My Day in Mexico

On the last day of my trip, we crossed the border into Nogales, Sonora.  When I stood at the border on the Arizona side 6 days earlier, I noted how little difference there appeared to be between the two sides.  The topography was similar with rolling hills and small mountains visible on each side, businesses line either side of the wall, with a scattering of homes visible on the hills in the distance.  Once we actually made it across the border, it wasn’t long before I gained a different perspective.  On the immediate southern side of the border there were a number of shops, restaurants, gas stations, and other businesses, but after driving for only a mile or two, we left the commercial district and entered a residential area.  Houses were very close together, small and sparse.  At the base of the mountains, makeshift walls made out of car tires terraced the slope of the mountains, allowing homes to be almost literally built on top of one another all the way up the mountain.  We were headed to an afterschool  center called HEPAC (Hogar de Esparanza y Paz- The Home of Hope and Peace), built halfway up the hill in the middle of this neighborhood.  In Nogales, children go to school either in the morning or afternoon.  They are able to come to HEPAC in order to get lunch and participate in some additional learning activities.  HEPAC also offers educational programs for adults, mainly teaching things like hairstyling and crafts that can be used by the adults to generate supplemental income.  They also make No Mas Muertes (No More Deaths) medallions to sell to fund the program.  During our visit to HEPAC, we heard a presentation and had lunch with students. 

After lunch, we visited a maquila (factory) formerly run by the Legacy Ink company.  Legacy had been one of the better maquilas to work in, as they paid $7 per day, compared to the minimum wage of $5.  Not per hour but per day.  Legacy closed the maquila February 5^th, giving no word to their 160 employees, who showed up for work first thing Monday morning to a building with changed locks, vacated and emptied of all but the least valuable equipment.  They’d set up a temporary camp outside the maquila- a few tents, some folding chairs, and some blankets, protesting the company’s decision, demanding the pay they are owed, and barricading anyone from taking away the remaining equipment.  They have received support from the local Nogales government, also upset at the company’s abandonment.  However, two months later, it seems the best result for these workers will be to sell the remaining, low value equipment, and split whatever proceeds result among them.

Following this, we went to Grupos Beta, an organization that provides support for migrants preparing to cross the border.  We separated into small groups and talked to a number of people preparing to attempt to cross the border.  The man I spoke to was about to cross for the 6^th time, trying to get to New Jersey to live with his brother.  Another group spoke to someone who said he was crossing for the 80^th time.  Many crossers use a guide called a coyote in order to get across and pay a fee to do so.  The man I talked to said he paid $2000 to his coyote.  While some coyotes are trustworthy, many are not.  The first time he had tried to cross, he made it to Phoenix, where the people the coyote had led him to held him hostage until his brother sent another $5000.  Once they received the money they let him go, and he was almost immediately captured by border patrol.  Despite the cost, peril, and uncertainty of crossing, the people we spoke to were all determined to continue trying until the reunited with their families or found the opportunity they were seeking. 

Our short-lived attempt to cross by foot

We drove back toward the border to head home, and there was a long line of cars waiting to cross.  Our group leader told us it would be about 45 minutes wait, so we got out of the van and briefly passed through some of the shops at the border.  Many people cross just to shop on one side or the other, and there is actually a crossing station for foot traffic as well as vehicle traffic.  We knew then, that if the van made it across before we were finished shopping, we could simply cross by foot.  This led to a funny scene: we initially didn’t see the van when we finished shopping, so we assumed it had crossed and got in the foot traffic line, which turned out to be very long and very slow.  We probably would have waited in that line for an hour or more, when we finally saw the van, still on the Mexico side of the border, with only one vehicle in front of it.  The ten of us sprinted around the block trying to make it to the van in time, and we were sure that the sight of all of us sprinting towards the border would get us into some type of trouble with the border patrol, but we made it across without hassle, after about five minutes and a few questions about the nature of our trip.

The view as I ran to the border to catch our van (The one to the right with the black luggage rack)

  

Here you can see the large black vessels that store water for use in the homes

One of many the many walls made out of old tires

The thing that was most apparent to me from my trip to Nogales, Sonora was the level of poverty that so many of the people there live in.  Often when we talk of poverty in other countries, we hear people point out that there is poverty here in the United States as well.  While this is certainly true, there is simply no comparison.  The neighborhood surrounding HEPAC, built in the middle of a municipal waste site, is made entirely out of homes built out of old care tires, rolled up and dried newspaper, and other items rescued from the dump.   The houses there have no heat and no cooling, and thus are brutally hot during the desert summer, and bitingly cold in the dead of winter.   Toilets inside the home don’t flush because there is no running water.  Even at HEPAC, the bathrooms were essentially indoor port-a-potties.  We were told to put toilet paper in the trash can and sprinkle sawdust in the commode after we were finished if we used the bathroom.  In Nogales, mothers and fathers work full days in one of the maquilas and most are paid  the country's $5 minimum daily wage for their work.  They lose a third of this pay to be transported to and from the factories they work in.  There is no opportunity for advancement, those who have spent 15 years in the factory make the same as those in their first year.  And we wonder why they come.  When they can make more in an hour in the United States then they do in a day, maybe two in Mexico? 

There are no easy solutions to the immigration issue, and who knows what will change for better or worse if the proposed immigration reform bill passes, but what this trip taught me more than anything else is that there are many more facets to the issue than most ever consider.   There are real people who are affected by this issue, on both sides, good and bad, and to have them reduced to numbers and statistics in an ongoing battle seems to be a convenient way to gloss over this fact.  I don’t have answers to the problem and it’s not my duty to change anyone’s position on the issue, but I would urge anyone who has the opportunity to explore a more nuanced look at it, such as I was lucky to have earlier this month, to do so.  It may not change your position on the issue, but it will undoubtedly open your eyes and broaden your perspective. 

My first look at Mexico, earlier in the week, was from this Burger King parking lot, and one of my last views from Mexico was of the Burger King sign peeking over the border wall.