Mad Max in Borderland -- Overnight With the Minutemen

by YO! Youth Outlook Multimedia (reposted)

Sat, Feb 18, 2006 9:21AM

Since 9.11, individuals calling themselves "Minutemen" have formed loosely structured volunteer associations that patrol the Southern U.S. border and have been vilified as racist vigilantes for their armed actions against undocumented immigrants. After camping out with the Minutemen of Campo, Calif., Russell Morse discovers the unexpected, even conflicting, reasons these men spend their lives in the desert. Morse, Furtado and Rojas are editors at YO! Youth Outlook Multimedia a Project of New America Media. Parker is a video producer for New America Media.

CAMPO, Calif.--I’m waking up to gunshots. It’s six in the morning, the sun is just peeking over the border fence 100 yards away and someone is shooting.

I grunt and roll out of the tent, peeking my head out far enough to see Ryan, our photographer, with a rifle to his shoulder, letting off rounds with our new friend Jawbone. Before I can stretch or crawl out of my sleeping bag, a border patrol helicopter zips over our camp, blasting my eyes with sand and setting a small team of California Minutemen into action.

Bandit, who hasn’t slept all night, yells into his radio, leaps into his battered camouflage Suburban truck (known lovingly as Gonzo) and speeds after the chopper, his tires spitting desert rocks in every direction. Josue, our wheelman and linguist, wakes up at the helm of his Honda jeep and instinctively fishtails into Gonzo’s dust cloud as Ryan and I climb in, tying shoelaces and rubbing eyes . . .

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