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P.O.V. kicked off the discussion by asking Dennis
6 initial questions, the same 6 we are asking all the featured guests.
The views expressed are those of Agent Dennis Michelini, and they
do not represent the views of the U.S. Border Patrol nor the Immigration
and Naturalization Service.
P.O.V.: In your work, you consider the notion of 'borders.' What
is a border to you?
Dennis: "The notion of borders" is an enormous question.
In reference to the work I do, as a Border Patrol Agent, the border
is a clearly defined place. It is geographically certain. In some
locations it is a high wall, in others a low fence, or nothing at
all. Where I worked in Texas, the Rio Grande operates as the division
between Mexico and The United States. That, for an agent, is the
border.
As I reread the question the word "notion" is nagging
me a little. I understand there will be other people answering these
questions from a wide range of academic backgrounds and cultural
perspectives. "Notion" broadens the subject — personalizes
it: your impression or your individual perception. But I can't do
that. Of course I am capable of conceptualizing that broader sense,
but that's not my job. I have to stand at that fence and say that
our border starts here. It is not my call to blur a clear mark;
to take my foot and brush out the line in the dirt, whether it is
man-made or not. It couldn't be any other way. A citizenry cannot
be enforced by police or federal agents who patrol with personal
"notions" of law.
P.O.V.: What's an important border that you've crossed in your life?
Dennis: I enjoyed the chance to travel as a young man. It wasn't
travel as one might come across in a tourist magazine. I had no
money, or not much. I'd work at a bar or restaurant or someplace
like that, save some money and move on to another country.
Like I said, I was young. I had a constant drive to experience other
cultures, to sit right in middle of their family rooms or at their
kitchen tables and listen to their daily talk. What they thought
about literature or politics. The multitude of world visions fascinated
me. It still does. Anyway, we are raised with certain beliefs. There
is no news in that, but either you decide these are the ones you'll
keep for the rest of your life or you decide to challenge and possibly
dismantle them. You may even decide to live in a state of perpetual
reassessment. Whatever the eventual result, or lack of finality,
it's your choice. I find it liberating to take responsibility for
my perception of that which transpires around me.
P.O.V.: If you could erase any border in your world, what would
it be?
Dennis: I wish I spoke a multitude of languages with ease and fluency.
Even if you do travel and meet other people, often you are bound
by how well or how poorly you understand another or express yourself
to others. To expand this wish to the world, it would be better
if we could communicate more clearly. Rational arguments are rational
in any language.
P.O.V.: When and how are borders useful?
Dennis: Again, in regard to what I do for a living, I think international
borders are useful. I see nothing wrong with people actively organizing
their communities, governments and societies, and protecting these
choices by a device like a border. That's all it really is.
P.O.V.: This episode of P.O.V.'s Borders concentrates on borders
as a physical reality, in terms of people moving from one place
to another and having to cross mental and literal borders to do
that. What, in your experience, is the most contested border?
Dennis: Our strength as humans is our ability to think. Our largest
battles are fought over how we think. We kill over that. My inclination
is to say the most contested border today is the individual's right
to think, and eventually, be the cause of his/her self-determination.
I feel a little silly saying this; coming to my feet and sophomorically
declaring, "I believe in world-wide human rights." As
if saying it is going to make it happen.
There is always a struggle between the individual and the culture
he/she lives within. You would think that if a culture were the
result of us, the humans scurrying about inside, it would be organized
to better serve us; to attend to us as individuals, to promote our
best interests. The healthier and brighter we are individually,
the stronger and more vibrant our culture. There should be nothing
suppressive about a culture, and if there is, change it. Raise your
voice. Revolt. You don't have to follow the customs of the dead.
This is your one chance to dance with the living. Sixty or seventy
spins around the sun are all you get. Why would you want to march
through it with the puppet-like movements of those who passed before
you?
But that's how we think. And possibly how we fail. Cultures are
surreptitiously seductive. They sweetly whisper to some recessed
someplace their visions of life; "This is how things are...
this is how it's done... we have always thought this way."
The relentless mantra continues until one day they finally pull
you in, "This is where you're from and this is who you are."
And if you believe it, listen to me... if you buy this sham, you're
done. Not only were you born in the swampland, you turned right
back around and bought back into it. That border I spoke about.
The border I spoke about to you, the souls trying to carve out their
own voice under the preponderance social noise, has collapsed to
the ground.
P.O.V.: Expand our borders. What's a book, movie, piece of music,
website, etc. that challenges or engages with the idea of 'borders'
that we should know about but perhaps don't?
Dennis: I don't believe we have a good relationship with human history
— with the individuals encased within it. Sometimes we walk
about with a belief that those who lived a hundred years ago, or
a thousand, were somewhat bumbling. They may have had good intentions
— or maybe they didn't — but we sure know more than they
did. And our evidence of this is in our study of history. We look
back and say, "How could they have possibly thought the way
they did?" Thinking about people who lived years ago or understanding
how they thought is really no different than trying to understand
the present day motivations of those from other cultures, and to
narrow it down to one book is impossible. Read. Read, and read again.
Come to your own conclusions as to how mankind has reached this
point in its history, its science and its thought.
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