On Campus · Vassar College

Vol. 25, No. 8, May 1, 2007

Lessons from the border

Lessons from the border

Despite weeks of reading, watching films, and engaging in intense discussions, the students were still not prepared for this. Standing in the intense heat of the desert on a dusty cattle ranch, they met with the Minutemen. The armed patrolmen, one of many groups the students met with as part of their trip to the U.S.-Mexico border, wanted to show students what they described as “one of the biggest environmental disasters in history,” a migrant stopover. Standing in an area about the size of two basketball courts, some of the students began to cry. Scattered in the sand were migrants’ water bottles, clothes, shoes, backpacks, letters, and bus tickets. more...