Just fresh off of our talk with Witness for Peace, at then end of our time in Oaxaca, and after discussing how we were going to approach sharing the information we had learned to the people we talk to post-trip, I got my chance. Twice. I woke up in Oaxaca city, had a lovely breakfast with the last girls left, and then set off on my trip back to Tucson.
On my flight from Mexico City to Houston I began writing to a friend, but about half an hour before landing started talking to a very nice man in my row from Chihuahua (what’s up Yessenia), who ironically (as I found out after we had been talking for a while) sells transformers to electric plants all over Mexico. But he asked me what I was doing and then began to ask more about my semester. He became the quintessential supportive, interested party we talked about in our debrief in Oaxaca, and wanted to know everything he could about NAFTA, the School of the Americas, and a bunch of other topics we got into as he peppered me with questions. I ended up leaving our Spanish NAFTA reading from the WfP booklet with him, but all the time sort of wondered who exactly he was selling these parts for these hydroelectric plants to, which he told me at the end are mostly state-owned clients. Hmmm… Then we landed in Houston.
George Bush International Airport is always an interesting experience. Waiting in line to get through immigration and customs is, in my expert opinion, the best people watching to be had anywhere. I finally made it through the line, after a number of families got put through the wringer ahead of me, getting fingerprinted and photographed. I got asked one question and sent on my way. After I found out my flight was delayed I set off to find dinner. I ended up at Chili’s, hoping I could get a salad and a soup after all our digestive adventures in Mexico. I asked for my salad, and my absolutely enormous and bearded waiter asked me what dressing I wanted: Ranch, Bleu Cheese, or Honey Mustard. Coming from the land of lime juice for dressing all I could think was “Welcome back to America,” a feeling that was only compounded by the conversation being had to my left between three young men rivaling my gargantuan waiter in height and breadth. Their accents were by far the most Southern I had ever heard in my life and they talked about school lunches and barbecue. Cue a call from Riley. As I spoke it became clear they were listening to every word I said, and as soon as I hung up they asked me where I had just come from. The test of a lifetime…where do I start?
I knew for certain that I could not broach the topic of the corrupt and dominant U.S. Government and its questionable tactics abroad, so I started with the basics, sort of hoping I could just avoid the conversation and eat my food. But it was not to be—they were just as interested as my seatmate from the plane, but clearly in a slightly different way. I told them about the program and my work at Florence to start. More questions… They tell me how they work construction near College Station, TX, and how so many of their colleagues are illegal aliens who don’t pay taxes, and aren’t the people you work with just criminals? They weren’t letting me go so easy. So I thought of how I might convey the impossibility of avoiding migration experienced by so many Mexicans and other Latin Americans. NAFTA for enormous Texan McCain supporters? OK, here goes… So the U.S. signed this free trade agreement blah blah blah they said they would cut subsidies to their farmers and didn’t blah blah blah but the Mexican government had to, and now the farmers there can’t sell their corn for anywhere near as much as they could before blah blah blah, but the point is, if the government here stopped paying subsidies to the farmers, they would be just as in need of a living wage—which they barely make now anyway—as are many of the migrants you see in the U.S., those here with and without papers. Then I laid some stats on them for good measure.
After that, one of them, to my surprise, nodded and smiled, said that made sense, one started hitting on me, and one was totally nonplussed. But they kept asking me questions about whether these aliens would ever pay taxes if you gave them the chance? And, aren’t the ones in detention criminals? And, Can’t they just move to cities if they can’t work in the country? I tried to answer in the least inflammatory way possible without ever saying Obama, Liberal, Republican, Democrat, McCain (until about 1 minute before we parted) etc., hoping not to push any buttons that would turn off the information receptors of my bafflingly interested countrymen. As they had me talk to them about PPP and the SOA and paramilitaries, and then one of them talked to me about what they knew about gangs, and how construction workers on the border are allowed to carry pistols to shoot at the narcos coming to kill them and sell their body parts on the black market, I felt for the first time (not) that I was maybe, possibly, fighting a losing battle. But they just kept asking more questions and by the end generally agreeing with some (a couple) of the points I was making (while ignoring or disagreeing with others), and as I was paying for my dinner asked THE question. Yeah, you know the one. “Yeah, but all this is bad, but why should I care, it’s not like I can do anything about it right?”
Just another moment where you have identified your audience from the beginning, and just try to find some common ground, have an amiable (and in my case, quite funny) conversation, and hope that any one of your ridiculously demonstrative facts stuck with them in some sort of positive way. Like the kind of way that will elicit a dissenting vote when Jannie Bannanie Brewer, the puppy dog of governors, asks for her own personal militia. My three behemoth Texan acquaintances walked me to my gate with smiles and handshakes and told me they hoped they never saw me on the news.
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