Why I Didn’t Join the Border Patrol

One day, around 2008 or so, my boyfriend (now ex) brought me a book from the library. He couldn’t wait to show it to me. It was a complete study guide for the Border Patrol entrance exam.

He was fascinated with the U.S.-Mexico border in general, but he was especially fascinated with the music and the concept that it was a militarized zone to keep out the Mexicans. He even wrote a song about it, written in an ironic sort of way that both small town conservatives and big city liberals seemed to enjoy.

I vaguely remember our own conversations about immigration – we tended to disagree, although he claimed he was not as conservative as his father. But I do know that he seemed to think it would be a great idea if I joined the Border Patrol and then wrote about my experiences. It made sense to him, he said, after all, I was Mexican and spoke Spanish. And the irony of it!

I often told him that I wanted to write about my childhood experiences spending summers in Mexico and dealing with a conflicted cultural identity in the United Sates. But I’d be selling myself short, he’d say. Why should I write about my ordinary life experiences when I could write about my life as a Border Patrol agent? That would be true Undercover Mexican Girl work.

My ex never actually read my writing – not that I know of – until the very end, when we were splitting up, and he somehow discovered my secret, anonymous blog. I ‘d been actively writing throughout our entire relationship, here and there posting on my blog (not the secret one) and writing articles for various websites and magazines. I even had a regular monthly column in a local newspaper for about five years.

He never got curious about my thesis, a collection of short stories I wrote during my time in an MFA creative writing program. The library-bound book sat on the bookcase in plain sight for nearly a decade. If he had read any of my work, he never said anything to me about it.

Aside from reading my recent anonymous writings, I do know he read a few pages of my handwritten journal in 2006. It was an entry written during a gray time in our relationship, very early on, as we transitioned from dating others to only dating each other. We had a lengthy, heart-wrenching, gut-twisting conversation on the phone about it while I was away for a conference in Fort Worth. At that point, we’d been together for only a year and living together for about a month.

While he never read my writing, he always had ideas for what kind of writer I could be. Perhaps I could be the next Charles Bowden, a womanizer who lived an itinerant life, dangerously on the edge, chronicling the drug cartels on the border. Or Gonzalo Lira, the novelist turned economic analyst from a privileged South American family who graduated from Dartmouth and thinks affirmative action is ruining our country. These were the writers and thinkers worth emulating, according to my ex.

Even though I had nearly straight A’s in high school, I only had an 1100 SAT score, and my extracurricular activities were lacking, thanks to attending a poorly resourced, Mexican American elementary school and receiving a mediocre education, I was admitted into Carnegie Mellon, a fairly prestigious university. I’m fairly sure that a more deserving, most likely Anglo student, should have taken my seat with a 1400 SAT score and captainship of the swim and debate teams. I’m sure Gonzalo Lira would agree!

As for Charles Bowden, well, he’s one of a kind, and according to a fellow writer, “the 6’4″ Bowden ‘was like a gunslinger. He made sure when he would walk in the room, you would be intimidated by him.” Maybe that’s what kept him alive so long – drug war journalism is a fatal career for the average person.

So I’m not sure why he would have wanted to read my hypothetical book about life as Border Patrol agent – maybe he liked to read about secret lives. Maybe he wanted to be a Border Patrol agent himself, but somehow, it seemed more acceptable for a Mexican woman in her late twenties, rather than an Anglo man in his late thirties. After all, who could accuse me of racism? Not that Border Patrol agents are inherently racist, but I can’t imagine what your ideals are when your primary job is to keep undocumented people – mostly Mexican – off your land.

So I flipped through a few pages in the Border Patrol entrance exam study guide to humor him, but I did not read it, and I had no intentions of applying for a job. After trying to sell me on the idea for a few days, he seemed to forget about it. But there were other ideas later on.

Like the time he wanted me to befriend the old Mexican men playing trio music in the restaurants on the east side. He wanted to know the secret to the music they played and what their lives had been like before they became weathered and sad. Or there was the time that he wanted me to befriend the waitresses at the taquerias, to know what they’d suffered through, as they smiled shyly wearing their matching color polo shirts embroidered with the restaurant logo.

Ultimately, he was drawn to other people’s stories, which largely fueled his own song writing. He was a great storyteller, but he often told stories about other people’s pains and losses. And when it came to stories about Mexicans, he wanted certain types of stories – stories about the authentic Mexican experience, and apparently, mine was not qualified.

My own life as a middle class Mexican American with college-educated parents was simply too ordinary. I had never illegally crossed a border, struggled through poverty, or faced violence. Sure, I could be a documentarian and write about those kinds of lives, if I chose to.

But that’s not the kind of writer I am. I’m going to continue telling my personal life stories, whether other people find them fascinating or not, because they are my stories, and they are the only ones that I know how to tell. So here I am telling you about my conflicted cultural identity, about the time someone wanted me to befriend Mexican trio musicians and taqueria waitresses while encouraging me to join the Border Patrol, perhaps to keep these very same people out of my country.