I wish we could all opérate with the knowledge that we are all very closely related under the skin. Or even in the skin. But we are also all humans and subject to human weaknesses. Fear jerks us around with practically no effort. There is an article in the New York Times about how trauma and frightening situations cause us to misremember. Leaders can stoke up fear and then feed you images that you file under "DANGEROUS". From the beginning of his campaign, Trump has done this with immigrants. He's been pounding at these awful lies about immigrants for two years and more now. There are dangerous people in every culture. Mexico itself has regiones where I wouldn't feel happy by myself. But even in countries like El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala where ordinary people are terrified by violent, lawless men, most people are not criminals, not rapists, not murderers. We have lived in Mexico for almost thirteen years. We live in MEXICO, not an American settlement in Mexico. our colonia, our village, has no other Americans. An Englishman, now a Mexican citizen, farms outside the colonia. We are as safe as in most places in the US which is to say pretty safe. In the US, I experienced personally more crime than I have here by a long shot.
We have neighbors who have gone to the US and come back here to Mexico, their home. Their stories are varied, but none of them are people to fear. Most of the people who want to enter the US had situations to fear in their Central American home countries. Some have had situations to fear in Mexico. They would not have made their incredibly difficult journeys if they didn't. Sometimes they cannot make a living at home, so they try to get to the US. It is, in a way, the fault of Americans for advertising the country as a land of plenty where anyone who makes the effort can succeed. If you wanted to feed your family and you heard that myth over and over, wouldn't you want to go to the US? And the US advertises itself as welcoming. Remember "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" This, of course is what greets us at the Statue of Liberty.
I am posting three links to articles, one by a former border agent remembering his experiences, one by that agent about a friend of his who now finds himself unable to return to his home and family in the US, and one by a Mexican angry at the unrelieved stereotypes Americans see in the media, on TV and in movies. They are all worth reading, and of course I hope you do. Please awaken to the horror that is Trump's border wall and the horrible racism he is stirring against people from south of the border. I will be happy to discuss this, to provide information, whatever. Just write comments.
The first is called "Has Any of Us Wept?" and it can be found here: http://www.nybooks.com/article
The second is called "Confessions of a Former Border Patrol Agent. It can be found here: https://www.gq.com/story/confe
The third is called Hollywood's Obsession with Cartels and it can be found here" https://nyti.ms/2H5AZT4
The first two are by Francisco Cantu, the third by Hector Tobar.