Border Towns

Posted on January 20, 2003 in Immigration Vacations

This is my first Mexican trip past Ensenada. The people in Mexico City have been kind and friendly without resorting to the grabby tactics I know so well from Tijuana and other places on the south side of the friendly strands of barbed wire. For years, I have heard that the “real Mexico” begins well to the South of the border. I used to believe that the adage sounded too canned (Tecate and Agua Prieta, for example, are much calmer), but now I feel that I have begun to move beyond the influence of American culture and economics into a world where Mexicans run the world as they like it.

No country is perfect and I would not call Mexico an untainted paradise any more than I would say the same of the United States. (Only scoundrels taking refuge in patriotism would make such claims.) The converse is also true: every country has elements which may be praised.

How might I explain the difference between the Mexico of the borderline NAFTA runaway shops and that I have seen these last few days? I think I’ve provided part of the solution: these people live by their own rules. This inspires self-confidence. A second thought: the drunken youths and aged adolescents seldom come down this far. Mexicans who live in the border towns must deal with these types: often, they turn to violence. Third, the border attracts vile elements who would profit from many of our, perhaps, sillier laws, such as the ban on drugs and the idea that a human being can be illegal.

What of the pushiness of Tijuana street vendors? One word: desparation. They grab because we have money that they don’t have. The border is the poorest region of Mexico economically, politically, and in terms of liberty and self respect. This takes its toll on the psyche: human beings turn to methods which they would not employ if their hard work netted them results. They see Americans living what appears to be the “easy life”. We, of course, know better, but we should sympathize with the desire to see our efforts to create things for others (not merely increase the value of our stock) rewarded.

To heal two things, two things must happen: until they have the same freedom of passage that we enjoy, the border people must insist that we gringos must learn our place when we visit them. And second, we should rethink the policies that contribute to the wicked exploitation of humans by other humans.