El Salvador – noun, a Central American country, population 7
million.
Success breeds envy and with it, idolisation and in no other
place on earth could that be truer than in America, a country unable to
ascertain exactly just how many immigrants from all corners of the earth are
resident in its borders though unofficial estimates put this anywhere between
15 and 20 million. Despite 600 Salvadorians being deported daily, El Salvador
contributes at least ten percent of this illegal immigrant population with at
least 3 million Salvadorians in America and considering that El Salvador has a
population of 7 million people and America’s contribution to El Salvador’s
turbulent history, this is a staggering contribution. But for the purposes of
political neutrality, it is neither the involvement of America nor the cause
and effect of that involvement up for discussion; rather it is the journey
itself, from El Salvador to America.
Factor in that in El Salvador, economic development is and
has been at a standstill for a considerable time and the vast majority of the
resources are controlled by less than two percent of the population, the
challenge therefore becomes the active engagement of the youth population. The
same youth that have been to a certain extent been brainwashed by television
and Hollywood’s glamorisation of America, the same youth that that have grown
up seeing their American tourist counterparts with seemingly a lot of
disposable income. The same youth that know of relatives and friends in America
who have seemingly made it and have overtime, come to revere America as the
golden land.
The process of migrating to America is therefore
simultaneously a complex process in terms of the practicalities involved and
the only viable option before the disillusioned youth. El Salvador is nearly 3
000 miles away from America and getting there is by no means a guaranteed
result, the journey alone claims 30 out of a 100 lives.
The first obstacle is the freight train, nicknamed ‘The
Beast’ by travellers. Consider the desperation in one’s mind before deciding to
board a moving freight train, the very act which can result in an excruciating
death. Travellers are well aware of the dangers of getting on the roof of the
train, many fall to their death and are grounded by the train to “burger meat”.
Many have fallen off the train and have survived but at the cost of their
limbs.
Hunger and thirst are other obstacles claiming the lives of
travellers and in the communities in the vicinity of the train tracks, there
has grown both a frustration of seeing dead would be American citizens and an
acceptance of the inevitability of people opting to risk it all and take the
journey to America and this is reflected in the unofficial harm reduction
visits by these poor communities. In an effort to reduce the casualties, these
already impoverished people bring food, soup and water to locations frequented
by travellers. Many charities have sprung up in these areas and will often
house and feed these travellers overnight and allow them to recuperate and
nurse their blisters, rehydrate and just once, sleep without fear of falling
off a train, being raped or murdered.
The next part of the journey for those, for want of a better
word, lucky to be alive when the train makes it to America’s neighbouring
Mexico, is crossing the desert. The desert is notoriously an inhabitable
environment prone to severely high temperatures during the day and unforgiving
night temperatures at night. Travellers must cross this environment often with
little or no food and water and if any, it is often not enough to last the
duration of crossing the desert and it is starvation, fatigue and thirst that
claims most lives. A reward for enduring the dangerous train journey therefore
becomes death in an isolated environment and I cannot imagine anything worse
than dying alone in a desert.
Supposing that anyone makes it past the desert and the train
journey, the very America these young men have come to revere so much, is the
last obstacle they face. On the American side of the border, are Minute Men.
The Minute Men are in essence a bunch of racist psychopaths’ literally hunting
and killing humans under the guise of curbing illegal immigration. Describing
their reason’detre, as “citizens Neighbourhood Watch on our border” Minutemen
see it as their prerogative to murder anyone encountered on the border, a
border they argue has become more dangerous than the frontier of Afghanistan.
And shocking as it may sound, it is a quasi-legalised operation evidenced by a
lack of arrests on Americas part and neither a confirmation nor a denial of
their existence and as we know, the gravest and deepest pits in hell are
reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.
Consider how destitute one must be to completely disregard
all of these factors when one decides to undertake such a journey and ask
yourself this, if it were you, would you be brave enough?
by Perseus Mlambo
