Although most of the Central American Caravan is still a thousand miles away from the border, Trump’s first troops arrived there with orders from the Pentagon not to get directly involved!
So while they are waiting 5-7 weeks for their presumed adversaries to arrive, why don’t we give them a four week vacation (without their guns) in the villages of northern Mexico so that they can rehumanize rather than dehumanize Latinos. We can put them to work helping farmers bring in their harvests, help ranchers protect their range lands from erosion, helping churches feed the hungry, helping hospitals care the sick.
They may come back home and put a flower–a marigold or a yerba santa–in their barrel rather than a bullet. Most of those who see Latinos as enemies and the border as “a problem” have not spent time on the ground there, so they are somehow vulnerable to Trump’s fear mongering.
We need Americans to see faces and hear voices south of the border, now more than ever!
–Gary Paul Nabhan
