Professor Joe Parker's Critical Community Studies Class Goes South of the Border

College students learn about border issues during weekend trip

TIJUANA, Mexico—After sitting in Claremont classrooms learning about US-Mexico immigration issues for more than two weeks, 20 college students made a weekend trip across the border to learn about the topic first-hand.

Two separate classes—one from Pitzer College and one from Colorado College—went to supplement information from lectures by their Claremont Graduate University, Pitzer and Colorado College professors. The trip consisted of border visits, a trip to a poverty-stricken community in the Tijuana Dump, and discussions with organizers at Casa del Migrante, an emigrant-assistance center that hosted the group during its visit.

The trip is one of several activities the classes are doing to examine issues surrounding illegal immigration, solutions to which are currently being hashed out in Congress. The House and Senate differ on what to do with the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants, with the House preferring a mix of enforcement and deportation, and the Senate instead focusing its effort on a guest worker program with a more mild mix of beefed-up border enforcement.

Last week, Minutemen Project founder Jim Gilchrist visited the Colorado College class to explain the purpose for his group, which for more than a year has drawn headlines for patrolling the border in armed convoys, spotting immigrants and reporting them to the border patrol. Lately the group has been constructing fences along the border.

Doug Monroy, a Colorado College professor, said he wanted students to learn that the US-Mexico relationship is difficult, and solutions to border issues lighting up the nation now are ambiguous at best.

"In my opinion, neither those who believe in an open border and those who believe in simply closing it really understand what's up," he said.

At the end of the trip, Colorado College student Pete Benoit said the poverty and desperate living conditions in Tijuana helped him understand why so many flock to the United States.

"I had a pretty good understanding of why Mexicans came to the US, but this definitely gives you the visual—you can see, hear and smell everything here in Tijuana," he said. "I can really understand why they don't want to be here."

Casa del Migrante

Casa del Migrante is designed to help men like Eleno Flores.

Mr. Flores had been deported from Lancaster only 3 days prior to the group's trip because he didn't have the proper paperwork to prove his legal resident status when he was arrested for DUI.

A US resident nearly his whole life, Mr. Flores was born in Tijuana to parents who were American citizens. He moved to California as a young child, graduated from North High School in Riverside, and gained legal resident status when he turned 18.

He has a family and children in California, and he owns his own home. Now, because of his mishap and misfortune, he's staying in Tijuana for at least 6 months before attempting to return. If he tries to return earlier, he said if caught he could face two to 5 years in federal prison.

In California, the certified welder earned more than $20 per hour. Now working as a security guard on the 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift, Mr. Flores makes—in total—the US equivalent of about $12.

While he waits to return home, Mr. Flores has been staying at Casa del Migrante rent-free; the nonprofit allows guests to stay up to 15 days.

On a recent Friday morning, Mr. Flores and a handful of fellow night-shift security guards waited for the center to open so they could get some much-needed rest.

Mr. Flores said he heard about the organization through a fellow deportee.

"They treat you pretty good in here," he said.

Since its inception in 1987, Casa del Migrante has hosted nearly 150,000 emigrants who are either making a final stop before jumping over the border or who have recently been deported.

On a hill in Tijuana, the 4-story center has space for up to 180 guests, and a volunteer corps of about 45 assists migrants by offering food, shelter, clothing, medical assistance and job opportunities.

The center also provides pamphlets to migrants with information on border-crossing dangers and tips on how to cross safely.

Casa del Migrante's open assistance to people with plans to cross the border illegally demonstrates the everyday reality of emigration in Mexico, particularly in Tijuana, Mr. Monroy said.

"It shows how Mexico takes emigration as a fact of life, and we might as well live with it," he said.

Canetera al Aeropuerto

Using Casa del Migrante as a home base, the students branched off to see border hotspots and other Tijuana landmarks.

After weaving through chaotic Tijuana traffic, the first stop for the group was a border site along Canetera al Aeropuerto, a major highway in Tijuana that abuts the border fence. Their guide, Casa del Migrante organizer Hector Fierro, took the group to see a memorial dedicated to migrants who died in the desert.

For miles, white crosses—each with the name of a dead migrant—dot the fence along the busy road. Many emigrants who died were never identified—their crosses read "no identificada."

"This is to remind [Mexicans] that [border-crossing death] is happening," Mr. Fierro said.

Among the miles of crosses were 10 coffins, each marked with a year and the number of emigrants who died trying to cross that year. In 1995, the first year represented, 61 emigrants died, but that number quickly increased to a high of 499 in 2000. In total, between 1995 and 2004, nearly 3000 have died, according to numbers on the coffins.

Students in the group were moved by the display, and had questions for Mr. Fierro. If the cross is so treacherous, why do Mexicans continue to flock over the border?

"There's no opportunity here, so they have to go to another country," he said. "I'm not promoting it, but the only reason they're going up is for work."

He said the Mexican government's poor policies have resulted in the nation's economic dysfunction. The lack of work in the country, he said, is a direct result of the poor economy, and can only be slowed by in-house reforms to the energy, oil and electricity sectors, among others. One major problem, he said, is that only 5 million of the country's 100 million-plus residents pay taxes.

But he said the Mexican population, as a whole, is sympathetic toward its brothers and sisters in the United States.

"We are against building a wall because all the people [in America] are helping the economy of the US. About 95 percent of agriculture workers in California are illegal, and [the state] knows that," he said. "If there were no people like them working, it would significantly increase the price of fruits and vegetables."

Mr. Benoit later reflected on Mexican emigration, saying that viewing the crosses and coffins helped him form a slightly deeper understanding of the issue.

"Going from Mexico to America for these people isn't a big deal, that's where the money is and that's where they need to go. It's not looked up or down upon—crossing the border is something that happens," he said. "I guess the biggest thing so far for me is that most Mexican immigrants have plans to make some money in the US then go back to Mexico."

Playas de Tijuana

After spending about 20 minutes at the border memorial, the group returned to the van for a short trip west to Playas de Tijuana, where the border fence drops into the Pacific Ocean, the US side heavily patrolled by border agents.

Along the way, the road descended into Canyon del Matadero—which translates to "Killing Canyon"—named so because scores of emigrants have died in the passage while trying to gain US entry, Mr. Fierro said. From the top of the canyon, the San Diego skyline and Coronado Bridge were clearly visible.

The road at the border at Playas de Tijuana ended right next to Plaza Monumental de Tijuana, a popular bullfighting ring. The group got out and walked along the border fence on the sand. The fence, unlike the solid barrier along most of Tijuana, consists of 20-foot-tall steel posts stuck firmly into the ground with about 6 inches of space between most rivets.

One group of young Mexicans was goofing around at the fence, sticking arms and legs through the larger gaps and taking pictures of each other.

One bold young man, 16-year-old Moises Villalobos Rocha, found a large gap in the fence, squeezed through to the US side, and began running around in the sand while his friends laughed and cheered him on.

The loud spectacle caught the attention of a US border patrol agent, who drove toward the wall in his Jeep to handle the situation.

Mr. Rocha, still acting like a clown to the delight of his ever-growing audience—including the American students—sat in the sand and waited for the agent to arrive.

The Jeep pulled to a stop right next to Mr. Rocha, but when the agent opened his door, the young man stood up and ran toward the fence. The agent drove away while Mr. Rocha and his friends laughed and yelled at him.

Emboldened by Mr. Rocha, more Mexicans squeezed through the fence and played on the US side.

Mr. Rocha said his trip across the border felt like going to the zoo or Disneyland.

I have no work. There," he said while looking across to the US side, "there's more money and gringos," a Spanish slang term for Americans.

While observing the scene across the border, Mr. Monroy, the chair of the department of history at Colorado College who is teaching the 10 CC students, expanded on his course—"The US-Mexican Border and Latino Immigrants of Southern California"—and discussed the complex issue. He said despite the current furor in America over the influx of illegal immigrants, nothing is likely to change; he said the debate between politicians is "mostly for show."

"This is a perfectly functioning system," he said. "It's inhumane, but it's perfectly functioning. It's perfectly functioning because Mexico gets to send its surplus labor—which is potentially revolutionary—to the United States. It gets all this money back.

"The United States gets Mexico's most vital workers and pays them cheaply. They are vulnerable people, they are not going to organize unions or make any trouble. Plus is gives right-wing politicians a lot of red meat to throw to the masses—'I'm going to solve this border problem.' Of course everybody knows that nothing is going to change."

Tijuana Dump

After finishing up at Playas de Tijuana, Mr. Fierro led the group toward the center of town for a visit to the Tijuana Dump, where a neighborhood sits directly adjacent to mounds of trash and other refuse.

The community consists mostly of families who earn a living by digging through the waste and finding recyclables—which they cash in—and other valuable raw materials. Many homes in the neighborhood are built with supplies from the dump, and the dirt roads and poor water and electric systems make clear that the area is in deep poverty.

Some remnants of emigration can be found even there, as among the poverty satellite dishes and brand new cars mark the families whose relatives have sent back money from the US.

"It was really strange seeing the technology there next to cardboard walls," said Elizabeth Weiss, a sophomore at Pitzer. She said her class—called "Critical Community Studies"—read a paper on the dump and its unique existence in the city.

Most students left the dump with feelings of sympathy for its inhabitants and a clearer understanding of why so many Mexicans leave for the US.

When you see the conditions here and in the US, you think, if you're laying bricks or mowing lawns in Mexico this is how you live, and if you go to the US this is how you live," Mr. Benoit said. "Obviously the US version is much better."

—Will Bigham
Claremont Courier