Community Profile 2018 - The Wall

                                         Not This One                                         This One

Dear Blogger Friends and Classmates,

This Fall 2018 I've selected "The Wall" as my community profile.  I cover both sides.
* I interview a border patrol agent that works hard every day to keep our country safe.
* I discuss the issue of the wall with people who cross the border every day.

For this paper, Mr Lewenstein has asked us to develop research questions to provide important focus and depth to our discussion.  Below, are a few of the questions I attempt to answer:

1. Why?  Who is going to care?

If you live in Imperial Valley, The Wall  looms large in your daily existence.  This has been a difficult time for many of us who live along the border.  The president claims that investment in a new border wall will increase our national security.  For many of our friends and family, it will increase a level of insecurity.  In 2017, the president sent us a clear message to us when he terminated the Deferred Action for Childhood arrivals program (D.A.C.A.).  You probably saw a lot of coverage in the news.  DACA kids are Dreamers who crossed into this country (to no fault of their own) with their parents - they are now threatened to leave the country, even though this is the only home they know. 
In 2018, he began separating families at the border - deporting parents, and putting their children in cages.  In the brief time the Trump administration has been in office, they have 2,000 families and the U.S. /Mexico border.  What will be next?

(See image at top of the page.  Right now as I write this, they are building the wall taller and stronger. That's construction taking place right behind the Outlet Center in Calexico.)

2.  What have I seen, read, and/or experienced that makes for a focused discussion?

·        *  In classroom and library workshops, we learn to make effective use of our campus databases. The SIRS site helps me examine the argument over the construction of the wall.  I can find what others are saying about the wall. On Proquest, I make advanced searches to find information about border issues and/or events here in Imperial Valley.  In fact, here I was able to find an article that detailed Vice President Pence’s visit to El Centro in May 2018.  In a press conference, he spoke more about drug cartels and human smugglers, and less about poor and desperate migrants. His agenda was clear: The wall is going up.

·         * This assignment calls for a personal interview. If you live here in Imperial Valley, you hear stories about family members who have crossed illegally.  For my purposes, I felt more comfortable speaking to a border patrol agent I knew from high school.  To protect his identity, I’m calling him Pablo.  His name is not Pablo, but he didn’t feel comfortable for me to publish information about what he’s seen on the job.  We both felt his story was important to share.  By using a pseudonym, I was able to develop a balanced look at The Wall.  He knows the same friends and family members I know who have crossed illegally.  He also has scene some of the crime that our President rails about.

3.  Can I provide my readers with a "snapshot" of my topic - The Wall?  Do I have a telling anecdote to share?

* Very conveniently, I have plenty of personal anecdotes to use to describe our border wall. I have
spent countless hours, on foot or in the car, waiting to cross at the Calexico port of entry. In one
section of my essay, I provide a provide a sample of what it’s like to be sent to secondary. Have you
ever had to sit in a cage for 45 minutes in 115 degree heat? I never know when I will be treated like
the U.S. citizen I am, or be suspected as a teen-age drug smuggler for the color of my skin.

* In Mexicali, I also look at people who aren’t as fortunate as I am. To add to my discussion, I
explore what happens to the deported. Many are transported from all over the U.S. to be walked
across the border in Calexico – They are left to fend for themselves without papers, connections or
money. Near the end of my essay, I share a consequence of The Wall that people rarely talk about.

I'm happy to read and write about my own community.  Our president boasts that The Wall will make our country great again. He believes in "border security first."  Unfortunately he  speaks little of the human costs that come with it.

-- Ana Lucia