After my morning in downtown El Paso, I drove 12 miles north of the city into the ever-more-rugged foothills of the Franklin Mountains to visit the National Border Patrol Museum. It’s the only one in the country dedicated to the history and culture of the U.S. Border Patrol, and it’s funded entirely by donation—meaning, I assume, by enthusiastic supporters of the Border Patrol. How could I pass up the opportunity to see how B.P. agents and their fans depict themselves?
During my visit, the museum was practically empty and perfectly quiet. At the time, I had no idea that the activist group Tornillo: The Occupation was preparing a demonstration at the museum that afternoon. I knew they were planning some kind of protest in El Paso as part of their Weekend of Revolutionary Love, but they didn’t publicize their specific agenda in advance.
Imagine my shock later when I saw the group post on Facebook that, just an hour or two after I’d left, they peacefully stormed the museum’s entrance, sang songs of love in the lobby, waved banners in support of migrant children, made speeches, and pinned their own text and photos to the permanent exhibits.
Remember when I said Albuquerque was a small world? I had just run into my friend’s brother Nicolas at an event in town. Now I almost ran into him a second time, as he was one of the leaders of the protest at the Border Patrol Museum. How strange it would have been to cross paths once again—once again partly because of our shared interest in border issues, but still mostly by chance. And not in Albuquerque this time, but hundreds of miles away in Texas at a quirky little museum on the outskirts of El Paso.
Tornillo: The Occupation was live.
Saturday, February 16, 2019 at 2:19 PM
https://www.facebook.com/creativebrownresistance/videos/327129841253945/
BREAKING! Direct Action: Reclaiming the border patrol museum and exposing the true violence of borders and border patrol.
Protesters Take Over U.S. Border Patrol Museum in El Paso
Staff Report, El Paso Herald-Post
February 16, 2019
https://elpasoheraldpost.com/protesters-take-over-border-patrol-museum/
The group sang and placed pictures of migrant children on several exhibits, until staff asked the group to leave. On one exhibit, featuring the photos of fallen agents, several photos of migrant children were placed on the display case.
By the time I read the group’s posts and watched their videos, the museum staff had demanded that they leave and called the cops. Military police from nearby Fort Bliss had blockaded the parking lot and temporarily detained all the activists while they collected everyone’s personal information and investigated the museum for potential damage. No one was arrested, but for a while there in the wake of the protest, tensions ran high.
I wonder—if I have known about the planned demonstration, would I have timed my museum visit accordingly and chosen to join the protesters?
If I had been a silent solo visitor in the exhibit at the moment they marched in singing, would I have stepped up and offered to help hold banners aloft, or would I have slunk away to watch from a safe distance?
If my car were blockaded into the lot with the others’ and the military police asked me whether I was with the protesters, how would I have answered?
I honestly don’t know. Having watched footage from the protest, I absolutely support the speakers’ message that this land was stolen from indigenous peoples and has, for ages, been a site of peaceful migrations in all directions; it’s a bloody shame for the latest nation-states on the scene to fence it off and prosecute the people trying to travel here. I agree that the messaging in the museum’s exhibits felt like sticky propaganda that glorified Border Patrol agents as heroes without providing any historical context, discussing the role of race and racism in border politics, examining agents’ use of violence in their work, or acknowledging the humanity of border crossers. After touring the museum, yes, I’d have been happy to jump into a pop-up protest against the museum’s biased messaging.
But my personal instincts are too reserved and nuanced to yell that border enforcement is genocide and agents are murderers. I’ve talked with and read books by multiple diverse Border Patrol agents; I know that their work involves rescues and first aid as often as it does chases and captures. That’s especially true these days as large groups of asylum seekers deliberately turn themselves in to the Border Patrol after crossing, at which point agents trained to perform law enforcement duties must suddenly try to provide shelter, water, food, medical attention, and transportation for dozens of families and children in remote, underequipped facilities. What good does it do to demonize every individual agent? Wouldn’t it be better for everyone involved if we instead advocated for more training and resources to immediately alleviate the humanitarian crisis on the ground, and pushed for changes in immigration policy in the long term so people could arrive safely and legally rather than desperately seek to cross in the desert and await the Border Patrol’s rescue?
I’d be a terrible speech-maker at a protest. No matter how strongly I feel about the issues—and I do feel strongly—I always end up sounding like a milquetoast moderate wringing her white hands rather than taking a stand.
If I’d been at the museum a couple hours later, or the protesters had arrived a couple hours earlier? I don’t know what I’d have done. I really don’t.