This is Miguel. I interviewed him this weekend here in our court yard about what I thought was a struggle for the American Dream.
Miguel went to the US about 15 years ago where he lived for about four years. He went alone at first, and a few months later his wife and two children came after. When he went to the US he wasn´t chasing an American Dream at all, he said, he left because he had to, and he wasn´t dreaming of anything else than being able to support his own family.
Miguel crossed the US border by foot, somewhere on the border to Arizona. It was very easy and smooth and nothing like the stories I might had expected to hear about people crossing the desert to start a new life on the other side of the border.
Somebody drove Miguel to the border where he was dropped off to walk the last 500m. It was in the middle of the night of course, and obviously he didn´t have a passport nor a visa with him. Nevertheless, it went extremely smooth. Miguel even told me that he hadn´t even noticed that he had actually crossed the border until he was already on the other side.
He didn´t realize that he was on on the other side until he saw the big McDonald's sign where he was to be picked up again by the same person who had dropped him off some minutes earlier. He went inside McDonald's, met his friend, and together they drove off into The United States of America.
It wasn´t a dramatic story at all, and it left me thinking; This is one of the most visible borders in the world, but in the end isn´t it all just an invention? The border itself is as invisible as any other border in the world. It exists only where the immigration office is located, or as a line on colorful map in school.
Meet Miguel and listen to his story on my website to come!
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