On Friday of last week, the State Press printed an article about Voluntour1951, a project that I've undertaken with an eye on educating individuals like yourselves about social justice issues along the U.S./Mexico border. The article was an excerpt from my web blog, www.voluntour1951.blogspot.com, and I'd like to take a moment to clarify the nature of the venture and exactly what I'll be doing.
Voluntour 1951 started as a bicycle trip. After graduating, I had no idea as to what the hell I wanted to do with my life, so I decided to visit family and friends for the summer. I ended up living in Cheyenne, Wyoming for two months with a friend and, within a week, I had a girlfriend and a job. At that job I meet a twenty one year old who was cycling from San Francisco, California to Boston, Massassachuettes. Looking at the banal setting of the retail store around me, I thought to myself "now there's something to do."
So I started to do some mental shopping of potential routes and itineraries. A cross-country bike trip? No, nothing out east really calls me. A tour along the Pacific Coast? That can't go in my basket: why would I be doing it? A cycling journey along the U.S./Mexico border? Now that's the ticket.
And sure enough, it was. In my last five years at ASU, I had read about the feminicides and community health issues along the Juarez/El Paso border. I had worked with at-risk students at a local junior high, many of whom were of recent immigrant descent. And I had become friends with student-activists with No More Deaths, and umbrella organization that works to defend the basic human rights of people crossing into the United States, and Chicanos Por La Causa, a nonprofit that provides extensive support to the Spanish-speaking/Hispanic community. Coupled my own personal interest in better understanding "border life" and "border culture" (and I use scare quotes because I'm learning that those abstractions may not be appropriate descriptors for the regionally-disctinct, bi-national communities along the line), these formal and informal learning experiences became the key components for a project that, more or less, presented itself.
Thus Voluntour 1951, my attempt to ride a bicycle along the 1951 miles of the U.S./Mexico border. The whole intent is to better understand the border on the ground level--to really listen to people and what they have to say about the gray area between the two countries (and do they think it's so gray?). I'll be interviewing individuals who work with dozens of humanitarian and social service organizations on both sides of line, documenting their thoughts and stories for a future compilation book of narratives. Those interviews and learning experiences I hope to share with you all in regular contributions to the State Press.
The long and short of it is that the border between the U.S. and Mexico is rife with human rights abuses, xenophobia, economic exploitation, cross-cultural ignorance, dire community health issues... the laundry-list of social ills goes on. Something needs to be done, but the questions are what and how. What do we do? Who makes the decisions? Whom do those decisions affect? How do we implement policy? What do we do if those policies are ineffective? Why are they ineffective? The laundry-list of questions goes on.
I'm hoping that we, as a cross-cultural swath of individuals given and earning the great privilege of university education, can answer some of these questions. Like me, you all have a gift. Working towards your respective degrees, you all will develop the intellectual capabilities to recognize, challenge and change the foundations of the cultural and social enclaves in which you live. Whether you become an engineer, an interior designer or a scholar in Religious Studies, you will learn how to make a difference in the world--should you choose to accept the responsibility. I invite you into my project and what I am doing to promote awareness of issues that affect not only those along the border but also you, me and the future of our global community.
To make this project successful, I need to hear your voices as well. You can email me at Ryan.Riedel@gmail.com or respond to posts on the blog listed above and again here: www.voluntour1951.blogspot.com.
Go change your world.
