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. |