Human Essay: The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez

 The Borders of Belonging

We are social creatures. It is an unavoidable fact of human existence that we collect ourselves in groups, striving to fit into the bubbles of social cohorts. Most of the time, these groups are small, contained, but this is mostly because monumentally overwhelming groups have been constructed centuries ago, forming population groups and country borders that seem difficult to comprehend, and even more so to challenge. In Aaron Bobrow-Strain’s book, The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez: A Border Story, these groups are questioned, investigated, due to the life of a woman caught between them. To be human in Aida's story is to strive to safely belong despite opposition. She is consistently seeking belonging from both people and living situations, as many people displaced by life are. This consistent motivation allows those in her situation the ability to make a stand against the systems oppressing them.

In stories of empowerment, oppressors are inevitable, although they can vary drastically. Within Aida’s story in particular, a border story, these oppressors come in the forms of border agents, law enforcement officials, and the nameless, faceless restrictors that keep the borders of their country “safe.” Individuals on either ideal-based side of this story are defined by what they seek; the future and perceived security they strive for. Members of the United States seeking to remove people like Aida are defined by their opposition to sharing a relatively safe environment with those seeking security. Aida and those like her looking to immigrate to the States are identified by their willpower to challenge this system of borders, a line drawn in the sand to keep “those people” out. Perceived safety is a large factor in the drawing of these invisible lines, as countries and civilizations are centered on many of the ideals they were constructed by. These beliefs will impact their policies, as we have seen in the United States. Since the country was founded on conquest, taking land and building a country on a limited set of opinions, backgrounds, and outlooks, the policies continuing to take hold will favor the limited group of individuals who sought to enact it in the first place.

The systems within the States specifically favor white, middle-class, heterosexual, Christian, English-speaking, able-bodied, cisgender men. As many figures within this book do not fit that description, it is not difficult to identify the places where they are discriminated against, and how these instances contribute to an overwhelming dehumanization among these people. Dehumanization in The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez is seen in the enforcement of policies that reduce human beings to an “other,” a figure that does little other than break rules and cross borders. Books like this give a reader insight into the lives of those reduced to a separate group, providing names, faces, and life stories for people who would be otherwise overlooked by those with privilege enough to shut them out. 

With the influence of books like these, society is given a chance to change, to see the world as someone other than the role they have been handed. People in places of power are provided with an opportunity for empathy, whether or not they engage with it, and people who are oppressed similarly are gifted the reassurance that they are not alone in their struggles. Similar to many previous books this quarter, Aida Hernandez’s undisputable story is given to the reader without room for negotiation. The facts of the situation are presented, the systems are revealed, and the inner workings of a society built to oppress are brought forth in detail. Systems that enforce borders such as the ones seen in this narrative should be held responsible for the harm they cause, harm such as detention centers, family separation, and community conflict brought about by the enforcing of borders to keep “safety” as a priority within a country gifted resources that could accommodate those less fortunate. In the poem “Home,” Warsan Shire writes that “no one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land.” Narratives like Aida’s are essential to the understanding of those seeking something “better,” or even somewhere they can belong. In contrast to problems like poverty and class discrepancies, border enforcement has the opportunity to physically separate families along a near-arbitrary line that has been drawn to distinguish “us” from “them.” It is the duty of those considered fellowship among the enforcers to seek understanding with the enforced.

As someone who has been kept on the favored side of a conflict such as this one, I seek to understand situations such as Aida’s. While I was raised in the States, my home is in Mid City Los Angeles, a diverse hub of culture and communication. The area prides itself on diversity, and the world apart from it has been somewhat of a shock to me as I’ve made my way out of my own contained bubble. While I am from a white family, my parents consistently sought out places where those with different stories would surround me, and our neighborhoods have always been diverse and different while accepting and communal. General hostility toward those of different races or documentation statuses was never tolerated, but Aida’s story still opened my eyes to a specific type of personal resonance with this enforcement. I’ve heard less intense stories from a close friend of mine, mostly centered around stories of the intolerance of non-white immigrants to the States combined with the persistence of travelers due to the opportunities that the country offers. As we within this country pat ourselves on the back for our sustainability and idyllic situations, we must also recognize the appeal of this flawed utopia to those outside of it. While the water may not be safer than the land, there is always another place to go. Why wouldn’t a traveler try it? The worst they can do is get sent back to their home. Seeking belonging is important for any human, but the connections between belonging and desire can be found in the oppressors’ actions, the inner workings of a society that prevent those “outside” from having a place within.