In ordinary times, a photo of an athletic Mexican woman adeptly climbing a wall would not strike an observer as significant. But these are not ordinary times, not for Mexicans anyway. The photo is from a recent trip to the northern Mexican city of Monterrey. My family history stretches back to this part of Mexico. My dad's family came through Monterrey hundreds of years ago on their way to Texas. My mom's family is from the area too. I currently have an uncle and lots of cousins there. I go there often.

Monterrey is far from the beaches of the Mayan Riviera, the cobblestone streets of San Miguel, and the Michelin star restaurants of Mexico City. The city of 1.1 million people is known for its conservative values and politics. It is unpretentious and gritty, entrepreneurial and industrial. The city boasts a world-class university, a stunning museum of contemporary art, and it is home to numerous multinational corporations. The past few years have been difficult. Cartel violence hit northern Mexico particularly hard. But the people of Monterrey are tough. They build and they climb.

Although only four hours, by car, from the US border, Monterrey, like most of Mexico, remains an enigma to much of the US. In 1922, a magazine writer from New York, Wallace Thompson, published The Mexican Mind: A Study of National Psychology. Thompson tried to figure out Mexico for US readers. This was one of several books that Wallace wrote about Mexico and Latin America. The publisher was the Boston-based Little, Brown, and Company, that described itself as “one of the country’s oldest and most distinguished publishing houses.” The Mexican Mind was considered a serious book one hundred years ago.

To describe Thompson’s book as racist would be generous. As college students, my brother Raul and I howled with laughter at the idiotic claims in the book. As a teenager, it struck me as funny. Today, not so much.

Here is a typical excerpt from the book: “Observation of the Mexican in his emotional states will go far to convince even the believer in the genuineness of Mexican sentiment that this is exactly what he deliberately seeks to accomplish. The outstanding example is, of course, the satisfaction of the sex instinct, to which the typical Mexican devotes approximately three-fourths of his intellectual energy.” Thompson sketches an image of Mexicans as untrustworthy and over-sexed.

Recently, our president, a man with an apparent fondness for porn stars and whose ex-wife claims he once raped her, riffed on much the same theme as Thompson when discussing a caravan of migrants traveling across Mexico toward the US border. “And yesterday it came out where this journey is coming up, women are raped at levels that nobody’s seen before,” he said. For the record, there were no rapes reported by migrants on the caravan. The theme of the over-sexualized Mexican played well to his base when he launched his campaign so why not stick with what works? Trump followed up with a recent reference to some undocumented immigrants as “animals.” The president’s message was clear: The barbarians are at the border! Lock up your wives and daughters, brown-skinned rapists are coming. Build a wall!

The cynic in me thinks that across the country millions of people nodded their heads in agreement as they watched the president on Fox news or read about him on their Russia created Facebook groups.

I want to believe that these are not ordinary times and that the past year is not representative of who we are as a nation. But what if I am wrong? It is possible that today’s fear of Mexicans was lurking under the surface all these years, and was never entirely getting stamped out. Looking back, should I have laughed so hard at The Mexican Mind? I confess that I laughed at the idea of Trump getting elected too.

Trump's wall—if it ever gets built—is doomed to fail. Why? Because of ambitious, hardworking Mexicans like the woman in the photo. People intent on making a better life for their themselves and their families will find a way around, or over, a wall. If unforgiving desert heat, the threat of incarceration, and bandits does not stop people from attempting to cross the border, what will a few more miles of wall accomplish?

I took the pictures of the young Mexican woman climbing the wall before the US election, but after the infamous “they are not sending their best” line from then-candidate Trump. There was already talk of a “border wall” in the press here and in Mexico. I did not, however, connect the political dots while watching the young woman scale the wall. At the time, I was amazed (and, as a parent, horrified) by the daredevil quality of her feat. When the young woman climbed sufficiently high enough, she turned to mug the camera. She then continued up the wall, as though she were invincible. It wasn’t until I was back in Boston that I read the photo as an act of political theater.

Monterrey, Mexico

In ordinary times, the photo would be of a young, playful woman showing off her strength and youth. In the current zeitgeist, the photograph is of a woman sending a message to people in the United States, from Trump Tower to the so-called heartland. “Go ahead, build your wall. We Mexicans are climbers.”

Lately, I have spent a lot of time combing through the thousands of black and white negatives and photographs I amassed over more than forty-five years of photography. I was the designated family photographer when I was growing up. When I was not shooting family portraits or weddings, I would use my second-hand camera gear to document the world around me in San Antonio.

San Antonio, circa 1970

I shot these photos (Kodak Plus-X) around 1970. I remember being fascinated by the characters who spent time near the old market in downtown San Antonio and I headed there one Saturday morning—a young clueless kid with a camera and a couple of rolls of film.

Waiting, circa 1970

I grew up in a self-contained Mexican world. We were Mexicans. That was how we referred to ourselves, Mejicanos. Over the next several decades that descriptor evolved. Mexican gave way to Mexican American as we embraced the duality of our lives. Some of us became separatists and revolutionaries and called ourselves Chicanos. We tried to make nice as we “celebrated” 500 years of Spanish “influence” and adopted the term Hispanic. Then "Latino" came along and we bought into the “strength in numbers” idea.

Milam Park, circa 1970

Now, at the start of 2018, I suddenly feel "Mexican" again. Like a lot of us, I am retreating to my tribe these days, circling the cultural wagons to protect against perceived threats. The tamales were a little more comforting this year. I find that that the simplicity and comfort of arroz y frijoles bring a calmness to my life. A shot of tequila seems so much more soothing now than it did before. Similarly, it was easy for me to lose myself in the thousands of black and white negatives full of images of Mexicans just being Mexicans—eating, celebrating, posing. It allowed me back into a world where I felt so safe.

The funny thing is, I am not really Mexican. My parents and some of my grandparents and great-grandparents were born in Texas. But being born on this side of the river makes little difference to many. Looking like a Mexican is all that matters. I was reminded of that when I went shopping at a supermarket in the affluent Boston suburb of Newton last year. As I approached the store, I noticed a middle-aged white guy standing just outside the supermarket. The man was asking people entering and leaving the store to sign a petition. He was just finishing up with someone as I walked up. He looked up at me and then quickly averted his eyes, pretending he did not see me. The same thing happened when I exited the store. I know that I should not make assumptions, but it was hard not to. The man clearly did not want to engage with me about his petition. Newton, like many towns and cities across the country, was in the midst of a debate about the proposed designation of itself as a sanctuary city.

Things feel different. We can all feel it. This is an era of "us" and "them" and I definitely feel like a "them," the outsider. I think that is why it has been so easy lately to spend time immersed in those black and white negatives. The images took me back to a time when I was just a Mexican kid, living in a very safe Mexican world surrounded by people just like me. I look at those images now and marvel at how Mexican the people and the place appear. The proud brown faces, the tile roofs, arches, and the stucco walls. The images are a reminder of how long my tribe has been here. They connect me to my tribe.

My retreat, of course, is symbolic. I can't live in the past, inside of photos of a world long gone. The truth is that I chose to leave that safe, Mexican, world at age eighteen. It was a conscious decision. But I have never discounted the importance of the early, safe Mexican world. I miss much of my barrio life—my grandmother, aunts, uncles, cousins who lived within a few block of me. I miss bike trips to the molino to get masa for mom's tortillas or to the little tiendita for cigars to feed dad's occasional bad habit. At those stores, in that barrio, no one questioned if I belonged.

I can't go back to that world. It is too far away in miles and memory. Like some others, I bet that a life in the bigger world would pay off. I chose to leave the barrio. I thought I could play in the bigger world because the bigger world was changing for the better and I thought I had a place there. Lots of people who came before me made it better. I will be honest. The bigger world stills kicks my ass on occasion. But, all in all, it worked out pretty well; good jobs, good salary, great friends. For a long time, it seemed as though my bet paid off handsomely—until recently.

These are dark days and the time I spent with the images of my youth were just what I needed. The images of the celebrations and rituals, of the creased faces of elders and of puffy-cheeked newborns, of rebellious long-haired teens and sharply dressed grown-ups, were a great source of strength. I came from those experiences. The people and the events in the photographs shaped me. My takeaway: I belong wherever I choose to belong. We all do. I will keep the negatives and photos handy. I am sure I will need them again. But there is no turning back.