Kayla America Fuentes, a daughter of immigrants, is a 15-year-old girl from Brownsville, Texas, a town right across the border from Mexico. In her heavily Latino populated neighborhood, lives a large white man with icy blue eyes that everyone knows just like Rusty. Apparently, Rusty has been terrorizing the people of Brownsville for years now, one of this guy’s favorite activities involve him hanging out by a gas station deceitfully befriending immigrants only to call the border patrol on them when they least expect it. Another of his favorite pastimes is commanding “Camp Rusty”, an anti-immigrant militia of heavily armed white men in camouflaged Jeeps.
The contrast between these two characters is narrative gold, one is a sensitive Latino girl with a journalistic passion for writing and photography, the other an old racist white man with too many guns and too much free time on his hands, so when Kayla decided she would interview Rusty, we all knew that something special was going to come of this.
Kayla, who has been separated from too many family members, neighbors and friends by deportation, and most recently her aunt and uncle who left behind 4 kids born in the U.S., couldn’t wrap around her young head the idea that anyone could be so heartless as to leave an 8-year-old like her cousin without parents. She couldn’t understand what motivated Rusty to act in such a destructive manner, so she coalesced some courage and decided that the only way she could understand was if she talked to him directly.
One day Kayla just walked up to him and said “Good afternoon. I’m a reporter and I would like to interview you.” To what Rusty answered, “Are you ready to get bored with this old man?” and that’s how it all started.
I stood by the truck right next to him. He smelled like sweat, cigarettes, and rotting food. He had a lesion on his nose that was filled with pus. He had another one on his wrist, filled with blood. His eyes had big shadows, and the whites were yellow. I wasn’t going to ask why he looked so sick. He told me, anyway. “I have two types of cancer,” he said. “But I’m not treating them: the medicine just makes me feel worse.” I’d lost my fear.
Kayla Fuentes for Splinter News
Kayla’s investigative effort into the heart and soul of a decrepit and battered racist man gives the reader not only a better understanding of racial tensions in the country but also of how lost family values have become, leading to too many broken homes and also about the state of our collective mental health which has deteriorated over generations in part thanks to the aggressive individualism that has destroyed the family core.
Found myself wishing this story was twice as long. Kayla America Fuentes, if you are reading this, write some more! Nice job. https://t.co/uX9ZWqHvvQ
— @mister42.bsky.social (@mister42) October 17, 2017
“I’m no longer scared of Rusty. In fact, I’m planning to go back someday soon, because he told me he was going to take me to look at the border patrol routes. Now I just think of him as pathetic, and someone to feel sorry for.” says Kayla after interviewing the man for the first time. “Still, he’s a dangerous person in my neighborhood. He’s got his cell phone, a cup of gas station coffee…and the Border Patrol’s phone number.” which speaks volumes about how the population has accepted as reality/policy, ideas that emerge from paranoia, neurosis, senility and any other variation of both mental and physical illness.
15 year old Kayla America Fuentes had the bravery to confront a racist scumbag — and found out he's actually pretty pathetic. Go Kayla! https://t.co/sXOcIByVC3
— abdullah says CEASEFIRE NOW 🇵🇸 (@AShihipar) October 17, 2017
Article inspired by Splinter News // The Old Man Who Calls Border Patrol on Immigrants, and the Teen Girl Who Asked Him Why