Tucson – For traditional worshipers in a remote Tohono O’odham village, the 25- mile trip to a sacred site across the border is about to turn into a trek of more than 70 miles.
The U.S. Border Patrol plans to seal Menager’s Dam Gate, a cattle crossing that Ali Jegk, Ariz., residents such as Ofelia Rivas have used all their lives to reach a ceremonial site in Quitovac, Mexico, and to visit tribal members who live south of the border.
The tribe asked the Border Patrol for a vehicle barrier to stop the cars and trucks that illegally barrel through the open gate at all hours. The decision, tribal officials say, was unfortunate but necessary to protect public safety.
Standing along the international line behind her home, Rivas, 50, points to wooden stakes painted pink and marked with green tape, demarcating roads the U.S. government uses to monitor the area. One stake is steps from the grave site of a migrant woman and her young daughter that Rivas and her relatives have tended since the 1960s. On All Souls’ Day, Rivas sets places for them at her dinner table.
For the nearly 12 million people who live along the U.S.-Mexican border, the line is an unnatural divider, splitting cultures that are otherwise alike. In border towns such as San Luis and Nogales, Ariz.; Calexico, Calif.; and Sunland Park, N.M., Spanish is as common as English. Families and friends have long passed easily back and forth.
From his ranch house just east of Jacumba, Calif., 58-year-old Raul Gallego can see his parents’ house in Jacume, Mexico, across the rolling green hills. He and his wife, Monica, 50, used to walk 20 minutes or drive 10 minutes across the border two or three times a week. After his parents died, he and his wife continued to make weekly trips to check on the house.
But in the post-Sept. 11 world, border security trumps convenience and tradition. Border Patrol agents no longer allow crossings at Jacumba. The Gallegos now must drive 40 miles west to the Tecate Port of Entry. It takes an hour and 15 minutes to get there and up to four hours to get back, they say.
“It’s just made everything different,” Raul Gallego said. “It hasn’t done anything good for the community.”
The Tohono O’odham Reservation has 75 miles of international border. It’s one of three American Indian nations that sit along the international line. An additional 23 U.S. tribes have members in the border area and often members in Mexico as well.
