Standing on the shoulders of his ancestors
Pablo Villalpando volunteers with humanitarian organizations in southern California, showing compassion for people moving across borders, as his own family has done.
I met Pablo Villalpando for the first time at 4:30 a.m. on an October Saturday when he picked me up outside my BnB in San Diego. He had offered to give me a ride to join other Border Kindness volunteers in the southern California desert to drop water, food and supplies for migrants crossing over from Mexico.
I spent the day with Pablo and 16 other volunteers, most of them in their 20s and 30s. They are all thoughtful, passionate and compassionate young people, and being in their presence is one of the few things that gives me hope for the future.
Pablo, 32, volunteers with Border Kindness and Detention Resistance, helping migrants and asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border. He has his own immigration story, which he was willing to share. Here’s our recent e-mail exchange.
What is your family background and how has that played into your activism?
Although I consider myself a first-generation immigrant here in the U.S., the reality is a bit more complicated. I was born in San Diego, raised in Tijuana until 15, and moved back to San Diego in 2005. However, the last three generations of my family have been migrating north from Guadalajara, Mexico, dating back to the Bracero program.
My parents have sacrificed a lot for me to have the opportunities I have had, and so have their parents and their parents’ parents.
“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” — Isaac Newton
I recently became a homeowner and landed a great job as a marketing manager. I feel incredibly blessed and thankful for those that came before me. So now that I'm getting to a point in my life where I finally have stability, I feel the moral responsibility to pay it forward and help others going through a similar journey.
Who along the way has inspired you, and how? A family member, a friend, a local or national/global activist?
It's hard to pinpoint specific individuals when I have been surrounded by migrant stories my whole life. As a kid growing up in Mexico in the '90s, it was common to hear of someone journeying to the U.S. in hopes of finding work to support their family.
"Se fue al otro lado,” they would say, or "They went to the other side,” and I wouldn't see or hear from them for many years. It's crazy to reflect on this now but we didn't have cell phones or the internet back then. Sometimes they would call, but every month they would send their family money. Migration is cemented in our culture. We hear these stories all the time in our music, movies, even in the food we eat (tacos al pastor have Lebanese roots) and the work we do (maquiladoras in Tijuana).
Once you join organizations like Border Kindness and see firsthand what people endure, it almost becomes a no-brainer to stay involved. Have you watched Disney's “Coco”? I watched the movie a dozen times last month. It's a beautiful love letter to migrants.
What do you hope to accomplish by taking part in humanitarian efforts with Border Kindness, Detention Resistance or other groups?
I want to help prevent unnecessary deaths along the US/Mexico border. There is so much hate and violence in the world, I'm trying to do my part to help.
During your volunteer work, has there been an encounter with a person you’ve helped that you think about often, a brief human exchange that has had a profound effect on you?
There are many. Right after Title 42 ended I saw a Haitian teenager lose consciousness at an encampment. I have no idea what happened (guessing heat exhaustion since it was very hot that day in Jacumba). That same day a little boy came up to me asking for sunblock. His whole face was peeling from the sun exposure. There was a distressed Turkish guy trying to communicate with me and another volunteer, he didn't speak English and nobody around us spoke Turkish. We eventually found someone in the camp who spoke Turkish and English and could help translate. Apparently, his friend had been asleep for three days and needed medical help.
The last time I was out there (the day after you and I met) my girlfriend came with me to drop off 500+ water bottles at a youth center in Jacumba. As soon as we arrived, other volunteers asked us if we could join them for distribution. I met many Colombians there who had been through a two-week hell on their way here. They told me many people were robbed by Mexican cops, taking what little money these people had left and physically assaulting a woman. I also met a young guy from Ghana, and when I asked him how long he had been traveling, he couldn't remember. That response broke me.
What would you tell people in the U.S. who have no clue about government policies (ours or other countries), or what migrants go through — or who don’t care or don’t want to know?
If they have no clue, I tell them about my family. It took my parents almost a decade to get green cards, but we weren't escaping violence, drug cartels, natural disasters, or poverty. I also love to ask where people's last names come from. I find it so interesting people love to talk about their last names, heritage, and ancestry but refuse to acknowledge their migrant story. Even remote workers living in other countries refuse to acknowledge they are immigrants. "Digital nomads" they call themselves.
If they don't care, I personally prefer to not waste my energy on them and instead join humanitarian organizations along the border.
To learn more about Pablo, his interests (including outer space) and his travels to other countries, check out his bio. I’m planning to share more voices like Pablo’s here in Border Humanity, to offer the perspectives of people for whom the border and immigration are a part of daily life.
Wonderful story. It's these types of insights that really bring home just how broken our immigration system has become. Thanks for all your good work Jim!
What a great wholesome article! Thank you.
Pablo, I’m proud of you and so so inspired by you.
This is some of the most critical work that you’re taking part in.