Merging Bridges

An exploration of why we should be progressing through creating better conditions for the human race

Sophia Sonbol

With everything going on in the world right now (as we now all say in unison) I’ve been exposed to new and further divisions in our society — ones that have been strengthened enough to foster an impending sense of doom amongst us all. The only universal agreements there are amidst the working class is that something’s wrong and we aren’t living right. Although this alone should get us along to start working together towards mutual success, the variety of communities found in America makes it a seemingly impossible struggle to agree on common priorities and paths to achieve changes related to said priorities. For instance, within feminism, different movements often clash over priorities in American politics, such as the urgency to protect and support immigrants during this critical time. We as a society have collectively chosen to ignore atrocities done to human beings because of both our inability and ability to connect to them. We are living contemporary to expanding mass media consumption in our world, which has aided us in spreading horrific stories, photos, videos, poems, knowledge, conversations, and different realities to the majority of the people in the world everyday. Humanity hasn’t been subject to these consequences before our time. It’s not known yet how to deal with this new phenomenon; it’s not fair to assume we’d know how.

Although the truth can now spread faster than ever—which could be a powerful tool for progress if it enabled us to act on it more swiftly—we’ve instead grown more divided than ever, fueled by widespread frustration. With that, many have decided to ignore the other as well, and try to just tackle what they can in their own communities. With this piece, I would like to invite you to think positively about the power of cross-contamination between cultures—I will be using the border between the United States and Mexico as an example. Simultaneously, think about how beautiful it would look if we had the ability to use that power as a tool for advancement in our society. I will be using examples of life related to Matsutake mushrooms (a nurturing species) from Anna L. Tsing’s book “The Mushroom at the End of the World” to build upon this, as well as “All About Love” by Bell Hooks . 

It’s necessary to first establish the importance of community and how our differences can come together to create a new, flourishing life if we let it. Tsing writes:Assemblages don’t just gather lifeways; they make them. Thinking through assemblages urges us to ask: How do gatherings sometimes become “happenings,” that is, greater than the sum of their parts? If history without progress is indeterminate and multidirectional, might assemblages show us its possibilities? (Tsing 23). In this quote, Tsing’s use of “assemblage” refers to gatherings involving different “ecological communities” (Tsing 23). Tsing stresses the open-ended possibilities that come with open assemblages. Therefore, rather than restricting or ending any life, should we be open to it by reconstructing our goals to create new life instead? The individualism ingrained in our American society has slyly gotten most of its people to forget the importance of community, especially how it improves one’s quality of life and health. However, with nature’s way of life, and our ability to recognize the happiness we lack as a result of the loneliness we feel, we can remember how cross-contamination between societies becomes important for progress. 

With this, Tsing touches on the nature of Matsutake mushrooms—mushrooms that attract other life—as an example of the positives that come with cross-contamination. Matsutake mushrooms are “wild mushrooms that live in human disturbed forests”(Tsing 4). Although this fungi finds itself emerging in places of destruction, it does not take the land for itself. Tsing writes:

Matsutake guides not just me but others. Moved by the smell, people and animals across the northern hemisphere brave wild terrain searching for it. Deer select matsutake over other mushroom choices. Bears turn over logs and excavate ditches searching for it… hunters told me of the elk with bloody muzzles from uprooting matsutake from the sharp pumice soil (Tsing 45).

 If a type of fungi is able to create new possibilities for new worlds to come together and partake in its pleasures, who are we as humans to be unable to match its nurturing ways?

An example of cross-contamination that has flourished new experiences amongst humans is known as the Schengen Area. Acknowledging European mistreatment of immigrants across the continent, this specific part of the world consists of 29 different European countries that permits “free movement to more than 450 million EU citizens… [or] anyone legally present in the EU” (European Commission). The Schengen Area allows for anyone, no matter their background, to cross national borders. There’s a list of guiding principles that police in charge of the Schengen Area have to follow: police themselves are restricted from enacting border control policies.​ The rule that describes the guide’s framework says, “ensuring the absence of any controls on persons crossing internal borders, forms part of the Union’s objective of establishing an area without internal frontiers in which the free movement of persons is ensured” (European Union). As an American citizen who has recently heard of this type of enactment for the first time in my life, it was shocking to me. Being present during this time, in which our current president has spread nothing but hateful connotations towards the idea of the immigrant, it’s hard for me to imagine a world without violent border control. Some of the most vulnerable people living in the United States at this moment are the people who are at the highest risk of getting their lives up-rooted from the ground they’ve grown in. Maniacs have taken over our government—their arrogance has disconnected them from reality, and now they think that they have the authority to do childish things, like changing the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Not only is our government a joke, but it’s also a joke that’s ruining peoples lives. 

Jumping back to the Schengen Area, it’s critical to analogize it with the U.S.-Mexico border. Although it can be argued that this border is different from the unrestrictive borders within the Schengen Area since it involves movements of immigration, it’s important to question why people are looking to flee their beautiful countries and what forces have turned their economies into ruins. I will not be delving into that, but I’d suggest doing research on your own time to feed your curiosity and deepen your understanding of people that have been subject to the injustices that come with the process of othering them. 

With that being said, Tsing notes Joseph Conrad’s novel  “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad. She writes:

[The] story turns around the narrator’s discovery that the European trader he much admired has turned to savagery to procure his ivory. The savagery is a surprise because everyone expects the European presence in Africa to be a force for civilization and progress. Instead, civilization and progress turn out to be cover-ups and translation mechanisms for getting access to value procured through violence: classic salvage (Tsing 63).

No matter your status in the world, we all come down to being the exact same thing; people are made up of their unpredictable experiences and the life they were given at birth. People definitely earn things in this world, but Tsing notes:

In order to survive, we need help, and help is always the service of another, with or without intent. When I sprain my ankle, a stout stick may help me walk, and I enlist its assistance... It is hard for me to think of any challenge I might face without soliciting the assistance of others, human and not human. It is unselfconscious privilege that allows us to fantasize—counter-factually—that we each survive alone (Tsing 29). 

Therefore, since life requires community because of the inevitable risk factor that comes with it, the progression that we strive for should aim to increase the number of social safety nets for the people.

However, this is not the case. Our leaders have molded their agendas to strictly benefit the white Americans accumulating the most wealth in the false name of “Government Efficiency.” Anyone outside of that criteria is seen as unworthy of help and understanding. Since Trump has entered office, his administration has signed executive orders rooted in hatred. One example is how Trump declared that “there is an invasion of the United States by ‘millions of illegal aliens’” (Frelick), even though the reality is that: “Last year, a significant change took place in the number of people entering the country irregularly. Department of Homeland Security statistics showed a more than 60% decrease in Border Patrol ‘encounters’ between ports of entry along the southwest border from May to December” (Frelick). With the declaration of this invasion, Trump’s administration has also enacted an order deploying U.S. armed forces to the US southwestern border, their terms of engagement specifying that “use of force policies prioritize the safety and security of Department of Homeland Security personnel and of members of the Armed Forces.” This all but invites U.S. Border Patrol and military personnel to draw their weapons” (Frelick). With all of that being said, it’s important to note that not only are these policies rooted in hatred, but also lies. 

The hatred enacted at the border has also spread to the hearts of our citizens, simultaneously instilling fear in their—apparent—counterparts. Brown people (specifically people with ties to Latin America) across the country are fearing for their futures and the futures of their loved ones. On February 19, 2025, a little 11-year-old girl named Jocelyn Rojo Carranza committed suicide after kids in school bullied her by threatening to call ICE on her family. Her mother, Marbella Carranza, reports that “the school was aware of it all, but they never, they never told me what was happening with my daughter,” Marbella continued, noting that she learned Jocelynn was attending counseling sessions at the school after investigators informed her. “It appears she would go once or twice a week to counseling to report what was happening” (Hamadeh). In my humble opinion, this child’s experience should be collectively considered as sad and an obvious support for change in our treatment of the people being targeted by Trump’s administration. I’m going to assume that anyone who disagrees has an entirely different moral system than I do—and it’s not one that preaches human progress in my eyes. 

Hooks mentions M. Scott Peck’s “The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace”, in which he writes that “in and through community lies the salvation of the world” (Hooks 123). Many social scientists across the field have come to the realization that genuine widespread human progress cannot happen without a truthful love that binds us together. If one agrees with this, they also must agree that “Love and abuse cannot coexist. Abuse and neglect are, by definition, the opposites of nurturance and care” (Hooks 25). With that being said, mistreatment of immigrants should be actively pushed against to uphold these strong morals—especially by people who believe in and preach God’s words since they claim to be openly devoted to love. It’s simply an ethics-based math problem that is comprehensible at an elementary level. 

In conclusion, the American government is not looking to appeal to the process of human progress; their attention is on uplifting the isolated wealthy white community in our country. This is apparent through their recently enacted policies affecting immigrants across the country and crossing through the U.S. Mexico border. We should be challenging their policies by making sense of them through the lens of Erich Fromm’s definition of love, stating it as “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth” (Hooks 24). We cannot progress without helping hands that fight with this as their number one moral basis. Tsing’s interpretation of the Matsutake mushroom shows that it is not a selfish being—rather it is a one that demandingly invites life. Acknowledging this, it’s only honest to be embarrassed for our government and its current treatment of immigrants. If we are unable to match a mushroom species’ understanding of how to progress through community, we are bound to fail as a society. It is important for us to help create those aforementioned social safety nets in these times of chaos as a form of human salvation. I would start working towards this movement by trying to bridge the existing gaps between us through education and conversation everyday. Involve your friends, family members, teachers, classmates, and more to join local webs of helping hands that organize and speak for the marginalized. This will not only help the vulnerable, but also helps your own development that requires involved communities. I promise your heart won’t regret it.