Sixty miles north of the Mexican border, on Interstate 5, flashing yellow lights and a sign
"CHECKPOINT ONE MILE AHEAD" warn me to slow down. I normally do but the freeway is empty. I keep
the car at 65 and eye the beach, where Marines fight a mock war, crawling like ants, their faces sand-poked by
the rotors of helicopters overhead; then my eyes to the hills, seaweed green under the clouds -- the color of
the sea when I, at seven, crossed the Pacific with my mother to join my father. An old
man died on that trip and never saw the San Francisco hills. I wondered if he swam back to the islands to
live inside young coconuts. But my life went on and during the fourth grade I became captain of the traffic
patrol -- plastic yellow cap, red nylon jacket, a whistle on a steel bar with keys that opened the closet where
the stop signs with their white stenciled letters were kept. Sometimes the drivers screeched to a stop, barely
seeing us; our eyes nearly closed, but our stance firm, hands gripping
the wooden handles, and our feet rooted to the road. I was ready for any circle E -- police car,
school bus, fire truck -- eager for the honor of blowing the whistle three times, alerting the squad to stand
at attention, signs held front at arms' length, and I, saluting the correct salute that my Navy father learned
and taught me. I have seen another sign, near La Frontera, that warns of humans crossing the freeway.
At night, the men and women are barely the shadows of my halogen lights.
They run for cover, into the hills and canyons filled with chaparral. I watch for them -- they are
salvadoreños, nicaraguënses, oaxaqueños, or they could be Chinese or pinoy, who hid
in the same hills years and years ago to work the golden valleys of California. Some do not make it across,
will never see the migrant camps of Encinitas and Carlsbad, where the cardboard shanties and earthen furrows
are like graves. But through the dark, more will cross La Frontera.
The fences have holes and where there are none, fingers will tear and nails will scratch and backs will bleed
from metal thorns. On the freeway, the cars and the sign they cannot read will treat them like wildlife
crossing. If you can imagine that sign, your spirit may break as mine has now as I approach this checkpoint,
the border patrol behind the red and white sign, his right hand outstretched to my sudden stop. Behind his
sunglasses, he searches me over and I would like to say to him, "I have
no war with you." Then without a word, he waves me through. And my life goes on, crossing this ritual
crossing of minds, where I almost do not stop because the road is clear and I feel American.