Antolin Gervacio
Cesar Vargas
President Donald Trump
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W.
Washington, DC 20500
April 5, 2017
Dear Mr. President:
As a citizen of the United States, I would like to let you know that your wall proposal for the US-MX border will be a complete failure. Your idea is not innovative in any way, in fact it is very primitive and it will give our country a terrible image. You talk about making America great again but how will this wall accomplish just that? I believe you need to take another look at the border to understand what our biggest problem is.
It is very obvious to me that drug trafficking has been the biggest problem for both countries for years. Over the past 5 years America’s illegal drug consumption has been rapidly increasing with. Current studies have showed that least 26.6 million citizens over the age of 12 being regular users. Drug trafficking empowers cartels and gangs and it is the root to most violent crime in both countries. Let’s make America great again, and let’s have control on drug smuggling on our border.
I have a proposal for you that would allow out to better monitor what is coming in and out of the border, and can be beneficial for both countries. I have analyzed the border and have found four basic condition that have simple solutions. We can have maximum surveillance on our border, with just a mixture of technology and public space and without segregating anyone. Mr. President, let’s make America great again!
Sincerely
A Citizen of the United States
Chris Reyling
Donald Trump,
We are the ones who define our borders, we do this not through building walls, but by creating a bubble to live in. Everybody including yourself, has fabricated a bubble to retain ones culture, mentality, and view of the world. The border of the 21st century is no longer a geographic one it is a border divided amongst the billions of people on earth and is carried within each of us. This border is no longer meant to keep people out, it is instead used as a tool to preserve ones sense of being when traveling to unknown places. It is the deciding factor between the acceptance and rejection of ideas and when one speaks of hate, rejection, and elitism many bubbles become influenced. When an individual is on the verge of thinning their bubble and becoming a part of a new community. It is the hurtful words and ideas that you speak that prevents their bubble from ever disappearing. It creates tension and micro aggressions between individuals creating borders within our own country. I hope you can see that a wall will not save or destroy this country but your words certainly will.
Project Description
“Though I walk through a land that is unknown to me, I carry my border with me. It is only with my border that I can truly preserve who I am”
We are the ones who define our borders. We fabricate our bubble to retain our mentality, culture, and view of the world. Our bubble can be influenced by crossing a line, a change in language, or a change in culture. The bubble is a tool we use to preserve our sense of being when traveling to unknown parts. It is the deciding factor between acceptance and rejection of ideas.
Over time our bubble may thin and our threshold of acceptance may change, allowing more and more influences into our lives. There may even come a time when the bubble disappears, enabling us to become one with the society that was once unknown.
Diana Duran
April 1st, 2017
The President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20500
Mr. President Trump
Before you became The President of the United States of America, discussions about immigration problems have always been present in the president’s agenda. Your campaign addressed immigration issues in a bold and controversial manner. You proposed to build a border wall to divide Mexico and the US and stop terrestrial illegal immigration. But I think you meant that you are completing the existing wall for a fence totaling 2,000 miles long. I don’t think you seem to understand the different implications this barrier could have.
I want to invite you into a life of every other American that didn’t agree with your proposal of a wall. I want to introduce you to Thomas. Thomas, the morning after elections, woke up to the news that you were the new elected president of the nation. That was, in fact, shocking to him and his family; he just hoped for the best.
During your first week in the position you signed the executive order banning people originally born in other countries from entering the United States. This decision touched thousands of families inside and outside the nation, your decision Mr. President had an overseas impact. It not only disturbed the people directly affected and their families, but also thousands of other immigrants that know what is like to feel discriminated and pointed at, just because they come from a different part of the world. The rest of America took your decision Mr. President as an act of racism and discrimination. Due to your executive order people protested against your ban, and Thomas along with his family joined the protests, to make his voice heard. He really hoped this was the first and only act of discrimination him and his family experienced. But Thomas had to choose where to re-start his new life, maybe Tijuana, close to the borderless ocean, maybe Juarez a little close to home or maybe Brownsville where he could finally find peace for his family.
Today Thomas has high hopes that your decisions will take a wiser path. But since we know that you are a man of conviction I know your version of the border wall will be built somehow. Then Mr. President I ask you if you really want to physically isolate the country. Are borders even important anymore? We talk about the US as a globalized country but you still try to isolate us. Do you really think that a wall will protect us from pollution, terrorism, or poverty? History hasn’t favored human-made borders. Walls have inspired rejection, and they have failed and been ridiculed. I can almost predict an upcoming series of unfortunate decisions that will raise the desire of Americans to move to different countries. Maybe Americans will become the new illegal immigrants settling all over the world. Imagine the majority of this country urging to escape the effect of your decisions.
In summary what I truly hope is that if you accomplish to complete the border wall that the wall itself will show us how ridiculous of an idea is to isolate the country you are “looking after.” I hope we realize that we have the same power to build, to destroy, and to reshape this wall to our own will, because I know that even though walls will keep rising, we will keep tearing them down. I really hope this wall shows us that maybe this is the early and painful beginning of the formation of a new bigger and better country that celebrates the greatness of these two already great countries – the United States and Mexico.
Sincerely,
@ThisIsNotAWall
Eduardo Ventura & Aaron Velasquez
President Donald Trump
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 205000
Dear Mr. President
You are a business man, proposing to build a wall that will cost more than Ten Billion dollars. This wall needs to be built because immigration is a problem in the United States of America. This wall will create no new revenue for you, the United States, or Mexico. Mexican people want to enter the US because they seek opportunity that cannot be attained in their homeland. If you would like to place a barrier between the US and Mexico, let us propose one thing. Let us create a barrier of opportunity.
You are a business man. Instead of creating a wall that will need maintenance and constant repairs and in the end, creates nothing but a barrier, let us create jobs, energy, goods, opportunity, and a reason to not have to cross into the US.
We propose the construction of Destino de Oportunidad, a place that will emerge from clean energy and create opportunity for people that seek it. The Mexican people that migrate here to the United States come here for better wages, living conditions, and a better overall quality of life. Let us create this opportunity closer to their homes all while giving the American people access to nearly 2,000 miles of clean energy.
You are a business man, let’s talk business. If you relocate nearly Ten billion dollars to initiate this program, the energy and goods created at Destino de Oportunidad will fund the rest of its construction in order to accomplish its completion along the entire border. You may not believe in climate change and the effects coal and oil have on our environment, but let’s just say for a second that it does exist and that we are poisoning our planet. This program still gives you and the United States the power to create more money and energy. Give yourself the Oportunidad to make more money and be the hero. Create Destino de Oportunidad.
Most respectfully,
The Border Bandidos
Freeland Livingston
To The President of The United States of America
President Donald J. Trump,
The New Gradient World.
A Gradient in its logical definition is the increase and decrease in magnitude of a property, observed in passing from one point to another. A gradient in a field is either, nor one entity until derived at its extremities or points of highest concentrations. The Gradient encompasses all of its extremities in a single composition creating transitions that combine traits of all extremities. The Western Hemisphere exists as a gradient canvas, diverse in all its components however, acting as single composition. The physical terrain transitioning itself over expanses of land creating distinct environments at their extremities, Northern Mountain Ranges to scorching deserts, to lushes tropical rainforests. For centuries humans, have inhabited the western hemisphere and had created diverse cultures thriving In the diverse landscape. Trans-Oceanic migration has brought even more diversity in culture to the Western Hemisphere. The environments that inhabit the transitions and extremities tell the story of the Gradient World. There is connection between all environments of the Americas, existing from far before human inhabitation, to the drawn lines denoting nations on the map. The Gradient world does not exist as single components that share a border, but a world that blends and transitions itself so elegantly that hard lines marking the extremities disrupt the composition of the western hemisphere.
The Gradient Border.
The United States and Mexico are no exception to the Gradient. Their extremities exist only in their ideologies, and even at their cores, are they not their purest self. It could be said that their extremities in the physical environment are their cultural centers that embody their ideology makeup, Washington DC and Mexico City. The Border becomes the transition between these concentration points and becomes the gradient border. In the physical realm, a single line barrier is not conceived, but a gradation of holograms that inform environments that they do not exist as one extremity but are a part of the everlasting gradient canvas. The Streams of Holograms travel across the field that is The United States and Mexico, extended beyond the border region reaching their extremities. As one travels, the Border is a visual transition of both countries, appearing and disappearing in sporadic moments of time and location. The Gradient border acts as an outlet for visual information transfer, cultivating the traveler of the differences and similarities between both countries but how we all exist as one. As one nears the border the frequency in the sporadic holograms densify, denoting where one county ends and the other begins.
This is Not a Wall.
The Gradient Border knows no barriers, even wildlife must cross the Rio Grande to survive. The hologram exists only in light and space, its transparency allowing free movement and range across the land. As we rid the border of a barrier, US-Mex Drones patrol the border, dispelling any signs of threats or illegal importation into the US or Mexico. This is not Wall. But a reminder to ourselves that we exist today as people not of one side or the other, but a people that have deep roots connected with the history and land of the Western Hemisphere. The Gradient Border is a Celebration of life.
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Helena Cardona
President Donald J. Trump
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Honorable President Donald J. Trump,
Since your campaign started you have expressed a concern towards the safety along the Mexican border. You have identified three main problems: illegal immigration,
trafficking, and acts of terrorism. On the other hand, you have been denying climate change to be real, along with its effects on biodiversity, and loss of natural resources. Honorable President, there is no debate, climate change is real. It is caused by human activity, fed by oil carbon and methane emissions, and much more important than any of your immigration concerns.
Furthermore, you have expressed an interest in the revitalization of the country through infrastructural development. Let’s utilize this infrastructural development as an opportunity to lead and to heal, instead of it being only a symbol of our differences. I invite you and President Enrique Peña Nieto to consider sustainable
I invite you and President Enrique Peña Nieto to consider sustainable development along the shared border. In my proposal I provide with possible solutions to three specific border conditions that could serve as a model for the rest of the border. San Diego and Tijuana are an example of a coastal border condition sharing problems of illegal immigration, trafficking and acts of terrorism. El Paso and Ciudad Juarez are an example of a desert metropolis with problems of illegal immigration and trafficking. While Presidio and Ojinaga are an example of a secure border. All will benefit from the development of public spaces, tied with renewable energy production and storage. This proposal will bring about a new sustainable economy that we have not tapped into yet. This would boost our economy by creating jobs and investments without disrupting our culture and our ecosystems.
Imagine 1,954 miles of infrastructure that is constantly generating energy, jobs, integration. These points of contact will create a shockwave of healthy environments, social equity and sustainable economies. Let’s make America great again, lets build a framework that instigates the development of technology, let’s start a global conversation of how our natural resources are the answer to exponential growth of progress.
Sincerely,
@ThisIsNotAWall
Mario Devora & Nicole Zollner
To President Donald J. Trump:
The border condition at the U.S./ Mexico border is one with a great deal of difficulties. The main issue at hand is not the crossing of illegal immigrants, rather the issue is the outsourcing of labor. With many jobs being carried out by citizens of foreign countries, there is a grave fear in the American people of what may come in the future. A fear does not have to become a reality.
A wall will not only divide two neighboring countries, but two cultures and alliances that have been shared throughout the history of both nations. We propose for a city born out of cooperation. A city which can stand as a beacon for both the U.S. and Mexico. Rather than creating a border which will require large capitol to achieve properly, we must create an opportunity to give the citizens of both countries a place to succeed in life. People cannot inhabit or make a living from a wall, so why build one?
With the proposition of a unification of nations, four phases will be implemented:
- The first phase will be the acquirement of public land between both countries, leaving cities and private land in its respective country.
- The second phase will be the construction of a transportation system, replacing the old border, signifying the idea that movement across these two nations is vital for the success of both countries.
- The third phase will entail the construction of solar factories and agricultural fields, providing energy and food for both the U.S. and Mexico. Both the solar factories and the agricultural fields will be maintained by citizens of both countries, creating much needed jobs.
- The final step in this cooperation will be the creation of cultural centers throughout the former border. The personal contact the citizens of both the U.S. and Mexico will have will give rise to tolerance and acceptance of minute differences in each individual. With the creation of these cultural centers, rich traditions that go back hundreds of years will be shared, not for the conversion of individuals, rather to share the prosperity of cultures.
The nearly two thousand miles of border that once was will become the center of a nation born from cooperation. The differences of both the U.S. and Mexico must be put aside, and a cooperation which has long been overdue must be formed. Only through cooperation will all citizens prosper.
Sincerely,
#ThisIsNotAWall
Mila Riquelme-Babankova
5 Senses – 5 Experiences
Mila Riquelme-Babankova
This installation is designed to gather tourist and locals to the border in the hopes of reproducing a personal understanding of the opposite side. Each location provides an amplified experience of a certain sense. The intent is to create a space where both sides can interact with one another at a comfortable distance, while inspiring the individuals to move towards each other in order to experience the sense at full capacity. Within this sanctuary one can spend time with a loved one or a complete stranger and have a human connection.
Dear President,
Many identify a border as a threshold dividing the land into two, yet when it comes to the Mexican and United States border the division is between the public. What if a simple installation on both sides can mend this tear between the two nations? The intent is to provide neutral grounds for reconciliation while leaving behind the prejudice that arises from the interference of media.
Focusing on the foundations of humanity, five similarities are highlighted; sight, touch, sound, smell, and taste. The human senses are one of the primary gifts provided with life. Capturing the human detachment will gather the communities in the hopes of reproducing a personal understanding of the opposite side. If the two sides can relate to one another there is a greater chance of forming a bridge within the two community networks.
The sites are at a comfortable distance from the border yet encourage the individual to approach at their own rate for a full exposure of the sense. One may take the risk and communicate with an unknown source from the opposite side or spend time with a loved one to experience a human connection. Each location provides an amplified experience of a certain sense.
The space is designed to accommodate all ages; children, youth, adults, and the elderly can interact safely. For some it may provide an emotional safety sanctuary as for others it may be a playground, a place of discovery, a relaxing vacation escape, or a space for reunions. Above all it focuses on the exchange of human interaction.
For those who may have felt vulnerable crossing the border can now enjoy the pilgrimage to the other side. Rather than having a boundary disrupting the lives in both sides these sanctuary pieces prevent this unhealthy separation. The future holds the border as a destination, attracting tourist and locals, bringing new funds to these regions.
