Open Letter to Valley Residents

Phoenix Residents,

 

          Over the course of the spring 2005 semester, I had the opportunity to take Migration and Culture.  Admittedly, the class is one of the requirements of my degree, and that was my primary motivation for registering for it. I did not imagine that I would be hearing anything I hadn’t already heard, as migration is a pretty hot topic in the Valley of the Sun. There were some items we discussed that I knew about, such as how different immigrant groups will assimilate into a society differently, and that the time period will factor into assimilation as well. However, I did have some eye-opening experiences as well.

          The thing that affected me the most was our class trip to Nogales in Mexico. I myself had previously only entered Canada for a day trip a year ago. I’d never been outside of the U.S. otherwise. As we entered Nogales, I was initially struck by the amount of pedestrian traffic and the fact that most of the stores in the shopping area of the city looked a bit run down. I was also quite shocked and a little frightened at the road conditions and driving there. As we ventured further into Nogales and into the residential colonias I was struck by the state of the homes. Most were built ramshackle with various types of materials, and they were quite small too. The roads only got worse into the colonias, and we also had to be careful not to hit one of the many stray dogs that abounded within the neighborhoods. Throughout all of this, I felt like an alien in a strange land. I’ve been to South Phoenix, where the housing is certainly not up to code and most of the pavement is shoddy, but this was different. In South Phoenix there are still the sites and sounds of modern city life and traffic lights. In the colonias, it was like going back in time, except for the other rundown cars. This was a view of poverty that I hadn’t seen.

This experience in Nogales made me truly understand the drive to migrate to the U.S. Most of us in the valley have read the stories and seen the news about the economy in Mexico. But it’s difficult to equate millions of dollars and even millions of people living in poverty; the numbers are so large, we can’t really comprehend it. Seeing the living conditions, and discovering that the average pay in a maquiladora is roughly $8.00 per day really drives the bleakness of the situation home. I understand what would drive someone to risk their life and try and slip through the desert just to work a terrible minimum wage job in the U.S. Those that are lucky enough to enter the U.S. through legal means don’t have an easy time of it either. The wait seems eternal, the fees are astronomical when compared to the income and you’re subject to the whims of whoever happens to be interviewing you that day. It’s difficult to enter the U.S. from Mexico, legally or illegally. Yet people do it every day. I’ve now seen why they do and I think that’s what I’ll take away from this class: the memory of Nogales and why people are trying to enter the U.S.

I would encourage anyone reading this to take a visit to Mexico. But walk out beyond the shops and sidewalk vendors. Try and see what the city is really built upon: the colonias and the families laboring to survive there. I guarantee this, once you see the reality that these people live in everyday, you’ll view immigration in a new way.

 

 

Thanks,

Stephanie Cleland

 
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