So I always thought it was Nogales.
And I was wrong.
I didn't cross the Nogales.
And it was interesting to go back to Agua Prieta, which
just happened yesterday.
So this is like--
I'm still fucking processing this shit.
I went to Agua Prieta, and I hadn't seen this scene
of seeing somebody cross from the United States side, which--
now they were probably homeless--
from the United States side go into the Mexican side,
walk across the border, and then buy some food
on the Mexican side and then walk back.
And they didn't have to show any form of ID.
This is 1999.
And I two years ago, when I was here, I went to Nogales,
and it did not look like that.
But Agua Prieta did, and I just got my aha moment.
That's where I fucking crossed.
And I was in a shelter there.
And so this is based on that scene.
"Citizenship."
It was clear they were hungry, with their carts empty,
the clothes inside, their empty hands.
They were hungry because their hands
were empty, their hands in trash cans,
the trash cans on the street, the asphalt
street on the red dirt, the dirt taxpayers pay for,
up to that invisible line--
visible thick white paint, visible booth,
visible with the fence darting from the booths.
Booth, road, booth, road, booth, road, office building,
then the fence.
Fence, fence, fence.
It started from a corner with an iron pole, always
an iron pole at the beginning.
Those men, those women could walk between booths,
say, "hi" to white or brown officers, no problem.
The problem, I think, were carts, belts, jackets.
We didn't have any, or maybe not the problem,
our skin sunburned.
All of us spoke Spanish.
We didn't know how that had ended up that way on that side.
We didn't know how we had ended up here.
We didn't know, but we understood
why they walk the opposite direction
to buy food on this side This side, we all know, is hunger.