The border between the United States and Mexico is in the news every day, in ongoing debates about immigration and spending on security initiatives. But what is it like to visit destinations along the border? We were both headed to the bridge, in her case so she could cross back to Mexico after a long day of work, and in mine so I could eat and drink at one of the places I used to go when people still did things like go across the international bridge to eat and drink.
She was an older woman, maybe in her mids, and like so many others she lived in Matamoros and worked in Brownsville. My sister, Sylvia, happened to be back in town teaching a cooking class at one of the local museums where the woman cleaned and today had stayed later than usual to help her pack up.
Now my sister was asking me to give her a ride to the bridge. It was late afternoon and once she crossed over she still needed to grab a bus to the other side of Matamoros and then walk the rest of the way home. I had pulled up to the curb expecting her to get in the front seat, but she opened the back door to set her purse and two plastic bags with leftovers down on the seat and then sat next to them. We were just going to the bridge.
It was only a five-minute ride through downtown Brownsville. Afterward the government announced the official death toll at six, while the media reported it at 47, but people living in the city, like the woman in my back seat, figured there had to be over dead. There are still those brave souls, like my passenger, who make the trip for work or to visit family, to save money on a dentist appointment, on a prescription, maybe even for lunch, so long as they stay on the main drags and clear out before dark.
She crossed back and forth out of necessity, to eke out a living at a job that paid better than one she could find in Matamoros. Until , she was president of the University of Texas at Brownsville, now renamed the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, which stands close enough to the river that police once found a stray bullet that had been fired in Matamoros and lodged itself into the exterior of a campus building.
