La Violencia

By this point, everyone has heard of Ciudad Juárez.  If this were a discussion, I would probably attempt to start with everyone throwing out what they had heard of Juárez and making some form of comprehensive list on a white board.  Common sense would lead me to debunk some of the myths of violence occurring in Juárez, in attempt to paint a more optimistic image of the infamous city than the media.  I scan several news sources a day, and regardless of their political slant, all of them are riddled with stories of violence on the border, most often violence in Juárez.  While I might like to be able to paint an optimistic image, I'm not sure that I have the artistic prowess at this point in time.  I am writing from the perspective of an onlooker, someone that only sees the violence from a distance.  I am close enough that shootings in Juárez are covered in the local news, yet I am far enough to not have to fear about violence penetrating the border or any stray bullets.   I certainly do not claim to be an expert on any of this; I have never even been to Juárez.

The number that keeps being thrown out in articles that I have read is 28,000 murders in Mexico since Felipe Calderón has assumed duties as President of Mexico in 2006.  This somewhat right leaning president came into office with a clear intent of cracking down on the drug trade into the United States.  The overall attitude towards drugs changed when Calderón took office and militarized many of the border cities in Mexico.  It is fairly common to see a military presence in Ciudad Juárez, the city now known almost exclusively for its violent drug trade.  As Calderón shifted the federal focus from a generally apathetic stance in effort to take a stand against the drug trade, federal troops swarmed the cities, and a war broke out in Mexico.  Although the violence in Juárez really started to increase with the onset of NAFTA in 1994, the border city has reached a new level of infamy in recent years.  The cartels are no longer fighting exclusively with each other for control of valuable turf, but now with the largely corrupted federales.  While the federal police should signify safety for citizens of Juárez, it is best to avoid them.

Juárez is a very real part of the culture here in El Paso.  The two are connected in many more ways than the bridges that link the two urban areas.  The two cities form the largest bi-national metropolitan area in the world, and while culture easily permeates the porous fence, violence does not.  Many of the individuals currently living in El Paso have roots in Juárez and have given El Paso a very Mexican feel.  Pockets of El Paso can certainly be mistaken for Juárez as signs have restaurants and roads have adopted Spanish language names.

Migration takes a ne focus for people living in Juárez.  While we do not typically reckognize refugee status of our neighbors living in Juárez, many are forced to cross for sheer safety, for fear that the future of their family is in danger in such a violent city.  With such a safe place a stone throw away, the decission makes sense.  We have to look at immigration a bit differently in these border areas, especially as cartels continue to murder thousands a year.  As maquiladoras are now pulling out of Juárez in search of even cheaper labor in Asia and continuing violence threatens the life of all residents, we must recognize the fact that Juárez remains home to over a million people.  While we only read about all the atrocities on CNN and in the New York Times, Juárez is much more than a news story for many people.  The vast majority of the people living in Juárez are good, decent people, whose names have unfortunately been tainted because of the ongoing violence.  To make matters worse, they are forced to look at a fence, which reminds them that safety is just around the corner.  I am not sure that I would be able to resist the temptation.