BACK TO THE WALL
It starts at sunrise. Two lines of teenagers in military garb form on either side of the international bridge between Laredo and Nuevo Laredo. A February chill permeates the air high above the placid Rio Grande. From the United States, customs officials in their dark blue uniforms and Border Patrol agents in their trademark olive green stream onto the bridge. From Mexico come camo-clad soldiers. The bridge becomes a thicket of rifles and sabers.
It’s the climactic moment of Laredo’s strange, 123-year-old tradition: the nation’s largest celebration of George Washington’s birthday, a monthlong display of both patriotism and binational unity. Even Speaker Nancy Pelosi is there. Sporting a blue sash identifying her as the festival’s señora internacional, Pelosi takes the stage. “This is a vibrant community with a border going through it,” she avows. At last, two pairs of elaborately dressed children, hailing from both sides of the Rio Grande, step shyly to the bridge’s midpoint and embrace one another. An abrazo. The camera shutters roar like gunfire.
At this point, you’re supposed to feel a sense of the unbreakable bond between these sister cities at the border—los dos Laredos, one community sharing a river. The sentiment was already hard to summon: The hugging children are surrounded by the very officers who enforce the hard line between nations, turning away desperate refugees at the same bridge. Now, there’s yet another tension. As Pelosi speaks, protesters paddle a pair of kayaks behind her on the river below. Drawing nearer, the crew catches the attention of security guards by the stage, then the press. Between the vessels, the agitators have stretched a white banner that reads in red lettering: “No Border Wall.”
This year, a hulking fence of steel and concrete is finally headed for Laredo. The wall threatens to
