Students explore injustices in border towns

Where the U.S. meets Mexico
Students explore injustices in border towns

BY JESSICA STARK
Rice News staff

One morning, students in professor Rosemary Hennessy’s English class were discussing texts that examine the impact of free trade on northern Mexican communities. The next day they were in those border communities, exploring for themselves the conditions that the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) had given way to.

After learning about the harsh conditions and the struggle for justice in their readings, Hennessy’s students wanted to go to the border and learn more.

COURTESY PHOTO

Rice students Sarah Taylor, Gislaine Williams and Dayna Fondell visit with members of the colonia Blanca Navidad, Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, an unincorporated border community where people live in shacks and without adequate water and sewer systems, paved roads and electricity.

“We wanted an opportunity to meet the people face-to-face,” said Sarah Taylor, a Sid Richardson senior. “We had read their testimonies about the effects of NAFTA below the border, but we wanted to get a better idea of the context and environment.”

So with support from Rice’s Program in Poverty, Social Justice and Human Capabilities, Hennessy planned a weekend trip for the students to Nuevo Laredo, Valle Hermoso and Matamoros.

“One objective of the trip was to put a human face on the data and information from the texts,” said Hennessy, director of the Center for the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality.

Strong community

On the trip, led by Hennessy and Martha Ojeda, executive director of the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras, the students visited a “colonia” — an unincorporated border community where people live in shacks and without adequate water and sewer systems, paved roads and electricity.

The colonia they visited, Blanca Navidad, is on the outskirts of Nuevo Laredo where migrant workers are engaged in a struggle with the municipal government over land and water rights. Many of the community members work in “maquiladoras,” manufacturing or export-processing plants that assemble products for the U.S. and other countries.

“I was surprised by the strength of the people,” said Dayna Fondell, a Will Rice senior. “They have a great ability to use their extremely scarce resources to fight against injustice. It’s inspiring.”

In Valle Hermoso, the students even had the opportunity to sit in on one of the planning meetings in which workers were deciding how to organize for better wages and working conditions.

“There’s the assumption that they can’t do it for themselves,” Fondell said, “that we have to do it for them. But that is not the case at all.”

Not just below the border

The workers were from a manufacturing plant that assembles air bags and seat belts for the Big Three U.S. automakers.

“We are not removed from what is occurring below our border,” said Gislaine Williams, a Jones College senior. “Their struggles are connected to us. U.S. policies are affecting others. We need to take responsibility for the role we have in what’s happening.”

All three students agreed that the first step to healing the border towns is to inform U.S. citizens. They said that the majority of people in the U.S. are oblivious to the poverty, injustice and brutal labor conditions that exist in the colonia.

“Not a lot of American voices are calling for a change,” Fondell said. “We need a call for change coming from within our country.”

Heading into the 2008 election, it’s an opportune time for the U.S. to re-examine policies and the unintended implications of those policies, Hennessy said.

“The time is right now,” she said. “Issues that have been neglected, such as workers and immigrant rights, can be brought to the forefront.”

 ‘I saw myself’

On the trip, Hennessy and the students also visited a “house of immigrants,” where people can stay for a few days before completing their journey to the U.S. The visit hit close to home for Williams, who came to the U.S. from Honduras when she was 5.

“It made me sad to see what people had to go through just to get to the U.S.,” Williams said. “I saw myself in them, even though I came to the U.S. in much better conditions. But it made me think, ‘That could be me or my family.'”

Williams has been involved in crusading for immigrant rights and plans to continue activist work.

“The trip, especially the visit to the house of immigrants, renewed my commitment to that work,” Williams said. 

Taylor and Fondell agreed that the trip reinforced their own determination to work for others.