The Border Crossed Us

Welcome back to another episode of All My Relations. Today's episode is very different from all our previous episodes. It is what we are calling a special report from Turtle Island and we hope you like it. Hello relatives, Matika here with Dr. Dr. Desi, Yo Des. Hey, hey everybody. And All My Relations Field Reporter, Director John Ion. Hi John. Hello. Thanks for having me. Today we're going to discuss a widely covered topic, the Southern currently called US Mexico border. But we're going to talk about it from an indigenous perspective, the perspective you've probably never heard in national media. Or maybe you've heard the border across us. And when the border across us, it changed our relationships, our kinships to one another, our relationship to the free flowing water, to land and animals and their natural migration. It's also permanently shifted our religious practices. And it's disrupted relationships with a lot of our communities. Yes, we're talking about nearly 2,000 miles. The southern border between what it's currently called the United States and Mexico extends from the Pacific coast to the Gulf of Mexico. And it's the world's single most crossed international boundary. And it's Indian country. There are nine native nations along the border today. They range from the Apache, the Kocapa, the Kikapu, the Kumiyai, Tana Atom, the Kwitsan, Pipai, Pascoyaki, and Isleta del Suo Pueblo. The Tana Atom Nation controls 62 miles of the border, the most of any native nation. Right, so the way that this whole story got started is about six months ago, nine months ago, I'm not sure how long. What is time? I don't know. It happened. (laughs) John became one of our interns, actually, on all my relations. And we've been thinking over here at AMR. How can we expand our capacity and also work with young, professional Indigenous talents? Indigenous people to tell stories. And so, John is probably teaching us more than we're teaching him. But John pitched this idea. He said, hey, I think it would be really good to do an episode on the border across us. In fact, it's what his research is around. So, John, let's jump right into the story. Take it away. (music) (music) So the story begins here. I'm in Texas, working on my thesis film, and I get a call from Team Brown's film, this non-profit that donates food and supplies to migrants camped out across the border. This earlier had reached out to them to see if they could help me with my film. It's Valentine's Day, and they tell me to come down to the Brownsville bus station right away. The weather is crazy. It's super windy. It's freezing rain outside. You might have remembered the storm. The winter of 2021 is writing itself into the record books. It's the accident-turn catastrophe in just the gala. And the concern right now are these rolling outages, these periodic blackouts. So nearly three million customers without power this morning. You're looking at lines. Because massive rolling blackouts and water shortages all over Texas, I'm outside next to where the Greyhound bus is parked, and all around me are these migrant families. Mothers and children who are visibly shivering behind these railings and close, if you want. There's a lot of people who are in the same situation, and they're just waiting for you. They're just waiting for you. Apparently, customs and border patrol had just unceremoniously dropped them off that morning. Does this happen every day? Yes. Yes, every day. It's nothing. I mean, they don't want it. They don't already have their arrangements made. They've got a, the Greyhound people, see nobody will touch them until they're tested. So they stay out here until the person comes and it's going to COVID test them. So I joined the volunteers, handing out coffee and tiny packaged pastries. Yeah, we expect to have something here to give out. Exactly. And if we're counting on that, we don't know what's there or not. So let's see. Yeah, so there's a group of moms and kids waiting in concert. And I speak Spanish and I look Latino, so worried mothers start asking me for supplies. Yes. They ask me if I have any hats, shoes or jackets or anything warm for their kids. Some of them ask me for milk for their infants. I have nothing to give them. And there aren't any supplies because everything is locked and a storage locker and none of the volunteers have the key. All of a sudden, I noticed that everyone has this grey, clay-like mud caked onto their clothing. I recognized that mud because days earlier, I'd filmed at the Rio Grande. That mud got on my clothes. It's a river mud. It starts to dawn on me, but I still ask a volunteer, how did these people get here? Are they from the camp? Oh no. He said, "Oh, they're really here." "Really? "They're really here. "They're getting by." These people crossed the river and they were held overnight in process by CBP, who just dropped them off here. And they have to call family of friends or church groups or whoever can sponsor their stay while they wait out their asylum cases to help them get bus tickets home. And then it hit me. All of these families had just swam across overnight in below freezing temperatures. Mothers and babies. I was short of breath. I could feel my heart beating. I walked out to the parking lot with my camera and my mic. And I just wept. Let's stop here. And let me back up. My name is John Aion. I'm a Chicano, Salvadoranio, filmmaker, and I identify as mestizo. Both of my parents are immigrants. My father's from Mexico and my mother's from El Salvador. And both also identify as mestizo. My parents crossed the border in the 70s and I spent a large amount of my life visiting family in the border regions of what is now known as California, Arizona and Mexico. My father grew up in San Luis Rio Colorado, Mexico. As a child, I made the journey southward to Mexico with my family many times. Our car waited down with bulk bags of rice, beans, and flour. Our tires overinflated so that the cars bottom wouldn't drag and spark along the road. It was only later I learned about the fear that gripped my father on those journeys. While interviewing him for a film I made about immigration, he revealed to me that for 14 years of my childhood, he and my mom were undocumented. A fact they kept hidden from me out of fear that I would accidentally expose them. So wait, how were they crossing if they didn't have papers? They were just taking their chances. I guess they felt the responsibility to bring supplies home even though it was terrifying. Dang. I really do think that that's this courage that a lot of migrant families carry with them. But that courage also I feel is it's carrying a lot of unexpressed fear and anxiety and stress that then like kind of becomes part of the fabric of the home itself. Homes can be traumatic places for first generation children. They can buckle in K from the pressure to make every choice count. Within my lifetime and specifically 1998 until present, the CBP estimates that around 7,215 people have died attempting to enter what is now known as the United States of America from the South. These deaths have weighed on me for a long time. They are largely the reason why every film I make has to do with some aspect of the Mexican and Central American diaspora. As part of my thesis year at Stanford in a documentary MFA program, I wanted to make a short film about the effects of Survivors Guild on me as a new father who has to witness so many parents pass away at the border. As I developed the short, I uncovered a larger deeper film about identity. It's a film that contains a story of generations of displaced grandchildren, of feeling displaced, neither from here nor from there, of separation and survival. It's also a film about the tragic history of unseated borderlands and the indigenous communities who were the first to feel the rupture of the imposed southern border, the wall and the river. That journey took me from the western edge of the so-called border where the wall juts out 300 feet into the Pacific Ocean to the eastern edge where the Rio Grande meets the Gulf of Mexico. Along the way, I spoke with various people whose lives have been deeply impacted by the imposed border. Among them were people from Kumia, Kutsan, Pasquayaki, Kokopa, Maye. and Lenka. And one of the hardest, most gut-wrenching moments was when I visited the migrant camp in Matamoros, Mexico, which is just across the river from where our story began in Brunzal, Texas. I stopped and photographed what I could about the camps. I will say it is extremely depressing, and no photograph or video can show just how depressing the conditions of the camp were. It was just a giant mud pit, tarps for tents, miskept burning inside of the tents for warmth. It was just a really dark place. My heart broke there, knowing that we did this. Our current system of government did this. There's been a lot of reports on the migrant camps, especially the one in Matamoros. It was and continues to be a giant stain on the history of our immigration policies. One of the many things that this government has gotten terribly wrong throughout the years. But considering the state of the camp when I was there and the giant list of the people trying to get in, I understood why so many families were risking their lives to swim across that cold, muddy and dangerous river. I interviewed Mike, one of the founders of Team Brunzal, the people who were helping migrants in the bus station. And he explained how we got to a place where dozens of families were being dropped off cold and muddy at the Brownsville bus station. I'm Michael Benevitis. One of the founders of Team Brunzal. When family separation started happening, we were all aware and we were all shocked. We wanted to help. We're like, how can we help? So we started helping. We'd go to the bus station every day. We started creating little snack bags for them. And just as we were helping at the bus station, I remember that a young man said, thank you for helping. We really appreciate it. We wish someone would help us when we were stranded in Mexico. And I'm like, what do you mean when you were stranded in Mexico? And he said that he waited about two to three weeks there at the bridge. And he said he wasn't ready. He didn't have food. He was living on the streets. So this was the beginning of the camp. It started as a result of the Trump administration's zero tolerance policy that reduced admissions in asylum acceptance rates down to less than 1%. We got a recon mission we crossed and we found about 20, maybe 30 Cubans from South America, Central America, from all over who actually living at the bridge. There was this little rock garden that they were sleeping in. And they didn't have, they weren't prepared. Also, all of them were like, we didn't know we're going to have to wait. Because I guess what I understand is that it was zero tolerance. There was a little funding and a mandate to put additional guards at the middle of the bridge. So people can't go into the United States to seek asylum. They stopped them and then they make them wait until they're called and then a bottleneck started to form. The bottleneck happened on the bridge, a bridge that's named the friendship bridge at Puente de Amistad. And so homeless migrants were being left stranded on the Mexican side of the border with nowhere to go and no help. And so they formed this enclave of tents. At that point we started bringing whatever we could, mats, clothes, food, MPP, it hit our group heart. It hit a asylum seekers heart. Can you just explain to me what MPP stands for? What it means? A migrant protection protocol is how it was written. It was basically as for the safety of the migrants. Instead of coming into the United States for their court proceedings, they have a series of courts that they have to attend. And before MPP, they would come in and their sponsor would receive them in their home. And they would start these courts. MPP said that they would come in to a port of entry for a court and then return to Mexico to wait for their next court. And that's been the most inhumane thing that I've ever seen because in lieu of being safe with their sponsoring in the United States, they're in a hostile and in a dangerous place. In the past, it's about three weeks. We've seen a very large influx of asylum seekers that are at the bus station, of people that are crossing the river. They are then surrounding themselves to border patrol. They spent maybe a day detained there with and they're while they're being processed. And then they dropped them off at the bus station. You know, seeing the asylum is a legal process, 100%. There's nothing illegal about leaving your country to flee for safety in the United States. But crossing the river is a crime. So, you know, you're coming, you're pleading your case in the United States that you will not be safe if you return to your country. And it started off with a crime. It doesn't go well on your record. So these people, they're at. So one of the people who actually lived in the camp and made it through the almost two years of waiting with her two young children, two little boys, spoke with me on the condition of anonymity. And told me her entire story. And we're just going to call her Maria. Maria is actually a linka woman from Honduras. And the linka are a really large enumerous tribe in Honduras, numbering around 100,000 people, which is just roughly 1% of the population. And many of them have been forced to flee due to increased violence from the state, from drug traffickers and from gangs like MS-13. Before we continue, please know that the following five minutes includes graphic depictions of violence and sexual assault. So if you're listening with kids or you don't want to be triggered, please skip ahead the next five minutes. Here is Maria's story. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Well, my story began in 2016. My nightmare. My husband left me and my five children to migrate here. We never heard from him again. Once he left, my home was marked by MS-13. Eventually, they came to my home and threatened me and forced me to pay them an exorbitant amount of money that I've never owned in my life. I told them I didn't have it and they took me and my kids and held us in the living room at gunpoint. My oldest son ran away. They gave us seven days to pay up or they would come back and kill us. [Music] [Music] [Music] We left everything behind in that home. We were living with family friends until I was able to afford a small home in a different municipality. But in 2018, they found us again and started leaving messages. My daughter got married as soon as she could because she was scared. I think she was too young to get married, but I couldn't protect her. I was left with my three children. [Music] [Music] [Music] In 2019, we traveled to the US, we crossed the bridge and pleaded a silent with the board of patrol and they sent us back to Mexico. We slept on the street and under bridges. Me and my three sons. We became part of a tent city until they moved us to the river. Me and two other women with children, one from El Salvador and the other from Guatemala, became a little unit and took care of each other and cooked with each other and took care of each other's kids. We sold gum on the street and picked up odd jobs to save up our money so we can get our children clothing and food and sometimes health care. [Music] In 2020, on Mother's Day, three men came and took all of our money, our cell phones and papers. They took my friend from Guatemala and forced her down. [Music] They raped her in front of us, me and my children and her little boy who screamed for them to stop. We cried for help but no one would do anything. My friend begged for me to help her but I was trapped holding my children in her son close to me trying to prevent them from seeing. Eventually a preacher heard our cries and came and scared them in a way but shortly after that they found my other friend from El Salvador and raped her too. They took everything from her. Again, all of this happened in the camp. There was no protection there. We were just caged there having to deal with this and no one would help us because everyone was afraid. Afraid to get in trouble with police or other migrants. Anything that could jeopardize their cases. [Music] I'm old. I'm 43 but there are things that happened in that camp that have ruined me and my children for the rest of our lives. I never slept in that camp. I couldn't. There are people who don't sleep more than 20 or 30 minutes a night. I'm here now but I still fear that someone is going to tell me it. I have to go back. If I go back there, I'll die. I want to see my mother. I want to go back to go back. I want to go back to my mother. I want to go home but I'm here fleeing death. I want to go back to my children. I just want to watch my kids get old enough to take care of themselves. I'm begging God to help me get there. Oh my God, that is such a powerful story. And this is the reality for thousands of women and children just like Maria. Yeah, that's really most of what I saw. Those are the people I saw. Women and children. At the bus station, in the migrant camps, people crossing the river. These are all mostly women and children. Now, it's important to note that migrants are still arriving at the border entry points every day. And each day, they have to make the decision to sleep on the streets or in a tent city or cross the border illegally and plead asylum when they get caught. And where are these people supposed to go? These are indigenous people and this is our home lands. And the important thing to recognize is that we, the indigenous people, have very little power in these situations. And you know, the thing that we really need to remember as indigenous peoples living in the United States and Canada is that these are our relatives. Prior to settler colonial invasion, we all moved freely. We migrated, we traded, we fought each other all across these lands that are currently called the Americas. And so we need to really have a reality check. How are we being good relatives? This is all of our fight as indigenous peoples, especially, but as human beings, how can we sit here and just tolerate the inhumanity, the gross disregard for human life? I mean, it makes me sick. Yeah, you know, and that discussion is something that I encountered a lot within my conversations with members of the Kumiyai, Kokopan, Quetzalan communities. Mostly because for a lot of them, that border is literally keeping family members apart. It's cousins, aunties, uncles, nephews and nieces who have never met family members who have never met because of the imposed borders. So the disregard for human life transcends borders. It comes from the governments that have continued to employ these inhumane practices. So I'm going to take us to the other end of the so-called border all the way to the Pacific Ocean in Kumiyai land. Matamoros isn't the only migrant camp. Tent cities have sprung up all along the border. The second largest camp is here in Kumiyai country, in so-called Tijuana Mexico. I'm standing next to the border wall that ends 300 feet into the Pacific Ocean. On this side, the border wall is accessible to the public. Embarious artists have painted over the structure throughout the years and an attempt to beautify something that is large, ugly and oppressive. One of the first people I met in Kumiyai country was a Kumiyai bird singer named Rao. Welcome, I'm Yuttham Wah and Janisich, Rao Christmas Senior. Hello everyone, my name is Rao Christmas. I come from the Kumiyai Nation, from the Vieja's Band, where I live with my beautiful wife Vanessa, five children. I'm the youngest son of Dr. Ron Christmas of the Pynation of San Isabel and Virginia Christmas of the Vieja's Band of Kumiyai. Rao is also the founder of Tukuk Media and Consulting and the creator of the Life from the Res Podcast dedicated to cultural preservation and dialogue among the different bands of Kumiyai throughout Kumiyai country. There are currently 21 bands of Kumiyai, 14 north of the border and 7 south. The border itself has disrupted tribal relations between these bands and complicated the preservation of tribal traditions. One of these traditions is the Shatukuk or Kumiyai bird songs that contain the oral histories and philosophies of the Kumiyai people. In our language, when you say something dirty or has dirt on it, you say, "Oh, the mutt, the mutt." But when you talk about the body, in our language, it's almost the same word, "Mat, mat." And when you hear people describe location of place, they say, "Mat, Kumiyai is Kumiyai land." The word for earth, soil, our bodies are almost interchangeable, that mutt. And that's because we were told in our creation story that the creator created us from the soil. It's very common for people to say, or the old ones to say, like, "That earth, that mountain, that soil, that's us." That's an extension of us. Rather, we are an extension of it. Rao drives me to a section of the wall in Compels, where he and several other Kumiyai gathered to protest construction during the summer of 2020. As you see now, this wall is all in, it's up, man, this wall is up. As the eye can see, literally, you can see this wall is just. But it wasn't like this when we were coming down here. When we were coming down, you know, they would have everybody circled up and people in, and all of the things put together, what needs to happen. It's crazy to see, because we literally danced right through here, this right here, right through this borderline. The women came and they did the circle, and we were saying, "I was singing like right here." And they came and their singers on outside, all different four directions. We had our medicine in the middle, burning. And the women, they came and they did the circle dance right there, you're going to find all of our people, people from this side, that side, bring all our people together. Now, we couldn't do that if we wanted to, bro, this wall is like right here, it's crazy. That's ridiculous, that's man. He told me why it felt important to him as a bird singer to be there and sing for his people, many of whom were challenging the federal government's accelerated construction through their sacred sites. These songs were going to be used to help remind everybody, forever remember where they came from as a people, because that's important. If we remember that we come from the same place, from the creator, it's hard to fight with other families, other clans. Rao stands before the wall and sings one of the songs he's sang at the protests. He explains the significance of the song. These old songs, a lot of times we're looking back in our history, we're looking back to our ancestors for guidance, for understanding, for strength. So, in the early morning, before the sun comes, as a time we would normally sing this, if we're singing all of our songs, and it's talking about the sun is coming, the sun's going to come. And so, you kind of have to at some point move on beyond what's behind you a little bit or take you with you, and you welcome the new sun, you welcome the new day. So, the sun is coming, even when it's dark, you know that it's coming. And that's what this song means. [singing in foreign language] [singing in foreign language] sacred sites and the endangerment of plant and animal habitats. We have laws like NAGPRA and other environmental laws that protect our human remains, that protect our cultural sites and cultural artifacts, and a lot of those were waived for Homeland Security because it was a rush project that needed to be done. They didn't have to heed to those laws which we fought so hard for, so if they did hit anything, they didn't really have to do anything about it, which was what sparked us to go out there in the first place. I've lived here all my life and we've never had any issues with any like illegals, with any crossers, with any violence, with anything like that. The only things we've ever had issues with are state issues like when the state decides to put pedophiles in the tens and 20s down here. We have houses and houses full of them and there's incidents where they show up to kids baseball games and stuff like that, but they're not worried about that. They're worried about the land across from him that didn't have a fence. They claim the drug trafficking and people crossing. I don't think that's going to stop because one, there's so many tunnels and there are very sophisticated tunnels that they don't even need to walk across the fence or come across that. And then two, there's miles and miles of just bare in land and you could just avoid the fence altogether. It was an insult because it was desecration for basically nothing. So how did we get here? First, as Raul said, there was no respect given to indigenous people when the border was originally drawn between Mexico and the US. At the end of the Mexican-American war in 1848, there was a peace treaty drawn between the less than 100-year-old United States and the less than 50-year-old Mexican government. Mexico ceded unseated lands to the US after losing the war until this point the lands had been stolen by the Spanish and re-stolen by Mexico during the Spanish-Mexican War from 1810 to 1821. Indigenous tribes in the border regions like the Kumii were not consulted except at the end of the Mexican-American war in 1848. Anyone who was a so-called Mexican in those annexed areas had the choice to relocate within Mexico's new boundaries or receive American citizenship. Mexico chose not to leave their homelands and therefore lost their rights to legally cross the border to visit their relatives. I met with Marta Rodríguez, an educator, basket-weaver and cultural coordinator from the San José de la Sorracumiya Embaja. Together with their husband Stan Rodríguez, she teaches courses in Kumii traditions like weaving, nutrition, pottery, and language. All of this is part of a massive language and cultural revitalization program to bring back traditional Kumii practices that were lost due to Spanish, Mexican, and American colonization, especially north of the so-called border. She also founded a donation program called "Tipi-Qai Native Warriors" that regularly travels south with the care ran of goods for Kumii relatives in Embaja. "How can I pay shaman, I'm Marta Nishir, I'm at Perjocopai." "Hello everyone, my name is Ana Gloria, I'm a aka Marta Rodríguez, and we're trying to educate people about the Kumii nation and our culture and our tradition, because a lot of people, for example, are here in San Diego, they talk about Kumii peoples and all the people from the past. They used to make baskets, so they used to speak the language, so they used to live here and they were like, "No, we're still here, we're still speaking the language, we're still making baskets, things like that, to educate people that we're still here, or people, this is all Kumii territory, we go visit each other. And now, we cannot cross the border, they have to get a permit to cross the border and things like that, sometimes they can deny the permits, but we have an MOU with the Hongland Security right now, so people from Kumii and Embaja can get a permit to cross the border, but with that permit, it's for cultural activities, so if they think there's not a cultural activity for them, so they can deny that permit." What Marta refers to as an MOU is an acronym for a Memorandum of Understanding that exists between the Department of Homeland Security acting on behalf of the U.S. government to allow Kumii legal entry into the so-called United States for cultural and religious purposes. The problem, as Marta mentions, is that whether a crossing is deemed to be culturally necessary is left to the discretion of the Border Patrol, who have little to no understanding of Kumii traditions and spiritual practices. In addition to that, many of the Kumii and Embaja don't speak Spanish, let alone English, so describing the reasons to cross becomes even more complicated by the language barrier. Like, this is a homeland. Why we need to ask permission to them? They need to ask permission for us to have something like that in the middle of the territory. So I think the goals that I would like to see is to have a Kumii purve entry, and then we don't have to see that the border like three or five or six hours to come back, to have a Kumii purve entry there. People have the right to be here. They want to come to work. Okay, let's come to work. I spent some time with Riz, they, them, who started Kumii defense against the wall, and was responsible for Camp Landback, an activist in Camp Man aimed at disrupting construction of the wall. Camp Landback went viral during the summer thanks to the arrival of activist allies and news crews that culminated in a xenophobic and violent attack by a racist white woman. The footage of the attack was released by TMZ, according to Riz, it was only one of many attacks they suffered during their encampment. The most devastating thing that as indigenous people we have to live with is that it won't be how it was. What I experienced was the closest I'll ever get, the feeling of waking up on my own land, and defending what I feel is sacred and putting my body and my life on the line every day, just because I felt like it was what the answers to what I've done. America is just a blip in our timeline. Scientists say that we've been here for 125,000 years, and the thing that keeps me okay is just knowing that we'll be here for another 125,000 years. And that wall won't be there. A future for indigenous people is being able to move freely on our lands again. You know, I'm from so-called Canada as well, and my heritage transcends borders. This is what the ancestors would have done. The ancestors wouldn't have let the wall go up. Yay, hun. And thank you today. Ancestors for showing me how to fight and showing me how to use my voice. I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for all their sacrifices. You know, we try our best. That's all we can do. The wall is nearly finished, and after these interviews were recorded the incoming Biden administration put a pause on construction. For RIS, Cynthia, Martha, Raal, and others who fought the construction, the posthumae have come a little too late. But other tribes east of the Kumiai are still hoping to hold off the completion of the wall that is also threatening their sacred sites. Leaving Kumiai land, I traveled to an area where I spent most of my childhood visiting family across the border in the town of San Luis Río Colorado in Sonora, Mexico. Just a few miles north of the border in Soca de Arizona, I met with a former tribal council member of the Kutsan named Willie. He took me to a section of the wall in Cocoa Paland that has been all but abandoned by construction crews in Border Patrol. They're going to be able to finish it across the river, so they've built up on both sides of the river to as close as they can get to the river. I'm not sure what this opening is about, but I know that they're real proud of this little section here because this is where they would take all their high ranking, you know, officials when they would come to town and want to see the wall, you know. The wall has a giant gap being surveilled from a cell phone tower nearby. Anyone can walk across through the gap. The area was eerily silent. It seemed the Border Patrol was on a stand-down order. You can see they, you know, have plenty of leftover here that they didn't finish what they started, so I don't know what's going to happen with it. Willie also works with cultural historians and language keepers to run a radio station, a UAV radio 105.1 FM, and a podcast, Hanging with the Hana Puck, dedicated to keeping Quetzal traditions alive and sharing them with the younger generation. Inside of a traditional mud hut where Willie's uncle Preston Arrowweed runs at Sun Radio Station, I sat down with four people, Laurie, Penny, Willie, and Thomas, representing three generations of Quetzal who are willing to speak with me on the border that crosses their homelands. I'm Laurie Kachar from the Quetzal tribe, and I am also the historian. This issue is crossing. It's something that we've done a long time ago. Yeah, it's a lengthy story of what a history is what I'm talking about. I've done this before, and it actually takes four days to tell about this thing that includes the border issue. It's something that's. Before the conversation, Laurie and I spoke, and he explained to me that he had just come back from visiting the Tehana Adam who are also a border tribe, and he was there to tell the history of the imposed border in relationship to the Quetzal. He told me that it took him four days to tell the entire story. It bears repeating because we should keep this in mind as we listen to this hour-long episode that the true story of the so-called border for just one tribe takes about four days to tell. See that? We came from a place 220 miles north of here that is a place of not only Quetzal, but River Trips. First existence of a place that we were created. And the past had been saying that we went into Mexico. through the research we went more in depth on that we did. all the way into South America. Today we have artifacts. We have ground figures that exist on the earth. When you match that with South America, ground figures they match. We have a connection through that and that's why we were able to cross through and from that was meant to be. And I understand now that during the migration from the place that we were created to South America we made a trek through there several times before settling where we were at. People as we came back, they ripped it off and decided to place themselves here there and all the way back to Spirit Mountain. So we do have relatives from South America, Mexico. They do have relatives that are up here that came back with us. So when you look at all of the Mayans in Kus, their stories, their histories, their practices very similar to ours or what we do here, that's meant to make a connection. I also call that the continuity of energy because that does have your spiritual feelings connected to that and a lot of ways to the next person such as us here today talking about that. That's why you want to do this documentary of, I see that as some sort of a connection to the continuity of energy. Somebody brought you here. It's also why it's so important that we come together. My name is Willie White. I'll take a piece out of what you just said, which is that your heart is good. Worms your heart to be here. You know, it's hot. That's how we would say that in Kutsan and we're grateful to have you here as well. This is an important story to document. We're in presently and always under some type of an invasion. It's just inevitable. We're an expanding population of humans and we share this land with not just each other but you know everything. And as a tribal leader, your optics change because you know now you're trying to look out for a certain set of people and try to understand what are the threats to your own sovereignty, your self-determination, what's going to allow our kids to prevail in school. Sure there's going to be those that are out there you know struggling and trying to preserve the integrity of what it means to be Kutsan but at the same time they're getting disconnected from the youth who are recognizing that he live in a very different world than that. And so as a tribal leader how do you how do you make those decisions that are best for your people without alienating people that are just trying to find a better path for themselves and there's nothing wrong with that. My name is Penalope Mary Jefferson and I'm from the Kutsan tribe. I'm also Kamehya. I was in first grade the border used to be open where the kids could come back and forth. There was in a wall as American Indians we had more freedom during that time where we would go back and forth because we were on the reservation. That's the reservation technically. It was a fantastic feeling a wonderful feeling to be able to stand right there and be on the reservation and be in Mexico and have that feeling like yeah I have the right to be here but that's no longer there since they built that big wall and I understand why they had to do that because of the different situations that happened with people crossing the border, the coyotes, and the times when I think back to when there was in a wall decades maybe a hundred years of my tribe is going back and forth. We won't ever be like that Cachon. It's just the way it is. Hello my name is Tomas Jefferson. I'm also Kutsan. I work at a substance abuse facility. A world without a border at least for me being 26 years old hasn't been you know around really. This area is so heavily governed by the military. We have two military bases here in a close proximity and then we have the border patrol. There's different vehicles all over the place with emblems from some sort of department around here. It does convey a sense of hostility around here. What Tomas is talking about is the actual lived reality of a lot of people that live in these border towns. There's this like extreme military presence. There are surveillance towers, constant military and border patrol present. There's these boats, these skimmers. It's a very very oppressive reality. But this is something that to the Kutsan this is normal to them and to the Kumiai too. These are the realities that that a lot of these border borderland tribes have to deal with is this intense settler colonial military presence and extreme surveillance of the peoples themselves. On their own lands. What Tomas is saying here is his take on what that means to them. It feels like this hostility from the government to the Kutsan who had this land sovereignty. This is their land and yet they are being militarized by these border patrol forces. The way technology is evolved. It's moving us so fast forward such as this and an instant the word gets onto everybody to the millions. So things are changing. No longer the border issue, the wall is the issue right now. But in time I see us just floating all over the place. That's the future. So the walls are going to be useless at that point. By the end of my journey I can't help but think that the border still feels unanswerable to me. What else can be said about an imposed boundary line that is forcing people to risk their lives to find a place to live where they can hope to be safe from gangs, rape, murder and poverty. The US has a settler colonial government that as RIS mentions is less than 250 years old and it can only exist under a militant surveillance state that imposes violence on bodies that the state deems a threat. Within our boundaries those bodies are almost always black and brown. What then are the answers? I called a mentor of mine that I met during my studies at Stanford. A Maya Kiche's social anthropologist and journalist named Irma Velasquez Nima Duje. As a young woman she survived decades of state-sponsored genocide against the Maya Kiche and so called Guatemala. Her work has taken her to various tribes north and south of the border. She explained to me the dangerous social and political implications of legitimizing the US Mexico border. Really what you found and what these indigenous voices have told you is the same thing that we find in any political border, right? The Latin American nations are not old, 200 years at most. So these are lines created for economic interests, for disputes and for maintaining hegemony. But in these disputes to build nations, the indigenous people have not been heard. And I think there is an example that illustrates how these political borders are so porous. An example that I have that is very clear to me is that of the genocide and the war in my country. In Guatemala when the genocide occurred in the 1980s indigenous populations began to flee in mass and began to cross the border with Mexico. And who received them? Not the so-called Mexican government, not the United Nations. Those who received them were other indigenous families because their relatives were on the other side. In other words the mom people in Guatemala and the umam people in Mexico were divided by the Mexican border and by the Guatemalan border. But deep down when there was a need these borders became porous and those on one side helped the other side because they are the same community. They share the same grandfather and grandmothers. They share the same roots. And we also see the same thing happening among indigenous peoples between Costa Rica and Panama or Panama and Colombia or between Venezuela and Colombia. Indigenous peoples continue to help each other despite crises in the states. In the end these networks are the ones that keep others from dying and I think that this is something very exemplary and it is something that is not recognized, that is not valued. But that fundamental role that the peoples themselves have played to safeguard themselves and their brothers and sisters has never been taken into account. So this is a reality even if it's not recognized and hopefully it will continue to be a reality because this is going to mean that at least among peoples continuous aid and solidarity, sisterhood will be maintained even if the states fall. This solidarity can continue to be maintained and can continue to nurture the peoples that are on the border. I ask Ms. Velasquez Nima Tujia if we can say definitively that migration is a human right. And she responded by saying that we haven't made that argument clear enough yet. We do not always have to sit back and wait for the United Nations to speak, for the United Nations to organize. This has been an approach that I have made since 2007. I believe that as indigenous peoples an argument must be made from indigenous peoples as a right that we have to move between the territories. I can come to the pueblo community and to the Apache territories if they invite me. Why should I have to receive a no from an embassy? I want to visit my people in Mexico. Why do I have to receive a no from a government that tells me you cannot go there? I believe that as indigenous people we have not used the rights that correspond to us and that that would generate another way of moving with more brotherhood and with more sick If we moved among indigenous peoples, we would be enriched by new cultures and we would teach each other our own cultures. I believe that criminalization of immigrants has stolen a lot from us. It has stolen the sense of community, the sense of support, but not our sense of selves. It is not easy to take everything back. It is not easy to get everything back. And it will be hard work. But what you propose seems to me that it can be a pathway for indigenous peoples, who are in Canada, who are in Mexico, the United States, or South America, that they can have their own dialogues to define how they're going to do this, and use the international frameworks that apply to them in order to exercise it. Look how they're going to do this, and use the international brands that they apply to be able to exercise. Thank you very much, Professor. I know you're very busy. Thank you very much. Migration has always been part of indigenous lifeways. For some communities, this was the case more than others. Many settler colonial forces have restricted our movement as indigenous peoples, including being forced onto reservations and being subjected to assimilation policies in urban areas, and of course the enforcement of settler colonial borders. As Irma discusses, we are now facing an urgent need to reclaim and redefine indigenous migration on our terms, and it must be done to counter the violence and inhumanity that indigenous peoples are currently experiencing at the southern border. You're absolutely right, Matika, and we can't lose sight of the fact that this is all manufactured by settler colonial states. This is settler colonial violence in the United States, in Mexico, in Honduras, in Al Salvador, and all across the so-called Americas. This is what American violence looks like. It's forced displacement, it's structural, it's systemic, and no matter which way you look at it, whether it be through an indigenous lens, a feminist lens, a human rights lens, this is a crisis that we all have a stake in. Why? Because it's manufactured and maintained by the United States of America. The same forces of white supremacy that are killing black people for sleeping in their own homes are killing indigenous peoples who are trying to cross the border onto indigenous lands to have a chance at survival. There must be indigenous voices in immigration policy and the narratives that frame it. Indigenous erasure is so pervasive in this country that vice president Kamala Harris recently issued a statement to the people of Guatemala. To a population that is nearly 60% indigenous, saying that they should not come and seek refuge in the United States when it is in fact the United States intervention that has continues to destabilize the country and the region. Right, and what do international indigenous relations look like as we move forward? How do we shape a new future that overcomes this gross and humane treatment? Because we know that the current American policy is deeply rooted in settler colonialism and it's impacting our safety of body, our right to exist, our right to move. And I think just to refresh everybody's memory, let's listen to Kamala make that statement one more time. At the same time, I want to be clear to folks in this region who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the United States, Mexico border. Do not come. Do not come. The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our border. There are legal methods by which migration can and should occur. But we as one of our priorities will discourage illegal migration. And I believe if you come to our border, you will be turned back. And what this whole Kamala sound bite has really underlying for me is how no matter who is in the office, whether they are child of immigrants or a Democrat or independent or whatever, the rights of indigenous peoples to move freely on indigenous lands are never considered. The tribes themselves whose lives are actually impacted by the border crossing their own lands are never consulted or regarded. And it goes back to a fundamental disrespect between the current government and the original peoples of this continent. A fundamental disrespect and a fundamental disregard of treaty rights and constitutional obligations. Right. Not just disrespect, they're violating the law. And who is the United States government to tell indigenous people not to come to their own place? It's so backwards. Thank you so much, John, for bringing attention to our indigenous relatives in Mexico, in Central and South America, to what's happening to them on the southern border, to these women and these children. And you know, I look at these babies and it makes me cry because they look like my son. These are indigenous babies. These are indigenous mothers who are literally trying to just survive. And the testimonies that you have gathered, the story that you are telling, I only hope that it is the beginning of so many more stories that we need to tell. These are indigenous stories. This is about indigenous futures. Yeah. Yeah, as John, thank you. What I was thinking about when I was listening to this is like, we don't get to choose, right? Like, we don't get to decide to be indigenous one day and not another day. And we don't get to support certain indigenous issues and talk about being a good relative when it's cute and pretty and powerful on Instagram with a hashtag. And then disregard what's happening to our relatives at the border, especially when we hear these gross and humane stories of violation of women's bodies. And when I was listening to that story with Maria talking about what happened to her children in that moment, I was thinking of how deeply connected it is to one of our last episodes with missing and murdered indigenous women and the need to protect indigenous women's bodies. And if this isn't a prime example of what we're talking about here with the need for safety, then I don't know what is. But I've just really been resonating with this idea like, either either I am or I'm not, right? Either I believe in this, like I believe in relationality, I believe in reframing myself in indigenous relationships that take care of one another of land, water, and relatives, or I don't. It's also within a lot of these Latinx enclaves and these communities, there's a very anti-immigrant sentiment too. And I think that a lot of it is just this ingrained settler colonial system that really gets into our mindset and the way that we view the world, we see it as an us and them situation. And we don't necessarily comprehend the relationality that transcends these borders. Right, that's why it's super important to drive home this idea that we're talking about here that these people are indigenous people. These are our relatives, you know, and we have a responsibility to take care of our relatives, you know. And I am just really deeply impacted by this conversation. So I want to thank you, John, for doing this work and for bringing this conversation to this platform and for taking the time to, you know, like the hours and hours and hours that it took to do this work. Thank you both so much too for this discussion and for also for AMR for supporting me during this process of making this episode. I hope that the listeners enjoy it or at least, you know, it makes them think. So how did this all end for you, John? Yeah, so actually at the end, by the end of all this, I went back. I went back to Kumi Island and I met up with Ralegan and we went to the same spot where he had originally taken me to. After almost 5,000 miles of traveling, I stopped back where my journey began in front of the now completed wall in Kumi Island. Where I met back up with Ralegan who sang a song about change in front of the wall. The new day is coming and it's now here. And so as that new day comes, you'll hear animals, they'll cry. The coyote, you'll hear them crying. Hear the different, the mockingbirds in the morning crying. And as this people, we tend to be upset as well that a new day is coming because of all the things that have already passed by. And I'm sad to let those things go. There's a little bit of hurt, there's a little bit of sadness. And so this song talks about that. It says that we're upset as the morning comes. The new day comes, we're upset. But in that time of being upset, there's also a time of healing and opportunity. And really the notion that we can move forward together as individual as a people and make good things for ourselves moving forward. And that's what this song talks about. [Music] Help me help me. Help me help me. Help me. Help me help me. Help me please. Help me please. Help me please. Help me please. Help me please. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. You've just heard our very own John Ione who went on a journey covering hundreds of miles and talking to many people in order to bring us this powerful story of life, death, struggle and resistance along the southern border of what is currently called the United States. I want to remind all of us that La Frontera and these borderlands are Indian country. So many of the people seeking to cross the southern border are indigenous peoples. They are our relatives and borders remain instruments of colonial control. Just as they were imagined by the colonizers, so too can they be reimagined. An indigenous sovereignty is at the core of that reimagining. Indigenous sovereignty is freedom from colonial borders and the racist structures and institutions that continue to violate human rights every day. So with that, Nia Esh, thank you for listening to another episode of All My Relations. Please consider becoming a patron on Patreon. Follow us on Instagram @amrpodcast or send donations through PayPal. You can find all of that information on our website, www.allmyrelations.com. Thank you to all those who made this episode possible. First and foremost, thank you to John Ione. Check out his fantastic new film called No Sué Oscar, which is winning all the awards, folks. Seriously, John is on fire. We would like to thank Raul Christman, Martha and Stan Rodriguez, Cynthia Parada, Riz Hill, Willie White, Lori Cachorra, Thomas Jefferson, Penelope Jefferson, Preston Arrowweed, Dan Chen, Mike Benavides, Andrea Rednick, Team Brownsville, Enrique Lopez, Emily Smith, and Lupita Alonso. Thank you also to the AMR team, Teo, Kristen, Edison, Will, Lindsay, Kioni, Jamie and Quinn. Thank you to Art by Sierra for our amazing episode artwork. Stay beautiful, everyone. Keep fighting the good fight. All My Relations.