A Trip To Colombia And The Barriers Of Language And Walls

I spent last week visiting Colombia. It was the first time in my life I visited another country without having much of an idea how to speak the language. Nevertheless, I made my best attempts to communicate to the people I met without demanding they use my language.

This could have gone poorly. If the people I had encountered hadn’t been kind and patient, I’m sure I would have withdrawn and not attempted to communicate with the people of this country any more than was necessary. But they were all very friendly. Not once did I get a look that made me feel someone thought unkindly of me because I couldn’t speak their language. Not once did I have a situation where someone wasn’t willing to sit through my pointing and mangling their native tongue in order to be of assistance to me.

I could see how it would be easy to assimilate into such a culture. Which makes me realize it is not merely the outsider but the insiders who are responsible for making assimilation possible. This is an idea that is never expressed by those who say that people coming into our country need to assimilate. They never look at themselves as part of the equation, never see in themselves anything that needs to change.

It is unrealistic to believe that anyone entering another country should abandon everything that has made them who they are. To do so would demand immigrants and outsiders pretend to be something they are not. The healthy way to assimilate is for the outsider to understand as best he can the culture he is joining and seeing how he can become a part of it while maintaining his core values and integrity. In this way the country that welcomes others grows in the process. Colombia is a mix of many different cultures that have blended together to make the nation what it is today. It is still growing, still has room for newcomers and visitors to make it a better country.

The United States is no different. If we had rejected all outside influences, we wouldn’t be able to find pizza or eggrolls today. We would be a nation of Puritans. Or if you want to get technical, the Puritans never would have been allowed in without shedding their silly clothes and odd religious customs.

Now you may think that I was treated well by the Colombian people merely because they wanted the U.S. currency I was carrying, and that may be somewhat true. But the fact of the matter is they shared with me their labor, the fruit from their trees and the fish from their waters, and all I gave them is a few rectangular pieces of paper with green ink on it. I can’t help thinking I got the better end of the bargain.

Oh, I know, it’s more complicated than that. Those U.S. dollars are an abstraction of the wealth created by our nation. It seems every time someone wants to explain away what is on the surface quite obvious, they point to abstract ideas even they do not understand in order to explain why seeming injustices make sense. It’s the same complicated reasoning they use to explain how foreigners are coming to our country and taking advantage of us by giving to us their labor in exchange for living at the bottom of the social scale.

There are a lot of people in the United States who fear being taken advantage of by their neighbors to the south. What they don’t seem to realize is that their neighbors have more to fear from us than we of them. Since the proclamation of the Monroe Doctrine, the United States—at first tacitly, then overtly—claimed the right to insure they had significant input into the doings of the nations to their south. Since then, the influence the United States has asserted has been too immense to speak of here. This has resulted in a lot of suffering for people in Central and South America, so much so that it has resulted in a desire to migrate to the United States.

My tour guide in Medellin, Santi, did not hold such meddling against me or my country, however. He told me he forgave me (us) for taking Panama away from Colombia, reminding me that Teddy Roosevelt helped in fomenting a revolution in order to make a canal there that would be of benefit to the U.S.A.

I was fortunate enough to be escorted around by several local guides to various places of historical interest. The history of the conquest and extermination of the indigenous people by Europeans was brought up more than once, as was the fact that slaves were imported from Africa. This was necessarily brought up to explain the ethnic diversity of the region, but there was no untoward animosity for the unwelcomed immigrants involved. They did not harbor hatred for those who came to their land unbidden, despite the fact they caused more harm than any illegal immigrants ever did to the United States.

While there I saw a white-haired Caucasian gentleman waiting for the elevator that led to the hotel rooms accompanied by a young woman young enough to be his granddaughter. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that it wasn’t his granddaughter, since her skin color was so different than his. I’d go so far as to guess that he was there to take advantage of the fact that prostitution is legal in Colombia. If this is true, then the rape of the indigenous people by people with European roots is not a dim and distant memory.

Considering the damage outsiders have caused and are still continuing to cause in Colombia, it is a wonder they haven’t built a wall. It is a wonder that they treat people such as myself as kindly as they do even though I have not learned to speak their language. But the truth is, no wall that humans could build would be as great a barrier as the Andes Mountains and even they were unable to stop unwanted foreigners from entering their country. Similarly, whatever language barriers that may exist can and will be surmounted by genuine goodwill and a desire to get along. The fact is, divisions are only an illusion and we are all one people. Everything we in the United States do affects others, and history shows we have been the victimizer far more often than the victim. As for the people of Colombia, I would like to thank you for your kindness and hospitality.