Ricardo Chavira Chicano

Crossing the United States-Mexico border while Mexican sometimes is unbelievable–not in good way. Here’s an excerpt from my book.

There is a border anecdote that has stayed with me for more than 40 years. It happened on the day Ronald Reagan was elected to his first term as president. I was a San Diego Union-Tribune reporter assigned to work that night. My parents came down from Los Angeles for the day. We decided to have lunch in Tijuana, just a couple miles from where I lived. I had my six-month-old son, Ricardo Jr., with me.

At the time, a passport was not required to visit a city bordering Mexico. Returning, we drove up to the San Ysidro port of entry. We declared our citizenship to the agent, who was satisfied we were citizens. But he was not sure about Ricardo.

“Whose baby is that?” he asked. “Mine, he is my son Ricardo Jr,”I replied.

Ricardo Jr. is and was a few shades lighter than I and had blue eyes. I understood why the officer suspected he was not my son.

“Well, can I see his birth certificate?” he asked. “No,” I replied, “I saw no need to bring it with me.”

“Yer gonna have to go over to that small building and talk to the agents there,” he said, pointing. “They’ll check it on the computer. . . . And, you can park over by the chain-link fence.”

As I walked toward the building, a tall immigration agent strode rapidly toward me and yelled, “Hey, you can’t park there!” He was within two feet of me as I began to explain what his colleague had told me. I felt tension and anger rising because of the agent’s belligerence. What happened next sent me into a rage.

“I told you not to park there!” a now red-faced agent screamed. He used his index finger to poke me in the chest, punctuating every word forcefully.

“Get your fucking hands off me!” I shouted.

Instantly, agents came rushing to us. My parents got out of the car, and my mother held Ricardo.

A short agent, who I took to be a supervisor, heatedly told me I was being disorderly. His southern accent, rightly or wrongly, told me I was dealing with a rabid racist. I shot back that the man who poked me in the chest was the one who needed to be brought into line.

“You need to understand we’re federal officers, and you need to respect us,” he demanded with a deep drawl.

“I understand you are federal officers and public servants,” I countered. “But as a taxpayer, I pay your salary.”

“You don’t pay my salary, Pancho.”

I felt gripped by a mighty fury. “Yes, I do, Elmer,” I answered.

My father, now himself angered, ripped into the officer. “You redneck motherfucker! Don’t start that Pancho shit with us.”

By this point, the agents were on the verge of assaulting us. The guy who leveled the Pancho insult had clenched his hands into fists, ready to fight at the first sign of movement. I fully expected the agents to attack. We would go down in a hail of punches, but I didn’t care. In fact, deep down, I wanted to strike these racists.

The short agent then announced, “That’s it. You’re going to leave the baby here and go get his birth certificate.”

“Go fuck yourself,” I said heatedly.

“Then you’re all going to jail!” he threatened.

“Yeah, yeah, just go ahead and arrest us. Believe me, you’ll regret it.”

Just then, a middle-aged Latino officer stepped up and asked if we had a photo of the baby. “If you do, then the baby must be yours.”

My mother, consumed by nervousness, presented a photo, and we were free to go just like that.

The Pancho guy, however, had one parting shot: “Hurry up and get out of here before we change our minds.”

I had to shoot back, “Fuck you. Go ahead and change your minds!”

I’ve never been more enraged than I was during that confrontation. It was a needless, racist assault on a family who had done nothing wrong. I felt angry the rest of the day.

A few days later I told a federal public defender about the incident. He said we were fortunate the agents had not beaten us and then charged us with assault.