Border Trip Day 3: Learning About the Community From the Locals

On Sunday, May 8, we went to church. It is a church trip after all. St. Stephen's Episcopal Church stands on the only block in the US that has a church on all four corners (the others are Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist, I believe). It's a lot of Protestant churches in one place for a town of maybe 20,000, of whom 90% are Latino. The churches are nice old facilities, presumably built by Phelps Dodge, or whatever iteration of the mining company it was at the time. Seth Pollie is the vicar of both the Episcopal parish in Douglas, where he is the celebrant at the 9 a.m. service, and at the parish 23 miles away in Bisbee, where he is the celebrant at the 11 a.m. service. One look at Seth and you can tell he is not a Roman Catholic priest, accessorizing his collar with earrings and a pony tail. After the eucharistic service, we had a roundtable discussion with members of the community about life where they live - in Douglas and Agua Prieta. Had I known they were making us a full lunch buffet at 10:15, I wouldn't have loaded up at the Best Western's breakfast bar right before the 9 a.m. church service. But when people come for a visit in Douglas, this is what they do - cook.

Only about 15 people attended St. Stephen's this Sunday. I imagine this is normal. Those in attendance included the Chief of Police, a doctor or two, people who were new to the area, people who had grown up in the area, and people who returned to the area for its strong sense of community after years of living in big cities. A woman who had lived in Douglas for 66 years (since she was 4 years old) spoke of how the community changed from the days when the border was almost non-existent. She had a nanny for her children who was from "across the line". She drove her home one night, and realized she had house plants in the back of her car. Realizing that she would not be allowed back into the US with her houseplants if she drove them into Mexico, she left the plants at the border station with a guard. When she returned a short time later, another guard was working, and kindly helped her put the plants back into her car. It was that kind of casual, friendly community. The wall was just a small fence that extended a little bit out of town. One man spoke of having horse races, Mexico vs. the US, alongside the wall. At the time, 50 Border Patrol officers worked in Douglas. Today there are 600.

Alberto Melis is a Cuban-American who, after many years in law enforcement in Texas, became Chief of Police in Douglas. He referenced the case of rancher Rob Krentz, who was murdered last year on his sprawling ranch (though at 40 square miles, the Krentz ranch is smaller than many, he stated). There is widespread speculation that Krentz was murdered by a coyote (smuggler), although Chief Melis pointed out it has not yet been proven who killed Krentz or why. Chief Melis repeated several times that he did not know what the answer was to immigration or border issues, but he said that a wall is not the answer, in his view. He referenced previous walls, such as the Berlin Wall, more heavily armed than anything on the US border, where people still found a way across. He also pointed out that 20 years ago, the drug smuggling hot spot in the US was Miami, and today it is Arizona, and in a few years, it will likely be somewhere else. According to Melis, the resources spent on protecting our southwestern border are vast, with Border Patrol budgeting $10,000 A MONTH in tires for some vehicles that do heavy duty through the rugged terrain.

The group was not untouched by issues that have arisen related to immigration and the border. A doctor pointed out that, in spite of the walls, people still try to cross, and often end up injured and are transported to local hospitals before they are deported. The hospitals are not crowded by migrants, but nor are they reimbursed a profitable rate for treating such patients. Still, people valued the strong sense of community, including safety. Our priest from Trinity Cathedral who lead our trip said that when she lived in Agua Prieta, people from elsewhere would routinely ask her if she felt safe as a single gringa (foreign woman) living there. She said the biggest safety risk riding her bicycle around town were the stray dogs that would chase after her. And so many people told me when I announced I was going to "be safe", rather than "have fun", "learn lots", etc.

So let's take a look at the statistics for this small community of Douglas, where people walking by on the street say hi, and I felt like the odd man out not knowing anyone else in the local Safeway. A quick search at http://www.city-data.com/, a favorite reference site of mine, shows Douglas's crime rates to be below the national average, much below the average for large cities such as Phoenix or Detroit, and also, on the decline. And aside from what people hear on the news, there is another story to be told of life in border communities in Arizona from a project I worked on a few years ago called Border Kids Count. A study of Census and other data showed border community residents have strong roots, with homeownership rates similar to the rest of the state in spite of lower incomes. The drop-out rate for Latino teens in about half in border counties compared to the rest of the state. Foreign-born residents are more likely to be US citizens in border counties, and are more likely to have lived in Arizona for more than 10 years. And while a lack of economic development means slightly higher poverty rates for Latinos on the border, Anglos kids are 37% more likely to be in poverty than Anglo kids in the rest of AZ, showing that a lack of economic development hits a broad cross section of the community.

After church, we departed for a brief stop in Bisbee, lunch in Benson, and back to the Valley of the Sun. Bisbee is an old mining town that was hit hard econically, like Douglas, when the mine closed. Douglas replaced jobs at the smelter with more border patrol jobs, a state prison, and the various retail jobs from Agua Prieta residents coming across the border to shop at Wal-Mart and elsewhere. Bisbee, meanwhile, was taken over by hippies and artists, who loved the narrow, winding streets and turn-of-the-last-century buildings climbing up the steep hillside. See the bumpersticker photos from Bisbee! Lunch was in Benson at Reb's Cafe. Benson is a different world from Bisbee, being a railroad/truck stop/ranching town. Clearly Reb's Cafe's owners have a conservative/libertarian bent to their politics. All this coexists (usually) peacefully here in Arizona. :-)

Border Trip Day 2: Learning About Security, Witnessing Health, Promoting Unity

On Saturday, May 7, we headed to the Turquoise Valley Golf Club, Arizona's oldest, in Naco, a tiny village of about 800 people, on the border with Mexico about 10 miles SW of Bisbee. We had breakfast there at a "fundraiser" for Episcopal Border Ministries. At $10 a pop for breakfast, we expected some fruit and yogurt to be set out with coffee, but we were seated and served a sizeable breakfast burrito with a side of beans. We quickly learned that EBM isn't very good at fundraising, as $10 was their cost for breakfast, and if we desired, we could give them a little extra when we bought our tickets, but they didn't make a big push. As a non-profit worker myself, I was floored that they weren't shaking people down. We saw a video and learned about what EBM's efforts along the border.

After breakfast, we crossed the border in our rental van. We passed by the very attractive old border station (at right) that sits on the US side, and were stopped by Mexican officials. Sometimes Mexico stops drivers entering from the US, but generally they don't, and I had never previously been stopped. But as violence in Mexico's drug wars escalates, authorities there (and also, amazingly, US Border Patrol when people head south) are increasingly checking for caches of weapons...or caches of cash. Because of Mexico's restrictive gun laws, most of the weapons used by cartels come from the US. Mexican border agents were nice, but they did have us all leave the van while they pounded on it and opened up every possible compartment.

When we got to Naco, Sonora, MX, we went into the desert east of town (it's not much of a town, although it's much larger than Naco, AZ) to visit a water station that prevents migrants of dying from dehydration. I was not aware there were such water stations on the Mexican side. I know they have been controversially placed on the US side by human rights groups, and while there are some closer to Tucson, I was told there aren't any in Cochise County as folks who don't approve have vandalized the water tanks. We hiked about a quarter mile off a road to the water tank, which is easily identifiable for migrants by its tall blue flag that rises above the mesquite. As this was only a quarter mile from the border wall, it seems the flag would not only signal water for migrants, but for US Border Patrol, would signal the location of migrants. I never got a good answer for why they put the water station so close to the border. From the water station, we hiked up to the wall, finding abandoned water bottles, clothes, and packing of various sorts along the way. We saw evidence of campfires. We were at a point where the old wall meets the new wall. The new wall consists of ~15' tall metal beams sticking out of the Earth, filled with concrete, so they cannot be rammed down easily with a truck. The beams are placed very close together, with enough space between them to let flood waters flow (in fact, where we were standing was a drainage wash) and small animals migrate through. Humans and larger animals cannot get through, including jaguars which historically inhabit the Chihuahuan Desert, but which are almost never seen in Arizona anymore. The old fence was about 7' of solid but thinner metal, with horizontal corrugation that allowed it to be easily climbed. In fact, one of my fellow travelers did so to test it out. We were accompanied to the desert by a Mexican family that was refilling the water jugs, and mom had stayed behind while her boys hiked with us to the wall. My heart skipped a few beats when the Mexican boys saw my co-traveler Rob climb the wall, and decided it looked fun enough for them to try. As they got to the top and their heads peaked over, I pulled them down.

We had a conversation about the wall throughout our trip. Many border and humanitarian activists are against it (and some environmentalists). The Douglas Chief of Police and the Vicar of the Episcopal parishes in Bisbee and Douglas referenced Hadrian's Wall (the Vicar was heading to England and it was on his mind), which did not completely stop conflict or strife between England and Scotland. A more recent example is the Berlin Wall, which had far more guards than this border wall, guards who shot to kill. Yet many still defected across it, and many others died attempting to do so. We heard stories of teenagers using simple catapults to smuggle drugs over the US border wall, and boats going around the wall at Tijuana, where it goes into the ocean. There are certainly examples of walls improving security, including at parts of the US-Mexican border, and between Israel and Palestine, where the wall has reduced terrorist bombings but does not stop mortar fire. But while walls can improve security, they do not end conflict. They are not a permanent and final solution, but they serve as a stopgap measure when humans can't seem to figure out (or don't want to) what the long term solution is.

After visiting the wall, we visited a Casa Saludable, Spanish for "health house." Here a nurse's assistant helps residents of Naco, Sonora, get preventive care by managing their diabetes and providing pap smears along with a few other basic health services. The Casa Saludable appears to be funded through Mexican public health funds as well as support from various border ministries. Mexican border towns, due to the transient nature of their inhabitants, are widely believed to be undercounted in Mexican censuses. This means that border communities in northern Mexico often do not get their rightful share of resources. Compounding this is a great rural divide. Many urban dwellers (as I am) do not understand the urban-rural economic divide within our own country, and the Mexican middle class (whose existence certainly surprises many in the US, I'm sure) seems concentrated in bigger cities. We heard stories of those in Agua Prieta, Naco, and Cananea a little further in having to drive four hours to the Sonoran capital of Hermosillo to get their kidney dialysis. Things are a little better in the US, but urban residents in our own country likely don't think much of the great lengths rural residents have to travel to get specialized medical care.

Still later, we participated with about 30 others who crossed the border at Naco for an interfaith procession together with our neighbors. Perhaps 80 or 100 Mexicans met us on their side of the border, and we marched around town with balloons and a banner that said "God Has No Borders." It was a feel-good event that ended in the town plaza, where vendors sold us paletas (Mexican fruit popsicles), menudo, various other food items, and handicrafts. A mustachioed man who reminded me of Congressman Raúl Grijalva (no, it wasn't him) came up to tell us that the man driving the train full of children in the procession is himself a mafioso. I certainly wouldn't dismiss the allegation, nor would I take one person's word, not knowing who may have an ax to grind against whom in this town. The man that told us was a Vietnam veteran who had lived on both sides of the border, and had recently moved to Naco, Sonora. The Mayor, a diminutive but energetic man, was present throughout the procession and in the plaza after. The Mayor's wife heads the social services for the town, not due to nepotism on his part, but this job is traditionally given to the Mayor's wife in Naco.

The day ended with reflection, relaxation, and good conversation over dinner in Bisbee, an old mining town 10 miles north of the border.

Border Trip Day 1: How People Are Helping Deported Migrants & Would-Be Migrants

On May 6, we loaded the 15 passenger van to head south (well, southeast). I got to know my fellow travelers, including a priest from Brooklyn who was at a church on Wall Street when the twin towers fell on 9-11. As tragic as the story was, it was worth hearing from someone who was just a few hundred yards from ground zero, and it was heartening to know that none of the children in the child care center at the church lost a parent that day (miracle?).

Lunch was at the Restoration Project in Tucson, which is an ecumenical community working a lot with detained migrants. They served us a great lunch, and told us stories of refugees and asylum seekers who were detained sometimes for years. These folk are not criminals, so there is no prohibition from keeping them without being charged, and they also have no equivalent to a public defender to make their case to a court that they should be granted asylum. When migrants are released, some have lived in detention in the US for years (such as the Cubans who arrived during the Mariel Boatlift), and when they are dropped off at a Greyhound Bus station a few blocks from Restoration Project's Casa Mariposa, it may be the first time in years they have been free, and their first taste of freedom in the US. Casa Mariposa provides them a place to stay when they are released.

After checking into the new Best Western in Douglas, AZ, we crossed the border in our van to Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico. Our first stop was Just Coffee, or Cafe Justo in Spanish. This coffee cooperative was founded by a microloan from the Presbyterian Border Ministry in Agua Prieta called Frontera de Cristo. With this cooperative, the coffee growers in the southern Mexico state of Chiapas own the entire process, from growing coffee beans to roasting them to packaging and distributing them. Coffee is the second most traded commodity in the world (can you guess the first? Our van used a lot of it to get us down there), and there are lots of "middlemen", and of course, speculation that causes prices to be pretty volatile. I also learned that pre-roasted coffee beans can keep for long periods of time, and when coffee prices are low, beans are stored away, and when prices are high (as they have been the last couple years), you are likely drinking coffee that was stored for 20 years before it was roasted. Just Coffee prides itself on fresh coffee. The growers earn about a third more per pound than most growers, and unlike any other grower they know of, get health insurance and a pension. That means they don't have to carry 150 lb burlap sacks of coffee beans on their back until they are dead. This has allowed coffee farmers to stay in Mexico and not have to migrate to the US. You can read the stories of the individual farmers in Chiapas, and the workers at the roasting facility in Agua Prieta, on Just Coffee's website. Last year, Just Coffee sold 70,000 lbs. of coffee, just a drop in the pot of the global coffee market. But it's a good start. And it's good coffee. I bought the premium Marago coffee, and had some today. It's delish. They mostly sell via internet shipments, which cross the border and are shipped from Douglas, AZ. Many churches, especially in Arizona, sell Just Coffee as well. It's pretty reasonable, too.

After learning about Just Coffee at their Agua Prieta roasting and packaging facility, we visited a resource center for deported migrants in a non-descript building immediately next to the border station in Agua Prieta. Deportations are down significantly in AP, as the number of migrants apprehended has fallen, and US Customs and Border Protection is grouping people together for large deportations at specific points rather than sending them immediately back where they crossed. Certain populations, such as those with a medical condition, may still be immediately deported at the nearest port of entry. Generally, the US government literally drops the people at the border, as flying them to the interior of Mexico is more expensive (though may reduce the rates of people trying to return). Since hiring a "coyote" (smuggler) to help cross the border is extremely expensive, most people who have done this have sold everything they own and left family behind. They have no resources and no way back home. The migrant resource center helps them with this.

After the migrant resource center, we visited a shelter for migrants run by La Sagrada Familia Catholic Church in Agua Prieta. Due to the low deportation numbers lately there, we met just a few migrants, but had some interesting conversations. I don't know if they told us their entire stories, but I do know that some migrants were heading north and some were heading south. Most had been deported. One was Polish and deported from Chicago to his native Poland. Trying to get back to family in Chicago, he boarded a flight to Mexico City, and somehow made his way to AP. Presumably, he will hire a coyote to try crossing. I had dinner at a table with a man who crossed the border near Deming, NM, almost 20 years ago, when the border there was almost non-existent. He did not need to hire anyone to smuggle him. He lived in Denver, mostly doing day labor. He enjoyed it, and felt he had all his needs met while living in the US, far more than in Mexico. However, he also told stories of living under a bridge, and his deportation was a matter that he disputed. Drugs fell out of a bag and onto the ground, and he claims they belonged to his friend, who was never deported, and that he knew nothing of them. He was headed back to the Mexican state of Chihuahua to be with family. Another man I met was married to an Anglo woman in rural southern Utah. They had children together, and due to a dispute with his father-in-law that he would not elaborate upon, he ended up getting deported. He spoke English extremely well. Still another man worked as an auto mechanic just down the street from where I live in Phoenix.

In this day and age when information travels the world in milliseconds and goods and services are traded daily, nobody should have to leave their homeland to be able to support their family. There have been economic migrants from the beginning of humankind, but in our hemisphere this has intensified in recent years with the globalization of our economies. We saw one small way that people can stay in their homeland and still provide for themselves and their families, and we met people who went to the US in search of a better life, only to end up back home or somewhere else. Admittedly, they are not all perfect humans. And not every Mexican (or Pole) dreams of moving to the US, nor feels the need. Clearly the men I met had a spirit of adventure as well. And at no point did I feel threatened or unsafe, nor did I feel that anyone deported that I met had the slightest thought of doing harm to others.

Blogging the Border: why and where I went, and with whom

A few months back, I saw at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral (where I go to church) that one of our priests was planning a trip for parishioners to the Arizona-Mexico border. She used to work for Border Links, an organization that leads educational and inspirational trips to the US-Mexican border. In addition to previous vacations for pleasure to beaches and other parts of Mexico, I had gone with my previous congregation, Valley Presbyterian Church, to Sonora, Mexico, before on a similar trip.

I speak Spanish, and it's no surprise to those who know me that I am partial to the mountains and high deserts of southern Arizona. I set out the weekend of May 6-8 with 6 other people from my church, plus the priest, one person from Tucson, and three people who flew out from Brooklyn, NY. The trip was not only enjoyable, but meaningful. I knew I wanted to re-activate this old blog to tell the story, but I wasn't sure what the story was...how do I frame it? Was it about the migrants I met, the wall I saw, the long time members of the communities on both sides of the border who call this place home? Was it the inspring conversation and learning, or the motivation given to me by people who felt called to come to this place, call it home, and make life better? It's taken me a while, and although I consider myself to normally have decent writing skills, I still do not know what to say or how this will turn out. But I know I have to get my thoughts down and tell of my experiences before I forget. And who will read this? Who knows! But here it is. (more to follow on http://mattsmadlymusings.blogspot.com)

Testing 123

I'm trying to reactivate this blog after more than 2 years. Is it working?