The New Yorker Radio Hour - Valeria Luiselli on Reënacting the Border

Episode Date: July 2, 2019

Valeria Luiselli first travelled to the U.S.–Mexico border in 2014, when the current immigration crisis began to heat up. Under the Trump Presidency, the border has become the dead center of American politics, and Luiselli returned with the radio producer Pejk Malinovski. Luiselli is a Mexican writer living in New York, and the author of “Lost Children Archive” and other books. She wrote in The New Yorker about Wild West reënactments, in which actors stage scenes like a gunfight at O.K. Corral. In Tombstone, Arizona, and Shakespeare, New Mexico, she finds a very particular view of Western history that elides the U.S.’s long and complicated relationship with Mexico, which once owned this region. She finds that historical reënactments feed a notion of the border region as a lawless frontier requiring vigilantes to defend American interests. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

From One World Trade Center in Manhattan, this is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of The New Yorker and WNYC Studios. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. The debate over the border with Mexico and the whole vexed question of immigration is at the very center of American politics, and it has been ever since the election of Donald Trump. The president continues to stoke the fear of immigration as an existential threat to the country. Meanwhile, Alexandria Cassio-Cortez recently used the term

concentration camp to describe the conditions that some migrants are kept in, causing a furor in both parties. Valeria Louis-Seli is a writer who was born in Mexico and now lives in the U.S. Both her fiction and non-fiction are concerned with the border, and recently she traveled to the region

and visited two former mining towns, Tombstone, Arizona, and Shakespeare, New Mexico. Both have had a strange kind of after as stage sets for reenactments of the old Wild West, scenes like the famous gunfight at the OK Corral. Louis Selly wanted to explore how the stories that we tell about the Old West shape our perception of the border even now. So the first time I visited Shakespeare and Tombstone was in 2014,

right when the immigration crisis started. I returned to both towns this year with my friend Pike Milanovsky, a writer and audio documentary. One-two, one-two, testing, testing. Since my last trip to the southwest thinks have gotten really bad. The national fixation on the border crisis has reached a fever pitch, and the way that undocumented migrants are treated at the border has hit record lows. It's a good moment to return to the borderlands

and think about the ways that the legends of the Wild West and their reenactments coexist or clash with the actual reality surrounding these towns. Peck and I meet in Tucson in late April. Our first stop is with our two local friends, Francisco Cantu and Karima Walker. Oh, there's Karima. Hey, Karima. We want to pick their brains a bit about the towns we're going to visit the next day. Hello.

Hey, how are you? Very good. Welcome. Thank you. Does anybody want a beer? I would love a mescalito. They live in a small adobe house full of books and plants. He sat around the kitchen.

table. Francisco was a Border Patrol agent for a few years, and he wrote a book about the experience called The Line Becomes a River. Yeah, I worked for the Border Patrol for three and a half years from 2008 until 2012. I think the most harmful part of the narrative is this narrative that the people that you're encountering are criminals, right? It's this narrative of criminality. when you're at the academy, you're like, all these encounters that you have pose a danger to you.

And like the first primary preoccupation from the beginning of an interaction until the end of an interaction is like your safety as a good guy versus this bad guy, you know? But I think like the huge golf in that narrative is that most of these encounters, like they're not criminal encounters. I mean, the vast majority are humanitarian encounters, right? These are encounters with refugees, not criminals, most of the time. We're grateful and somewhat relieved that Francisco has agreed to come with us to Tombstone tomorrow. As a Mexican and as a woman, I'm a bit nervous about driving into these towns and being so close to the border.

Early next morning, the sun is already strong. Valeria, do you want like a baseball? hat or like a little fedora hat or a cowboy hat. The Stetson? You want to wear a fucking Stetson? Yeah, we see it. You think I'll pass? This is my father. We set out for Tombstone, Francisco at the Whale and Pike recording in the backses in the back.

We're going to talk to reenactors at the O.K. Corral. It's the most famous reenactment in town and features some legendary Wild West characters like Dog Holiday and Wyatt Earp. I don't know if it's still... We're driving deep. deeper into the desert. Outside the car window, Seguaroos, Creosot, Docottillo, and Mesquite. The jagged peaks of the Dragoon Mountains to the east, and further than that, the tall peaks of the mighty Tirikawa Mountains. Driving into Tombstone feels like entering the set of an old western.

The streets are lined with saloons, little museums, there's an old brothel, and many souvenir shops. Horace drawn stage coaches pass by constantly. Here comes a reenactor. Can we talk to you for... Real quick, though, because I'm on my way into work, so... Who are you? Today I'm playing Frank McClory. Very, very bad man.

The only one who really knew what he was doing on the cowboy side in the gunfight. His name is Zach Edder. He's spaghetti-bodied, walks with a joyful kind of skip, and is visibly enjoying every one of the deep puffs he takes of his cigarette. There's nothing quite like getting to shoot guns at your friends all day,

and then getting up and going to have a beer after you're done, you know. The OK Corral Reenactment recreates a dispute leading to a 30-second shootout between Outlaw Cowboys and Lawman. My name is Virgil Earp. I am Tal Marshall Love Tombstone. I lay down the law. The reenactors' name is David Moore, and he has a major in history. Recently, there was an ordinance passed that prohibits carrying a gun in town. Now, I heard those cowboys are carrying guns in town,

today. And if they don't render those guns peacefully, we will take those guns away by force if necessary and the rest will be history. The line that divides performance in reality seems a little thin in tombstone. We ask him what it is that draws so

many people to these old Wild West shows. I think deep down a lot of people, you know, they search and wish for a simpler time. Yeah, I think that's why. First show of the day, folks. Right here at the O.K.K. Corral, here, 11 a.m. Come get your tickets now right to these red doors.

We walk into a walled, rectangular area, dirt floor, some barrels, haystacks, a recreation of old storefronts on one end, and metal bleachers on the other end. Darling. Hi, darling. Here's how it's going to work. I'm going to let you get in there. I'm going to let you have a seat, but don't get up, give me no trouble. You give me any trouble, I might use this guy for target practice. I don't know. But I need lots of practice. I had a lot of drink today.

All right. But don't worry, it's always safety first at the OK crowd. That's right, I left my bottle at the bar. You'll be safe. All right. Get in there, sir. Thank you. We find a seat among 20 or 30 spectators.

Are you folks ready for a gunfight? Now I said, are you folks ready for a gunfight? All right. Now, before we get started today, I do have to talk to you about a couple things. First things, first folks, these are not toys. They are real fire. Doc Holiday gives us instructions. Do not attempt to pull them from our holsters at any time.

Do not ask us to hold them to your spouse's head for pictures. It's not going to happen. There's a good versus bad logic than the reenactment. The good guys are the gentlemen dressed like me wearing ties around their necks. The herbs are the good guys. I want you to cheer them. The Clanton's part of the group called the Cowboys are the bad guys. Likewise, when you see those dirty, smelly cowboys walk through those doors, I want you to boo them.

Not much room here for nuance or ambiguity. Let's give it a try right now. Good guys. Good guys. Good guys. Are you folks ready for a gunfight? Yeah. Are you ready for a killing?

Looker hands, boys, we're here for your guns. Oh, I don't want that. All right, mother. One of the narratives in the OK Corral reenactment is that of vigilante justice. civilians who deputize themselves in order to perform the tasks normally resort for law enforcement. I got one left for you. You get away with you down. Well, that was it. Over before it ever started.

After the show, we walk around town for a while talking to people, trying to learn more about the history. Who are interesting people to talk to in town? Who are, like, people that have a memory of town? Good stories about... Well, if you can get a hold of them, that's the hard part. The best person to talk to about town is a fellow by the name of Ben Trejewick. Ben Treweck? Go down two streets.

You turn left at the Crystal Palace. Across from the Epitaph Newspaper Museum is a two-story Adobe. The man who lives there is Ben Trellick. And he has a bookstore downstairs that he opens when he feels like it because he's 93 years old. But he's still clear in his head, and he got here back in the 60s. And he loves the town. We find Ben Traywick's bookstore in a side street. Hi.

Hello there. Hi, are you, Mr. Ben Tredwick? And we enter a cluttered dark space. Oh, I'm sorry. We were just talking to someone that told us that you were a town historian. There's books, magazines, and documents all piled up in columns. For a long time, you acted as a town historian. And in the left-hand corner of the shop, there's this old man with a snowy mustache and some strands.

of white hair. He's got 42 years, but I retired three years ago. He's bending over a manuscript. We were wondering if we could speak to you, like a brief interview. What are you going to do with it? We asked him about the history of the reenactment scene in Tombstone. And it turns out he's kind of like a local wizard of Oz. Well, when I came here in 1968, I saw that Tombstone was not being advertised.

That's the key right there, advertisement. So I wrote a script, and we decided to do historical. Sparkle acts. Treywick apparently wrote the original OK Corralry enactment and played Wyatt Earp for 20 years. The women did hanging groups, comic things, you know, and we did serious things. His bookstore is full of objects.

There's a Confederate flag in the back, some Mayen masks and relics behind his desk, a few dusty mariachi hats, many framed pictures of admirals and generals. He points to the door. Move that door for a little bit, look at the picture behind it. on the wall.

That's Nathan Bedford Forrest. He's the greatest Calvert leader ever been. Nathan Bedford Forrest was a Confederate Army General during the American Civil War and was elected the first Grand Wizard of the KKK. Now, I had two great-grandfathers

who was in his second caliber unit. One was the sergeant, the other than got killed in Kentucky. And you have a book about the Ku Klux Klan as well? I wrote that in self-rector. defense. They lied so much about that, that I got sick of hearing it. What were some of the lies

about the clan that you took care of? Well, one of them was about how they treated slaves. In the book, he says that those who understand the KKK view it as a beloved symbol of all that is holy and beautiful. I hate

to see something wrong in history. I went to ask him about historical accuracy. Seems like there are no Mexican or Native American characters in any of the reenactments. Mexicans were part of the civilization we had here. Yeah. But are they, like, you know, we have like a lot of dock holidays,

White Earp, the Clansons, in the reenactments. Are there any reenactments in town where there's a role that a Mexican, not a Mexican actor, but that the character is Mexican? Well, it's hard to say. You have to take them as a whole, you know. We were not sure we had Mexican in our group. He cooked the best beef in the world. But the guy was Mexican.

Yeah. I'm talking about people that are now part of a reenactment show. Some of them were politicians. A lot of them own stores. I'm curious to ask him about his views on Mexico-U.S. relations more generally. Do you think there should be a wall dividing Mexico in the U.S.? I think that they made a big mistake when he got San Ana. and had a chance to, they should have annexed Mexico,

and let them keep all the states they had, let them run them, but be under the United States or with the United States. It should be part of the United States. They have solidify the whole continent of North America. Including Central America? Yeah, we care. Because you get them too. And now, well, okay, that said, but that didn't happen.

So do you think there should be a wall between me? Mexico and the U.S.? Yeah, I do. I do because we have gotten so many criminals and so many people with diseases that we need to protect ourselves. Have you had any

real life experience with what you're talking about now, like criminals or people with diseases here? Well, when people come to town here, they're illegal. They know that the people in the town know they're illegal. It's a small town. They get a cold drink,

and hits the big city where they can disappear. None of them stay here. We don't have any in town right now that I know of. They also know that everybody in town has got a gun. Vigilantism in Tombstone goes beyond everyone carrying guns, though. The organized vigilante group, the Minuteman, was created in Tombstone in 2002. Chris Simcox, then the editor of the Tombstone Tumbleweed,

put out a call to arms. Citizens Border Patrol militia now forming. Concerned citizens, joined together to protect your country in a time of war. Well, I also heard about, you know, that the Minutemen started here, and there was kind of, do you know anything about that? No, no. Treywick is hesitant to talk about the relationship between Tombstone, the Minuteman, and Chris Simcox.

But I push a little further. The owner of the newspaper, the Tumbleweed, he was part of the Minuteman, right? Yeah, he was, but had nothing to do with the rest of people. That was his own project. A few years after his call to arms, Simcox had about 900 armed volunteers patrolling the border, and he was praised by people like Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Well, he was a good historian, and he was a good newspaper being. When he started that, it looked like a good thing.

But he let it take over his life, and he got all out of bounds. I think he finally went to jail, didn't he? He did. Chris Simcox is serving a 19-year sentence. for child molestation. So perhaps it's understandable that people in Tombstone prefer to dissociate themselves.

We say goodbye and step back out into the afternoon sun. Valeria Louis Selle in Tombstone, Arizona, her reporting from the border continues in a minute. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour and stick around.

We're traveling in the border region of the southwest today, revisiting the idea of the Wild West with the writer Valeria Louis Selly. Louis Selly wanted to explore how the history of militias and vigilantes affects how people think about the border even today. She was accompanied by the producer

Pike Malinowski, and their first stop was in Tombstone, Arizona. The junior ROTC from the local high school is parading down the main street. There's a sense of military preparedness in the air. We walk into a souvenir store that sells t-shirts. There's one. One with two guns forming an X and the words,

Second Amendment, the original Homeland Security. The original Homeland Security, Tombstone, Arizona. What does it mean? Who is the original Homeland Security? Guns. Oh, okay, because it's the two guns. Yeah, the two guns. Yeah, that was our security back in the day.

That's all they had. There was not a lot of law and order around. Right. It's confusing and hard for us to process all of this. The laughter's and fun. and driven entertainment of the reenactments, the love of guns, the beauty of the surrounding desert, the welcoming smiles and openness to conversation of many of the Tombstone residents, and then their feelings about immigrants.

There are many questions spinning in our heads as we drive out, which founding myths are being played out here, and what sentiments do they activate in people? Back in the car, our friend Francisco tells us about the relationship, between the institution of the Border Patrol and the myth of the frontier. That is the idea of a place at the very edge of civilization which needs to be conquered and tamed. The performance element of it, right? You know, like, you're in the Border Patrol and yes, it's a very, it's like a serious job. And there are times when it means life or death, but like it's also at the same time like a performance, right?

and people are joining and they're imagining that they're on this frontier outpost, you know, like, as this, you know, as representatives of this civilization that is sort of in conflict or that has to be asserted against the other, right? And it's just, to me, as I'm in this place, like the, what separates that kind of a performance, you know, in the context of law enforcement. from like these people dressing up as cowboys, like I see less and less that separates them. You know, like the separation is sort of like dissolving

as I'm like walking through this space. Our next stop is Shakespeare, a ghost of a ghost town in southern New Mexico. I'm Rod Linkus, by the way. Rod Linkus is a retired reenactor from El Paso and now gives tours of Shakespeare. Just watch where you step. Everything in the southwest, either sticks,

bites, scratches, stings. or poisons you. The town was once a mining town. Then it became a ghost town, and for a while there were re-enactments and rehearsals of gunfights and hangings there. But now it's only open for walking tours. The town consists only of a few abandoned buildings and a spindly aluminum windmill. Well, the only water we got is the windmill there.

The Shakespeare webpage warns visitors of rattlesnakes, mine borings, and shafts, as well as, quote, The current danger of drug mules walking from the southern border. There have been reports of drug mules coming from over that way, up across the cemetery, down, and in the arroyo back behind here, and down to the highway. How do we know there are drug mules or evidence? Things left behind, tracks, stuff like that. But they could also be migrants with no-dark? Well, there's both here, yeah.

coyotes and the mules. It just depends on what day and what time. Matter of fact, a couple of months ago, they stopped 360 illegals crossing the border and an hour later captured 140 bringing marijuana across about five miles away. Right. And who caught them Border Patrol?

Border Patrol, yeah. Border Patrol. Because sometimes there's also, what are they called, like organized civilian? Yeah, the militias. The militias? They've been kicked out because I've, you know, politics basically, but they've never threatened anybody.

All they can do is detain them until the Border Patrol gets there. So they're doing a job. Any one day, there's 4,000 Border Patrol agents to cover 6,000 miles of territory, Canadian and Mexican border. So that's not a whole lot. So I can see them trying to help some way. Civilian border militia or vigilantes are not a new trend in the borderlands. They emerged in the late 19th century after the war between Mexico and the U.S.

when Mexico lost half its territory and the new border between the two countries was being drawn. Shakespeare had its own vigilantes. Shakespeare, a little town of anywhere from two or three hundred up to three thousand people, was never attacked by the Apaches. We did have a guard here called the Shakespeare Guard. I guess he would call it a vigilante group. And they actually did chase Victoria at one time. Didn't capture him, they were lucky probably.

They were given surplus military weapons and ammunition, and they actually trained like a military unit. Vigilantes fought native peoples, like the Apaches, as enemies. Today, militia perceive undocumented immigrants, many of them also native people, as enemies to be fought. An enemy who is not fighting back, who just wants a better life. When we leave Shakespeare, we decide to drive down to the border. In Douglas, Arizona, we reached the wall, a part of the wall that was constructed during the Obama administration. There are two walls, in fact.

One painted creamy white on the American side, the other copper-colored. on the Mexican side. With a strip of land, the width of about 10 long strides between the two of them. We meet a Mexican man, Guelda Lupe,

who's walking back into Mexico from a long day's work. He's carrying a big hammer into his hand. I ask him what he thinks about the wall. You know the idea of a wall, in the mural, this.

So, so do what they do, this not will be going to get a lot in many

forms. Whatever they do, people are going to find a way around. Well,

yeah, if there have to work. Guadalupe got a green card years ago,

and he works in the U.S. because he makes ten times more working here than he would

in Mexico. We drive west along the wall until we see a sign for an RV part

called Twin Butes. We're curious to talk to people who live so close to the border. You can see the wall from here. Oh, there's someone. A woman named Beverly greets us with a neighborly smile. Hi. How's it going? Good.

Hey. Hi. Can you help you? We're working on a story, a documentary, about the border, and we were wondering if you wanted to talk to us. I can. Yeah? Sure.

Yeah. My husband might went to also. Okay. Yeah. Why? Does he know a lot about that? He keeps up on all that stuff. Yeah.

Is he around too? Yeah, he is. If you want to walk around that way, I'll meet you out the back door. Okay, thank you. Out back, there are four men and one woman sitting at a long, wooden picnic table. They're sipping beers. Hi, kids. Hello.

How are you doing? Very good. What can we do for you? You guys aren't from America? Oh, not originally. I'm a U.S. citizen, but I'm originally from Denmark. Okay, the accent. Okay.

I recognize it right off. That's Roger Kircher, definitely the alpha male of the group. He bought the RV park in 2002. From 2002 until 2008, in the middle of the night, we would have 20 people at our front door at 2 o'clock in the morning, looking for help. And a ride to Phoenix. Yeah.

Everybody wanted to ride to Phoenix. Drinking out of the cattle tank and filling up their water jugs to go on through the desert. Roger has firsthand experience in helping deport people. He tells us about a Guatemalan man that had already been deported three times and tried to cross once more. And I send him back to four times because I have a Border Patrol agent

lives in that trailer and I have a very good friend that's a customs agent. Do you see militias here? I was here during the Minutemen militia and I used to drive by and make sure that they had plenty of water. Now, they had guns, they can't pull a gun on anybody

or they go to jail that's our law but they can sit in their truck and they're back in with binoculars and spotty illegals coming across and then radio call in to the Border Patrol the sun is setting

and the sky above the RV park is vast and cloudless whatever possessed you guys to start this little documentary thing about the border well it's a big issue right now and yeah he also wants to know where we live, and we tell him we're both based in New York.

Is that in the U.S.? We're not sure still exists. We're going to annex that one, you know what I mean? When the wall comes up, we're going to go right on the east coast and the west coast, just leave the middle of the United States, because we seem to have more common sense than the east coast and the west coast people do. So a solid wall all the way and... Would be a good start.

And change the laws. And, like the Guatemalan that's been set back, I sent him. back the fourth time, then he's going to go to prison. And he's going to spend some time because we took him back to Mexico and he came back and he got caught. And then he came back and he got caught him and he went, there's no penalty for breaking our laws. All right, well, you know, let's go with your piles. Let's put them on a chain gang and let them cut the road ditches and teach you a lesson that, listen, we're seriously, get the right documentation and we'll welcome you in to our United States of America.

But don't break in. You don't break into anybody's house. Pike and I look at each other. We take a deep breath. And without really saying anything to each other, we know it's maybe time to go. Thank you so much. No, no, no.

You've got to come and follow me for five minutes. I know you're ever... Yeah, we have to go to Bisbee before sunset. For sunset, yeah. Really? Why? Because we're excited to see it. Then Roger shows us his golf cart. It has a blue siren light stuck to the top

and a bumper sticker that says, Tombstone Arizona, Justice is coming. I'm like the local sheriff for Twin Beach RV Park. I got the blue light and it lights up and people, they make me the sheriff around here because I'm the law and order. I make the rules. He reaches into the glove box of the golf cart and takes out a pistol. I never leave home without one.

We live in a dangerous area. One of my cars, one of my golf cars. I came to Tombstone and Shakespeare trying to step outside my usual dynamics, trying to understand the current crisis from a different angle. Wild West reenactments in the myths that fuel them, like the frontier myth and the idea of vigilante justice, did shed some light on the emotions driving the responses to the border crisis.

And the other way around, too. thinking about civilian border patrolling explains some of the myths behind reenactment culture. As we drive away, further from the border, I feel uneasy and maybe a little hopeless. What possibility of dialogue is there when people's opinions are so divided? But back in Tucson late that night,

we meet someone with a much more optimistic outlook. I love my work because that's the way to promote Tucson, the city, my country, the United States in Mexico also. His name is Pablo Martinez, and he's an Uber driver. I have a lot of happiness serving everybody. When we ask Pablo Martinez where he's from, he smiles really wide and says, I'm from Tucson, Mexico. We cannot be fighting like animals, you know, or hating.

Hating is from evil. You know, we cannot have that. we can, you know, put the love in front. Does the values that God give us? And if they said that this is land from, you know, the respect God, okay, let's build it up. We're here to build. We're not here to destroy.

Valeria Louis-Seli, traveling in the southwest, along with Pike Malinowski, who produced our story. You can find Valeria's article, The Wild West, meets the southern border at New York. I'm David Remnick, and that's it for today. Next week, we'll hear from Aaron Sorkin, whose new play based on To Kill a Mockingbird is one of Broadway's biggest hits this year.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. Thanks for listening. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Alexis Quadrato. This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Emily Boutin, Ave Cario, Rianne Corby, Jill Duboff, Karen Frillman, Kalalia, David Krasnow, Louis Mitchell, Sarah Nix, Andres O'Hara, and Stephen Valentino, with help from Monfay Chen and Emily Mann.

Karima Walker contributed additional sound design. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Churina Endowment Fund.