So I have little to no affection left for border towns, but my dad really loves the places. I don't know what it is about them, but he really wants to go to Nogales every time he visits, so I oblige. After our last visit a few weeks ago I decided that there was at least a minimal amount of study I needed to put into our nearest border-town-neighbors. So I started to read Ambos Nogales. This book is a Photo-journalistic view at both Nogales but has a remarkably deep level of story as well. I think my appreciation for the town on each side of the border has grown as a result. The problem with border towns, in my mind, is that you don't really get to know anyone. The population is transitory, most people don't originate from the area, and the dollar is driving daily life. Come to think of it, that isn't much different from the city I live in. I suppose the transitory nature of life here is a part of being situated on an international border, it is even a part I embrace. I love the idea of cultures living side by side, and co-mingling. I can appreciated acculturation in some contexts but I can also understand a fierce loyalty to ones "mother culture." I suppose in some circles this makes me un-American, but I also suppose it doesn't make me un-Jesus-like, and that's more what I'm shooting for. All of this to say, I realized in the last few weeks that the things I don't love about border towns are the things that have been imposed upon those towns by bureaucracy, crime, and international political posturing and preening. So, long story short, border towns are OK in my books, after all, if there wasn't a made up border there, they'd just be towns. I'm OK with towns.
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