By Christine Gutierrez-Boswell
Chris Davis, a truck driver and self-appointed militia “patriot” and Cliven Bundy defender has put out a call to all people interested in “securing our borders” through private citizen militia groups in order to help combat the influx of “illegals” coming into the United States. The operation, called “Operation Secure Our Border” consists of taking his anti-government group, fully armed, in to Laredo, Texas and fight against this made up border tyranny in hopes of maintaining a “sovereign nation.” According to his Youtube video, Davis teaches his followers how to confront people who are, according to him, coming into this country illegally: “You see an illegal. You point your gun dead at him, right between his eyes, and you say, ‘Get back across the border or you will be shot.’ ” He is also claiming, as do many of his followers, being provoked by the influx of violent criminals crossing into the U.S. and the spreading disease!
I was born in Laredo, Texas. I lived there, solely, for many years. My husband still has his business in Laredo. Generations of my family hail from there, including my children. My soul comes from the land of “in-betweens.” So believe me when I tell you, Chris Davis, to stay the hell away!” Your form of “sovereignty” does not include all citizens. Your group is full of racists and anti-government radicals! I know, as a Laredoan, you are not going down there to fight drug-dealers or potentially “bad people” because if that were the case, you would have been down there YEARS AGO when they first came and started fighting! (Those of us from the border know as private citizens not to interfere with the Cartels. Being from San Antonio you know this too. I am sure you have heard about their ruthless tactics no gun can defend against! How dare you tout this as the reason, as if somehow we need saving from our own inaction! As if we are to blame! You know why!) I know, as a person from the border, you are only using that line of reasoning as an excuse you tell America because the rest of America is unfamiliar with our border. I know you are only using that as a cover story to gain some sort of national “heroic” attention but the reality is you are a coward and who knows the only people you will encounter are innocent women and children, who we, the people along the border, have accepted as refugees.
See, Chris, the native people of the border have a history of refugees in our families because we, the border families who are still standing, have survived wars and invasions going back hundreds of years. Our people survived through the Manifest Destiny Doctrine under Polk's reign, which provoked the Mexican-American War, through the Mexican Revolution, where even my great, great grandmother was a “soldadera” (female soldier)! She died fighting alongside her husband, but not before smuggling her two children across the border in a box, into Laredo, Texas! Before her, her mother, my great, great, great grandmother was a full-blooded Lipan Apache women in “Texas” before it became Texas, who escaped to Mexico and survived when the U.S. and Mexico decided to exterminate the Lipan Apache tribes along the Rio Grande. We have even survived our own internal struggles when Las Botas fought Los Huaraches! (This doesn’t count the number of wars we have sent our brown sons to fight, rich man’s wars, only to return and not be welcomed properly!) And through all this, I do not remember one hint of aid or help. No one ever came to HELP fight our ancestors’ battles! On the contrary, we have fought your ancestors’ battles. Your ancestors were only here to take. So you see Chris, you are not welcomed in Laredo because we are all too familiar with your kind of help. Your kind of help means “We are not here to assimilate or understand your culture, but taking over.” In your colonial-expansionist mind, you will never know any other way to behave. And, by, the way, if you ever understood America’s role in these Central American countries, their governments and what has now led to this humanitarian crisis, then you would see the responsibility we have to these people. But again, we, the people along the border do understand because again, we are generations of survivors that never forget.
Chris Davis, you will find no friend in Laredo, or in the Rio Grande Valley because you are operating from a place of bigotry and not well-being, and we see right through you! I remember the KKK taking a trip down there for the purpose of distributing their “literature;” They left quickly because Latinos were not, and are still not interested in their or your exclusive version of a “New World Order.” We, like these refugees escaping war and violence, seek inclusion and want to know how we fit into the “New World.” We open our homes and hearts to people from “el otro lado” (the other side) because we know deep down in our hearts, we share bloodlines with them and that is something no border will ever cut.
We are a lovely people, who love our culture. We love our families and have rich traditions of inclusion and celebrate them every chance we get! You will not ruin it. You won't. Besides, any person willing to point their weapon at unarmed women and children will not be entrusted with our lives or best interests, particularly those who are U.S. citizens from the border area. STAY AWAY! Stick with your paper targets and leave the rest to real Americans who love the melting pot!