When my plates arrive I carefully try the food. Look: here is a bowl of melted heavy cheeses, something I’ve never been served before.
What can I tell you? Melted cheese taste a whole lot better than a melting pot. What else can I tell you? Mexican food is awesomely delicious. Blessed be Mexico! I fall in love.
I ask two ladies, busy eating over at the next table, if this city is dangerous. “It’s dangerous in America, where they shoot students in school,” is the answer I get.
Oops.
I try a bowl of soup, made of heavenly ingredients, and get myself a glass of whiskey to feed my soul as well, and then a cheesecake – the best cheesecake on planet Earth.
Sorry, Jewish Federation of Chicago: the food here is much better, and they have cake too!
• • •
It’s getting late and I slowly make my way back to the United States, leaving the Mexican Nuevo Laredo in the direction of the American Laredo.
Separating the two countries is a river, Rio Bravo (Mexican name) or Rio Grande (American name); one bank belongs to one country, and the other half to the other. Above the river there are bridges, one of which I will have to cross in order to enter the “New World.” I walk back over the same bridge through which I entered Mexico, only in the opposite direction.
The border crossing within the USA, where the people and their documents are checked, is not an appealing place, to say the least. It’s an iron structure surrounded by wire fences. To put it pictorially: it’s a stable.
The inside of the building, where US Customs and Border Protection officers are processing the incoming people, reminds me of an abandoned property in a ’hood. I look around me. To my right I see a group of people sitting on the floor, surrounded by an interior fence. It looks like a prison within a prison. Who are they? I ask an officer.
“They are Cubans.”
What are they doing there?
“Waiting to be processed.”
How many hours will they stay there?
“More than that.”
God and Castro know what this means.
A visibly bored blond officer stands a few feet from me, and I approach her. How long will it take till I can get out of here? I ask her.
“I can’t tell. Last night, at this time, it took about two and a half hours.”
This border crossing is worlds apart from passport checks in the average American airport. Laredo crossing is not an airport, and the people coming in are not English or Japanese but Mexican.
The line barely moves. I ask an officer with a mustache why this takes so much time.
“If you don’t like it, go back to Mexico,” he replies. The word service does not apply here.
I wait, wait and wait. Lord knows how much time has passed.
There are many people here, all waiting their turn to legally enter the country, but the officers are a bunch of lazy creatures. Most of the windows, where these officers interview the people, stand empty. At times, all of them are empty. When I check around to see where they are, I find them schmoozing with one another, as if this were a class reunion.
Even the cashier window, where all kinds of fees for visas and permits are collected, is often empty. When a clerk does show up, he or she seems to expect thanks for taking the people’s money.
If I’m not wrong, it’s faster to cross into this country illegally than to stand in endless lines like these. The only time that the officers show any desire to do anything is when they “catch” me writing notes on my smartphone. An officer speedily approaches me, demanding that I immediately turn it off. An iPhone, don’t you know, is an illegal device in this part of America.
Freedom. Liberty. Diversity. Three words that mean not a thing at this entry point to the USA.
When my turn arrives, I present my passport – an America passport – to the immigration officer. “Why are you coming to this country?” he asks me.
Excuse me, but can you explain to me the nature of your question? I gave you an American passport; I can go in and out any time I want. What’s your problem?
He won’t let me through unless I answer him. This man is accustomed to abusing Mexicans and it’s hard for him to break the habit.
I’m a journalist, I tell him. Media. Press.
“Have I offended you?” he now asks, giving me a smile that’s an exact replica of a Yellowstone grizzly bear’s. He lets me through.
I walk back to the La Posada Hotel – and I can smoke in my room! My room is cool, cozy and beautiful. The hotel staff (all Mexicans) did a great job. So clean and so nice!
There are millions of Mexicans living illegally in the United States, and if not for them rich Americans would have to clean their toilets themselves.
And I’m proud to be an American
Where at least I know I’m free.…
I love this land
God bless the USA.
• • •
The next day I walk along Rio Grande, on the American side. It’s hot, it’s humid – about a hundred degrees – but I want to see the river under the bridge. Ahead of me I spot a Border Patrol van and I walk over to see who’s inside. Just like that.
As I approach, a Border Patrol officer lowers his window and looks at me. I assume that he’s here to catch illegals.
You are sitting in your van midway between two pretty close bridges, both of which I assume are well guarded. Do you think that anybody in his right mind would try to swim into America here?
“You never know.”
In the distance I can hear a Border Patrol boat coming in our direction. The Border Patrol boats, at least here, make louder noises than helicopters. Why are they so loud? I ask the man.
“They are old,” he answers.
We talk some more, about this and that, when suddenly we notice a clear plastic bag and a hand swimming toward us. The Border Patrol man gets out of his van and we follow the plastic, which is soon accompanied by a head, and later by a torso. It’s a man, alive and well, and he is trying to enter the United States in the fastest, coolest way possible. The Border Patrol officer tells the man to come inland, but the man won’t. The officer radios his base to send the boats to catch the swimmer, but it takes a while for the boats to arrive.
I look at the man. He stands in the water and he lifts his hands, showing two clear plastic bags, the kind you would pick up at the vegetable department in an average supermarket, but I can’t tell what’s inside them. Besides his little bags he has nothing, and I am amazed by the scene unfolding in front of my eyes: A lonely man leaving everything behind, who, if not caught, would have entered this land with nothing. All he has are his wet clothes – one set – and two tiny bags. He is a one-man operation who fights water and the strongest army in the world, because he wants to be here, closer to the dollar.
The Mexican guy, a “wetback” in American slang, swims closer to land to take a closer look at us. The officer again tells him to get out of the water and come up to land. The Mexican won’t. He knows that nothing good will come to him if he lands.
In the distance the sound of the “helicopter” is audible and the “wetback” immediately turns and starts swimming in the other direction. Now it’s a race between him and America’s tough guys: Who will reach his target first? If the man gets to the Mexican side first, across the river’s midpoint, the officers on the boat won’t be able to arrest him; if they get to him first, he will be in their custody and at their mercy.
The man with the plastic bags wins. Just as the boat is about to snatch him, he reaches the Mexican side of the waters.
• • •
After two televised debates of the Republican contenders to the White House, Americans are finally given the opportunity to see a Democratic debate, this one broadcast on CNN. Contenders criticize America’s ills, each claiming he or she will solve America’s problems.
Hillary Rodham Clinton says that “we lose ninety people a day from gun violence,” and that’s why America must have t
ougher gun-control laws; Bernie Sanders says that “we have more people in jail than China,” and that’s why America must stop arresting people so quickly, so often.
Taken together, this is the picture: if you have fewer people in prison, fewer people will die from gun violence.
Bernie, a self-declared socialist, looks like a nice grandpa on the TV screen, and he seems to be an ideologue – perhaps the only one among the various contenders of either party.
But Hillary wins the debate hands down. Not because she’s so good but because the other contenders are not as polished as she is. With time, you never know, the others might improve.
Months before, as we all know, nobody thought that the Donald would make it this far.
He did.
The world of politics is never predictable, as it never follows a straight, logical line. Bottom line: at any given point nobody, but nobody, can tell who will be the next president of a nation whose people are afraid to tell strangers which president they have voted for in the past.
Of course, this intrigues me further, and I want to take a peek at American politicians of the past. To this end, I go to Houston to meet a man who should know.
The name of this man is Chase Untermeyer. Don’t get confused by his last name; he’s an American. And he has a title: ambassador.
As I get off the elevator on his floor, I see this sign: “All visitors must register with the Secret Service in Suite 950.” Fortunately, the Secret Service agents are out. They are in only when Chase’s next-door neighbor, former president George W. Bush, is around – which is not the case today.
Ambassador Chase Untermeyer is a former ambassador. His Honor served as the American ambassador to Qatar for about three years, from 2004 to 2007. I ask His Honor to explain to me why many Americans won’t tell me which president they have voted for or what candidate they will vote for?
“A vote for president of the United States,” he responds, “is the most personal vote that any American citizen can cast. The guiding force of their vote is very personal, having to do with the personality of the candidate.”
Voting for a senator and voting for a president, he teaches me, are two different things. A vote for a senator is about issues, but a vote for a president is a deeply personal matter having to do more with a sense of sympathy for the candidate, a feeling for personality, than with issues. This, of course, might explain why at this point in time America has a president who is a Democrat while both the House and the Senate are in Republican hands.
Good. This Untermeyer is no idiot. Let me ask him more questions.
Moving from national to international affairs, I ask Ambassador Chase Untermeyer to explain to me why the United States is more pro-Israel while Europe is more pro-Palestine, as seems to be the case based on the various countries’ voting records in international forums. Are the people of America and Europe different, or are the leaders of Europe and America different?
“I say to many of my Arab friends who suspect that the reason America is so pro-Israel is because of the influence of Jews in America: if Israel’s future and support by America depended only on Jews, it would never have the same support it does.”
Why, then, is America supporting Israel?
“Because so many Christians are admirers of the Israeli spirit, which they see as a kindred spirit to the American spirit.”
What do you mean?
“Going to another country, being a pioneer, facing dangers.”
Ambassador Chase also shares with me his belief that peace between Israel and Palestine is possible and that he personally knows many Arabs who view the Jews as the “people of the book.”
I tell him to stop dreaming, since the reality on the ground proves his knowledge worthless. The other day, I relate to him, I was traveling to Doha on an assignment from Die Zeit, and when I landed the Qataris gave me a visa in which they changed my place of birth to “New York,” despite the fact that my American passport states very clearly that I was born in Tel Aviv. They wouldn’t write “Tel Aviv.”
“This is news to me,” he says.
Some years ago, I also share with him, I was about to fly to Riyadh and faced difficulties getting a visa because the Saudis required travelers to state in which religion they were brought up, but “Judaism” did not exist on their list. Why? To them, obviously, Judaism does not exist.
He didn’t know about this, he says to me.
I ended up getting the visa, but only after the White House intervened on my behalf. He is surprised. Actually, despite being in the Arab world for quite some time – he’s flying to Qatar tomorrow, for example – he knows next to nothing about the Arab world.
And he admits it.
Are there no people in the State Department who would tell you what’s going on, I ask him, or is America consciously deluding itself?
“The nature of politicians and policy makers is to try to make reality conform to theory, or reality conform to policy, rather than the opposite. In the American government there is always a tendency to make facts conform to philosophy and facts conform to policy, in order to either justify that policy or to justify changing it.”
But you know this doesn’t work; you can’t change facts –
“It does not work, but this does not prevent political people from doing it.”
Why?
“Because it serves their interest.”
In other words, America’s foreign policy is based on Cinderella tales concocted at the highest levels of government.
This is bizarre, very bizarre, but Ambassador Untermeyer is probably right. Almost everywhere America gets too involved, its efforts backfire in the end. America invaded Iraq, bombed it to pieces and killed thousands upon thousands, but ended up achieving not one of its stated goals. On the contrary: ISIS would not exist if not for that invasion, and Iran wouldn’t be the powerhouse that it is today.
America bombed Libya day and night, inflicting colossal death and destruction, only to see Libya worse than it has ever been. Egypt would today be much more peaceful had America not intervened diplomatically. Not to mention Afghanistan, where the Taliban rules supreme, or Korea and Vietnam, and a host of other international problems.
Why is America failing in almost every move it takes overseas? Because facts don’t matter.
Genius.
When I leave Chase’s office I think that America’s bombing of foreign countries must have a more sensible reason than what he had argued; perhaps it has to do with leaders’ pleasure of watching big bombs explode somewhere at their command. Regular citizens, like Andrea and her husband, love to fire guns in Wisconsin, but high-ranking officials, Republican and Democrat, like to use bigger bombs.
• • •
Of all the wars America is engaged in, either at the moment or in the recent past, none has the feel of a crusade like the war on smoking. This one is a total war. Hotel after hotel, sidewalk café after sidewalk café, in almost every state I visit, is 100 percent smoke free. The modern-day lepers and pariahs, the smokers living in our day and time, must seek out places to satisfy their addiction, usually twenty-five to fifty feet away from either a café or a hotel’s entrance.
It is in one of these “lepers’ squares” that I now join other smokers, all Europeans. And they talk. The Americans, they tell me, are certifiably dumb. What makes Americans so dumb? “They don’t know where Netherland is on the map,” a Dutch man tells me. A French lady sitting next to him agrees. Americans, she says, don’t know where Paris is on the map. Americans, in short, have no culture.
What’s the name of the first state west of New York? I ask the educated Dutchman.
“North Dakota.”
The other Europeans agree.
Where is Israel?
“In Africa.”
Sure?
“Yes!”
Europeans, at least these, are very educated.
• • •
One of the issues that is unique to America is the black-whi
te issue. It refuses to die. But there are blacks, a minority of blacks, who are doing well, drive expensive cars, live in nice villas and have enough money. How do they feel?
Ask Darryl. I meet Darryl, a lawyer and lobbyist who also happens to be black, in one of Houston’s better restaurants, at a table packed with rich Texans. A black lady who works for a local TV station had just told us, a mostly white crowd, that there’s no racism in America, that blacks are responsible for whatever problems they have, and that if there’s racism it’s by blacks against whites. As Darryl listens to this, his blood pressure shoots up. He asks if he could talk to me in private, and so we go out to the street to talk.
He wants to set the record straight. He lives better than most people in the world, he starts telling me, just by virtue of being an American. In America, he says, “there is no ceiling and no floor,” and anyone who aims high has a chance to reach as high as their dreams. But he is discriminated against because of his skin color, and on a daily basis.
“My brother, who is older than me, is in prison for over thirty-two years, accused of raping two white women. Blood evidence and hair evidence don’t match. Pubic hair pulled from both women do not match his, but he was convicted. Twice. And in Texas, if you are convicted of raping a white woman you are gonna spend the rest of your life in jail. And, essentially, that’s what happened.”
You say you’re being discriminated against on a daily basis. How? Are you pulled over by police?
“That too! I’ve been pulled over 129 times since I was fourteen years old. I’m now fifty.”
When was the last time that you were pulled over?
“Last Friday.”
What happened?
“I was coming down the street, going home. There’s some guy tailing me, right on my tail. I sped up, trying to pull into the garage to get away from him. As I sped up to my driveway the guy gets out, runs to his trunk, and pulls out an AR-15.”
A gun?
“An automatic rifle that can take out everybody at this restaurant with one clip. When I saw the gun I pulled off. A cop comes. He drives by the man with the gun, ignores him, and comes after me: ‘What the hell are you speeding for?’ I say: ‘The guy pulled an AR-15.’ He says: ‘What guy?’ I say: ‘The guy in the middle of the street.’ He looks back. There is a group of people, neighbors who happened to be white, and they tell him: ‘Officer, you drove by a guy standing with a gun in the middle of the street.’”
The Lies They Tell Page 28