south of the border

down Mexico way...

Culture to an American can be as simple as the border. We have little in the way of borders. What we lack within our border is a united way of being. 'Freedom' and 'Democracy' are our only true means of connectivity and within there is division. I used to long to be Mexican for many reasons but mostly for the  familial roots. Like so many other cultures who come to our country to make a better life, they end up sending their earnings back to family in their country of origin in effort to perpetuate a better life and increase the status of their blood.

I can't imagine moving to India or Spain to make money and send it back to my family in America. Truly the thought just never crossed my mind. It's fascinating to me what they leave behind for this freedom. It's not to say this freedom isn't all it's cracked up to be. It is! I for one am glad I don't live in fear for my life because of my beliefs or lifestyle. I'm excessively glad that certain parts of my body won't be filleted as a result of my gender. And I'm exceedingly grateful for all the opportunity at my disposal.

Yet, I have to question sometimes what we lose in taking the freedom/closeness dilemma to a global spectrum. What would it be like to be so close knit with ones kin as to live generations together in small spaces, supporting, providing wisdom and so forth? I know many a family estranged from blood lines, mine is not exempt. And in someways family becomes much like the aforementioned harsh politics. So and so isn't doing this or that, so they must be cut off. Almost as though it's possible there's a trade at hand, what is feared in government might just as easily be feared in family. Survival of the physical over survival of the emotional.

Do I know what I'm talking about? No, not with any real authority. But I do find the rumination of such concepts fruitful in ways I can't describe.

What say you?