Border Links

 North First Avenue Tucson Arizona 85719

Phone (520) 628-8263

www.borderlinks.org

Its time to take a trip to Mexico! Nogales Sonora

Each year, millions of undocumented migrants attempt to cross the border, fleeing economically desperate situations or political repression in countries throughout Latin America and ascend on the United States of America. In the last several years the immigration standards and regulations of the United States has been accused of being unfair and unjust. In fact in recent weeks there has been numerous protests and publicity towards this heated issue. In Arizona, Texas, and California thousands of Mexican Americans have walked the streets for immigration reform. There is even a new “Guest Worker” policy that is going to the United States Legislators in the very near future. The immigration policies of the United States have many ups and downs since the North American Free Trade act. Most informed people realize now this treaty has just made things worse.

 Thanks to the international non-profit organization Border Links who began providing educational seminars on U.S./Mexico border issues in 1987; I was able to take a trip to Nogales Sonora Mexico, with my Migration and culture class from Arizona State University. We went down to Tucson to meet up with Border Links then on to Nogales to see what is actually happing on the south side of the US border. The first thing I saw as we started to drive into Mexico was the ten-foot iron wall with barbed wire on the top of it separating Mexico to the US. On the American side of the fence it was bleak. There was nothing but the fence it self. However on the Mexican side of the fence there were crosses, hundreds of crosses hung for immigrants who died or for families who lost someone that tried to flee to America. There were beautiful and colorful murals covering the coldness of the fence. We drove all around the border town on old wore out barely paved roads feeling every bump in three Vans looking at the desalinate neighborhoods with most houses unfinished so that the residents of the homes would not have to pay taxes on them.

The US/Mexico border is the meeting place of two cultures, two countries, two ways of life and two levels of consumption.  It serves as a clear example of the forces of globalization at work – highlighting the inequalities of income and of opportunity inherent in the current system. Thousands of businesses have come to this area to set up manufacturing and assembly operations.  These factories, often known as maquiladoras, or maquilas for short, have attracted millions of Mexicans who are unable to find good work elsewhere to the border region.

One of the most informative places we went to during our trip was one of the Maguilas. We were let into a small meeting room where a bilingual HR person came in to talk to us. The actual information we learned from the HR person wasn’t what made this part of the trip so interesting, instead it was what she didn’t  or couldn’t say that was. The meeting was very vague and it seemed that she sidestepped a lot of questions. Her opinion of labor unions was funny to me. “That they didn’t want them in Nogales.” When there are countless stories of Mexican citizens who have been black balled out of the Maguilas because they tried to start a work force union. One other interesting fact that I learned while we were at the factory was that almost all of the factory managers in Nogales were not Mexican but American who commuted to Mexico from the US like they were driving across town.    

In an article called “We Are not Machines” Maria Guadalupe Torres talked about her eighteen years at a foreign-owned assembly plant were she worked assembling electronic capacitors with epoxy. “Many coworkers developed health problems because of the epoxy. I don’t know if it’s responsible for my current health problems or not. I was paid $27 for a forty-hour week. Twenty two percent of that went to transportation. I worked three and a half hours to buy a gallon of milk.” Maria lived in a one room home with an outdoor toilet, while her colonia (neighborhood) had no portable water, no electricity, no sidewalks and no infrastructure. This is common in Mexico. Work forty plus hours a week but live with out the basic needs to survive


                                     

          

                       NAFTA’s labor side agreement does not assign penalties for denying workers their right to form independent unions; Mexico could have been fined a percentage of its export earnings, for health and safety violations. Its time for the United States to actual do something about its border laws and make some real changes. The minute men are not the answer, neither is the tactics of the border patrol. More then two thousand people have died crossing the Desert trying to make a better life for themselves and their families in the past five years.             This needs to end now.

 

I just wanted to thank Border links for this great opportunity to learn and to discover the truth of border towns and the lives that many Mexicans fight threw every single day. Again thank you Border Links and all of their exceptional people who work and volunteer to this great cause.   

Click on pictures for a bigger version of the picture.

klb15@cox.net Border Links Kris Blackburn