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ANAPRA: an Anatomy of the Border

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ANAPRA: an Anatomy of the Border 258 ARCHIPELAGOS: OUTPOSTS OF THE AMERICAS ANAPRA: An Anatomy of the Border CHRISTOPHER CALOTT University of New Mexico R71pre a71 ecotone occurs. there 1s nlo7-e lge and life 1s Border. He said that Ciudad Juarez was a Ierj beautiful cit! full louder because ~ILOor more groups ofplant5 and anmals of friendlj Uorteno people. If they lilted. it would be \el? eas! 01ellap, boost~nglfe's pitch and intensit>,. The border IS to find high-pajing ~{orltthere. He also carefully mentioned noic a place ~cherea huge ecotone offlesh and capltal that it was close to the Lnited States. in the event that the! and guns IS rubhng up against ltselfas tlto cultures and might nant to take a "~acatiori"there too. He emphasized that. ttt o economies and tlco languages nleet and mingle and there vasn't anything to lose. The trip would cost them nothing. erupt into something Ice cannot ?et name. - Charles Bo\\den, Juarez: Traveling north to Juarez. across the seeminplj-. endless. harsh The Laboratoq of our Future Chihuahua11 desert. 4na thought she was looking at the most barren place in the ~+orld.She sav a landscape that Isas bleak and treeless. She sat+ no green like the lush tropical rain forests of her home. The mighty Rio Brayo. called the Rio Grande on A BUS CAME TO VERA CRUZ: Ah!4'S STORY . - the CS side. was dr!. Passing through the squalid colonia neighborlioods with houses fashioned from discarded wood As for most Fronterizos. lna's Border story begins in a small pallets. cardboard and tin. she \\ondered mhat kind of people aillage a Lery long bus ride auaj from where she is now. might- live here. The enormous maquiladora factories lthich dotted the cit! seemed a hundred times larger than the liggest Economic prospects uere poor for ha. a young girl \%ith 13 building she had prexiously ltnown. the Cathedral on the Plaza siblings who grew up on a xanilla farm in a hillside encamp- in Vera Cruz. Vreadj she could hauntingly tell that. thih was a ment near Papantla in \ era Cruz State. By the age of elexen. landscape fundarnentall! altered for business - \el? big busi- she Mas ahead! out of school and begging on the streets of \era ness and lots of it. The hot. dust! bus trip had taken o~erfive Cruz cit~.It one point. 4na tool' four hour bus rides to Yera dqs. it stopped frequentlj in \illage plazas along the wap. Cruz seleral dais a week to search for da! labor cleaning recruiting other '"~acationers".In tlie earlj exening she and houses or sometimes. cleaning fish. Often she ipent the night Jose were dropped off or1 the main plaza in downto~tnJuarez. on the back alle! street9 around the central Plaza de lrmas. amidst prmtitutes and drug dealers. begging for food arid Inone! from the nunierouq hard-drinking tourists uho sat under the Plaza's acti~e portal^. It uas here that hapresentl! lkes at tlie Cas'd Pereglina. a shelter for abused hafiid met .lose. and hornelecs wornen in the Ceritro District of Juarez. It is the on14 refuge of its hind in this citj of ox er 1.5 million people and Jose nas another farrnuorlter casualt! n ho had dritted to \ era houses onl~about fortyfixe uoinen and children. This mas Cruz from Zacatecas searching for better opportunities. Ina Ina's second sta! here since she had arri~edin Juarez ior he1 called liiiri her -'husband". thougli it \\as apparent that the! lacation uith Jose. hacould not remember hov man\ years uere not married. For a \+orxian to suni~eon the &etch> street. ago that \\as. Shortl! after arri~ingin Juarez. Jose left her fol of this rough port cit!. haneeded to corder special alliances. anothei \\oman. Ina quicldq got a job in the Delphi automotive haand Jose had onl! known each other for a fe\\ months plant worl~irlg on the assernhl, line fabricating chasais. She ~clientlie~ met the man from the hu\. worked .ix da\s a weel' to earn about $40 and \\as fair~ng\\ell at her job until she r\as fired for refusing the ad\ances of her One e\ming. as \ria and Jose sat in a dlml! lit corner of the line manager. Thi. Ma. \\hen she first came to Casa Peregrind. plaza. a man stepped off of an old !ellov L.S. ithool bu. and She mas hele for a cecond time no\\ as a means to sa\e enough asked tliern if the! vould like to tale a free '"\atation" to the rnone? to e\entuallj rent an apartment of her olln. 92nd ACSA ANNUAL MEETING MIAMI FL MARCH 18-21,2004 259 The niaquiladord how?> piekr to hiie nomen a< the! can pa! statu-. This niaquiladora migiatiori plieriomenon ha< made the111 I~ssthan men arid e\erjbod~he~c I\rlo\ts that the! die Juarcz-El Paso. with a population of ole1 2.5-iriiUiori. the much ]letter ~orl\ei>.I typi~alrnayuila \torl\daq starts at 6 am. la~gestborder coirirnunit! in the ~lorld.gro\\ing at a rate of 5Vn and ends at 4 p.m.. tor the da! shift. 1 20°/0 portion of tlieii a !ear. It if the inigiation stoq that most 41neiicans do not hear $-ZO/\teek salai! is \\ithheld ah an on-time bonus. paid onl~if about. the one that stops just slioit of the Border and gro~fand A " the! show up hefo~ethe doorb cloye proinptl! at 6 am. in the gionb. En~ironineiitall!. this unclieclted giowth in Juarez-El moining. all neeh. If the wne uorlier 11os~essesone of the Paso has nreaked ha~oron ail quality. inciedsed the spredd of co~etedIininigration and \aturalizatioii Smite laws aid diseaie arid imperiled their shaied Hurco Aquifer nhich is passage permits. \+hich allo\t. traxel up to 20 miles into the IS scheduled to be depleted in just 13 jears This is all tlie result interior to shop oi go to school on a dailj basis. she might of hierican factories. Iirioxvn as inaquiladoras. iet up across the illegall! earn up to $80/da! in El Paso cleaning houses. This Border to benefit from loads of cheap Mexicar1 labor. card is xirtuall! impossible to attain as one rnust proxe a significant salarj and homeonnership. The pressure on the This is not the first time America has called upon Ilexico's Border is pure11 economic. arid a little on the LS side goeb a workers to get us out of a jam. % ith the outbreak of WTX 11. the long \taV in Ilexico. The motibation for shj thousands die in P; ar Food ldininistration established the Bracero Program in the desert each year trjing to cross this abstract line in the sand 1943 to recruit much needed agricultural labor from AIexico to is clear. support the US war effort. A neu wave of migrants crossed the Border froin Mexico under the official auspices of the LS For most who arri~rhere from the rural interior. nothing go~ernment.The current migrant labor trends in California's possiblj prepares them for the mechanics of modern industrial massixe agricultural Central \alley. uhich emplojs oler urban life. The \$orb is endlesslq repetitive and precise; it is not 750.000 Mexican xt orliers year]!. \+ereset in motion during the derived from the seasonal exchanges of agricultural life. Tivst Bracero !ears. 4dditionallp. industrial production in Mexican iri bank accounts. pa!ing rent to ruthless landlords and making border cities uas also stimulated b\ the \tar as the labor force in mane\ are new religions found here. Traditional religion. tliat Juarez doubled during this time. The Bracero Program .c+asso force uhicli organized the meaning of dailj life in the campo. iq successful that this bilateral agreement uas acti~elypromoted hard to find. Additionall!, the availability of such new freedoms until 1964. -211 sanctioned bl the US go~ernrnerit.the tlartime as expendable cash. liquor. drugs and sex has turned their flou of inexpensive llexican labor north to both the Mexican world upside do\+n.This is a dangerous uorld x+herewomen are and LS border states and beyond rnarlted the beginning of the routinely raped. killed and discarded. out of contempt in this economic and social profile of the current borderlands. ~nachismoculture uliere it is thought tliat momen might be participating a little too successfullq in the econo~nicgains from Through tlie Bracero Prograrn neie sown the seeds for h4FT4 the maquilas. dna \till not go out in the exenings in Ciudad and the modern maquiladora industries at the Border. AIo~ed Juarez. wary of the murders: she believes the city is full of bad b! the twin goals of stimulating the manufacturing sector in the people. northern states and providing employment for the large number of uorliers returning to hlexico through the ending of the Ina is one of the oler 3 million female maquila workeis Bracero Program in 1964, the Mexican go~ernmentestablished struggling to rnalie sense of the Border. She is no\\ trapped in a the Border Industrialization Program in 1963. The main feature xicious. debilitating work cycle and cannot go hack home. she iq of this program was the creation of inaquiladoras. asse~nbly ashamed of hat's hecome of her. Ina's Border stoq is riot plants that imported component- and rat goods from the LS. unique. It is roughl! the same for countless other disconnected assembled them into finished products. and then exported them souls who ha~earii~ed here fro~nbankrupt. rural killages to back across the border.
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