Little Mexico

   For this assignment, I drove down with a friend who is  unaffiliated with this class to the area in South Phoenix around 27th Avenue and Camelback Road.  What I noticed was that it was not so much solely a border space as it was an efficient mixing of two separate cultures.  That is to say, the stores were not primarily Mexican oriented and there were various ethnicities or people to be seen, but there was certainly a higher concentration of Mexican culture and Hispanic people located in that area.  The location was not, to say the least, one of the more high class areas of the city.

  Our first stop was a carnicerķa on the southwest corner of 28th Avenue and Camelback Road.  After taking a few photographs of the edifice of the building, we went inside to see what the interior was like.  Frankly, it was unlike anything I had ever experienced before except during the class trip to Nogales.  There was Spanish music blaring in a substandard radio setup, the store was low-ceilinged and smelled of raw meat, some of it which I deemed to be in various stages of decay based solely on the odor. It would be generous to say that the building would not have passed very many health code inspections.  Across the street from this strip mall was a different carnicerķa with a van parked out front that had a sign that said, "Freimos su pescado" (we fry your fish).

  Our second stop was to a Food City just south of Glendale Avenue, also off of 28th Avenue.  Most of the people inside were speaking Spanish, including the clerks.  Interestingly, the security guard (another rarity in North Phoenix grocery stores) standing by the entrance door was white.  All of the aisle signs inside the store were in both English and Spanish, as well as signs on the outside of the building.

  Before these excursions, I had merely an academic and detached knowledge that these communities existed.  Yes, they were out there but they were not places that I frequented (rather the opposite, actually).  From this adventure into South Phoenix, I learned that these "mini-border" areas are not to be avoided or feared, but respected in their ongoing struggle for recognition and survival.