La Linea

County officials in Pennsylvania are considering shutting down the only other family immigrant detention facility in the nation — the 84-bed Berks facility. This could derail Department of Homeland Security plans to  send the 127 people locked up in the T. Don Hutto Family Detention facility in Taylor. DHS announced plans to stop imprisoning families at the Hutto facility on August 6.

In these tough economic times, the county’s officials are looking for ways to cut back on costs. According to a story in the county’s local paper the Reading Eagle, which I noticed during my daily perusal of Bender’s Immigration Bulletin, the county just can’t make a profit anymore off keeping immigrant families behind bars.

“At the initial stages we were permitted to make a profit, but now we are breaking even on it,” Commissioner Chairman Mark C. Scott told the paper. “We have been helpful to the federal government for a decade. Everything is on the table in terms of cost cutting. We are in the process of shrinking county government,” he said.

The center, which generates more than $3 million in income annually for the county, costs $5.6 million a year to operate. The tab is paid for by the federal government. The county is only making $144,000 on leasing the facility to the feds.

Many folks, including myself, were glad to see that Hutto would no longer be a jail for children whose families are awaiting decisions on their immigration status. However, the victory has been bittersweet because the Obama Administration has continued the Bush Administration’s policy of placing children and families in detention centers. If Obama won’t end this terrible immigration policy, maybe the economy will.

Too often the border gets a bad rap and it bugs me. Just Google the term U.S.-Mexico border and some of the first words that will pop up are: war, drugs, violence, narcotraffickers…you get the picture. Our southern border is everyone’s favorite piñata –journalists, conservatives and the like get a thrill out of whacking it with a rhetorical stick. 

But the border is more than that bleak picture so many of us read about in the newspapers or see on cable TV. It has its own unique culture: a mixture of Mexican, indigenous and Anglo traditions and languages that fascinates me. It is also one of the most traveled international borders in the world  — a place that more than 15 million people call home. Every year the population continues to grow on both sides of the border.  And every year businesses there generate billions of dollars for the American and Mexican economies. It is also home to parks like Big Bend and the Coronado National Monument where people come from all over the world to see the unique biodiversity of the desert.

Now that I sound like a one woman chamber of commerce, I’ll say that I have lived just about my entire life within close vicinity of the border: first in San Diego, then New Mexico and now Texas. The 1,254-mile border that Texas shares with Mexico is what brought me here. I set out to become a news reporter who specialized in writing about the border region. I wanted to dig beneath the “border town” stereotypes and try to show another side of  life there.  I worked in McAllen as a news reporter and reported on the Big Bend region for the Odessa American. I also served several years as a policy analyst and media flak for Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, a Democratic Senator from the Texas border. I live in Austin now, but the border always draws me back, and I travel frequently there and to Mexico for work and to visit family and friends.

In Mexico they sometimes refer to the United States as el otro lado – the other side of La Linea. Out west it’s a line in the desert. Further east the line becomes a river that twists and turns through Texas before emptying into the Gulf of Mexico. I still get a thrill when I stand on the banks of the Rio Grande and just 20 feet away is Mexico and the gateway to Latin America and the southern hemisphere.

I want to focus on many issues: immigration, the environment, politics, culture, health and homeland security, just to name a few right off. I hope this blog can be a place to discuss some of the stereotypes and myths that are unfairly pinned on the border by national media and people who have never spent a day in a town on the southern border. I also hope to hear from folks on the border who have something to say about what’s happening in their communities – what they think is pure bull and what isn’t.

Maybe this is a tad too ambitious. If you think I am contributing to those myths and stereotypes myself let me know. Write, text or twitter for that matter; just be civil is all I ask. Español is welcome as is Espanglish and good ol’ English too. Andale, pues…

As the economic crisis unfolds arts and cultural institutions are slashing expenses and struggling to remain alive. The story is no different in Mexico, though theater groups in Mexico City have come up with a novel way to survive. In the past year a movement has started where small theater groups perform in people’s apartments or homes. The amount of money saved by not having to rent a theater is making a huge difference for theater groups trying to make it through lean times, says Mariana Garcia Franco, director of the theater group “C”.

On a recent evening I was invited to see Garcia’s group perform in a friend’s apartment. Each person attending was asked to pay $80 pesos (about $6 bucks). There were two actresses: Alicia Martin and Maricela Penalosa who performed an hour-long untitled play.

There were 17 people in the audience and we all crammed into my friend’s apartment to watch the show. The play was very abstract and also visceral and athletic at times. Both of the characters were battling some type of mental anguish and at times it made me feel uncomfortable to be so close. The actresses were so good they embodied their two characters completely. They also did not appear to be nervous at all. (No small feat when you are performing in someone’s living room surrounded by your audience.) At some points the two characters would seem to be addressing us and they would sit amongst the audience. They were firmly locked inside the play though and it was a little like being a fly on the wall in a lunatic asylum. This might sound jarring or awful but it actually was a really good theater experience.

Garcia, the theater group’s director, says they are booked just about every week performing in someone’s home. “Usually someone from the audience will ask us to come to their home and perform,” she says. “And it spreads by word of mouth.” There are also several other theater groups in Mexico City performing on a weekly basis including a group called Teatro Instantaneo where the actors write the play as they go along with the help of the audience.

It’s heartening to see that theater groups in Mexico City are thriving instead of letting the economic crisis close them down.

It’s no secret that the 18-foot steel border wall is devastating the environment and disrupting wildlife corridors along our southern border. Environmentalists and landowners have filed lawsuits in federal court — to no avail — in order to compel the Department of Homeland Security to lessen the destructive impacts of the wall.

The Sierra Club commended 43 congressional members today for sending a letter to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano. The members ask DHS to work with other agencies to lessen the impacts of the wall, fund efforts to buy comparable land for wildlife and provide environmental training for their employees.

In the letter, the congressional members wrote the following to Napolitano: “As you are aware, hundreds of miles of new border fences and patrol roads have been constructed by DHS along the US/Mexico border in the past several years. This massive federal project has had deleterious consequences upon natural and cultural public resources, and has caused hardship for private land owners, whose lands have been condemned and livelihoods have been disrupted.”

Already $50 million has been allocated to borderlands mitigation, the congressional members note, but far more funding will be necessary to address the extent of the damage done, they wrote.

Besides the damage done there is also the cost of upkeep. We are now the owners of a 670-foot long steel wall which costs anywhere from $2 million to $11 million a mile. Besides the environmental degradation and the destruction of wildlife we will also being paying to keep it upright. The Congressional Research Service estimated it might cost up to $16,000 a mile just to  keep the wall intact.

 

A sign created by Mexico’s Secretary of Health on how to avoid the spread of influenza.

Just four months ago the streets of Mexico City were nearly desolate — no small feat in a city of 23 million. Schools, restaurants and other public areas were shuttered. The country was in a near panic over the spread of swine flu  (H1N1). It’s incredible what a difference four months can make. Upon arrival at the Mexico City airport I was asked to fill out a form detailing whether I had a fever or cough. Luckily, I had neither and turned my form into an extremely bored looking airport employee upon entering customs.

The only trace of the pandemic at the airport were signs created by the government advising people to wash their hands and not greet others with a kiss on the cheek as is custom in Mexico.  As I headed toward Mexico City’s massive and impressive zocalo– a huge plaza at the center of the city — I would see an occasional person wearing a disposable surgical mask. Millions of these masks  were given out during the height of the H1N1 scare. Inexplicably, I saw one man wearing the mask around his neck as if it were some kind of magic good-health talisman.

As I headed into Sanborns — a huge department store, I saw a European family wearing the disposable surgical masks and snapping photos. It was unsettling to see them walking around in masks, but after weeks of alarming news stories about the flu in Mexico it was understandable.    Of course,  in public health school I learned that these masks do little to prevent the influenza virus from infecting you — the virus is small enough to pass through the porous holes in the mask.  (I think the Mexican government was smart in passing out the masks, however, in order to quell some of the panic around the H1N1 virus.)

While the flu has disappeared from the minds of most Mexicans, there are still cases being confirmed by the government’s Secretary of Health. In the agency’s most current update — July 17th — there were 98 new cases — down from the peak of 391 in early May. To date there have been 14,861 cases confirmed and 138 deaths.  The United States has the highest number of confirmed flu cases at 40,617 and 263 deaths (24 of the deaths occurred in Texas.)

While public health officials monitor the H1N1 situation, Mexicans have more pressing concerns on their minds including escalating narco violence and the resurgence of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) which ruled the country for 70 years. In the recent mid-term elections in early July, the PRI won a majority in Congress. Many Mexicans I’ve spoken with are despondent about the PRI’s resurgence. They blame the PRI for many of the country’s current economic and social problems.

A sign of this discord is growing in Tepoztlan, just south of Mexico City, where my husband’s family lives. In early July a candidate for the PRI, Gabino Rios Cedillo, won the mayor’s race after 9 years of the more liberal PRD serving in the mayor’s office. In Tepoztlan, political activists are working to join all of the losing parties together to overthrow the PRI candidate. Last Sunday cars with loud speakers circulated in the city enjoining residents to prevent Rios from taking office. There have been all kinds of accusations surrounding his win — including that he paid for the votes. Residents are hoping the political fracas doesn’t develop into something more bloody.

There is definitely an uneasy feeling these days in Mexico — no one can predict what will happen and there are so many challenges facing the country. Mexicans have lost what little hope they gained in their political system in 2000 when the PRI was toppled.

Tepoztlan, Mexico — For decades Mexico’s beautiful rural countryside has been choked by plastic bottles and bags. Mexico has been slow to adopt municipal recycling programs because of the cost and lack of infrastructure. In one small town an hour south of Mexico City, however,  city leaders have started a recycling program to try and save money and help protect the environment.

The small town of Tepoztlan, population 33,000,  is fighting to keep it’s scenic mountains green and its waterways clear of plastic bottles and shopping bags.

Every weekend the population of the town nearly doubles with tourists visiting from nearby Mexico City. The trash generated by the growing city and its busy tourist trade brought the town’s landfill to the “brink of collapse in 2007″ said Efren Villamil Demesa, Tepoztlan’s mayor.

“We had to come up with a solution quickly because we were running out of room,” said Villamil. The town is nestled in a valley and surrounded by jagged mountains. “There wasn’t anywhere left to go,” he explained.

In 2007, the town started a recycling program. Villamil said the city has spent more than $4 million pesos (approximately $308,000 USD) from its treasury on the recycling program. They bought three trucks and designated a center for separating the trash to be recycled. The service is free, he said. The city has also invested at least $1 million pesos in educating the population about recycling.

“We’ve had people go door to door to show residents that they can recycle glass and plastic,” said the mayor. “The most difficult thing is convincing the older people to recycle because they are used to the old ways of just throwing the trash in a creek or river.”

Businesses that cater to tourists in Tepoztlan are also striving to be green. Norma Avedano, the manager of Cacao, a chocolate store, says her business only uses biodegradable to go containers. “The containers cost more but we are trying to make an effort to help the environment so it’s worth it,” she said. Avedano says her store also participates in the city’s recycling program.

Villamil said Tepoztlan and one other neighboring town are the only two cities in the entire state of Morelos that have recycling programs.  “So far we think it’s been a success,” he said. “We’ve reduced the amount of garbage going into the landfill by 40 percent.”

The millions of pesos generated by tourism are also on the line if Tepoztlan becomes another garbage strewn suburb of Mexico City. The world’s 3rd largest city of 23 million looms just on the other side of the scenic mountain peaks of Tepoztlan.

“We’re so close to Mexico City,” Villamil said. “So we are always reminded that we need to do all we can to protect the environment.”

Norma Avedano, manager of a Tepoztlan cafe, says her business pays extra for biodegradable containers to help the environment.