The México-U.S. border as we know it today is the result of a war that took place over 150 years ago. Violence and the expansionist ambitions of the U.S. shifted the border southward so that in 1848 it was not Mexicans who crossed the border, but the border that crossed them. With that move, the United States began the consolidation of its hemispheric hegemony south of the border. The new geopolitical landscape forever marked the way each country would view itself in relation to the other.

This issue of ISLA's feature coverage focuses on the México-U.S. borderland, that is, an entire region spanning 3,000 kms. from Tijuana/San Ysidro on the Pacific Ocean to Matamoros/Brownsville on the Atlantic side. The region has its own cultural, environmental and political realities, distinct from those found in the central cities of México and the U.S. From the perspective of these centers, the border is a lawless "no man's land" where illegal activities of all sorts --from undocumented immigration to drug trafficking and prostitution-- take place. While these are certainly issues in the region, the borderland is above all a highly complex and dynamic area where the First and the Third worlds collide. Here, people live, work, and daily reinvent survival strategies to cope with difficult conditions, especially on the Mexican side of the line.

Five basic conditions characterize the borderlands:
1) Unequal but interdependent economies; 
2) Antagonistic government policies;
3) Different social value systems;
4) Cultures that clash and mix;
5) Xenophobic nationalism.

These polarizations set the stage for some of the main issues confronted by people not only at the border, but inland as well: immigration, environmental deterioration, and oppressive working conditions at the Mexican-based, maquiladoras. These are tariff-exempt assembly plants producing for export, usually owned by U.S. corporations. Of México's 10 million permanently employed workers, one million work in border maquiladoras, and 95% of whom are young women. These plants (over 3,000 operate along the border) are basically cut off from México's economy, since supplies are foreign and so are the markets. Only labor is local and, as discussed in several our feature coverage articles, workers struggle against wage discrimination, sexual harrassement and union busting. Our contributors are activists directly engaging the above-mentioned issues, who pay particular attention to the way people from both sides of the border can join in collaborative efforts to bring about social and economic justice. 

Addressing the border at the turn of the millennium offers a chance to examine larger but related issues, such as the consequences of laissez faire neoliberalism and globalization. After five years of NAFTA, the rift between the haves and have-nots is widening. NAFTA advocates argue that jobs are being created. But they fail to acknowledge how working conditions have become increasingly unfair and exploitative, especially for women. As Martha Ojeda, David Bacon and George Kourous duscuss in our feature coverage, labor organizing under NAFTA has become a critical issue for activists everywhere.

Another critical issue is that of immigration, one that can rarely be discussed objectively, since it tends to spark deeply rooted nationalist passions on both sides of the border. From the Mexican perspective, immigrants are "traitors to the homeland," yet they provide the country's major source of income after oil and tourism. In 1992, remittances by Mexicans working in the U.S. to their homeland amounted to over three billion dollars. From the U.S. perspective, Mexican (and other Latin American) immigrants are a threat to national security, cultural/linguistic integrity, and "rob" citizens of their jobs. Yet if all Mexican immigrant workers were to be deported today, the U.S. economy would be severely damaged.

Unfortunately, xenophobia tends to win in these debates, leading to the popularity of propositions such as 187 and 227 in California. At the border, General Attorney Janet Reno has personally overseen militarization measures such as "Operation Blockade" at El Paso, "Operation Safeguard" at Nogales, and "Operation Gatekeeper" at San Diego. As writer Susanne Jonas has pointed out, these measures do not stop the immigration flow; they only make it more dangerous and life threatening, since immigrants are forced to find routes through isolated mountains and deserts. The result: in California alone 391 people have died, most of them form exposure, since Operation Gatekeeper began in 1994. The operation has resulted in 630% increase in fatalities, while decreasing apprehensions by less than 1%. We urge our readers to write today to Attorney Reno to demand the end of these operations. Please send your letters to:

Attorney General Janet Reno
US Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington DC 20530-0001
 

The borderlands are a site of violence, but they are also a place of hope. We are able to affirm this due to the on-going work of many grassroots communities and nongovernment organizations that are creating cross-border networks for social justice. In this ISLA feature coverage we are proud to present several essays by activists closely engaged in the issues raised above, an interview with Martha Ojeda of the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras, and powerful photographs by David Bacon. Many thanks also to Rufino Domínguez of the Binational Oaxacan Indigenous Front (FIOB), and to George Kourous and Julie Schneider of the Interhemispheric Resource Center, for their contributions.

Antonio Prieto
June, 1999
 

Further reading

There is a vast literature on Border issues we could not hope to cover here. We suggest you visit the Resource Center of the Americas web site (http://www.americas.org/) , and go to their bookstore. You can search by subject and find many books on borders and immigration that can be ordered directly from them.

On immigration, we highly recommend the recently published Immigration: A Civil Rights Issue for the Americas, edited by Susanne Jonas and Suzie Dod Thomas, Scholarly Resources Books of Wilmington, Delaware, 1999.

On Maquiladoras, look for The Maquiladora Reader: Cross-Border Organizing Since NAFTA, edited by Rachel Kamel and Anya Hoffman, published by the American Friends Service Committee. This comprehensive book explores activism at the intersection of international labor organizing, women's empowerment, environmental and occupational health, and cross-border solidarity. For more information, go to http://www.afsc.org/maquiladora.htm.