Aeromexico, the biggest Mexican airline, just launched this beautiful and powerful advertisement:
It hits home because not only am I Mexican, but I also grew up in the border town of Tijuana. All of my life I have been close to the migrant situation.
In school we would volunteer to go feed the poorest of the city at the House of the Migrant and we would listen to their stories full of broken hope.
In 2008 I made a trip to Chiapas, the line where Mexico and Guatemala meet. There I stayed in the town of Palenque and through it passes The Beast—the infamous train in the southern borders between Mexico and Central America that caries not only men looking for a better life, but also women and children holding to the outsides of the structure with teeth and claws, trying not to fall in the middle of the jungle and with rain pouring on them.
It was one of the most heart breaking days of my life, weeping and running along the train trying to give away as many lunch bags as I could. After a while, a girl approached me and explained that she was having her period and she didn’t have sanitary pads. I ran to a little corner store (think dirt town corner store) and bought the most expensive package I’ve ever bought—they can charge the migrants whatever they want. I saw men without arms or hands that they had lost on the train. I heard stories of the girls being raped in order to stay alive or keep their children alive.
That night I cried myself to sleep, feeling useless after 14 hours of volunteer work.
This Aeromexico ad comes out in time for the U.S. elections. It comes out as a response to Donald Trump’s hate campaign and as a response to his ideas of building a higher wall between the U.S. and Mexico.
Separation has never led to anything and Mr. Trump’s speech is just taking an enormous step back in history and humanity’s achievements toward equality and peace.
It is our job to stop the hate, to stop the fear and the mistrust. To bring down any kind of borders, because at end, we already know we are all just the same flesh and bone.
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Author: Montse Leon
Image: Screenshot from a YouTube video
Editor: Katarina Tavčar
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