Highs and lows

On Wednesday, October 22, while walking back to my dorm from the Bryan Center, I saw Mexican members of the Duke community holding a candle light vigil in front of the Chapel. They were holding the vigil in honor of the 43 student teachers who went missing in the town of Iguala, Mexico on September 26. The Mexican authorities have yet to find the students, but they have found 12 mass graves that belong to some of the 25,000 people who have disappeared in Mexico in the last eight years due to drug violence—drug violence that we as a nation and student body are funding.

When I saw the candles being lit and the posters of students lying bare on the Chapel steps, my eyes began to well-up with tears because, as a Mexican citizen, I am tired. I am tired of being bombarded with stories about kidnappings and dismembered bodies. I am tired of having to master the art of violence evasion. I am tired of having to watch my people suffer. But even more so, I am tired of watching our student body unknowingly fund the drug cartels who are the source of that suffering.

We love Latin-American drugs. Maybe not you personally, but America sure does. The United States has the highest rate of illegal drug use in the world. To put it into perspective the value of the drug market is more than the market value of professional sports and Hollywood combined. America’s favorite pastime doesn’t take place in front of a screen or in a stadium—it’s spent in dorm rooms and concerts getting high on illegal substances. Duke is not immune to this phenomenon. We call Mexico unsafe and dangerous, but as a country and student body we are funding the same people we condemn—America’s high is the reason for Mexico’s low.

I grew up in Mexico City, two hours away from Iguala (the city whose disappeared student prompted the vigil I chanced to glimpse at Duke). I have driven by Iguala multiple times. However, my hometown can be as much of a bubble as Duke is. I have never been kidnapped and neither have any of my loved ones. I have never seen a gun-battle or a mutilated corpse, but I know people who have. I had classmates who were forced to flee their homes in northern Mexico because the violence was so bad. My family has yet to face the violence that many of my classmates from northern Mexico faced, but with no border to protect them, I always wonder when they too will become witnesses of this brutal wave of violence drowning Mexico. In Mexico City, decapitations and mass graves seem like a distant nightmare, but they are a nightmare always looming on the horizon.

I wish Mexico was just drug cartels, a border, tequila, sombreros and tacos. If it was just those things, it would be so much easier to watch it succumb to the power of corruption and drug cartels, but it’s not. When I think of Mexico, I think of beautiful beaches and colonial architecture. I think of breathtaking archaeological sites and murals, and of a culture rich with beautiful values and a warm way of life. I think of my family and friends. I think of home, a home that is tainted with blood and lies.

Approximately 120,000 people have died due to drug related violence in Mexico in the last eight years. While the figure of 120,000 deaths is alarming, this figure fails to include the hundreds of thousands of people who have become the victims of extortions and kidnappings. Nor does it include the millions of us who live in fear of becoming victims in this never-ending war.

While many of us would like to believe that the drugs used in this country are grown and produced domestically, that is simply not the case. A large portion of the marijuana and heroin, and all of the cocaine consumed in this country is produced, smuggled and distributed by Latin-American drug cartels. The violence engulfing Mexico and its neighboring countries is not a Latin-American problem, it’s also an American problem, one that we cannot ignore. Drug violence is the hangover that drugs do not give, and it’s making all of us sick.

I wonder what the U.S. would do if it was suddenly taken over by drug cartels funded by Latin-American drug consumers. America would probably demonize and persecute those causing their country so much pain. Latin America cannot do that. In a world where poverty determines the value of a nation, American lives will always be worth more than Latin-American ones. Therefore, as the drug war continues, those of us from Latin-America must bear the burden of having to further embed violence into our lives and watch the fabrics of our countries disintegrate. Latin-America must provide the corpses, while the U.S. provides the noses.