Questioning some boundaries

"It's easier to learn to swim than to get a visa"
The words of the taxi driver echoed in my head. At first I thought it was an isolated case. Why would it be easier to enter illegally than to get a visa? The neo-conservative voice popped into my head: he must've done something. This is a just world, isn't it?
Isn't it?

Later, a university professor told me the exact same thing. She said she tried applying twice (costing her 100 USD each time) and was then rejected by the consulate both times. Who is preventing imigration, even for just a short visit into the states? Where does all this "security" come from? Who, exactly, are we being protected against?

I've been thinking a lot about boundaries and borders recently. I suppose it started in Canada, after (finally) attending Ward Churchill's lecture about indigenous genocide. He talked about the many ways to kill a culture... not just those involving violence, but also by isolating them, cutting them off, creating an environment of distrust and fear around them, demonstrating that "their" way is the "wrong" way, forcing them to dissociate from their own culture, but at the same time never fully accepting them into "mainstream" culture.

A poet in Canada told me that when the invadors from Europe first came and separated Canadian territory from US territory, many first nations people were confused by the notion of dividing land in such an illogical way. Geographically speaking, Ottawa is the same as Upstate New York. It's the same land, just with a different government, a different name, different laws. But the land is the same, and if you think about it, the people are the same. People are people, no matter what language they speak or where they pay their taxes.

A poet here told me a story from a few years back. People who lived in Nogales, Sonora and Nogales, Arizona had something to demonstrate. They set up speakers on either side of the Mexican/American border, and had two microphones, one on either side. Poets, writers and artsts from both sides of the border then shared their words with each other. They played music. They read poetry. They shared visions. Thus showing that language itself is an imaginary barrier, that when it comes down to it, words aren't important, the sentiment which they carry is important. And this sentiment is inherently human. Though words are the vessels in which sentiment is transported, they are not the sentiment itself. It was literally a cultural exchange from either side of the imaginary line, a line which represents so much fear, and anxiety and hatred. Children, not knowing the symbolic weight of their actions, ran back and forth giggling over the imaginary line. They played a game of volleyball over the line.

A few months later, a steel barrier was built, henceforth separating the people of North America.

Walls are meant to keep things out. They're also meant to keep things in. What are we trying to keep out, exactly? Immigrants? Immigrants who would be legal if only the immigration policy was actually fair? People trying to build a better life for themselves? A little ironic, don't you think, for a country that prides itself on being a country of immigrants, a melting pot culture, a country which claims to stand by the words of Lady Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddle masses yearning to breath free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" Perhaps instead of spending so much money debating on whether or not a wall should be expanded, those with power might consider looking into the yard nextdoor and figuring out the reasoning behind the massive exodus. Why are we trying to silence a dialogue between two neighbors? Why are we trying to aggravate a culture of hatred and distrust, instead of encouraging dialogue and understanding? Why is it that on the back of so many cars in the states I have seen signs saying "Speak English! This is America!" Where did all this hostility come from? Where did all this fear cloaked in nationalism come from?

I wonder what the wall is keeping in. It's keeping us from actually engaging in dialogue with our neighbors, and its enforcing an "us vs. them" mentality. People are not their governments. People are not their language or country. People are people. I'm starting to wonder if these borders are really necessary at all? It's completely impractical, I know, and completely idealist to think about. But, after so many years of tempering my point of view with logic and pragmatism, I'm tempted just for a moment to let all that go and think only about what could be. No, I don't know how we would govern a world with no boundaries, and no, I don't know how an economy in a world like that could sustain itself. I don't know what languages would be spoken nor do I know what religions would be practiced, or how people could put aside their differences and see each other as valid beings with the right to live a good life, despite petty physical differences or histories of oppression and violence. I don't know how that could ever happen.

But when I'm out here, outside the boundaries of the US, listening to poets from all over the world, from all different economic classes and histories and religions spreading the same message of peace and understanding, things stop looking so bleak. I hear them talk about unification of all peoples, about putting aside differences and guns and using their voices to cross boundaries because sound and sentiment can't be held back by iron fences or Minutemen or stupid pieces of paper that says "yes you're good enough." I sit back and listen, watching a long overdue dialogue form itself inside my head. And slowly but surely, there in the audience as a passive observer of a spoken word poetry scene, I feel myself getting a little surge of energy down my spine. It's an energy that grows every new place I visit. I could be wrong, but I think it's some hope.