Get Involved: More Than Just Numbers (by Chiara May)

Since 1998, over 2000 people have died in attempt to cross the Sonoran Desert from Mexico into the United States. Why would anyone embark on such a dangerous journey?

In March of 2005, I traveled to Nogales, Mexico with a small group of young people from Leaders Today on a trip that would answer that very question and many more. It was a trip that changed my life and was an experience I will never forget. I had read several books about free trade and the effects of such policies before going on this trip, and I thought I was pretty prepared. I was wrong. So often we read or hear a statistic – like the one just mentioned – and feel emotionally detached from it. We can understand the tragedy, but we cannot feel it. It was seventeen-year-old Marco (Names have been changed to protect privacy.) and his story that first changed the way I interpreted these statistics. He transformed facts and numbers from ink on paper into individual and personal situations.

Marco was sixteen when he made the decision to migrate across the border. He and his family were from southern Mexico, and like more than half the Mexican population, they were living in poverty. At sixteen years old, he bravely left his family, and spent months traveling north in hopes of finding a job. When he reached the border, he desperately tried looking for work in one of the many foreign-owned maquiladora factories, but they were all fully employed. It was then that he made the decision to attempt to cross the border and continue to search for work in the United States. Marco struggled through the harsh and life-threatening conditions of the desert for three days before he reached America. He found work in construction for six months and proudly stated he was "finally able to send some money home to help [his] family."

His smile faded when I asked him if he faced any discrimination at work. He explained how he was verbally assaulted for knowing little English, was the victim of racial discrimination and was paid a lower wage than his coworkers for doing the same work. He continued to explain how after six months of living and working in the US, he was deported and dropped off in Nogales with nothing and no means of returning south to his home. Not long after being deported, he found his way to the Casa de Menores Migrantes, a centre for young people who have recently been deported, where he and others like him shared their stories with me.

Although being sent back into poverty after such a brave and dangerous journey is an unhappy ending to Marco’s story, he and his family have at least one thing to be thankful for – his life. Thousands of migrant workers face the same journey, but each year, hundreds of them die.

Still, the questions remain: What is it that puts these people in such an unjust position in the first place? What is it that has stolen their universal right to work and protection from unemployment? What is it that has changed the lives of thousands of Mexicans and increased the poverty rate to nearly three quarters of the population? Pointing our finger at a single person or event will do little in answering such complex questions, but one of the major causes of migration over the border is the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

On January 1st 1994, NAFTA was put into action between Mexico, Canada and the United States. It is an agreement that allows trade amongst these three countries to go on freely without any tariffs or restrictions. It is an agreement that protects Canadian and American corporations from policies of the Mexican government that may limit their profits, but it is not an agreement that includes the protection of the Mexican workers or the Mexican environment.

Mexico signed NAFTA to increase its economic wealth and provide more job opportunities for its citizens. Since NAFTA, however, poverty has increased, wages are lower than they were before and unemployment continues to rise. In all fairness, NAFTA has brought new jobs in foreign-owned maquiladora factories (that assure cheaper labour and no environmental restrictions), but these jobs do not compensate for the many jobs that were lost. Two and a half million farmers and their families were forced out of their local markets and off their land when Mexico stopped subsidizing agriculture as a result of NAFTA.

I spoke to a Mexican farmer who explained that coffee farmers previously received an average of 15000 pesos for every ninety pounds of coffee they sold, but in the late 1990s, the price of coffee fell to only 400 pesos. The elimination of subsidization made it impossible for Mexican agriculture to compete against the heavily subsidized Canadian and American agribusinesses. Millions of farmers lost their jobs, and in rural cities job alternatives were virtually impossible to find. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Mexican citizens continue to risk their lives migrating across the border in search of low-paying American jobs.

The misconceptions many Canadian and American citizens have towards migrants became evident when several migrant workers shared their experiences with me. Time after time they described situations where they were discriminated against based on their status or ethnicity. Despite what many Americans and Canadians believe, these people do not want to leave their homes and families. They do not want to risk their lives crossing a dangerous desert. They do not want to live in constant fear of being deported. They do not want to go into a workplace where they are discriminated against and often exploited through lower pay for equal work. They do not want to, but they do. They do so because they are left with no other choice.

We ran into a father on the Mexican side of the dry, dusty desert while filling up water tanks. When he was asked why he planned to cross the boarder, he said simply, "for my family." These people are not "stealing our welfare" or "stealing our jobs," they are crossing the border as a last resort for the survival of their families – an act of courage any caring parent, daughter, son, sister or brother would be guilty of.

After speaking with the leaders of the No Mas Muertes | No More Deaths and the founders of Just Coffee, I learned how trade policies have affected millions of people, but I also learned how despite often discouraging conditions, people are fighting for change. Just Coffee is a fair trade cooperative made up of 26 farmer families. These are 26 families who will not be forced to leave their homes or forced to split up in search of jobs. No More Deaths is an organization dedicated to working for justice along the Mexico - US border through advocating the rights of migrant workers and participating in symbolic and direct action. I was honoured with the chance to participate in their weekly vigil. Every Tuesday evening a small group of dedicated members march up to the Mexico border with hundreds of white crosses. On every cross is the name and age of a person who has died as a result of border and trade policy. One by one they present them to the street so that those who were lost will not be forgotten and their struggle will not be in vain. As I yelled out the names on each cross, I looked at the ages of each person. I came across a man exactly the same age as my father, and I broke down into tears. I knew he was more than just a number.

Since 1998, over 2000 people have died attempting to cross the Sonoran desert into the United States.

You do not have to travel to Mexico to help the efforts of these organizations. Supporting fair trade initiatives and writing letters of concern are just two of many ways to help. For more information, visit http://www.nomoredeaths.org or http://www.justcoffee.org.

Sources

"Call To Action." No More Deaths. 13 Apr. 2004. 20 Oct. 2005. <http://nomoredeaths.org/CallToAction.html>.

Klein, Naomi. Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate. Toronto: Random House Canada Limited, 2002.

"Outreach Toolkit". No More Deaths. 20 Oct. 2005. <http://nomoredeaths.org/NMD_Outreach_Toolkit.pdf>.

"Universal Declaration of Human Rights." United Nations. 20 Oct. 2005. <http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html>.

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