Walking with the Minutemen, by Lucas Langione

“Everything in the desert will hurt you” said Gerry our faithful minuteman guide. “Oh and don’t touch their trash. They are bringing in new diseases”.

The desert sun was high in the sky by this time of day, all 17 of us walking through the cacti-filled land. Our guides cover out rear and scout ahead for illegal immigrants, as if they were playing some child’s game of war.

It can be hard to see two sides of an argument when you are on the outside looking in. When you are placed into the real life story your views can be more clear. Sometimes taking our guides seriously was a challenge. But doing my best to open up I listened with open ears. I found that unlike what I thought, their arguments did make some sense. After asking some questions and hearing some answers I could actually see where they were coming from. Although the organization is of kind of extreme, I started to understand. Their ideas had reason and some logic leading me to see how easy it could be to believe the way they do.

At the “lay up area” the number of persons the trash represents was unbelievable. Seeing the clothes and the backpacks all torn and beaten was a look into the travel of these people. Overall I would have to say that I took away a lot of information from the experience and a different view of the border problems.