Border Narratives: Lawrence (English)

[@RootedinRights]

Narrator] Border Narratives, stories of people with disabilities living at the US Mexico border. [Audio Description] A montage of arid landscapes and cities. Next, a man is interviewed remotely against a map background. [Lawrence] My name's Lawrence Brown the third and I am from El Paso, Texas. I am Mexican American but I'm also Black American. I am blind. [Audio Description] Lawrence plays a drum kit beside a keyboardist. [Lawrence] I've been a professional musician for my entire adult life. It's the first job I ever had and it's the longest running job I've ever had. Right now I'm working at the University of Texas at El Paso with the dance department playing some traditional Afro Cuban rhythms. [Audio Description] Lawrence in a two-piece suit with his guide dog, he prepares for a concert. [Lawrence] I have my own project, it's called the Vitruvian Project and that's a hiphop project. My dad's a big hiphop head and I always grew up listening to a lot of hiphop. [Audio Description] An aerial view of El Paso at sunset, mountains loom in the arid landscape behind. [Lawrence] El Paso is the pass. It was the way that the Spanish found to get through these mountains, which are Franklin Mountains and then you’d get into what is now New Mexico. [Audio Description] A monochromatic map of North America zooms in to show a red border line between El Paso and neighboring Juarez. [Lawrence] In a lot of ways, in El Paso, you have this wonderful community feeling and then at the border, you have all the worst and most ugly sentiments that have kind of plagued this country from its outset. It's just a different little mutation. [Audio Description] Cars file through a border crossing. [Lawrence] With my disability, I cannot make eye contact and my eyes roam around when I pull up to the customs and border patrol people. I try to have my cane out even though I'm sitting in a car and I won't be using my cane at all. So that then maybe they'll see it and get the hint that I'm blind 'cause if not, you know, if I'm the one handing off the passports, it's not gonna be a regular sort of a handoff. It might look like I'm drunk or it might look like this or that, you know and I've gotten a lot of comments, like, had a long night or had a rough day or had a, you know, and it's like, no, I'm just blind. And then once they ask you for the documentation, then you've gotta be prepared for whatever they're gonna throw at you. You know, I own a car, I'm a drummer so I have to carry a lot of equipment around, so I'll have somebody drive me. And you know, the inevitable question is, whose car is this? You know, it's like, it's my car. Well, why is he driving? Because I'm blind. [Audio Description] A bridge separating El Paso and Juarez at the border. [Lawrence] The experiences that happen at the bridge, if you're in a car and the occupants of that car are multiracial or they don't fit into the typical family mold of what is being profiled, reminded me of reading about the Jim Crow experiences that so many had in the South, and knowing that my father's family had those sorts of experiences coming from Louisiana into Mississippi into Texas. You have, you know, one class of people dismissing another class of people based on the color of their skin. So if you don't fit into, well, everybody in the car is white, or everybody in the car is brown or everybody in the car is black or everybody, then they immediately assume that you're up to no good. [Audio Description] A sign at the border reads, have your documents ready. [Lawrence] It's a tough situation to talk about because it seems like if you don't want your mind to be changed, it's not gonna be changed. [Audio Description] Lawrence playing drums and singing with his band in a small club. [Lawrence] I hope that the future narrative, becomes the narrative of everyday life. Not the narrative of the media, but the narrative of a life where, you know, there might be a festival going on in Juarez. So we go and we check that out and then we spend some money over there and then we come back and we do our thing here. We work, we make connections, the narrative of a situation where students can come to school here and get a better education. And that that's a good thing. [Audio Description] An aerial shot of El Paso at dusk. City lights glowing beneath a dark pink sky. [Lawrence] I want people to know that without the joint economies of the two cities, this area would be destitute. We wouldn't have the money that we have, we wouldn't have the prosperity that we have. [Audio Description] Crowds of people crossing a fenced in bridge. [Lawrence] Just because we're not represented doesn't mean that we're not gonna have an increasing space in the narrative of this country and in the narrative of this world as we become more globalized. The love of family and the love of taking care of one another, those are things that we hold really dear in the culture here and I think that's why we're one of the safest cities in the country. If we want to have hope in the American nation as a whole, we need to look to our border towns to learn what we're doing wrong and maybe learn a little bit about what's going right. [Narrator] Border Narratives, produced by Arizona Disability Law Center and Rooted In Rights, Funding by Borealis Philanthropy. END OF TRANSCRIPT