About penina

penina

Location:

(USA)

Joined on:

03/26/08

Occupation:

Student

Contact:

penina.eilberg-schwartz@oberlin.edu

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  Culture

  Week Two and Maps

  A number of the people involved in the planning of this program (and some of the people it has produced) call themselves geographers, which I first thought was strange. The word geography makes me think about elementary schools and colorful maps and memorizing things (some of which I don't entirely remember.)

  But I am getting so into maps here. Because studying geography is another way (like history) of studying people and what we do and how we do it and when it might get better or worse.

  It is good exploring a new city, and on Saturday we leave for Altar where most migrants coming up from Mexico and Central America pass through to find a coyote (a guide). We'll start our border-mapping project there. We will work in groups and create a map (this can mean something very different than what we usually think of when we think of maps) of Altar. We have to incorporate information that we collect while talking to people in the main plaza.

  We'll do a similar thing in Tucson and again, twice, in Nogales. And through all that we're supposed to work toward making a map of the border. But maps can tell all sorts of stories, political histories and personal ones.

  This is an intensely political and intensely personal place to be.

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  Posted on September 3, 2008 by - penina

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  Politics

  Week One and America is Asleep

  I have been here now for a little over a week. Until Saturday I lived in the dorm of a non-profit called BorderLinks that brings people to visit Tucson and Nogales, with the other people in the program near downtown Tucson. I just moved in with the family that I will live with for five weeks. Their names are Michael and Lucy Hyatt, father and daughter. They do not speak Spanish, but Michael is really involved with border activism in Tucson. He is a photographer who takes pictures of migrants and their trails and the things they leave behind. One of the organizations he works with is called Samaritans and, similar to another organization called No More Deaths, they patrol the desert and leave water for migrants in trouble. A few weeks ago, they ran into a dead body lying there, and he took a picture. The man was from Puebla, Mexico, near Mexico City. His name was Porfirio.

  He also has a picture of a copy of The Diary of Anne Frank in Spanish lain out on the empty desert ground.

  Lucy is a high school student, really smart and sweet, and grown up. Michael goes to Samaritans and Humane Borders (Fronteras Compasivas) every week, so I will probably be going with him.

  Last week was busy with getting to know Tucson, talking to activists and scholars about a variety of border issues: militarization, public health, environmental impact and projects, maquila (U.S. factory in Mexico) economy, and migrant deaths. We also went down to Nogales for a few days. Today we started classes, and tomorrow I have my first meeting with my supervisor at PCIC (Pima County Interfaith Council). PCIC does community organizing around immigration issues and others that are especially important in the border region: health care and affordable housing.

  You can be in Tucson and forget that you’re near the border, but if you keep your eyes open, forgetting is impossible. Several people have said to us that it is up to us to decide whether we think Tucson is a border city or not, since it is about 50 miles north of the border. There are a couple of things that I have heard or seen in the past week that make me think Tucson is very much a border city, though there are certainly those who would deny it.

  There is El Tiradito, a little shrine on a small corner to those who have died in the desert. There is a vigil that meets there every week.
  There is, of course, all the Spanish you hear walking around, and the bright colors of the southern barrios.
  There is the story that my friend told me about when she first went to find her field study site. She walked into the office and there was a man there, tired-looking with a huge gash on his leg. It was from a cactus. He had been abandoned by his coyote in the desert.
  There is the story of Reverend John Fife and the Sanctuary movement that was located here and hid Central American refugees from the Dirty Wars that the U.S. was deporting (in violation of its own refugee law.)
  And there is the drive down to Nogales and the way the wall appears, cutting through a hill. And the art you see on the wall when you get to the Nogales side.
  Finally, there is the conclusion that many people, of diverse voices, have presented to us: the U.S. fence-building policy has funneled migrant traffic into the Sonoran desert, a dangerous place that is known to kill. In fact, in the document starting this policy, deterrence was acknowledged as part of the “hold the line” strategy. They will die, and then they will stop coming. The thing is, they have not stopped coming.

  Last night Michael took me to a dinner with a filmmaker who is working on a documentary about deaths in the desert. When we asked him how he got started with this, his answer was long, but eventually he said, “America is asleep.” Parts of Tucson are asleep too, but people are dying very near here, at least in part because of U.S. policy. And people are living here too, and it is hard. The militarization of the border and the U.S. owned companies in Mexico create seriously contaminated air and water, making the border area the highest incidence of cancer in the country, of floods that have broken through parts of the wall that are built like dams in the desert. But of course, there is also vibrancy here and someone we talked to today on the first day of classes who studies border culture and folklife reminded us that there is beauty here too. There are Santos and Milagros and prayers.

  It is strange to see beauty here, though. When we were in Nogales, everyone who lived there talked about how ugly it was. We thought it was kind of beautiful. I think maybe because we find it honest—this is the place (one of the places) that makes the lives we lead possible. This is a true place, a behind-the-scenes place.

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  Posted on August 25, 2008 by - penina

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  Politics

  Border Things

  I am leaving tomorrow. Early.

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  Posted on August 15, 2008 by - penina