It took our new president’s ego less than a week to start throwing the delicate balance of shared world power and mutual global respect into a tailspin.
Mexico is pissed right now. Specifically, they’re infuriated by Donald Trump, but viscerally it feels like all white Americans are to blame at the moment.
I understand why the Mexican people and the Mexican government are upset with our new president. I am too. It’s as though everyone somehow forgot that when he started his campaign it was a funny joke. It was a ridiculous “what if” question that slowly manifested into the international relations nightmare we’re now dealing with on all fronts. It took our new president’s ego less than a week to start throwing the delicate balance of shared world power and mutual global respect into a tailspin. Countries in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia are all upset with his rhetoric, which is rapidly solidifying into concrete government policy. In President Trump’s first ten days in office, he signed two proclamations, seven executive orders, and seven presidential memoranda. Those actions included everything from advancing the production of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines to expediting environmental reviews and approvals for infrastructure projects to protecting the nation from foreign terrorist entry into the United States. Then, of course, there is Executive Order 13767, signed on Wednesday, January 25, directing customs and border patrol to secure the United States’ southern border with “the immediate construction of a physical wall on the southern border.”
Keeping a finger on the emotional pulse of the Mexican government and people is important for many reasons. Sharing an enormous border with Mexico and living in Southern California, I really do care about how this situation is going to develop. I’m genuinely concerned with what kind of impact policy change could have on everything from my local economy to the vibes I’ll get at the multitude of hyper-authentic, totally-acceptable-to-order-in-Spanish, Mexican food joints in my neighborhood. On top of all this, I’m concerned with whether or not I’ll still be able to go surfing.
When I was young, I remember walking through the metal turn-style gate and across the San Ysidro border crossing with my middle-school friends into Tijuana to watch bullfights. We went more than once with my buddy’s dad before any of us had driver’s licenses and were totally fine. Then, around 2007 or so, I remember hearing an increase in horror stories from south of the border. Across the surf community, it was generally deemed “unsafe” to travel by car in search of waves in Baja. I waited almost ten years, until I was 24 years old, to go back.
In the seven driving trips I’ve taken into Baja over the past three years, I’ve had just three encounters you could classify as “sketchy.” In particular, one was worse than the others, but at no time did I feel like my life was in danger. I’m a confident and competent Spanish speaker and I like to use the language as a way to show respect while connecting with the locals. Time and time again, while chatting with local folks, I would hear things like “We love seeing you guys down here, please tell your friends back home how much fun you’re having.” Or “Thank you for visiting, please come back as many times as you can. Tell people it’s not bad here.” The average citizen in Mexico is not a gnarly cartel murderer. They’re just honest people trying to make a living, and tourism is a good way to do that.
But let’s get back to President Donald Trump and the reason I’m even penning this rant in the first place. Above all other ramifications of the actions taken by the tantrum-throwing president of the United States, I am most concerned with the fear that I won’t be able to surf in Mexico safely anymore.
It’s a serious and legitimate concern if you’re a surfer. If stories of American hostages being taken spread when international relations were healthy, what’s going to happen to sun-crisped white guys now that our government plans on building an enormous and isolating physical barrier between our nations? The Mexican people are literally burning effigies of our current commander in chief in city squares. Shit’s serious and people are pissed. All of this hostility is ruining the sense of near-tranquility people were starting to experience down in Baja. Just as things were calming back down for surfers daring to dive into authentic old-school Mexican surf trips, some smack-talking-big-head comes in and ruins everything.
This is obviously detrimental to the people who have made Baja sojourns a regular thing, knowing the spots where they can escape and score good, relatively empty waves. It’s already a looming paradise-lost feeling for guys who know what treasures await just over the line. Almost like locking into a perfectly peeling tube, only to somehow lose your footing and watch the thing spin away from you as you’re sucked down in a spiraling wipeout.
Also at risk, however, are the people who haven’t had this opportunity just yet. There are innumerable American surfers who haven’t taken a Baja road trip for one reason or another. If tensions escalate, and violence once again becomes more commonplace down south, many people will probably never go. This is unfair. While I’ve heard Canada is great, travel to Mexico needs to continue to be a safe option for people. Having external cultural input is vital to our development as well-rounded human beings and as true Americans.
I hope, in the end, that the government and the citizens of Mexico can differentiate between the government and the citizens in America. With protests becoming a daily thing in America, it’s fair to say many citizens don’t appreciate the ideals of our new Commander in Chief. We’re real people here, too. I just hope that we don’t all get lumped together in the Mexican psyche in the same way some Americans fear a trip across the border. If that shifts, it will all be over. Trump will have more fuel to throw on his fire, the wall will get bigger, it will get thicker, and it will be longer – like some demented-inhumane-hate-boner fueling the animosity on both sides of the line.
Everyone take a deep breath, because we’re in for a crazy ride on this one.
