JE #5

The article in The New York Times regarding dead and missing immigrants describes a situation that is not only tragic but immoral.  Both Mexican and U.S. policy are complicit in these deaths.  Mexico loathes its indigenous population and carries little more than disdain for its poor.  The U.S. does not fare much better in regards to Native Americans or to people living in poverty.  Moreover, this country hates immigrants as well.  As someone whose entire family was born in the U.S., I do not put myself "above" immigrants or believe that I am any better than them.  Actually, sometimes I envy immigrants because of their strong ties to Mexico, something that I will never have.  Just as in Kathleen Alcala's novel, The Flower in the Skull, the article describes the displacement of indigenous people.  The Trail of Tears is continuing, as the the op-ed documentary Bodies on the Border by Marc Silver illustrates.  The Opata lived in relative harmony before the arrival of the Spanish, the Mexicans, and the U.S. However, foreign and domestic policies and arbitrary borders produced a vivisection of ancient cultural lands.  How many other indigenous groups are we ignorant of that have been completely displaced and obliterated due to the ongoing process of globalization, or colonization.  This part of border consciousness is akin to sticking a metal spike in my head.  I cannot contain my seething fury towards the those who lust for power so much that these people--the displaced indigenous and the dead immigrants at the border.  As I was reading The Flower in the Skull, I can understand why Concha transformed from Shark's Tooth to an empty vessel of regret and vague memories.