For Ken Salazar, diversity is “our unique American superpower”

Ken Salazar grew up on the remote Salazar homestead in Colorado’s San Luis Valley, where his family has farmed and ranched the same land since before Colorado was a state. He has served as U.S. Ambassador to Mexico (2021–2025), U.S. Secretary of the Interior under President Obama, U.S. Senator, and Colorado Attorney General. A lifelong champion for conservation, civil rights, and an inclusive America, he continues to ranch in the San Luis Valley. His book, “Borderlands: My Fight for an Inclusive America,” was published July 28.

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SunLit: The title of your memoir, “Borderlands,” goes well beyond geography. How do you see the theme of borders in both your personal and political life?

Ken Salazar: We don’t only have national borders, those along our southern border with Mexico and our northern border with Canada, we also have borders within our country, within our communities, and within ourselves. While it is imperative that we have strong national borders and modern border infrastructure, I also believe that we ought to do more to understand each other within our country and work to overcome the borders that exist between our people and within our communities. 

For example, over 70 million Hispanics live in the United States, and over 50 million of these are Mexican American. Some of those Mexican American families can trace back their ancestral roots in what is now the United States nearly five centuries, to a time before Jamestown or the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Mine is one of these Mexican American families. And yet, many Mexican Americans are treated like they are outsiders or do not belong here. This is not just a tragedy of historic misunderstanding, it is wrong and it hurts Americans of all walks of life. 

Today, President Trump and some of his people are engaged in a project of erasure. These “leaders” go to great lengths to divide our nation and her people. Instead, I would like to see more understanding, more community, more camaraderie, and more sense of national purpose across all peoples to make, as Lincoln said, a “more perfect union.” Coming together in this way will only make America stronger.

SunLit: The subtitle of “Borderlands” reads, “My Fight for an Inclusive America.” Why did you choose this for the overarching theme? And why did you choose to write and publish this book now?

Salazar: The United States is a land of many types of people, not one. We are defined by an idea, by a creed, not by some kind of national or racial or religious heritage. We have citizens who hail from every background, culture, religion, and country in the world, and we are better for it. Diversity is our unique American superpower—and fighting for an inclusive United States is what we can each do to bolster this superpower. It is what I have tried to do throughout my career in public service and the private sector. Obviously, these ideas are under attack by people like President Trump and many of his political allies who are engaged in their project of erasure, but I know that the tide will turn and they will be pushed back for good by decent Americans from all walks of life. That is why I made this the book’s subtitle: because while I have been engaged in this fight my whole life, now is the time to fight.

SunLit: In the early portion of your book you describe feeling caught “in a kind of borderland of the mind” once you, as ambassador to Mexico, became persona non grata with the Mexican president, while at the same time you’d seen your warnings about a broken immigration system ignored by the U.S. government. You also mention feeling like “a man without a country.” How did you come to grips and deal with those frustrations?

Salazar: These words are about the summer of 2024, a difficult time. Joe Biden had just dropped out of the race for president and Kamala Harris would be the Democratic standard-bearer. Trump would run on a broken border—a thing I had been pushing the Biden team to address for most of my ambassadorship—and Trump would ultimately win in part because of the border and immigration crisis. And in Mexico, I was suddenly frozen out by Mexican President Lopez Obrador following the arrest on US soil of the Sinaloa cartel capo El Mayo and his godson, one of the Chapitos. 

I had wanted the Biden team to tackle the border and immigration and to place a premium on US-Mexico relations, but then Trump won. After that, I knew that everything Mission Mexico and its 3,000-plus people had worked for would probably be wasted. I always knew where I was from and where my home was—the San Luis Valley in Colorado—but at that moment, I felt adrift. 

SunLit: Much of the book references the persistent, ongoing issues at the U.S.-Mexico border, and the larger issue of immigration. Do you feel that, especially given the divisions within our country currently, it’s a problem that can, or will, be solved in our lifetime?

Salazar: It must be. It must be fixed for the good of the United States. It is a national security matter. Fixing the border and our immigration system could be something for good-faith leaders and regular Americans to come together on. It could be a catalyst for bringing people together, instead of a wedge that drives people apart. 

Beyond our domestic politics, modern borders could also be a rallying point for North America. Without sacrificing any sovereignty or national identity, the United States, Mexico, and Canada can come together to form a North American Alliance that can be the biggest economic zone in the world that work together on things like energy, climate, transportation, and tech. There are over 520 million people living in the United States, Mexico, and Canada. Our three nations share history, culture, geography, and a common environment. And our economies are already intertwined, despite what Trump is trying to do with tariffs and threats. It is time we embrace what binds us. 

SunLit: Is there a fundamental approach to immigration that the political crossfire has failed to consider? 

Salazar: Yes. It is that  we already know the solution. We know what to do. We can address immigration, enforcement of our nations’ borders and security priorities, and the humane treatment of our fellow human beings migrating here in the hope of making a better life for themselves and their families.

Comprehensive immigration and asylum reform plans have been proposed for many years (including pending bipartisan House legislation). They fail because the leading opponents of reform—willfully ignoring our history as a nation of immigrants—prefer to score cheap political points. It is easier to pursue policies that dehumanize people, and to arrest people outside churches, schools, courthouses, and hospitals.

Updating the migration control infrastructure in both the United States and Mexico; cooperatively strengthening physical and technological border security; establishing “mirror” patrols on both sides of the border by Mexican and US law enforcement officers who would work together—these are some of the logical solutions to enact. A promising approach, as I write Borderlands, would be to create a modern “curtain of security” across Mexico’s southern Isthmus of Tehuantepec, a focal point where our countries could intervene together to address illegal migration.

SunLit: In a general sense, how does your life, your family history in particular, fit into the national narrative of the United States?

Salazar: My family’s history is part of the history of the United States. The Salazars, Cantus, Montoyas, and Garcias who are my ancestors can trace lineages back to the late 1500s. I am a United States citizen not because my family crossed the border, but because the border crossed us when the United States received over 50 percent of Mexico’s land following the Mexican American War, which ended in 1848. I am not saying this to lay any claim to being “more American” than anyone else, only to point out that different families have different histories in the United States. Some of those stories start today—others go back many generations.

When I was at the Interior Department, President Obama and I agreed that we would highlight the stories of all Americans, not just those who have traditionally been highlighted. Telling the stories of people like Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King Jr., the United Farm Workers, and women suffragists, to cite just a few examples, was essential to telling the story of America. Recognizing the contributions, struggles, and triumphs of Black Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, Hispanic Americans—of all kinds of Americans—was important not only to understand our past but also to understand our present and the promise of our future. Trump wants to ignore all of this. 

SunLit: You give a poignant account of your teens, when your father insisted you attend high school at a Catholic seminary in Cincinnati, with the hope you’d become a priest. You never shared his hope, but how did that experience – the long bus ride there, stepping outside your comfort zone – impact your future?

Salazar: It was the first time I saw the United States. It was the first time I saw a Black person in the flesh. Before Cincinnati, I thought every Mexican American lived in the San Luis Valley. Or at least they all lived in Colorado and New Mexico. That experience—along with visiting Chicago during a course at Colorado College several years later—showed me the breadth of our diversity. 

SunLit: Setting the memoir portion aside, what part of the book’s political analysis do you most hope that readers take away from “Borderlands”?

Salazar: That leaders and regular people of good-faith can and should work together. Forces have been working to divide Americans for many, many years. We can come together as a counteracting force for national progress. As Lincoln said, “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” We must come together, we must embrace our superpower of diversity, or we risk falling into irrelevance or worse.

SunLit: Tell us a little about the creation of this book and your writing process. There are references in the book to your prodigious notetaking. How did you organize your thoughts from such a long and varied career?

Salazar: Going into the process, I had no idea how difficult writing a book would be. My writing partner, Nils Johnson-Shelton, made sure we stayed on track and did not let me lose faith, at least not permanently. We had great readers—family but also long-time confidantes and friends—who gave us indispensable advice. 

We also were blessed with a wonderful editorial team at BenBella Books. They worked diligently to make the book as good as it could be. I think it’s a misconception among people who have never written a book that only one person makes a book. It’s simply not true. So, I thank everyone involved. And I thank my readers too!

SunLit: With “Borderlands” under your belt, do you have other books percolating? Or was this a one-time pursuit?

Salazar: Ask me in November.

A few more quick items

Currently on your nightstand for recreational reading: “Francis: The Journey and the Dream”

First book you remember really making an impression on you as a kid: “The Grapes of Wrath”

Best writing advice you’ve ever received: Be patient. Be patient. Be Patient!!!

Favorite fictional literary character:  Simba and Nahla from “The Lion King”

Literary guilty pleasure (title or genre): Anything by John Grisham

Digital, print or audio – favorite medium to consume literature: Print

One book you’ve read multiple times: “Long Walk to Freedom” by Nelson Mandela

Other than writing utensils, one thing you must have within reach when you write: A view out the window, ideally of the mountains

Best antidote for writer’s block: A drive through the Valley or a visit with family. Or both.

Most valuable beta reader: My brother Leroy and his wife Michelle

Type of Story: Q&A

An interview to provide a relevant perspective, edited for clarity and not fully fact-checked.