Border Blues

I only just finished reading the short story "Blue" by Charles Bowden in a compilation book called The Late Great Mexican Border: Reports from a Disappearing Line, and although I still need some time to reflect on it, I would write a few observations and thoughts now.

"Blue" is the account of Bowden's walk (with friend Bill Broyles)across the desert from a truck stop in Sonora, Mexico, northwards to Interstate 8 near Tucson. The journey takes them 16 hours, 17 minutes, 1.5 gallons of water each, over approximately 45 miles of desert. The weather is described as "very cold for this country, surely no more than 110" (34). The point of this journey? Experience. And an eventual article, short story, and novel.

Although Bowden's account is undeniably fascinating--his descriptions are thoughtful, poetic, and poignant--there is something utterly bizarre about him undertaking this journey. He and Broyles train for months, physically improving their strength and endurance, planning their route, studying techniques for desert survival and escaping the border patrol. They go through an incredible process, but their achievement is a facade. They are tourists in the borderland, at least initially.

In Jamaica Kincaid's A Small Place, she states quite clearly that "a tourist is an ugly human being" (14). This is due to the impact tourism has when tourists claim to have a local and "authentic" experience that is impossible for them to attain precisely because they are not locals. In "Blue", this is more or less the case. Bowden and his friend simulate the experience of the illegal immigrant without actually facing the subjugation involved. The illegal immigrants do not train, they do not have the maps or the tools Bowden carries, and they do not have the assurance of rescue if something should go wrong. Their own undertaking is a mimicry, and the intent misses some of the most humbling aspects of the journey.

That being said, even the best laid plans don't turn out the way we expect. The amount of preparation involved and the actual experience Bowden describes indicate that although they enter into the desert with particularly tourist-like expectations, the dangers soon become a serious reality. Fatigue, hallucinations, and rattlesnakes are only a few. Bowden personally hallucinates a blue desert, giving the story its title, and repeatedly debates whether or not to pour out all of his water in order to carry less. The descriptions of dehydration and death in this area are vivid and horrific, and very much a reality on their journey. They enter into the borderland as tourists and emerge as something else.

This provokes the question: what is the authentic experience of the border?

I am currently planning to travel to the Southern States to see the border, but will my experience be invalid simply because of my privileged position? Do I have any position at all to speak on the subject? Am I just a tourist in the borderlands?

Possibly. Like Bowden, I speak from a fascinated but privileged position. After reading "Blue" however, I'd like to appropriate Nietzsche's famous quote "when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you" and argue that when you go into the borderlands, figuratively or literally, the border becomes a part of you. The borderland is as much a state of mind as it is a place. And once you enter, your perspective changes.

Whether or not that makes the desert blue, is your own experience. And personal experience is the most authentic thing we have.