While the border remains polarizing, real people live their cross-border lives.

I met Alfonso Cabrera on March 29, minutes after he became a U.S. citizen. He was joyful – even though I told him I wouldn't have space to put his photo in print, he wanted to pose with red, white and blue balloons and his certificate of citizenship and insisted I take a picture.

I was catching the 66-year-old's journey at a celebratory moment, but his day was mostly work. He was on a lunch break from his job as a baker at El Rey Market on Sanborn Road – he's been working as a baker since he was 9 years old in Michoacan, Mexico, where he learned to bake bread and sweets. He moved to the U.S. to make more money for the same labor. For 43 years, he'd been living in the U.S., from Chicago to Santa Maria before moving to Salinas, and for three years, he'd been studying for the U.S. naturalization test.

I ask Cabrera about the bizarre political moment we're in – President Donald Trump declaring a national emergency at the U.S. border with Mexico, plus a threat to shut down the border altogether. But while Cabrera says he does look forward to using his newfound voting powers, he doesn't want to opine on Trump or politics. I ask what he makes of Trump's disdain for Mexico, and Cabrera just says: "He is a politician. I don't understand why he is doing that."

I'm struck by the humble and bureaucratic plans Cabrera has for his first moments as a citizen. He wants to call the Social Security Administration for a Social Security card, and apply for a U.S. passport. Then he hopes to help his wife, who lives in Michoacan, move to Salinas so they can finally live together again.

The noise of the political battle can drown out simple stories like Cabrera's, a baker trying to get by. There's inevitably a day in the future that his story, rather than being weaponized as a political argument, will be part of a family history about the pursuit of the American dream.

Most American families have a story like this. U.S. Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Carmel, who spoke at the March 29 naturalization ceremony at Cesar Chavez Library in Salinas, told his own family's version. "I am the grandson of immigrants," Panetta said, recounting his grandfather's journey, in steerage, from Italy. He noted "peasant" as his occupation on immigration paperwork. (Panetta's dad, Leon, also talks about that family history in this week's cover story, p. 20.)

The difference for those of us, like me (the great-granddaughter of immigrants) who were born as Americans is that unlike Cabrera, we are never forced to stop and choose our Americanness. Cabrera and 49 others from 14 countries (including Thailand, Egypt, Sweden, the Philippines and Brazil) stood together waving tiny American flags, prepared to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

Before that, they recited the Oath of Allegiance, an oath I was never asked to take.

"I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign state," they said. "I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by law… "

It's powerful stuff, and made lots of people in the room (including me) tear up. As Panetta said, "it's an oath to a body of principles," rather than a set of politics.

Suspending politics for a moment in favor of principle is a grand idea, even if there was an audible groan in the room when Trump himself made an appearance, in the form of a televised pre-recorded address. "It is with great pride I welcome you into the American family," he said. "When you give your love and loyalty to America, she returns her love and loyalty to you."

That last part struck me as ironic, given the vitriol Trump continues to spew toward Mexicans in particular, and immigrants in general. It wasn't until last week that Cabrera recited the oath and officially declared his love and loyalty to America, but it's been decades that he's lived it.

Cabrera's take on the flow of immigrants today is just like Panetta's story of his grandparents. "All the people are coming out of necessity," he says. "They want to make a better life."