By Rubén Legal, Argentina
The SUSI program at ITD 2024 for secondary educators had in store a variety of experiences and emotions for us, the lucky, chosen teachers from twenty different countries. Since the beginning of the program, we worked, studied, travelled and got to know different people and places. After almost three weeks in Amherst, Massachusetts, yesterday we arrived in Arizona for our study tour here and although there are activities and experiences yet to come, personally, one of the most special days for me was today, June 28th, for two reasons. To begin with, on our second day in Arizona, we visited the border wall between the US and Mexico in the Sonoran Desert, and secondly, and what made the day really special is the fact that it was my 40th birthday.
The day started pretty early, with the usual buffet breakfast at the hotel, and at six, we headed to the border, the excitement high. The wall and immigration were not unknown to us, the visit there was announced before the program in a predeparture session; then, during our stay in Amherst, we had a session on immigration and the border. We heard about federal laws, immigration courts and specific cases. You could sense that it was an important topic in our agenda. Now, we were going to see the real border. The morning was very hot, but it would be hotter later. Our first stop in the desert was “El lugar donde mueren los sueños”, an artwork by Alvaro Enciso made up by four crosses in memorial of dead immigrants. After that, we reached the wall.
Seeing this massive 30 feet tall steel structure in the middle of the desert was impressive. I could not help thinking about all the people that risk their lives crossing the border to reach the American dream, I also recollected all the information I had learned about the wall, and now standing there everything made sense. Moreover, every now and then we heard comments and explanations with details related to the wall by the people accompanying us, Bruce Watson from ITD, Jesus and Raleigh, who were with us all the time in Arizona, Alvaro Enciso, an artivist, and Sarah Roberts, a member of the Sanctuary Movement who later gave us a session about the movement and how it tries to help immigrants crossing the border. After all this time, seeing and hearing to different perspectives about the wall and immigration I understood that not only those who try to cross the border have their backs against the wall, but also those who work in different ways from their positions to change the status quo.
However, I am an optimist, I am the kind of person for whom the glass is always half full. Therefore, beyond the impact of seeing the border wall itself, I must say the major impact of the day was discovering that there are people who work there every day to help make the path of the immigrants less cruel. People like Alvaro Enciso with his artivism, Sarah Roberts with the Sanctuary Movement and surely many others from anonymity do an invaluable work for other people. Additionally, there are people and organizations like ITD who contribute to raise awareness and give visibility to the immigration policy and laws in the US. Hopefully, this experience will make us, the SUSI teachers, reflect on the topic, in the US and in our countries, take a position and spread the new knowledge in our countries. I want to close the day and experience in the border with Bruce Watson’s words when he rounded up the day when we got back to the hotel, among others things he said “We have seen other walls before, the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain” and we know what happened to them.
Coming back to my birthday, of course there was time for the happy birthday singing, in English and Spanish, the salutations and the eating and drinking. Although I was in the middle of the desert and away from home, I would not change anything about this day, because I was with my new friends and temporary family.
All opinions expressed by the program participants are their own and do not represent nor reflect official views from the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State, or of the Institute for Training and Development, Inc.