Minnesota Strong

So much is happening too fast. The videos of the extra-legal killings in Minneapolis reach me in Mexico as fast as they would if I were at home in the United States. The nightly news has become a TV serial, not unlike The West Wing gone rogue. But there is no redemption in the last minute and a half. The accumulation of horrors of the Administration would put our elected leaders and their accomplices behind bars if legitimate prosecutions were possible. Rather, citizens who have not violated the Constitution are targeted for legal retribution.

The response of citizens in Minneapolis-St. Paul has been heroic. They have demonstrated their constitutional rights of free speech and assembly to oppose the brutal attack by ICE and Border Police on their neighbors, who may lack documentation. Many are in the U.S. legally, as has been reported, but because they are from Mexico or from countries in Central and Latin America, they are grabbed and whisked away. And the citizens standing between them and the police, in two instances, are killed. These scenes on social media look like Iran or Sudan, or the extra-legal killings of drug lords in the Philippines some years ago. How can this be happening in the United States?

Each January and February, I visit Mexico. Using the escape from cold weather as my original excuse for coming each winter, the rationale has changed. Now, it is to be in a peaceful setting, where the family and community are celebrated. The acceptance of gringos like me by Mexican men and women is so kind and respectful that to see the treatment of their compatriots by law enforcement in the U.S. on the nightly news, where they are being caught like animals and herded off to confinement in another state, is horrific.

There is nothing I can do here but to explain to Mexicans whom I meet that what they see happening in the U.S. is not really who we are. But I fear, and so do they, that we have become so. They see how ‘loco’ our President is. A Mexican I met on a walk in the city park asked if I was from the U.S. We sat down on one of the benches facing a basketball court as some young boys shot hoops. He said he had seen on the TV news the large turnout of citizens in Minneapolis marching through the city in frigid temperatures, demonstrating against ICE. He wanted my interpretation of what was happening. I told him. As we parted, he looked me in the eyes and said, “We know Americans well. We fought a war many years ago against the U.S. California, New Mexico, and Arizona were a part of my country. We know the difference between a government and its people. Those thousands of people marching in Minnesota against your government are taking enormous risks. But that is what you need to do, to keep your country.”