Daisy:
Everyone keeps asking what a border commuter is…HUH. Funny, considering how often I get reminded. Maybe it’s time YOU started keeping up too.
Daisy:
Mexican nationals who live on the US-Mexico border and wish to attend a border university but cannot afford or are unable to reside in the sister city to their hometown may attend any US institution within 75 miles of the physical border to become a border commuter. Border commuters can choose between part-time or full-time status and are expected to periodically renew their paperwork in order to maintain legal status. This, to be able to cross international bridges from their hometown to their college campus inside the neighboring country and return by the end of the day without spending more than 24 hours at a time on the US side.
Daisy:
My first years as a border commuter without a car were all about being in a constant rush…
Dad:
Daisy, ya son las 5, se nos va a hacer tarde. (Daisy, wake up, we’re gonna be late!)
Daisy:
Rushing to shower.
Rushing to get dressed.
Rushing to get out of the door.
Dad:
Ándale, Daisy, se nos va a hacer tarde, eh. (Come on Daisy! It’s getting late!)
Daisy:
But there is one thing as a border commuter that you learn to make peace with.
The one that differentiates us from everyone.
That is, waiting after the rush and before rushing a little bit more.
Border commuters deal with waiting in the line from the first day, and this really never stops.
Your patience just gets better.
You learn to do very different things to pass the time.
Once I was done with the seven weeks of my intensive English program, the paperwork to enroll in basic college classes was relatively easy. I just had to go to my international students' office, and they handled it for me. I finally felt like I was starting what I was set to do.
Only I was constantly reminded by my international advisors that my sole and only purpose was to be a student.
Starting my basics was exciting until I remembered I had no friends since my most previous friendships had stayed in Juarez. Often, I would spend my lunches by myself, wishing they were there.
Looking at tables full of people, imagining that one day that could be me.
In the midst of missing my friends, I would also wonder if they thought that I was a bad friend because of my absence. Lalo, who's been my friend since middle school, says that they did understand.
Lalo:
Sí, supuse que sí va a ser menos los tiempos que se manejaría de amistad en las reuniones y así, pero pues fue totalmente entendible ya que pues era parte de la escuela. (I did suppose that our timing on hanging out and all that would be less, but it was understandable as it was school related.)
Daisy:
I challenged myself to participate in school activities. And one good day, during career fair day, I came to find out that Valle Verde had a radio club.
I spoke to the president of the club at the time and set up an interview.
Back then, my conversational English was okay, but I felt definitely intimidated when talking to people. In the end, she invited me to a training, and after I did my training session, I was hooked.
My self-challenge in joining a club had the ulterior motive of using it to network.
And one thing about me was that even though I knew that many people understood and spoke Spanish, once I crossed the bridge, I would turn off my native language and force myself to make do with the conversational vocabulary that I had. I would use the excuse of paying too much to learn the language. And I had to make my money's worth.
But it was just a constant joy speaking the language I had long for so long and seeing how good I had become in it. The radio club brought many friends who after a decade are still with me. But back in the day, when the 'hey, you want to hang out after' would come up, the shame of not having a car and being able to go places whenever I wanted would set in.
I often felt guilty of not making friends because I did not want to tell them that I could not go places. Because if they offered to give me rights, the bridges were always located very far from anything interesting that we were doing in El Paso.
Little did I know they really never cared about that. This is what some of my friends from EPCC back in the day had to say.
Brandon:
So, I remember I used to be that one, "Hey, don't leave. It's too early." But I mean I at the same time I understand you had to leave either because of the bus schedule or because you had to, you had your curfew.
Frank:
That didn't uh affect our friendship at all. Maybe we’d say like, "Okay, well, you're leaving like right now. But hey, don't worry, we can hang out at another day". We know that Juanito leaves at 9:00 p.m. El Paso because you have to go to Juarez. Well, let's meet at 7:00. We were aware of that.
Mark:
You know, there are times you won't be able to, or anybody won't be able to, and it's understandable. It's not like, oh it's we can't hang out because you live somewhere else. No, we can't or we can't talk because you live somewhere else. We still have the means to communicate via messaging, FaceTime, or just a quick phone call like we're doing right now.
Daisy:
As time passed, I got close to people in my club. I started greeting people in the hallways.
I was not eating on my own anymore.
I felt like I was starting to belong to the place I loved so much, but one thing had not changed.
Always bound to go back home at the end of the day.
My days during my associate's degree would start at 5:00 a.m. to head out the door by 6:00 a.m. to be at the bridge and pray that I could be in school by 8:00 a.m. to take my classes.
With time, I did learn to schedule my classes for 9:00 a.m. or later, because having no car meant I would still be dropped at the bridge and had to kill time until class started.
My going back home routine was not like my friends. My going home routine would depend on the time the bus would pick me up after classes and how long it would take to get to the downtown transfer center.
I would then walk from there to the Stanton Bridge, where I would pay my toll and head back to my hometown.
After the bridge, my mom would pick me up and take me home. Which would take around half an hour to an hour, depending on traffic.
If you ask any border commuter what the most annoying thing about their situation is, the answer will most likely be the waiting time.
You often wake up before anyone. Get ready four hours before your class,
But the lines are never predictable, so you're forced to stay ahead. Waiting for us is never really an issue since we're so used to it.
Daisy:
Always ahead just in case. You get used to being early and become a master at killing time.
You learn to make peace with the fact that early mornings are your new best friend. Waiting on the bridge is the limbo space where you turn into the student and the friend for someone else who's not in Juarez.
The bridge turns into the physical in between your two personas. Your life on one side goes on standby while the academic one hits the resume button from the previous day.
And at the end of it, you hit pause again on a different side of the border to go back home and resume whatever you have left.
Every day, you come to learn, turns into a loop.
