About > Emily Garber
Emily Garber
{Staff Writer}
In Mexico, an industrial-sized bag each of bread and tomatoes will cost you $18. That’s enough to feed about 200 deported immigrant workers.
I traveled to Nogales, a dusty border town, two summers ago with a Spanish class. We spent three weeks meeting with Samaritan groups, economists, and border officials in order to dissect and understand the debate over immigration. We stayed at a school and community center for children whose parents either couldn’t afford to feed them or had left them altogether for a better chance on the other side.
Conversations with the American CEO of a glorified border sweatshop and trips into the desert to distribute canned meat to those in hiding pulled our group’s heartstrings. But the memory that sticks out most is when we parked our big black truck under the highway on the border and assembled sandwiches in the bed to give to those unwillingly making their return.
I met a man who, as he gratefully ate his bocadillo with blackened, chapped lips, told us the story watching his sister die during the three-day trip to the U.S. Our group became friends with a teenage boy who was going to try to cross again that night— and from letters, we know he made it. Food isn’t just a source of comfort or fulfillment; it might just be the root of all understanding.