he took the job. Mario is one of those guys though that could be put in charge of anything, underwater basket weaving even, and you'd listen to him and respect him simply because of the way he treats people and his outlook on life. 
             

Mario and I

It's my last day of practice on the Friday before I leave and I'm the only player who shows up. It's a Friday night and everyone else is between sixteen and twenty so they're probably out having a good time with friends. Mario asks me if I still want to practice and I say I'm up for practicing but if he wants to go out for a beer that works too. He responds by telling me to start running laps and proceeds to run me ragged for the next hour without any breaks. I run and then he has me take a series of shots around the arc with a ten push up penalty for each one I miss. My form is starting to take place and I'm making more than I'm missing. Only forty push ups! I run some more and he moves me out to the three point line. I miss four in a row, 80 push ups total, and he has me slow down and check my form. I begin making them consistently for the first time in my life as I move around the arc. More running. As I grow more and more tired I see my form start to break and I'm going back to old bad habits. Its a good metaphor for life. When we're tired, when we're feeling weak, do we do the right thing, the thing that takes more concentration and is more difficult, or do we fall back into what is easy, comfortable, and wrong. Just some food for thought. In regards to basketball, that's something I need to work on, taking my long range shooting form from casual practice to game time speed and still be able to execute effectively.  
         Continuing in the world of sports I played volleyball for first time since my Humboldt State days in California. Some of my favorite memories from all of my college years come from playing in the intramural league at Humboldt State. I joined the free agent team and we were all strangers but we ended the season as friends and as a decent team who still had a lot of fun and remained competitive compared to many of our opponents who were much more serious, stressed, and angry when it came time to play. Volleyball was a big part of my life for around three months, heck I even spent my 21st birthday playing volleyball at the community center with my friends Aaron and Haley instead of going out drinking. I remember we were playing with a guy who resembled Mr. Miyagi and he told me he could coach me and have me playing on a collegiate team by next season if I wanted. So fast forward three and a half years and I haven't touched a volleyball since but when a volleyball coach approaches me at the deportiva in Chiapa and asks me if I want to join them for a game I don't hesitate to say yes. Let me tell you, it was a humbling experience. I guess I'll cut myself some slack because I hadn't played in so long, I had a sprained finger, and at the end of the day I never learned proper fundamentals but I quickly found myself in over my head. Sure I had the height advantage and I could easily jump and reach above the net but my natural height didn't have the same value as it did in basketball. These folks were good. From the little teenage girls to the older guys, everyone was delivering overhand serves, and bump, setting, and spiking, and making awesome saves diving on the floor. They would've destroyed any intramural team from Humboldt, hell these folks could probably compete with some of the collegiate teams. When I reinjured my finger delivering a spike I saw it as more of a blessing than a curse as it gave me an excuse to sit on the bench and stop hindering the folks I was playing with. I guess it goes to show some things are best left to memory, and we should stick to the things we're naturally good at. Safe to say basketball is my sport of choice, at least for the time being in Mexico. 
           Moving away from sports and on to table games let's talk about dominoes. After sheepshead (aka Schafkopf) dominoes are probably the game I most like to play. The strategy, the teamwork, the slamming of the pieces on the table, I fell in love with it back in the Dominican Republic where whole communities gathered around the domino table at night rather than the television. I spent hours upon hours playing dominoes. At every social occasion in the Dominican there was a group of guys playing. I still remember there would be guys on rural highways who would set up their domino table on the road under the streetlights just to play at night, literally risking their lives for the game. So when my three friends from the construction shop said they wanted to hang out one last time with me I knew exactly what the four of us were going to do. Victor is the guy I know best out of the crew, he's the man who was wearing a pink shirt and dancing with his wife in a matching pink dress in the street the final night of the Fiesta de Enero. He taught me a bunch of dance moves and he even got the band to give me a special shout out for being a foreigner. I assumed I'd never see the guy again, nor he me, and then one day I was walking back home when lo and behold Victor is sawing some metal in a workshop just around the corner form my house. From that point on whenever he was working I would stop by and say hello and keep him updated on how my dance lessons were going. Through association I meet his co-worker Alexander and their boss Manuel who owns the shop. One day while returning from the park the three of them are in front of the shop drinking whiskey and listening to music while they work and they invite me to join them. Two of them drink while one guy shovels gravel into a wheelbarrow. After each load they rotate positions. After watching three wheelbarrows go I figure it's my turn to contribute. As I begin to shovel gravel under the sun I realize the irony of the situation. A sweaty gringo working hard, as three Mexicans look on while drinking whiskey - how often does this happen? I tell them they need to shout racial slurs at me and tell me to work harder and then I'd have a better idea of how it feels to be a Mexican laborer in the States. 
           It's a few days later and I meet the guys at the shop for Domino night. I brought us some beers and they assured me they were going to have some whiskey and it was going to be a guys' night. Imagine my surprise when Manuel tells us that he can't play Dominos or drink with us tonight. As I exit the shop with Alexander and Victor and ask them why Manuel can't join us they tell me his wife didn't give him permission. Alexander then confesses that he didn't get permission from his wife either and might not be able to play. This is all coming as a surprise to me as it was only a few days earlier that I had gone out with the teachers and observed them getting plastered, assuming that their spouses knew full well what they were doing since this was a weekly ritual for them, and meanwhile we just want to have a few beers and play some Dominoes and these guys are being told they're not allowed to. Definitely some different family dynamics and rules at play here when some men can seemingly do whatever the hell they want whenever they want while others have to get permission whenever they want to meet up with friends. I guess given the untrustworthy actions of some of these men, spending hundreds of pesos to get drunk and avoid their families, it explains why some wives strive to have so much control over their husbands. We head to Victor's house and his wife immediately recognizes me. I meet the whole extended family and we begin to play Dominoes while listening to Los Angeles Azules. Alexander joins us thirty minutes later with his wife and daughter (a fitting compromise I'd say). We all have a beer, eat fresh made guacamole, and spend the night playing dominoes and listening to music. Now that's my kind of night. 

Alexander, Myself, and Victor

             One new identity I took up for a week back in February was that of an optometrist. Volunteer Optometric Services to Humanity (VOSH) is a non profit organization whose mission is to bring vision to every person on the planet. Chiapa de Corzo, has been a stop for VOSH for the last eight years or so. As I've said many times, Chiapas is the poorest state in Mexico and glasses ain't cheap. My parents are members of the local Club de Leones (Lion's Club, a secular organization founded on community service) that helps organize the VOSH trip every year and they invited me to help out. The volunteers from VOSH came from around the country but a majority of them, including all three eye doctors, were from Wisconsin and Minnesota. What are the chances? The clinic was set up in the clubhouse of the Lion's Club and would be open for five days. In previous years they would serve a couple hundred people a day, and this year it was no different. For fifty pesos, a person received an eye exam, a reference to a local doctor if there were any serious problems, and prescription glasses. All the volunteers including the doctors collected hundreds of pairs of glasses from their communities in the States in order to repurpose them for folks who didn't have access to or couldn't afford them. About half of the volunteers spoke Spanish. Those volunteers that couldn't speak Spanish were assigned a local University student who knew English in order to translate for them, both of my host sisters fulfilled these roles. Since translators were in demand and I was able to speak some Spanish I was one of the volunteers without a translator. Luckily, much of my work didn't require an elaborate set of vocabulary, and I eventually learned the key words that I needed to know. 
               I found myself mostly on the front and back end of the procedure. I spent two days at the front line, explaining the process to the people waiting and also administering eye drops to dilate their pupils before they got their vision checked. After an hour or so I had my whole speech memorized and I found myself giving directions to some two dozen patients at a time - public speaking in a foreign language, not something I thought I was going to be getting into on my trip. Probably the best part of this process was giving directions for the eye drops using lyrics from my favorite cumbia song "Oye" - Oye, abre tus ojos, mira hacia arriba, disfruta las cosas buenas, estas listo para las gotas? - Hey, open your eyes, look up, enjoy the good things, are you ready for some eye drops? (I added the last line in there). When I had kids or even adults that were nervous about the eye drops I often sang the directions to them to the tune of the song and they would laugh and feel more comfortable. My other job was handing out glasses once the patients had completed all their exams and they had their prescription. It was awesome to see the faces of people light up as they put their glasses on for the first time and they looked around the room or at the newspaper and could see clearly. Talk about a life changing service. My past service trips involved working on infrastructure more or less symbolically. We weren't necessarily skilled craftsmen, we were just folks who wanted to help and show another community that we cared. There's nothing wrong with those sorts of trips and I'd definitely go on another one but seeing the results of VOSH's services gave me a whole new idea on how much of an impact a service trip can have. I had built buildings that helped a few dozen people, they gave the gift of vision to hundreds at almost no cost. Sure some of the people VOSH served probably could have afforded to buy glasses at the regular price of 1500 pesos but they accepted everyone and I'm sure a large portion of those people wouldn't be wearing glasses today without their service. I feel blessed to have been able to join these folks on their trip. At the final banquet to celebrate the success of the mission they even took a moment to recognize me, I felt so humbled, because it was them who I should have been thanking and not the other way around. Regardless, I hope to work with this organization again and I know where I'll be sending my old glasses should I ever replace my current pair. 

        I also continued to explore some of the sights around Chiapa. Sumidero Canyon is the main reason why tourists come to Chiapa de Corzo. On any given day there are hundreds of tourists, most of them Mexican, who take one of the speed boat tours on the Rio Grijalva to see Sumidero Canyon National Park. I've walked past these ports where the tours take off multiple times a day but I never made the time to actually take a tour. I figured having spent two and a half months in Chiapa I owed it to myself to see the thing that brings in so many outsiders. While the state of Chiapas is pretty darn poor their greatest asset is the environment in which their state resides. Eco-tourism is growing more and more every year and currently makes up 20% of the state economy. At 190 pesos, roughly 10 bucks, the three hour tour is a great deal; however, my friend Paola and I arguably picked the worst time to go - it was a Saturday, so it was very busy, and we left off at 11:30 meaning our tour was during the hottest part of the day. Hindsight is 20/20 right (I now have some optometrist experience after all)! Luckily we were last in line to get into the boat, so when the first one was full, and the people were packed like sardines, we got to go into a second boat that was only half full. Also, some clouds swept in so I was more or less saved from the sun. 
           

   The canyon was beautiful, and it was full of colorful birds, monkeys, and crocodiles (yes that guy that was screaming at Preston and I that one day for swimming in the river was right). Arguably the most interesting aspect of the tour for me though was to see another tour guide in action on the water. The first thing that struck me was that the life jackets he handed us were a complete joke. One size fits all does not apply to life jackets. Also there has to actually be a buoyant material inside the vest for it to keep you afloat. It's Mexico; I understand. But what they handed out were little more than over sized orange cloth vests. I tell Paola that if something goes wrong with the boat it's going to be like the Titanic, but with crocodiles. Our guide also didn't utter a single word to us until about twenty minutes into the tour which I thought was interesting since normally the first thing you want to do is build trust and report with your clients. I was the only foreigner on the boat so everything he said was in Spanish but I more or less understood everything. After telling us his name, he gave us a heads up that he was expecting at least a 10 peso tip from everyone on the boat; bold move sir. When guiding for Wilderness Inquiry we were explicitly told that we couldn't take tips and even if we could I doubt any of us guides would tell our participants, upon meeting them, that we expected more of their money at the end of the day. The dude had obviously been doing this job for a while as he seemed bored in his delivery of talking points, almost robotic in his memorization of the script. And there was little to no engagement with the people on the boat, no question and answering, no enthusiasm. Am I happy I took the tour, yes, did the dude get a couple hundred pesos in tips, yep, do I think I'm a better tour guide... well I guess that's for my participants to decide.

     I also hit up another local spot called El Chorreadero, a subterranean river that emerges from the side of a cliff in a series of cascading pools and waterfalls. After two unsuccessful attempts with some of the other teachers at finding a collectivo to get us there Paola finally offered to take Preston and I there with her car. On the thirty minute drive there we only see two signs mentioning the park and when we arrive there's only three other cars in the lot, we basically have the whole place to ourselves. A twenty peso entry fee and we have our own little slice of heaven. The first thing we do is explore the cave system. We have zero equipment and no light but we use the flash from Paola's camera to go deeper into the cave. Less than a km in and we hit a waterfall with a small lagoon. We need ropes and gear if we want to continue... so I watch Preston bathe in the waterfall before we descend out of the cave and soak in one of the many lagoons. These are the places I love to visit. The spots that are absolutely beautiful, just like the tourist attractions, but are still only known to the locals and thus the tourists and the crowds are absent. I've had similar experiences in many parts of the States. Take Zion National Park for instance. Angel's landing is a wonderful hike with a breathtaking view. Objectively it's the best place to visit in the entire park. Add the crowds and the annoying yuppies trying to take selfies and suddenly this place loses its magic. Immediately after that hike I hiked a more or less unknown trail that I found online that led to a waterfall and a spectacular lagoon. My friend and I had the entire trail and lagoon to ourselves. Although, it technically wasn't as beautiful of a spot as Angel's Landing, the fact that it was all our own made it that much more impressive and memorable. And at the end of the day, it's all about the memories. 

            
         It's a small world out there. There's what, 7 billion people now on the planet. So when you have the opportunity to run into friends thousands of miles away from home, it makes you wonder about what the gods have planned. I spent two days with two of my friends from Wilderness Inquiry who happened to be passing through Chiapas on their tour of Mexico. Similar to the phenomenon of the Pope, there were no plans involved, no communications months in advance, just the realization that we were all going to be in the same place at the same time a week or two before. It's always fun to see folks in a different environment and spend time together off the clock. Ashley was one of the first people I met from Wilderness Inquiry, at the time she was just a former intern starting the summer season with high hopes and I was more or less in the same boat. Only a week or two after staff training, she was in the office helping run the canoemobile program while I found myself in the field leading trips. From humble beginnings, our lives taking two different trajectories, and yet here we were drinking Tecate and eating guacamole in San Cristobal de las Casas Mexico. Julia has been a part of the social media team for Wilderness Inquiry on and off for the last three years and I just got to know her for the first time this past fall when our two different Canoemobiles converged for our trip back to Minneapolis from the east coast. I'm not a big fan of taking pictures or capturing moments as you can probably tell from this blog so when she breaks out her camera and begins taking dozens of pictures it reminds me of how happy I am to have friends who take responsibility for taking glamorous photos of me and my adventures ha! We spent roughly 36 hours together and the thing I enjoyed the most was hiking to the top of a local mountain near San Cristobal. Of course being guides and working in the outdoor industry when we have free time the thing we decide to do is hike even if we're in a different country! Normally when I go on day hikes with friends I find myself being the one who has to prepare and organize everything - heck I even have to remind people to wear close toed shoes and bring water along. But with Ashley and Julia we have all our bases covered - flashlights, knives, directions, water, first aid kit, layers, and of course lunch. We go off road and reach our summit and enjoy some peanut butter tortillas with a view of a nearby town. When we start back down the mountain and lose the trail I'm not too worried. Between us three guides I know we'll be okay even if it means building a shelter and spending the night in the forest. Fortunately (or unfortunately; I was kind of looking forward to using some survival skills) we ran back into the trail only a few minutes later. 

Myself, Julia, Our German Friend from the Hostel, and Ashley

         Other than our hiking adventure we spent the majority of our time at the hostel playing cards and socializing with the other guests. Sometimes I like to think of myself as this wild spirit, an independent adventurer, a fearless traveler and while I'm happy with what I've accomplished and the places I've seen, talking to other travelers at the hostels quickly humbles me. An Italian guy solo biking thousands of miles from Juneau Alaska to the tip of Argentina, a young Australian who doesn't even speak a word of Spanish solo traveling from Mexico down to Panama, a 19 year old German girl just out of high school traveling Mexico alone, the list goes on. That's the thing, these people aren't exceptional, down here they're normal and they're everywhere in the hostel community. Mexico is only the third country outside of the States that I've been to after Canada and the Dominican Republic. These people have been to nearly every country in Europe, parts of Africa, southeast Asia, and most of Latin America and they're normally only a few years older than me and sometimes even a few years younger. Puts it all into perspective. Adventure is relative I suppose. So maybe to some of you I'm still crazy, but in the traveler community I'm a pretty boring guy ha! It's all about pushing ourselves outside of our comfort zones and growing from the experience though, and I can happily say I'm doing that. I'm not quite at the point where I feel I can bike through Latin America and given what I packed for what I thought was a 6 month stay teaching in Chiapa de Corzo, solo traveling the length of Central America ain't really an option either. So after chilling in Chiapa de Corzo for these last 10 weeks I packed the backpack, grabbed my guitar, donned my cowboy hat and hopped on a bus to find the beach. 
          I know this isn't goodbye. I'll be coming back to give Chiapa a proper adios and to pick up a few of my belongings that I left with my host family. And as I ride out of the city towards the Tuxtla bus stop, it's bittersweet. I know I'm beginning a new adventure in a beautiful part of the country but I've had so many wonderful moments here and I feel so comfortable around my friends and family, it's hard to leave. Guess that's what travelers do, lay down roots, nurture them, and then at a decided moment rip them out in search of other fertile soil. Ten weeks in this place and I probably had about ten different identities - Esteban, the English teacher, the tourist, the Chunta, the Parachico, the salsa dancer, the basketball player, the volleyball player, the optometrist, the guitar player, the laborer, the giant gringo with a man bun... I'm looking forward to expanding upon that list as I continue onward... Esteban the farmer, the surfer, the beach bum...

Mexico: American Imperialism, Immigration, and Politics

I'm a peace loving man but for the last month I have been engaged in a war here in Chiapa de Corzo. Violence isn't always the answer but when my home is under attack I believe I have a right to defend myself. These last four weeks I have broken the enemy lines time and again, sent them into retreat, only to see they have re-established themselves a few hours later with others taking up the positions of their fallen comrades. I feel like a German trying to capture Soviet Leningrad. For those who haven't figured it out yet, my enemies are hormigas, ants, and they have had free reign over the kitchen in my house since I first arrived in January. In February I began my campaign to liberate the kitchen. This was organic warfare - I littered their trails with cinnamon, directly sprayed them with vinegar, flooded them with peppermint water. Hundreds perished. My family joined me sporadically with the use of chemical weapons such as raid and a plug in device that emits a continual stream of a substance to keep the ants at bay. But alas on the first day of March I acquiesced and officially ceded the domain of the kitchen to the six legged invaders who simply reappeared despite my "victories" in battle. The irony is that killing the ants did not end the ant problem. They simply came back stronger and in greater numbers because the ants were merely a symptom of a larger problem; that problem being us and our kitchen. Dirty dishes, sweet drinks left out overnight, and food waste in the garbage; these were the real problems, the real enemy. We wastefully spent our time fighting the ants and cursing them when we should have been looking at ourselves and our own behavior that led to them being there in the first place. The reason I share this experience with you is because I feel that my story with the ants is extremely relevant to nearly every political issue of our time. We have leaders in Washington who are promising us solutions to complicated problems which in many cases are actually more harmful than doing nothing at all and completely ignore the causes. They are telling us to build a bigger wall to prevent illegal immigration, to carpet bomb Syria to prevent the spread of ISIS, to cut welfare benefits to balance the budget, to continue handing out harsh sentences for drug offenses to prevent addiction and drug use, to tighten sanctions and embargo countries to bring about human rights and government reform, and to overthrow governments in order to bring about democracy and stability. The solution to every problem lies in it's root causes. It's all about the why? In this entry I want to look at a controversial issue, one that's very near and dear given my current location; illegal immigration and the Hispanic population in the USA.

         For those people out there who say that illegal immigrants are people who rape and kill, steal jobs from American citizens, or at the very least are a burden to the welfare and healthcare system please read on or share the following information because if you knew why "illegals" came here you wouldn't be so quick to make assumptions and judge their actions. For those who are on the fence (ha) or are already sympathetic to the plight of illegal immigrants I hope to lay down some knowledge to embolden your views and perhaps talk to some of the people from the first sentence above. For those concerned with their property values and the neighborhood going to hell because of all the black and brown people moving in you need to wake up to the times, open your mind, and open your doors and actually get to know the people you are so afraid of. Legal or illegal by the end of this century the majority of the people living in the United States will trace their roots not to Europe but to Latin America. We are going to experience a dramatic change in the composition of our nation in the coming decades and that in and of itself is not a problem; however, there will be a problem and there will be conflict between these shifting ethnic and racial groups if ignorance and fear is chosen over reason and truth. So when it comes to illegal and legal immigration and the surging Hispanic population what is the root cause of this huge migration? While many want to point to a lax border, free handouts, and a wall that's not big enough, US Foreign and Economic Policy has been the direct cause of both legal and illegal immigration from Latin America over the last century. The truth is that it is the countries in which the US has intervened in militarily and economically that boast the most immigrants to the United States; countries like Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, and Mexico.

          Much like the lies that are taught to us about Christopher Columbus (in that he is called a noble explorer who discovered the New World and is given a national holiday rather than labeled the genocidal sociopath that he was) the US education system has failed to educate the American people about the actions of it's government in Latin America during the 1900s. In fact every US History course I have taken from elementary school all the way up through college has failed to ever shed light on America's dark past in the Western Hemisphere. We are told, even as adults, that the United States was always the good guy, liberating countries, spreading democracy, and fostering peace. To even question the notion that the United States is the freest and most just country in the world is seen as treasonous in the eyes of many. However, armed with the Monroe Doctrine, the spirit of Manifest Destiny, the Roosevelt Corollary, and Dollar Diplomacy the United States destabilized peaceful democracies and brought war upon a number of countries in order to gain political and economic influence and expand it's empire south. While the troops on the ground who would go on to commit atrocities and war crimes against their people were not American they were trained, armed, and funded directly by our government with orders from Congress and the Commander in Chief. Nearly every president in the 20th Century took part in overthrowing a peacefully elected democratic government in Latin America in order to install a puppet dictatorship that was more conducive to American markets and American foreign policy.

   Guatemala, 1951, Jacobo Arbenz is elected president of the country as a progressive ex- military commander eager to alleviate the poverty and suffering of his people. At the time of his election an elite 2% of Guatemalan society owned more than 75% of the land and wealth and had close ties with American big business like the United Fruit Company. Arbenz's first action is land reform and the redistribution of acreage to individual families in order to end the "slavery" of his people. He then began to improve infrastructure and construct new Guatemalan railways and ports since the entire country's transportation system was owned by the United Fruit Company. By 1952 Eisenhower had approved a CIA backed plan to remove Arbenz and replace him with a military regime that would protect the economic interests of the United Fruit Company and other American investments. In 1954 the coup took place, progressives and Arbenz supporters fled to the mountains for safety and enlisted the help of the indigenous communities to take back their country, and for the next forty years a series of conservative military dictators backed by the United States wage war on the people of Guatemala. Death squads armed and trained by the CIA massacre entire villages of women and children in the countryside that are suspected of aiding the Arbenz rebels. Local leaders, scholars, students, journalists, and critics of the Guatemalan government are executed under suspicion of treason. The rest of the world condemns the actions of Guatemala's military for committing genocide against the Mayan population during the civil war and for widespread human rights violations against it's civilians but the US aid continued. At the war's end in 1996, over 200,000 civilians are dead or missing, 80% of them are native Mayans. In the midst of this 40 years of chaos only 2% of Guatemalans seeking refuge are granted legal asylum in the United States. Thousands flee to Mexico and the United States illegally for protection.

            Nicaragua, 1933, the United States ends a 20 year occupation of Nicaragua and backs the puppet government of the Somoza family who go on to rule the country until 1979. During this time the Somoza's rule with an iron fist and continue to fatten their bank accounts having universal control of the banks, ports, news outlets, and manufacturing industries as well as continue to allow American companies to exploit Nicaraguan gold, rubber, and timber. A coalition of anti-Somoza movements come together to oust the family from power. After a 20 year struggle the Nicaraguan revolution comes to an end with the Somoza family fleeing to Miami and the Sandanistas, a left leaning youth and student group, taking control of the country. The Sandanista's quickly implement the following; nationalization of property owned by the

Somozas and their supporters; land reform; improved rural and urban working conditions; free unionization for all workers, both urban and rural; price fixing for commodities of basic necessity; improved public services, housing conditions, education; abolition of torture, political assassination and the death penalty; protection of democratic liberties; equality for women; and a non-aligned foreign policy. After two years of peace in Nicaragua President Ronald Reagan authorized the CIA to begin funding, arming, and training rebels, most of whom were remnants of Somoza's National Guard, to retake the country and implement a government more conducive to American business and foreign policy. When the US Congress deems support for these rebels, called the Contras, as illegal, Reagan ignores American and International law by selling arms to Iran and rerouting the money through a third party to continue to fund the Contras. In Nicaragua the Contras begin executing young people in every town. The Sandanistas begin drafting these same young people to fight the Contras. Given the level of violence young people begin fleeing to Mexico and the United States seeking political asylum. When the war ends ten years later there are over 50,000 people left dead.

              El Salvador, 1979, a few families making up 2% of the population own 95% of the wealth of the country. As the people become more restless the government is forced to become more violent to retain control. Finally, the military turns on the newly "elected" president in favor of military control of the country. The United States, led by President Jimmy Carter, sees an opportunity to gain a new ally in the region having just lost control of Nicaragua and begins funding, arming, and training the El Salvadoran military and its leaders. Left wing guerrilla groups join together and attempt to take away control of the government from the military dictatorship sparking a civil war in 1980. The El Salvadoran military targets civilian populations, raping, torturing, and massacring thousands in order to eradicate any possible base of support for the guerrilla movement. In the midst of this death and war Archbishop Oscar Romero, the leader of the Catholic church in El Salvador, pleads with President Jimmy Carter to cut funding for the military that is committing genocide against it's own people. Carter continues his funding. Romero targets his message directly to the soldiers in the El Salvadoran military calling for them to lay down their weapons and to stop murdering their fellow countrymen. The next day he is gunned down during Mass by members of the El Salvadoran military. During his funeral procession the military opens fire on peaceful mourners killing and injuring hundreds of civilians. Carter responds by doubling the amount of aid to the El Salvadoran military and gifting helicopters and grenades for their war effort against the guerrillas. Nine months later members of this same military raped and killed four American nuns who were in El Salvador attempting to provide relief to victims of the military's death squads. Carter penalizes El Salvador by cutting off funding for six weeks. Three years into the fighting the guerrillas call for a peace settlement and new elections. President Reagan sees it as a communist trap and calls for the fighting to continue. Ten more years of war and genocide would leave 75,000 people dead and more than 1 million displaced. Many fled to the United States illegally in an attempt to escape the violence.  

Cuba, 1898, the United States invades the island and claims "independence" for Cuba from Spain but retains economic and military control over the country via the Platt Amendment. US companies take control over a majority of the Cuban sugar industry and begin grooming General Fulgencio Batista as their chosen leader. When democratic elections yield a different leader the US backs a military coup making Batista the ruler of the country. Batista rules for 29 years with an iron fist neglecting the needs of his people with the full support of the United States. As his secret police force brutalizes the population groups of dissenters band together to overthrow the authoritarian ruler. After a six year struggle, Batista is finally ousted, and a socialist state with revolutionary hero Fidel Castro at its head is established in 1959. The new government implements land reform and nationalizes the sugar industry stripping the American sugar companies of their land holdings. Castro also implements other progressive reforms in education, healthcare, and literacy for the population. A year into his rule Castro becomes paranoid and begins exiling and executing Batista sympathizers and others who question his leadership. Many Cubans flee to the United States for fear of being purged as non-socialists. In 1980 Castro declares that any Cubans who wish to leave for political or economic reasons may do so in safety. The United States accepts nearly 125,000 Cuban immigrants in a 12 month period.  

          

The Dominican Republic, 1961, General Rafael Trujillo has mercilessly ruled the country for the last 31 years. Backed by the United States, Trujillo protects US sugar companies by torturing and killing labor organizers and becomes one of the richest men in the world through his efforts. Trujillo orders the ethnic cleansing of all Haitians living in the Dominican Republic; 35,000 Haitians are massacred in a six day period. He becomes so barbaric towards the Haitian people and his own that the United States supports his assassination. However, a left leaning democratic reformer, Juan Bosch, is chosen by the people in the ensuing elections after Trujillo's death. Concerned that Bosch may end American business interests and side with Cuba, Lyndon Johnson sends the Marines to the Dominican in order to bring "stability." The US calls for new elections and backs Trujillo's former right hand man, Joaquin Balaguer, who easily wins the elections after intimidating, torturing, and executing Bosch's supporters. Balaguer would go on to continue Trujillo's policies for another twelve years, killing over 10,000 political dissidents during this time. The US allows Bosch supporters and other rebels to immigrate to the United States in order to end the fighting and provide a safe environment for American business on the island; over 200,000 make the move from 1980 to 1990.  

           Puerto Rico, 1898, after taking the country from Spain in the Spanish American War the United States remains heavily involved in Puerto Rican affairs as US companies take control of the country's sugar industry. As the US prepares to enter WWI, US citizenship is imposed on the Puerto Rican people so that over 20,000 Puerto Ricans can be drafted and sent to the front lines of the European theater. Spanish is outlawed in the courts and schools and Puerto Ricans are systematically stripped of their language and culture. As WWII approaches 65,000 Puerto Rican men are drafted to fight the Germans. Those who aren't drafted are recruited to move to the United States to fill the vacancies in the factories in the North East region of the States. Although having served their country and played a vital role in the war effort at home Puerto Ricans are met with racism and discrimination at the wars end. There are currently more Puerto Ricans living in the States than on the island of Puerto Rico; 5 million compared to 3.5 million.

        

Mexico, 1847, eager to gain more land in the West and expand the power of the slave holding South President Polk orders American troops to enter disputed territory along the Mexican American border where they are subsequently fired upon by the Mexican military. Using this "ambush of American troops" along with other propaganda and fear mongering Polk convinces Congress to go to war. In a little over a year the US has taken most of the major ports and cities of Mexico including Mexico City, and Mexico has no choice but to give into American demands. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is signed in 1848 ceding 55% of Mexico's territory to the US including California, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. Over 75,000 Mexicans living in these territories are crossed by the new political boundary and now live in the United States. As settlers and industry populate the new frontier there is a shortage of labor for the railway and Mexicans are sought and recruited as workers. By 1930 over 2 million Mexicans are living in the United States. When the Great Depression hits suddenly these same laborers that were just recruited become the enemy. With orders by President Hoover, over 1 million Mexicans are forcibly deported back across the border, 60% of whom were American citizens who traced their lineage to the United States before it had even become a country. A decade later during WWII, there is a shortage of European immigrants so the Bracero program is introduced to recruit hundreds of thousands of Mexicans to work in the factories and fields and aid in the war effort at home. This pattern continues to this day. We are two countries with one economy. Mexico serves as a reserve labor force in good economic times and as an expendable one during the bad. The passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994 allowed commerce to cross borders but not people. Many will tout NAFTA as an enormous success as can be seen by the rising GDPs

of the countries involved; however, while it has been successful for the big companies it has not been for the common man, on either side of the border. Here in the States we have seen millions of blue collar manufacturing jobs that provided a living wage be outsourced to Mexico and other foreign countries where workers are being paid substandard wages for the same work. Mexican farmers are also not able to compete with the US agricultural industry that is heavily subsidized by American taxpayers and have had their jobs and their way of life destroyed; leaving many with no choice but to head north across the border in search of a new life in the States.  

         The notion that illegals are criminals who are seeking out white suburban housewives to rape and kill is a fiction created by people to legitimize their xenophobia. The truth is that the overwhelming majority of illegal immigrants have historically been and continue to be refugees who are simply trying to escape the political violence and economic desert of their homelands. "That's all well and good but we have a legal system in place for those individuals to enter the United States and become US citizens," you say. Well if you're village is being raided by death squads and you've just watched your neighbors and parents get executed you probably don't have the time or the means to file paperwork with the US embassy and await their response. As far as attempts to gain legal citizenship, the United States is currently 20 years behind on their paperwork. That's correct, right now we are currently processing the applications of those people who applied in 1995 to gain legal US citizenship. People who are fearing for their lives or who are starving due to poverty don't have twenty years. Political asylum and refugee status? Well yes that should be the answer for the individuals our government helped displace but given the United States' current thoughts on refugees, that should shed some light on just how effective this route was for the people of Latin America. Becoming a refugee involves a bureaucratic labyrinth of paperwork, references, and interviews with the ideal scenario taking 18 months for you to gain refugee status and be accepted into the States.  And that's also if you're one of the 2-5% of applicants that actually gets accepted. Once again you simply don't have that luxury if you're country is being torn apart by a savage dictator funded by the world's most powerful country. If you want to protect your family or your children your only option is to flee, legally or illegally, to another country.

         The decision to leave one's country is not an easy one. People don't want to leave their homes, their communities, their families, their language, their culture if they don't have to. Many who fled illegally did so believing they would be able to return to their countries after the violence had passed; they thought their stay in the States was temporary and would only last a few months. When those civil wars and economic depressions lasted decades many had no choice but to lay down roots and being building a future here on American soil. It's safe to say people don't want to be strangers in a new land where they don't speak the language and are met with discrimination; becoming estranged from the land and the people that they loved, stuck in this limbo of identity. Combine this emotional pain of being ripped away from everything that you value in your life with the danger of making the journey and you know that people who are trying to enter the United States illegally are doing so as a last resort out of sheer desperation. More people die every summer trying to cross the wall between the US and Mexico than died the entire 27 year existence of the Berlin Wall that separated East and West Germany. Crossing the border historically was never a safe undertaking but with Bill Clinton's implementation of Operation Gatekeeper back in the 90's illegal immigrants now have to take even riskier routes through the barren deserts to make it across. Sure it's making entering the States more difficult but it's also leading to more deaths. Roughly 500 people have died each year crossing the border since 2000; however, those numbers only come from the bodies that are recovered so the numbers may very well be even higher. Enrique Morones, the founder of Border Angels (an organization that drops water in the desert for those trying to cross), says that the largest mass grave in the United States has nothing to do with military battles or war, it is the cemetery of Holtville California and it is filled with the bodies of hundreds of unknown illegal immigrants who died trying to enter the United States.        

           So in order to prevent illegal immigration we need to just build a bigger wall right? Well if the ant metaphor still isn't sticking and you skipped the last eight paragraphs the solution to this issue lies in the root causes. Why are people leaving their homes and coming here in the first place? We need to look at the actions of our own country and the influence our policies have had on the governments and economies of Latin American nations. Repealing NAFTA or at least amending it to demand living wages and environmental standards would take money away from these huge corporations and give it back to the people and feed the local economies that every day are losing ground to chain stores that don't keep money in the community. Buying electronics, clothing, and even food might cost a bit more without free trade but if it means that my neighbor won't be out of work or that my rivers and lakes won't have chemicals dumped in them I'm willing to front the extra cash. All NAFTA has done is increase the competition between American, Canadian, and Mexican workers forcing them into worse and worse working conditions for less and less money. Competition, while necessary, when taken to the extreme simply encourages companies to cut corners to increase profits for shareholders at the expense of workers, consumers, and the general population. Next, we can grant full autonomy to these countries and support actual democracy by recognizing their elected leaders, even if they are self proclaimed socialists. Just think of what we could have accomplished if we had invested those billions of dollars on education, infrastructure, and industry in Latin America rather than on bombs and arms used by militant dictators to destroy their countries and murder their people. If we had taken different routes in recognizing the sovereignty of these nations and let them be at peace or actually helped them attain their goals of independence and economic stability there never would have been the war and chaos that forced millions to enter the US illegally. Because of the actions of our government these countries are still politically, economically, and emotionally recovering from their civil wars and the rule of those dictators. These wounds are still fresh but we continue to still meddle in their affairs.

      You might be saying Steven, all of these examples you gave, those were different times. The United States was engaged in a very delicate game of political chess against other, much worse, empires. It was vital to our national security to take those actions; sacrifices have to be made for the greater good. Did you expect us to allow these countries to join the Soviet Bloc and tilt the scales in favor of the Reds during the Cold War? If we hadn't done what we did, Red Dawn wouldn't have been a horrible 1984 action film featuring Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen, it very well could have been our reality. Well as much as I disagree with all those statements and possible scenarios, I still have to ask, if it was about the red scare and communism why we are continuing the same policies today? Remember the 2002 failed military coup against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela? Nope, neither do I. It's probably because I was eleven years old oh and also because the US has tried to distance itself and deny any involvement in the failed coup, hmmm remind you of Bay of Pigs Invasion much? The National Endowment for Democracy, a nonprofit agency created and financed by Congress, donated nearly 900,000 dollars to Chavez's opposition for "party building" and "democracy promotion" in the months leading up to the coup. There's also the fact that Bush was never shy about verbalizing his disdain for Chavez because he was a "socialist" aka he wouldn't open up Venezuelan crude oil to American companies (oh and he revolutionized Venezuelan society by providing bricks so every Venezuelan family could have a home, handed out bread so people were no longer going hungry, created a system for universal healthcare, implemented land reform to break up the 3% of society that owned 77% of the land, oh and he paid for it all by nationalizing his countries oil industry and demanding greater oil prices from the States). We hear Chavez and we think dictator. At least that's what I had always thought until I actually read up on the guy; crazy what watching Fox News and CNN can do to a person. Then there's also the fact that the Bush administration immediately endorsed the new Venezuelan government under businessman and oil executive Pedro Carmona hours after the hostile takeover (unfortunately for Carmona the people rose up, pressured the military to free Chavez, and the coup was put down in less than 48 hours). Luckily for the States Chavez died of cancer a few years back at the early age of 58.

           Okay but that was Bush and Cheney. Surely Barrack Obama and Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would never be involved in the overthrow of democratic governments in Latin America. Well remember the 2009 military coup in Honduras. Nope me neither, and at the age of seventeen believe me I was into politics, keeping tabs on international and domestic news almost daily, although my sources back then were, that's right you guessed it; Fox, CNN, and MSNBC. Given their connections to the ruling elites of course those news sources don't want to tell you about how a democratically elected moderate president trying to bring stability and progress to a country mired in poverty and violence was overthrown in a coup with the help of a military led by Brigadier General Romeo Vasquez Velasquez who was a lap dog for the United States. There's also the wikileaks documents that show the State Department was discussing the legality and options available for removing President Manuel Zelaya from office months before the coup. Even without the military connections or the documents proving the US was involved before the coup, the State Department led by Hillary Clinton, recognized the illegal government that took the place of the democratically elected government of Zelaya against the wishes of the European Union, the Organization of American States, the United Nations, oh and the people of Honduras who had elected him into office and continued to support him after his removal. Instead what the people of Honduras have gotten is a series of authoritarian "elected presidents" that have discontinued civil liberties such as freedom of transit and due process, implemented curfews, taken part in forced disappearances and extrajudicial executions of journalists, political dissidents, and social and environmental activists. Authoritarian leaders that Obama has continued to support financially over the last six years despite the atrocities they have committed against their people. And then readers could you imagine my surprise when literally while I was writing this piece I saw on the news that the most outspoken environmental and social activist in Honduras, Berta Caceres, was assassinated, presumably by forces tied to the government. So there you have it folks, it's 2016 and we're still doing the same thing.

http://thetruenews.info/2016/03/05/us-contribution-death-honduran-activist-goes-unmentioned-us-coverage/

            If everything I have already told you isn't sticking I have one more piece of evidence that confirms the truths I am laying out before you. The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC) formerly known as the US Army School of the Americas, is a United States Department of Defense Institute located at Fort Benning near Columbus Georgia that has provided military training to government personnel in US-allied Latin American nations for the last seventy years. What The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation really was and continues to be is a US tool to recruit, train, and indoctrinate future military and political leaders from Latin America that can be utilized to overthrow uncooperative governments in order to replace them with ones more conducive to US economic demands and foreign policy interests. Many of the dictators and their military leaders that I described above had connections with WHINSEC. The torture practices that many of the deathsquads practiced on civilian populations in places like Guatemala and Nicaragua came straight from CIA torture manuals that were part of the curriculum at WHINSEC. The El Salvadoran soldiers that assassinated Archbishop Romero and raped and killed the four nuns were graduates of WHINSEC. Two of the generals involved in the failed 2002 coup against Hugo Chavez were WHINSEC graduates. Romeo Vasquez Velasquez, the general who recently helped overthrow the democratically elected government in Honduras, a graduate of WHINSEC. The connections and the information are all out there, it's just one google search away.

http://www.mintpressnews.com/the-school-of-the-americas-is-still-exporting-death-squads/204655/

            So is it any surprise that we still have illegal immigrants pouring over our borders? That millions have decided to make the United States there homes rather than the war torn authoritarian countries that they originated from given these US policies. Rather than viewing illegal immigrants as "illegal" and putting millions of dollars into a wall maybe we should address the issues that have caused people to come here in the first place. Overhauling our immigration system so people can get here legally in a timely fashion. Working in partnership with democratically elected leaders to foster free, open, stable, and just societies for the good of the people so that folks never feel the need to leave their homes in the first place. Offering people a path towards citizenship that are currently here (and to all the Reagan conservatives out there moaning at the very idea of amnesty you might want to google the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 which granted some 2 million illegal immigrants citizenship and was signed into law by Reagan). Also if you call yourself a Christian and you say you stand for family values I would be very curious to know what Jesus would do in this situation. The Pope has made his position clear. And you know nothing says moral family values like splitting up millions of law abiding families and forcibly deporting them back to countries where they will be surrounded by violence and poverty all because they crossed an imaginary line. And then there's the deported Illegal immigrants who have been murdered upon returning home http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/12/obama-immigration-deportations-central-america. Then there's the research that proves that immigrants are actually the most law abiding facet of our society. Given that they are desperately trying to fit in and they have just fled violence they tend to break the law the least and statistically lower the crime rate. When it comes to violence and crime it's actually Americans you need to look out for. One more thing to digest before I get to my conclusion is that not everyone wants to come to the States. We flatter ourselves on thinking that the United States is the pinnacle of human achievement. There are actually more Mexicans leaving the States right now than coming in so that wall might do more "harm" than good. Why are they leaving -the number one reason is family reunification followed by the economic recession and stricter enforcement of immigration laws. Through my conversations here in Chiapas people have confirmed the importance of being with their families but they've also talked about how cold, expensive, and sometimes racist the USA is and many have said they never want to go or they never want to return... as a white dude who can't speak the language living in a town of only Mexicans I can't tell you how ashamed I am to hear these things; indeed God Bless America, because we need some help from someone.  

         Before I let you go the real takeaway point I  want to get across is that this is just the tip of the iceberg. My research these past two weeks sent me down the rabbit hole. There were times I had nearly two dozen tabs open, as the connections and the corruption just went deeper and deeper. I'm just scratching the surface here. There are even more coups, even more shadey CIA programs, and even more atrocities committed with the knowledge and/or support of the US Government. And keep in mind I kept my scope to just Central America and the Caribbean, I hardly even got into South America. Add Africa, South East Asia, Central Asia, the Pacific theater, and the Middle East and I could be writing blogs about US Foreign Policy and it's ramifications for the next year. In the 60's, 70's, and 80's we were overthrowing governments mainly with the excuse of saving the world from communism and now in the 21st Century we see the same thing happening again across the globe, with Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, and now Syria all in the name to stop terrorism. Our old economic interests were sugar and bananas, now we're after the oil to the point where we support(ed) brutal dictators like the Shah of Iran, Saddam Hussein, and the Monarchs of Saudi Arabia (who ironically have beheaded twice as many people as ISIS this past year and yet continue to be held up as the United State's closest ally in the region after Israel). Meanwhile there are hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria and Iraq who are looking for asylum as a result of, you guessed it, US foreign policy that created a climate for Assad to begin striking out and gave ISIS a home to grow. And once again you are hearing numerous American leaders telling the people we are responsible for displacing, that they are not welcome here as refugees... well luckily for us Europe is a lot closer to Syria than the States so that's their "illegal" problem now!

And some people say history doesn't repeat itself, ha!

As we are in the midst of the democratic process of selecting the candidates for the next President of the United States I urge you to consider the history I have written here. Is the person you're supporting the type of person who will continue these policies or are they someone who will actually represent the best of America both domestically and abroad. As you can see, our Commander in Chief, doesn't only influence our country, they have power to destroy or support entire populations of foreign countries. Vote wisely my friends.

HARVEST EMPIRE: This is the film that inspired everything that you have read above.