CROSSING THE BORDER LINE

I just got a big susto trying to cross the border to the US. I went directly to get the six months permission to be within the country. Indira had told me that normally it is very easy to get it, just saying that I am visiting friends or family and she said it would be better saying that. I preferred doing it in the right way, telling all the truth about my plans volunteering with WWOOF and saying that I was planning to spend the whole year doing it. The police I got to talk with said that getting food and accommodation was a kind of remuneration and my visa was not the right one to do that. He started asking questions, saying that he was able to cancel my visa and that I would have to go to the US consulate to apply for another one that allows me to do what I was planning to do. Another guy who seemed to be a superior came to me and he rather made questions focusing on how I was going to finance my trip. I tried to give an explanation but he became rude and said that if I was not able to prove him financial solvency he will cancel my visa. I didn’t know what to say, I became very nervous at the idea of not only the fact that I wasn’t going to be able to get in but that he could eventually cancel my visa. I tried to be as quiet as I could and said yes to whatever he asked. I sincerely thought I was doing everything right and as I volunteered once already in New York City, I think it is totally legal to do that. I walked the line back thinking of a way to prove them that I am not thinking of overstaying and that I would not like to risk that visa, as it is a big privilege to have one. I think that if they would have just listened to me it was obvious that I wasn’t the kind of person who is going to work anywhere just to make money. I understand what is happening, they’re just doing their job and it was me who chose to come in this unconventional way and situation. They seemed surprised of me talking fluently and of my passport full of stamps. I think they also wanted me to get in as everybody else but this is the way the system is built. I felt kind of miserable; I think that the people who get caught when crossing illegally feel the same but a thousand times stronger. Tijuana is a tough place, there is all kind of injustices, good and bad people, frustrated migrants who stay here to work at the maquiladoras, where they get miserable wages but sometimes is better than what they could get back home. Tijuana is people from California who come and are welcome to spend their dollars in all kind of things including prostitutes and casinos of the multimillionaire politician Hank Rhon, son of Hank Gonzalez who also owns a big part of the Mexican wealth. Tijuana is opulence, malls and luxurious neighborhoods surrounded by enormous poverty belts sitting in beautiful green mountains in where school courses have to be suspended during the rains because of the danger of landslides. There is a big difference amongst the people who, having a visa, can cross anytime to the neighboring cities of the US, getting cheaper goods, entertainment and even products to stock up their business and sell them to the workers that can only see the lines of cars going to the “otro lado” everyday but cannot cross. For those workers, life is all about working, being in a recondite corner of Mexico where the next big city they can go to is Mexicali, to hours away, and Hermosillo, ten hours away. For them, what seems to be the paradise of the developed US city of San Diego, is so close and so far at the same time.