Do you have anything to say? Lookout welcomes letters from readers to the editor within our policy. Click here for guidelines.

The sound of pebbles crackling between the wheels and concrete drove my cousin and I away from our conversation in the car. Callejon Outside my aunt’s house in Tijuana. A dusty black car was steadily approaching.

Miguel Angel sat in the passenger seat, his face shining in the summer sun, and invited us to the pool. He had come from Culiacan to visit his cousin, and his cheek-to-cheek smile beneath his sunglasses looked utterly unconcerned.

Two years later, in 2020, Miguel Angel stood in the desert between Arizona and Sonora and pleaded with him. coyote (migrant trafficker) leave him behind. He was too exhausted to continue walking. ever since coyote Knowing about his family, the group helped him through the final hours before reaching Phoenix, Arizona.

It was the only thing that saved the young and healthy Miguel Angel from dying in the scorching sun.

I was deeply shocked when I realized that the jolly guy I used to hear in Culiacan who was “more popular than Coca-Cola” could have been just that cross buried in the desert. rice field.

I was born in San Diego, USA, although I have lived most of my life in Tijuana. This arbitrary difference meant that while my trip north was pleasant, his only trip was nearly dead.

How is it possible to realize that most Mexicans are desperately looking for a better life?

Are you desperate enough to think it’s worth the risk of illegal immigration across the border and the sweltering, bleak surroundings?

I now have the immense privilege of attending an American college, the University of California, Santa Cruz, but I am leaving home, family, and friends all for the chance to get an education and a better life. I felt resentment that I had to.

As a sophomore in psychology, I became a high school counselor and strive to directly help young people like myself overcome the bad cards they’ve been dealt.

Like Miguel Angel’s family, my family migrated north from the Sinaloa state in northwestern Mexico, a narrow stretch of coast bordering the Sierra Madre Mountains. Sinaloa is a place full of mango and plum trees in full bloom, greenery and rivers. Banda It is a place where musical ensembles are performed and where deer and mountain lions roam freely.

Growing up, I quickly realized that Sinaloa also had a dark side. Reputation for drugs, the AK-47, and what the American media has historically labeled as “bad.” men”

Americans and foreigners aren’t the only people who see us this way. So do my brothers and sisters. They resent the seemingly unstoppable wave of corruption and crime plaguing our country. Sinaloense All too common scapegoat.

It makes me angry to see immigrants like Miguel Angel (and Mexicans in general) portrayed as reckless, ignorant and regressive. Or they may be labeled as the “cause” of the drug epidemic.

All my life, I have wondered what these depictions say about my family, or about myself. I wondered how I got to this point.

It all started with Richard Nixon and the 1971 “war on drugs,” but even before that, US foreign policy bullied Mexico, turning it into a playground for US weapons.

And most of the drugs were produced to meet American demand. For families who, like me, are cursed to live where they came from, this was the beginning of a cycle of abuse and criminalization.

Operation CondorThe US-backed war of aggression to curb Mexico’s drug trade began in 1972, targeting Sinaloa, Durango, and Chihuahua.

result? It is a perpetual social cancer formation, the symptom of which is widespread corruption and illicit practices that hinder our better future.

Your millions of tax dollars funded the equipment of the American military that turned the course of my family’s world and caused the chaos that drove me to America.

The military was constantly harassing my community. This included numerous human rights abuses such as gruesome beatings, cigarette burns, mutilations, kidnappings, rapes and even discharge of testicles. All this happened with absolutely impunity.

While the attack fueled anger, it also demoralized communities and left people with a distrust of authority and a contempt for the rule of law.

And it left people hurt and vulnerable. With no breadwinner, families fell into poverty. Some turned to crime, and many emigrated.

This is my family history. A story that shaped my life. This violence created a cycle of mental and economic poverty that still affects my family and Mexican culture as a whole.

My family is not from a wealthy and nepotistic background.

My grandparents lived a simple rural life in the inaccessible Sierra Nevada terrain. My hard-working grandfather, Trinidad, hunted deer, sold timber, worked and sowed to support his family. Milpas fields.

Contrary to my expectations, my family was very peaceful and happy. at first. My hardworking grandfather helped build the first school with his own hands and built the first ever cement house on his home ranch. Palmyras de Concordia.

One fateful day in the mid-1980s, just after midnight, a man named Daniel Paez (my grandfather never forgot him) came to our house. He warned his grandfather that he had been offered a reward for killing his grandfather because the local mafia believed his grandfather’s prosperity came from marijuana and opium.

This was the beginning of my family’s northward dispersal, and as they moved, they lost what little livestock and possessions they had.

My family arrived in my hometown of Tijuana in the early 1990s out of despair, having been forced to beg just to feed ourselves when we had just arrived. As a result, from 2016 through junior high and high school, I became familiar with the border between Tijuana and San Diego.

Even if it rained, waited hours in the cold and dim lighting to cross the line, no matter how much I wanted to stay in Tijuana, my mom and I walked across the border to the suburbs of Chula Vista. I went to San Diego, went to school, and came back at night.

It is traumatic to remember having a panic attack walking across the desolate and hostile border between our two countries. Due to border delays, it was often past midnight before we were able to return to our apartment. Then I had to do my homework.

Now a sophomore at the University of California, Santa Cruz, I have come to see firsthand how misunderstood the history of Mexico is here, and how misunderstood Mexicans are by locals. rice field.

I want to be the catalyst to change that. I want to encourage others to use their voices to tell their stories. An accurate history, told by those who lived through it, is the only way to restore dignity to our communities and break down racist misconceptions about who we are.

Dignity has been denied us for too long, but to reaffirm our right to self-determination and break through the institutional neglect and performative activism so common in Santa Cruz County. most important to

I spent two years immersed in Santa Cruz’s self-described “hippie” and “liberal” culture. It makes me angry that no one sees how this lifestyle and privilege is built on the backs of thousands of Mexicans. People who, like me, still cannot enjoy the fruits of their labor.

Behind most kitchens and storefronts are thousands of Mexicans forced into second-class status by the benefit system. I can’t explain why a city that depends on us for life can be so incredibly out of line. The invisibility we feel on a regular basis cannot be explained.

Santa Cruz’s astronomical housing costs, especially the lack of preferential housing for low-income residents, have isolated us socio-economically by invisible barriers that most Santa Cruz residents are unaware of and unwilling to understand. increase. Many people in Watsonville and beyond spend essential time and money commuting to Santa Cruz only to be unseen, unheard, and taken advantage of.

Let’s take the example of a recent storm. You can almost hear the silence around you as Pajaro Valley residents shiver outside their flooded homes. everything is lost. And I distinctly remember President Joe Biden directly announcing a near-immediate state of emergency just days after Capitola’s restaurants and beachfront establishments were damaged.

This is in stark contrast to Pajaro’s pre- and post-disaster neglect.

It should be remembered that the predominantly Mexicans who work here do not do this job voluntarily or as a result of innate incompetence.

Like my family, millions of others have been forced to give up the only life they knew to escape this cyclical violence, and in many cases they are forced to live by the law. I know I can’t go back in time.

Without engaging in regenerative approaches to repairing this damage, the fabric of our reality will continue to erode.

I encourage you to break down the walls of silence that prevent real dialogue from happening.

I encourage everyone to be curious, empathetic, and treat the silent heroes of the community with respect. Never see it as an opportunity to hit your ego, not as an inferior being.

That’s the least you can do.

Sebastian Valdes is a sophomore psychology major at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He enjoys playing soccer, reading, playing guitar, collecting records and listening to all kinds of music.