Statement of Purpose and Intent



On March 12th, 2011 I began a 400 mile trek along the Arizona-Mexico border from Agua Prieta to San Luis Rio Colorado, an adventure with a purpose I am calling BorderVenture.

Through BorderVenture I hope to raise awareness of border issues, expose exaggeration of border violence, combat the racial profiling, discrimination, and often outright racism that seems prevalent of late, and to record and recount personal stories of people living near or trying to cross the border. I will record my experiences and stories in this blog, and hope to have them further covered by supportive media, organizations, and other websites and blogs. I plan to aggressively publish my experiences through media outlets, interested groups, the Internet, and through whatever other avenues I am able. I will write tirelessly and advocate my findings to all who will listen, publish, and share them.


Saturday, March 12, 2011

Made it to Naco! Today on the border I saw 24 Border Patrol trucks and 4 people taken into custody. I (being white) was only stopped once for conversation.

3 comments:

  1. I am from Naco but happen to be south in Mexico right now. Otherwise I'd have found you and offered you lunch or dinner or a place to stay. Best of luck. I'll follow your journey!

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  2. The reason you were only stopped once was probably because they radioed ahead to let the other agents know that you were coming and were innocuous. Would you have preferred it if they had impeded your progress by stopping you numerous times? Also, people are apprehended in more places than just on the line where you're walking.

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  3. Thank you Emilie! And Anonymous, thanks for the reply. Obviously I didn´t want my progress impeded, and they did radio ahead eventually, and I realize that people are apprehended in other places. This was however a very heavily patrolled region of the border, and all this post was inteded to convey was the fact that being white makes any travel around here much easier. The only time I´ve had to show ID at all was when I crossed the border from Mexico into the US, and the ¨searches¨ of my bag were a joke. Most Border Patrol agents seem to be good, normal people, it is just a shame that their job basically requires racial profiling. If I had skin of color, my travels thus far would have been much different.

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