Ciudad Juarez is not a place that most Americans think about (at least not outside El Paso). Many people here in Phoenix – a six-hour drive from Juarez – know nothing about the city. Many more know what they read about the city in the news, where reports of violence, drugs, and corruption depict an incomplete narrative of the city. Violence related to drug trafficking is rampant there; according to the BBC, Juarez has the highest murder rate in the world. The systemic corruption and complicity between drug traffickers and municipal officials is essentially indisputable. Poverty is virtually endemic to the character of the city.
But Juarez is a city that is being choked to death – choked by pollution from the exhaust of mile-long traffic jams at the border and dust from unpaved streets; by toxic maquiladora waste and century-old industrial residue from the El Paso-based ASARCO smelter; by NAFTA clauses that are designed to inhibit economic equality; by fear of drug cartels and law enforcement alike. What sorts of creativity might these conditions be stifling? What forms might progress, art, and society take if these constraints were not there? What solutions might expedite justice for the people of Juarez?
My impression of LOH is that they understand the problems and actively seek progressive solutions in addressing them, even if the solutions are carried out one article of clothing at a time. While traveling to Juarez with Charis and Kelly from LOH in November of 2009, I was able to meet some of the residents of Juarez who are affecting change there. A handful of presentations, both at the ALDEA cooperative as well as the city spaces themselves, illuminated the structural nature of the problems in Juarez. I left the city with a clear picture of the connectedness between NAFTA, drug policy, labor exploitation, violence, corruption, poverty, and gender inequities along the border. I also was able to see the effects that working in a fair and equitable fashion is having on the women of ALDEA.
It is easy to sit here in the US and deride Juarez; it is also easy to be compassionate from a distance. By their mission, LOH is making things easy for the rest of us – we just need to support their mission. They do not send proxies to Juarez, or operate via mail, or make handoffs at the border. They go there themselves and speak the language. It was clear to me that Charis and Kelly – and most likely the other representatives of LOH – are loved at ALDEA and in the colonia we visited. Their work enables families to sustain themselves where the state has failed; their work gets women out of the maquiladora cycle; their work means that mothers can actually spend their time being mothers. These are the things that will make Juarez a healthier and safer place to live.
-From Guest Blogger, Steve Marotta – Student in ASU’s MA of Social Justice and Human Rights program and LOH Juarez Delegation participant.
Tags: Community, Connection, Economic Development, economy, empowerment, International Development, Juarez, Las Otras Hermanas, Mexico, Phoenix, Social Change, social justice, Women
