María and the Blockade
   ©1993, Phil Durán

   María's face filled the newsprint with grief  
   as her eyes followed me around the table
   until suddenly i recognized
   the five centuries of humiliation
   carved in her downcast brow

   she was praying from the other side of the river:
   "Le ruego a Dios que esto pase pronto!"
   but the Justice Department mocked her prayers
   and added more funding to keep her out,
   she maintains a posture of prayer
   while the Border Patrol 
   maintains a posture of war

   a human chain of armed uniforms
   are deployed strategically
   along twenty miles of river
   from Ysleta to Sunland Park,
   keeping her in submission,
   while farther north 
   the traffic on interstate 10
   drowns out her crying 
   as casual motorists 
   not thinking about their role
   pass fifteen agents every minute

   not long ago, María's now-idle hands 
   were busy providing cheap labor,
   here was a little surplus wealth trickling
   southward to feed poor families,
   it was convenience exchanged for survival,
   it was pleasure shaking hands with hunger 
   it was exploitation justified by want,
   a simple trade formula allowed by governments 
   & condoned by citizens
   to perpetuate third-world existence

   President Clinton says 
   "we must protect our borders,"
   a strange claim for a country of mostly immigrants,
   where educated raza learn the language of exclusion:
   "illegal alien" 
           "outlaw"        
                   "welfare mother"

   María senses the rejection and cringes 
   at the sight of brown faces
   opposing her from the other side of the river
   who do not see the hidden pages of history
   or the land fever occupying 
   the northern half of México 
   or the forced and violated treaty  

   "El Passo del Rio del Norte"
   where Mt. Franklin & La Sierra Madre Occidental
   smiled at each other and there was no boundary 
   dividing the People, only a river giving life
 
   El Paso,
   where in my childhood "Chicano" & "Raza" 
   were household words that spoke of belonging
   before the homogenizing labels of government
   dissolved a national identity & weakened 
   the common struggle of the Chicano...

   El Paso,
   where many proud Spanish-speaking people
   lost their sense of nationhood
   in a few generations of American education
   that turned sons and daughters into 
   "law-abiding" citizens
   who now oppress their own race
   & dishonor the blood of ancestors
   whose voice is no longer heard

   i hear Maria's children crying
   in a cold house with no lights,
   no more visits to abuelito & abuelita
   who are now trapped al otro lado
   afraid to cross a one-way bridge
   into María's world

   children cannot understand
   the anxieties of motherhood
   or the political logic of a country 
   where there are those who pledge
   one nation under God
   but only if you become like them 

   María cannot challenge the blockade
   for it's "three strikes, you're out"
   & violators are banished 
   to a poor town sixty miles away,
   no jobs or food at Palomas
   ironically on the other side 
   from the town of Columbus
   where the long walk back to El Paso begins
   and the procession of humiliated humanity
   is seen along the highway,
   while La Migra proudly announces
   a successful operation-oh yes, 
   they defeated the women and children
   who are carried away every day 
   to find their way back home 

   Texas remembers the Alamo
   and there's talk of a Texas Republic,
   so if history is destined to move backward, 
   then give it back to México
   but we must not forget the long walks
   of the Navajo and the trail of tears 
   of the Cherokee, the Choctaw, and 
   our wandering people
   in the dark pages of American history 

   in school we played
   "Red Rover, Red Rover, let María come over"
   that was only a game among friends, 
   but this...       is a war
           10/15/93,