Prior to our Civil War, our troops were stationed along the Rio Grande
Not the border for Mexico, the Nueces River
A clear provocation
Then, following the Mexican-American War we took half of Mexican land
And so, ties between these North American countries delivered
More than terra firma but cultural relations forming our nation
And ever since goods and labour have been exchanged in legal and in illegal ways
And regardless of borders and fences
We remain intertwined
We are bound in brotherhood and sisterhood and culturally synchronous nowadays
American cities along theses borderlands share in mutual consequences
Of Tex-Mex, Cinco de Mayo, food and language, and people, all the ties that bind
So, the ironies of today continue in the present in these cross-borderlands
There was Lorenzo, a Mexican man in Houston
Who became wrongly targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Working toward his US citizenship, for the United States to become his homeland
And yet so many Mexicans still face ICE persecution
Like Lorenzo who was shot dead at the hands of ICE from a profiling enforcement
Of Hispanic-Americans, the same ones who create a social milieu of shared values
Among those living in these borderlands
Lorenzo, a father of three, worked construction for thirty-five years but bad news
One cannot work toward citizenship even after so many years in our homeland
And like Lorenzo, these are the ones who not only work construction
But are the ones who pick our vegetables and our fruits
Working as hotel housekeepers and restaurant line-cooks, facing obstruction
These are human beings and the ones who share in our grass roots
These are the ties that bind us as Americans
All of us, Americans
Forming a more perfect union and we who welcome their labour
And their love and their humanity
For they are us, they are our neighbours
For goodness’ sake return us to our sanity
