"My grandparents house in El Paso...." echo opinion

Border Wall- Echo opinion letter published in the El Paso Times:

Fortunate to be born in a family with a home on the border

My grandparents’ house in El Paso was right on the border. I spent every summer there as far back as I can remember.

Numerous sports games. Hide and seek. Dart guns. Bicycles. Walking down the street to Tía Celia’s house. That walk seemed like 10 miles. It’s less than a mile.

Looking back, I never remember a wall or fence on the border just beyond the neighbors’ backyards. My mom said when she was a kid, they’d walk along the Rio Grande riverbank and see workers outside, just across the border.

Years later, when I visited, I saw a tall fence along the freeway.

Some people are angered by calls to “build the wall.” It used to anger me. Years back, I thought, “Why do people hate people that look like me and my family?”

Over time, it dawned on me that they simply haven’t had the experiences I’ve had. They don’t have the memories of family, the smell of tortillas on the comál in the morning, the desert heat and the unconditional love of a family that, yes, came across the border in the 1910s to escape death.

Today, I don’t hate people that say, “Build the wall.” I just think, “Wow, you have no idea the richness that could be within your heart, and the absence of it is likely not even your fault.”

Fortunate to be born in a family with a home on the border

My grandparents’ house in El Paso was right on the border. I spent every summer there as far back as I can remember.

Numerous sports games. Hide and seek. Dart guns. Bicycles. Walking down the street to Tía Celia’s house. That walk seemed like 10 miles. It’s less than a mile.

Looking back, I never remember a wall or fence on the border just beyond the neighbors’ backyards. My mom said when she was a kid, they’d walk along the Rio Grande riverbank and see workers outside, just across the border.

Years later, when I visited, I saw a tall fence along the freeway.

Some people are angered by calls to “build the wall.” It used to anger me. Years back, I thought, “Why do people hate people that look like me and my family?”

Over time, it dawned on me that they simply haven’t had the experiences I’ve had. They don’t have the memories of family, the smell of tortillas on the comál in the morning, the desert heat and the unconditional love of a family that, yes, came across the border in the 1910s to escape death.

Today, I don’t hate people that say, “Build the wall.” I just think, “Wow, you have no idea the richness that could be within your heart, and the absence of it is likely not even your fault.”

Marcel Hernandez

Nashville, Tennessee