East Berlin

It’s come up three times in three days, East Berlin and the Berlin Wall (RIP).

Roberto Lujan (right) grew up in segregated Alpine during the ’60s. His first feeling of truly being an American only came when he and fellow American troops were bused through the communist city in Germany and throngs of residents began making obscene gestures at the troops. But when he moved to Presidio on the River and began to grow closer to his Jumano Apache identity, he said he began to see the U.S. Border Patrol network of checkpoints and facilities akin to “living on the Rez.”

‘Tactical Infrastructure’

Day one. Settling into breakfast in Alpine. The woman in line has a copy of Homeland Security’s “Environmental Assessment for the Proposed Construction, Operation, and Maintenance of Tactical Infrastructure” under her arm. She taps the words Tactical Infrastructure saying, “This is what it’s about.” She is challenging me to decipher the opacity of the words. Tactical, useful. Infrastructure, stuff.

Or maybe she is only tapping the book.