By
Jose Ceja
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Science students compared wages, healthcare to the United States
Ten members of the University of Arizona Undergraduate Biology Research Program spent Saturday in Nogales, Mexico to confront border issues.
Before the trip, Linda Mobula, a biochemistry freshman who grew up in the Congo, said she felt prepared for the conditions she expected to see.
"I imagine that it couldn't be worse than African countries and the Congo," Mobula said. "I think I can relate to people living there because I have lived under similar conditions."
The trip was sponsored by UBRP and was hosted by BorderLinks - a non-profit organization that gives tours of poor conditions in the border towns.
Students visited a hospital in Nogales in the state of Sonora that treats the poor and uninsured. They toured the facility which had a 30-bed capacity for the estimated 30,000 eligible, Enrique Davis, director of Semeson Hospital said.
That number fluctuates daily because Nogales is often overcome with waves of poor Mexicans from the south trying to enter the United States, Davis said.
Francisco "Kiko" Trujillo, co-director of BorderLinks, spoke to the students about the devastating effect the North American Free Trade Agreement had on small businesses, the population increase in border communities and the state of the "maquiladora" - low-wage factories run by foreign corporations.
"As we experienced it, small businesses are dispersing, and corporations are getting stronger," Trujillo, also director of Nogales' small business chamber of commerce, said.
NAFTA, favoring corporations, makes it difficult for small businesses to operate, Trujillo said.
"Wal-Marts and Kmarts come in, and small businesses - go to hell," he said.
Trujillo commented on the plight of the maquiladora employees - their poor living conditions and exploitation by foreign companies seeking cheap labor.
He said the average maquiladora employee earns the equivalent of $5.25 for eight hours of work.
"I had no idea that minimum wage was so low," said Nat Johnson, a philosophy and Spanish junior. "I thought it was at least a buck an hour," he said.
For lunch, the students traveled to an "invasion" - a privately-owned property where workers who come to Nogales seeking work or plan to go to the United States stay in.
To experience the conditions in these camps, students had lunch in one of the camp's houses, constructed of scrap metal, cardboard and old tires.
"It's a good thing it's raining," said Carol Bender, director of UBRP and program director of molecular and cellular biology. "It will help everyone see how uncomfortable it can get."
Engracia Guzman, 27, was living in the Colonia Flores Magon camp.
Guzman said she is from Oaxaca in southern Mexico and came to Nogales nine years ago.
"I came to Nogales, I liked it and I got married," she said.
She shares the two-room house, which was leaking because of the rain, with her husband, her four-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter.
Guzman said she was saving to build a house out of "real" materials, but her father died and she was forced to send money to her family.
After lunch, the students went to Supermarket Ley to conduct a "market- basket survey" meant to see how much a typical food basket - consisting of foods deemed essential - would cost the average maquiladora worker. Then, the students compared it to what the equivalent would be for a U.S. worker earning minimum wage.
If costs were equivalent, a U.S. worker would pay $30 for milk, $15 for eggs and $26 for deodorant - making it impossible for the worker to afford even a fraction of the food basket.
"I was surprised at how little we learned in school about this," said Carrie Reed, a molecular and cellular biology senior. "We didn't learn about any of these politics or social issues, and they are just right here."
The students then toured the U.S. Border Patrol headquarters in Nogales, Ariz. and talked to Todd Jewel, first-line supervisor with the Border Patrol, about the escalating problem of illegal entrants.
"If I was in the situation that these people are in, I would be trying to get into the United States, too," he said.
Most entrants, Jewel said, are returned immediately to Mexico but are fingerprinted so the Border Patrol can imprison repeat offenders and scouts who smuggle the entrants.
Jewel said that last year, the Border Patrol in the Tucson sector, which extends from Yuma to New Mexico, captured 675,000 illegal entrants.
"This is the only place in the world where a First World country borders a Third World country and the disparity is so great," said Reed. "You don't get a feel for that unless you see it for yourself."
