Most ordinary citizens fed up with the direction their country is taking opt to join a protest or write their congressman. Kim Chambers, on the other hand, jumps in the ocean and swims to Mexico.
On May 5, Chambers, a much-decorated long-distance swimmer (in September 2015 she became the first woman to swim the 48 kilometers from San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge to the Farallon Islands), will join 11 other swimmers in a 10-kilometer aquatic dash from Imperial Beach in San Diego County to the beaches of Tijuana. The purpose of the swim is two-fold: to raise funds for The Colibri Center for Human Rights, and to promote the notion of compassion and empathy as an alternative to what they see as the callousness embodied in U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall along the Mexico-U.S. border.
While the selection of the event’s date was almost certainly deliberate (Cinco de Mayo is a festive day in the United States and Mexico), one also wonders whether the mixture of nationalities among the participants was also chosen purposefully. Besides three Americans and four Mexicans – and Chambers herself, who hails from New Zealand – there are two Israelis and two South Africans. While opinions famously vary on the policies and attitudes the State of Israel enacts towards its Arab citizens and the Arab world in general, there is a solid consensus condemning the apartheid-era evils of pre-Mandela South Africa. Regardless of intent, the ethnic makeup of the team can’t help but suggest a parallel between the current climate of xenophobia and anti-immigration in the United States and that of one or both of those two nations.
Chambers herself, however, isn’t trying to push specific policy or get into messy partisan politics, but rather is interested in highlighting the moral duty she believes the fortunate have toward alleviating the suffering of the less fortunate, especially in regards to migration. Speaking to fitness-related publication Outside Magazine, Chamber states that “it’s about having empathy for others who are struggling. Ignoring human suffering is something that those of us in privileged societies should not allow.”
As previously mentioned, money raised by the event will go towards The Colibri Center for Human Rights, a non-profit organization whose mission is to reunite families with loved ones who have gone missing along the borderlands. For more information and/or to donate, go to colibricenter.org. To learn more about Kim Chambers and her accomplishments, go to kimswims.com.