>[from Mike Davis, "Magical Urbanism: Latinos Reinvent the US Big City," New
>Left Review 234, March/Aprill 1999, pp. 15-16]
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I haven't read Davis's piece yet, but some self-indulgent editorializing. I would note that the US-Mexico border is one of the worst int'l borders in terms of sheer poverty and pollution that I've ever seen and I've seen lots of them. Its even worse than Mexico-Guate. Very high unemployment rates. On the highway from Chihuahua to Juarez, one can see very large and very dirty factories--dark satanic mills-- for miles in every direction. Most are anonymous with no markings to indicate the company that owns them. Sometimes in the more urban areas like Juarez or Laredo( the worst border area) factories are fenced off surrounded by teeming slums.
I once crossed the Rio Grande into El Paso around sundown. As I walked across the bridge into the USA I could see Mexicans lined up all the way down the riverbank waiting for the sun to go down when they try and outrun the border police into the US. Maybe they can pick up some construction work or pick some fruit before they are soon deported. A Chicano I was walking with told me some stories; the Mexican "police" cars are all stolen, that sometimes pregnant women wait until they are just about to deliver and run across the border and have the baby in the US. What a place. I also saw more pro-Zapatista posters and graffiti in border cities than any other area outside Chiapas and Mexico D.F. No wonder.
Sam Pawlett
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