The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border

by Francisco Cantú

“to join in a large number after death is to be dissolved into a stream of anonymity.

Refers to Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia. And COVID-19?

Violence does not grow organically in our deserts or at our borders. It has arrived there through policy.

Take notice

To describe what we are seeing as a “crisis,” however, is to imply that our current moment is somehow more horrifying than those that set the stage for it—moments that, had we allowed ourselves to see them and be horrified by them, might have prevented our arrival here in the first place.

Upside down

When the violent shortcomings of our institutions are revealed, when their dehumanizing design is laid bare, it can be overwhelming to imagine navigating the particulars of enacting change. But what I have learned from giving myself over to a structure of power, from living within its grim vision and helping to cannibalize the people and places from which I came, is that small impulses and interactions have the power to lead us back toward humanity, and heeding them can be a means of extricating ourselves from systems of thought and policy that perpetuate detachment. We can do this in spite of all the mechanisms that have been devised to keep us wedded to individual and nationalistic self-interest. As obvious as it might seem, to truly and completely reject a culture of violence, to banish it from our hearts and souls, we must first fully refuse to participate in it, and refuse to partake in its normalization. When we consider the border, we might think of our home; when we consider those who cross it, we might think of those we hold dear. Tucson, Arizona December 2018

Summary - call to action