The little Indian girl with her hand out tells me she's from Oaxaca - thousands of miles away, in central Mexico. Together with her mother, brothers and sisters, she's come an almost inconceivable distance from that land of impoverished, eroded Zapotec, Mixtec and Mixe farming villages in search of new opportunities. And here they are, begging on the streets.
Twelve yards across the U.S. border, and I'm already in a different world.
To most Arizonans, Nogales is little more than a weekend novelty: cheap art and cheaper drinks, strip shows and streetcorner donkey photos. A teeming, percolating town brimming with the kind of sidewalk vitality our increasingly non-pedestrian culture lost 50 years ago. A nice place for a visit. Just don't drink the water.
For many on the other side of the border, however, Nogales is a staging area. A few blocks past the Indian family, I get caught on the wrong side of a slow-moving northbound train full of new Fords. Annoyed by the imposition, I ask a kid who's waiting with us if there's an underpass or tunnel to get to the other side -"al otro lado" - of the tracks. "Al otro lado?" he replies, startled, gesturing north. In my haste, I've forgotten that for the people of Nogales - indeed for the people of the entire Mexican side of the border - "the other side" means one thing only: the land of opportunity that beckons to the north.
You can see the immigrants on the streets of Nogales: young men standing alone or in small groups, casting furtive glances as they wait for nightfall and their chance at an increasingly fortified U.S. border. Many don't make it - stepped-up border security at places like Nogales or Juarez has led many Mexicans to die from exposure in the empty deserts between Tucson and San Diego, or drown crossing irrigation canals in makeshift rafts. Many are never identified, their remains deposited in unmarked pauper's graves. All this for the jobs nobody wants: washing dishes, mowing lawns, picking crops. All this for jobs American 17-year-olds look down their noses at.
It isn't supposed to be like this - Mexico is the United States' neighbor and one of our largest trading partners. We've played a central role in Mexican affairs for more than a century. Most recently, the apostles of free trade claimed the North American Free Trade Agreement would export American prosperity south of the border along with American jobs. Instead of just the American dream - the dream that leads Mexican immigrants to risk their lives in the desert for the promise of $5.15 an hour - we would provide Mexicans with the means to make that dream a reality. And even the most critical observer can't help but see some improvements, even in Nogales: the pack of giggling teenage girls strolling the main street on their way to a Saturday matinee, or the shiny new SUVs blasting banda music on state-of-the-art stereos.
But the continued poverty and desperation is also inescapable. A grown man, fluent in English, offers to shine my shoes. He doesn't have any of his own. Another Indian child tries to catch my eye, brandishing a box of cheap gum. People drive cars without seats, strapped together with rope.
The Americans you see in Nogales are a glaring contrast. They're well-fed, often to the point of obesity. They charge proudly through the sidewalk crowds, casting beggars and supplicants aside without a glance. They eat and drink in fancy restaurants, cackling loudly while they yell at the waiter for another pitcher of margaritas. And they crowd the curio stores, haggling over blankets with salesmen who probably make less in a week than they make in an hour.
As part of his good-vs.-evil rhetoric in the days since Sept. 11, President Bush has repeatedly asked the question "why do they hate us?" His glib answer, "because they hate freedom," has received little skepticism in the press. But it should rouse scorn in anyone with the slightest inkling of the world beyond America's borders. Mexico is rich by third-world standards. Its government is relatively stable. Its people may often be hungry, but at least they're largely safe from war. Yet even a half-hour walk through Nogales reveals a dozen better answers for the president's question than his. It's not the United States' job to solve the problems of the world. But we should at least acknowledge that they exist.
