El Paso, Texas: the 4th poorest metropolitan area in the U.S. Actually it is the poorest such region in the country with a population over 100,000. A walk across the border to Juarez, Mexico, and you walk into even deeper 3rd-world poverty, but there is already a "third world" here in the U.S., like in El Paso, Texas.

This is where I found myself in late March, wearing clothes rather more expensive than I usually do, and being put up in a luxury hotel, as part of my paid campus interview for a faculty position at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). My interviews seemed to go well, or so I thought, until I later found out how "politics" of another form would intervene, opposing educational reform (it's just those dumb mexican students, not our bad teaching, please), so I ended up taking a faculty position elsewhere.

I did, however, see and learn many things during my stay of almost a week. Although I didn't bring my camera, I did take notes on my experiences, the sights I saw, and the people I met.

The longest leg of my journey from central New York to El Paso was the flight from Newark, New Jersey, to Houston, Texas, which was some three hours long. As it turned out, seated right next to me was a Mexican national who spoke very little English. Although I hadn't had much occasion to speak Spanish for almost ten years -- since courses in high school and junior high in fact -- this was my chance to see how well I could get by in my rusty Spanish.

My first sentence upon discovering that he spoke very little English, was that according to my card, he was sitting in the seat that was assigned to me but "no es problemo" so I sat next to him in the window seat instead. Although we never did end up exchanging our names, we did spend much of the flight talking (in Spanish, save for a handful of words) and getting to know each other.

My neighbor was just back from New York City on a tour with his brothers. They were musicians playing a music called "Tropica'l" and he was on his way back to Mexico City where he lives with his family. I later found out my traveling companion was a practicing lawyer, whose first love is music.

He explained though, that the popularity of the music he played went in cycles, "up and down" (he indicated by gesticulating, since I couldn't quite follow the Spanish). So he practiced law to support his family when there was a down-swing in musical popularity... and when there was more demand, he would travel and play, as he just did in the Big Apple.

We got talking a little about Mexico City. I told him that I hear the pollution is quite bad there, and wondered what he could tell me about that aspect of life. He said that in Mexico City, the pollution is so bad that each person is assigned a "color" which stands for a single day of the week. On that day alone you may drive a car. The rest of the time you use public transportation -- if you walk or drive a motorcycle and are then stopped at a stop sign, my neighbor gesticulated how that is very dangerous: muggers are likely to beat you and grab your watch and valuables, and take off with your scooter or motorcycle.

March 01 correction: someone wrote in to explain it
is only one day a week you are NOT allowed to drive your car, not the
other way around. He added that some people buy a second car 
so they can drive 7 days per week, "thus increasing pollution"

We talked a bit also about the problem of poverty and the need for change, for more and better paying jobs, but only got so far because of my Spanish, the length of the trip, and the fact that neither of us was particularly well rested.

El Paso's air isn't the disaster area that is Mexico City's, but it was still a concern for me upon my arrival. Having had to leave Chicago some years back because of my asthma, I had reason to worry about how well I would do in El Paso. It turns out that one can live at the higher elevations near the mountains, where the air is much cleaner. It was only during my walk across the border into Juarez, Mexico, which lasted some two and a half hours, that I came to experience fairly quickly the physical signs of adjusting rather poorly to the bad air. That night I coughed repeatedly in my air conditioned hotel room. My lungs seemed to recover the next day, but my memories of my journey into Juarez remained with me.

From downtown El Paso, if you know where to go, it's rather easy to arrive at one of the two bridges where one can cross -- by car or by foot -- straight over the border into Juarez. With my backpack carrying a pint of spring water in a little bottle, and a hip pack with the remaining $120 of my travel money, and which I now wore rather more closely to my body, I approached the entry point.

I paid the 20 cent fee, and asked if there was a fee to come back. "25 cents" came the answer from the guard. I began crossing.

About a third of the way over the footbridge I came across an indigenous Mexican family ("indios"). They were crouched on the asphalt, the father and mother, and two young children, holding out their hands for some spare change which any passerby might be willing to donate.

The older child was perhaps three years old; the younger maybe half that, and with the most adorable round face and big, round, beautiful eyes. "She is so beautiful!" I said in Spanish as I offered them two quarters from my supply which I had built up before my crossing. I asked if it was ok if I talked with them a bit and asked some questions. They politely nodded and smiled, and I crouched down besides them.

During our brief discussion in Spanish, interrupted by the occasional passerby being solicited, I found out that this is indeed how they were subsisting.

I started with a few simple questions: Do you go here each day? No, we go to different places on different days. Is it hard to find work in Mexico to support your family? Yes, it's hard to find work. How much are you able to collect this way each day? A handful of dollars.

The prices in El Paso are rather low, but even at such prices, feeding a family on a few dollars a day would be very difficult if not impossible.

Do you buy food over there, as Silva's supermarket in El Paso, just over the border? No, we buy the food in Mexico. Where do you live? A small group of about 20 of us live together [in some very humble setting I didn't quite understand].

How far is it? We're not sure. About how long is the walk from there to here? Between an hour and two hours. You walk this each day, and try to get some money in the U.S.? Yes, we go to different places and then return back to our home in Mexico.

One of the things which really struck me was how the husband and wife and even the children were smiling much of the time. My impression was partly that is was cultural, and partly that they were very religious, having been able to mentally survive their brutal economic circumstances in part through a firm believe that they were in God's Hands.

I tried at first to address the couple together, and to alternate between asking questions of the husband and the wife. But my attempts at gender equity could not overcome the fact that the wife mainly smiled and let the husband do the talking, so it was him that I spent most of the time "interviewing".

I thanked them and gave them another quarter upon departing. They smiled again and thanked me. I didn't understand the husband's last sentence exactly -- in essence, that may God be kind to me [for being kind to them].

I finished crossing the bridge and arrived at the Mexican side.

"Habla Ingles?" I asked the Mexican guard. "No".

In my stumbling Spanish I asked whether I could find a place to give a dollar and get four quarters. "Ah, cambiar dinero.." Yes, that's what I wanted, a place to exchange money.

More quarters I could give to street people, and maybe a little Mexican money in case I wanted to buy something at a Mexican shop, is what I was after. He indicated a direction and a number of blocks. I thanked them and proceeded on with my first journey into Mexico.

The streets of Juarez I was soon walking through reminded me of the worst streets I had seen in Chicago and parts of downtown El Paso. Then it got worse in some places, no only trash, but sidewalks and roads twisted badly out of shape with large pools of water, collected from the rain, that needed to be walked around here and there. I needed to find the money exchange, and eventually return to El Paso on the other, two-way bridge which is parallel to the (one-way) bridge I used, some 4 or 5 blocks down. I soon realized however I wasn't going to find what I was looking for without help.

I came across two youths, one of which spoke English and gave me some directions. I ended up on a fairly lonely street where everything seemed to be closed down. Out of one building there jutted out a sign with the silhouette of a woman, although like everything else, it too seemed dead, frozen in time from years and years back. As I reached the end of the next block, a man wandered towards me.

He was perhaps in his 40s, and with some effort he asked me, in English, if he could help me. From his clothes and the look on his face, it was clear that he was hoping to get some money in exchange for helping me out -- which was fine with me, except that I wanted to try to get by in Spanish. So I tried in Spanish.

"I am looking for a place to change money, could you take me there?"

We didn't fully understand each other for a few sentences. He uttered something which sounded like "gurrrz". If you can help me get change I can give you some money, I offered.

"Five dollars. Want ah gurrrz?"

"I would like to change my money."

He took out his wallet. Ok, maybe he can give me change if I gave him a little extra, I thought.

He produced a card with a naked woman on it -- not a Mexican woman, but some (old fashioned looking) naked blonde woman. "You wanna girls? Five dollars"

No. But, I explained, if he would walk along with me, to the money exchange, I would give him some money.

Try to imagine yourself trying to explain to this man, that as a socially and politically concerned man, you are curious about how prevalent prostitution was, and so on, without appearing to change your mind as if personally interested in partaking in it.

Now try to imagine trying to do that, in a language you are far from comfortable in.

Somehow, I managed: I am not here for girls, I am here to find out more about Mexico, I said. I am concerned about the political and economic situation here. I want to understand it better. Did you say that the economic desperation here is such that women here, for five dollars, offer one "girls" (I wasn't sure how to put it). Yes, he said, "fok", yes, "fok". He pronounced the word as if he was saying "fork", but without the "r".

Perhaps five dollars was the "middleman" fee he wanted for himself, I didn't fully understand him, but didn't wish to continue on that subject much longer. No matter. It was clear enough that both he, and whoever these "girls" were, were fairly starved for money..

My walking companion was not as desperate as most of the people around us, however. He told me that he drove a taxi, for example. I found out later in the conversation that it was not his taxi, and that he paid no less than $40 per day in "rent" -- making for a comparatively sweet deal for the taxi owner, and a tough time for him.

What was the average fare he got, I wondered? About $5. In other words, he has to find eight people to just to break even, and can only then begin to try to raise enough money to support his family.

I continued with my string of questions as we walked down the streets, him leading the way. Was it hard to find work in this area?

No, he said, but people don't want to work...

Was this a right-wing Mexican I was talking to, telling me the problem was that the problem was Mexicans being "lazy" or something?

No, I needed to hear the rest of his sentence...

"...because the pay is very low, you can work from 8 [am] to 8 [pm] and only get a few dollars, and it is NOT enough to feed your family, and that is most of the work there is, and people don't want that kind of work...", I was able to follow in Spanish.

We arrived at the official Money Exchange.

I didn't have on me the fifty cents I was going to give him, having given away all but one of my quarters, during our walk, to street people. He said no problem, he would wait outside.

He was very trusting. But then again, did he have much of a choice but to be this trusting? I got my change, stepped back out into the sun, and gave my companion fifty cents. We started walking back.

It was a good thing he was willing to accompany me back, not only to help me find my way back, but because it was only on the walk back that he told me more about his kids. He took out his wallet again.

This time, he showed me a picture of his 22 year old daughter. She works in the Maquillas, he said.

My ears perked. The Maquilladoras, eh?

These are the "Free Trade Zone" assembly plants I had heard about in Z Magazine, in the Nation, and from progressive organizations online, but hardly ever from the mainstream media, except for a few brief sounds bites the corporate press spit out in 1992, when a billionaire decided it would be good to use a bit of his money to run for President.

These Maquilladoras are where giant multinational corporations use raw materials to assemble their products at dirt cheap wages, and with little or no labor, community, or environmental standards, before shipping the finished products back over the border.

These centrally coordinated shipments are part of the majority of our so-called "trade" with Mexico, that is not trade at all in any sane sense of the word, but centrally corporate-coordinated intra-company transfers from one subsidiary of a multinational, to another, all under Capitalist Central Planning, whose name we dare not speak; hence, "trade with Mexico".

I launched into another string of questions. He seemed very willing to converse; I'm not sure if he was more at ease in his native tongue, or whether there was a novelty to a (comparatively "rich") tourist who actually cared to ask about his life...

How many hours does your daughter work each day, I asked.

Nine.

And how many days a week does she work? Five? Six? Seven?

She works six days a week, but not on Sundays.

How much money does she get for her work?

Here we had a little difficulty at first. Was he talking Mexican dollars, or U.S. dollars?

Thirty-three. Thirty-three U.S. dollars, he said, which is about eight times more than the value of the Mexican currency.

Not as bad as I thought, $33 for a day...

..but then I continued to listen...

No, not per day. Per week.

She works 9 hours a day for a week, six days a week, and gets $33 for the week. You can do the arithmetic: his daughter is paid sixty-something cents per hour.

He explained that her husband worked, too, and that the two of them, together, still could not support themselves.

The father with the taxi, and who speaks some English, apparently is able to help them out, making this family among the luckier residents of Juarez, presumably not having to beg, or become prostitutes in order to survive. On parting ways, I gave him another fifty cents. Forty-five actually, which is what I had in change.

After we parted, I had some mixed feelings. I could have given him another dollar, two dollars, or even ten dollars. It would have made no difference to me, whether I spent $250 or $260 during my 5 days in El Paso.

On the other hand, what about the other people? Was it right for me to give him a dollar when I had only given 75 cents to the -- much more impoverished -- indian family on the bridge? There were no easy answers, just the usual ones: the need to work for social, political, and economic change at the structural, at the institutional level, so that we live in a world without such economically desperate people in the first place.

On the way back I found another street family, an indian woman with two small kids, selling candy. I tried to talk to her like I did with the family on the bridge, but it was difficult. Then she explained she didn't understand me -- she didn't speak Spanish, but another language, and knew just enough Spanish to get by for selling the candy on the street. I thanked her again and bade her good luck and goodbye. I started my final walk towards the bridge back to El Paso.

Later that evening I ate at a family owned Mexican restaurant in El Paso, and got talking with one of the waiters. He turned out to be a UTEP student who bought the restaurant, with his sister, from his parents, and supported himself by working while trying to finish his degree. He told me the woman got the candy not from a help agency (there was none he knew of) but probably bought the candy by the dozen, and is able to make a little extra by selling them individually on the street, hoping to make enough profit to feed herself and her children.

As I headed towards the bridge back into El Paso, the air was already starting to make my breathing quite uneasy.

I felt ill at ease for other reasons, too, and those ill feelings seemed to resonate well with the heaviness of my breathing, my increasingly frequent coughs, and the ugly mixture of odors all around of which I was becoming more and more aware.

There I was, for no reason other than the circumstances of life which blow us all like leaves in the wind, walking as a God among those people. I didn't want to be a God, I wanted to talk to people, to help a little, and work to change the world. But when you walk among people for whom a quarter is a real gift, and for whom a dollar is a great Donation, and you walk in average jeans but with a nice shirt and nice hip-pack with over a hundred dollars, you can't help but feel that the role of a God, has been placed upon your shoulders, against your will, a pair of shoes which a non-religious person can just as easily recognize as being far too big for him to fill.

At the midpoint of the bridge back to El Paso I paused and peered over the side. On the banks of the canal in the middle were scribbled some words in Spanish which I was able to make out: "That Saddam Hussein return Kuwait, let George Bush be an example, and return to Mexico first Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California..."

The next message was harder to decipher. I asked a man who was also looking over the side of the bridge if he spoke English, which he said he did not. I tried to ask in Spanish if he could help me with the Spanish. What is "maltratan"? The man indicated with a fist upon his other hand -- to beat up -- ah, to mal-treat. The second message read roughly: "When an immigrant is ill-treated, let us ill-treat those who visit Mexico" I tried to communicate my response to the man: "I am from the U.S., but I sympathize with the situation in Mexico. Some people in the U.S. think the problem is just with Mexico, but I think they are crazy, if they think that the problems between the U.S. and Mexico can be solved without solving the problems in Mexico, more jobs and more money in the jobs, for Mexicans". The man smiled and nodded. I wasn't going to win any awards for my Spanish prose, but I seemed to convey my meaning.

There was also a number scribbled on the bank -- for immigrants mistreated by the border police to call. That too however, was evidently graffiti -- not something helpfully put there by the border authorities. As I approached the checkpoint to be let back into the U.S. I was greeted by a sign. "Buenvenidos a Tejas" -- "Welcome to Texas". The sign was kindly put up and paid for by a Tobacco company, with the shadow of the cigarette pack in the shape of the state of Texas.

At the checkpoint back into El Paso I was just looked over and asked to state my citizenship.

"U.S."

I was let through, without being asked to show a photo ID or being asked any questions.

Another 20 minutes of walking through the streets of El Paso, coughing now and then, but happy to be in more familiar surroundings again, and I reached my hotel at last. The Camino Real, formerly the Camino Real El Paso Del Norte -- the "Royal Road to the Pass to the North", which is how "El Paso" got its name.

Exhausted and not breathing too well, I collapsed on my hotel bed for some time. As my thoughts drifted, I remembered the many sights and words which I had just encountered in Juarez, including the words to George Bush on the bridge back to El Paso. I couldn't help but think that despite all the sad things I had seen, there was hope for change. If those of us on the U.S. side of the border would take that grafitti, that example of militancy and resistance to heart, then there is hope for a better future.

Harel Barzilai, March/April 1997