By Scott Shephard

In 2019 the South Dakota state legislature passed a resolution supporting the construction of President Trump’s border wall. Forgive my abbreviated language, but my first thought was “WTF!” Surely, our legislators had more pressing business than offering support to something 1300 miles away that proposed to “solve” an invented problem. I say invented because the fact is that from about 2007 the number of illegal aliens from Mexico had steadily declined and was still declining when Mr. Trump touted his wall. Like so many of Mr. Trump’s bold initiatives and claims, it was all about marketing. To me the Wall was like Trump Steak or Trump University.

But the wall didn’t promote a product. It promoted fear - even, apparently, to many in the South Dakota legislature. Xenophobia translated from Greek is “the fear of foreigners.” And walls like Hadrian’s wall in England or the Great Wall in China were all about keeping “The Other”out:

They’ve got a wall in China

It’s a thousand miles long

To keep out the foreigners they made it strong

Paul Simon

When I heard the news about our state’s support of the wall, allegedly to keep job stealing Mexicans out of the United States, I was reminded of something that I witnessed early one summer morning in a convenience store in Highmore, South Dakota. I had left Watertown at about 4:00 am and was heading to Spring Creek Marina for a 3 day sailing trip on Lake Oahe. I had stopped for gas and noticed a dust covered pickup with South Dakota license plates pull in. Five Hispanic farmworkers got out and headed into the convenience store. They were speaking Spanish to each other and were obviously gearing up for another day of work.

Were they Mexicans? I can’t say. Were they “illegals?” Perhaps the farmer who hired them knew, but I couldn’t say. Were they behaving in threatening ways? Decidedly not. Why were they in Highmore, SD, of all places? Probably to do work that locals couldn’t (because of a declining workforce) or wouldn’t do.

As they waited in line inside the store, they drew little notice from the locals and I found this satisfying. The presence of “foreigners” makes a rural community like Highmore more cosmopolitan. And their commitment to hard work was no doubt appreciated.

The part of the Wall that Deb and I saw near El Paso, Texas, seemed more like a tourist attraction than a barrier. To me it is also a symbol of a part of our recent past that I think history will judge harshly. Surely there are better solutions to our immigration problem than an ugly black border wall stretching across the desert.

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