I knew by the dark colors and patterns in her woven wrap that she was from Oaxaca, a State in southern Mexico that is over 1200 miles from Tijuana. Her petite body carried a small child on her back and another on her hip, with two other children’s hands held tightly in each of her own. I noticed her while I was handing out oranges and candy and coloring books and crayons to a never-ending line of children—children who we were told, “would come out of the dirt” when they saw our vans. The young woman waited patiently on the side of the road, watching, waiting for the other children to get their small bags of temporary joy before she allowed her children to join in the chaos of outstretched hands and worn out shoes that kicked up dust when they forced their way to the front of the line. I then realized that she was not waiting for oranges and candy, but was waiting for help. She needed help breaking in to her house—a six foot by six foot, one room structure that balanced dangerously on the side of a hill. She had lost the keys to the padlock that secured everything she owned inside—a small bed that she shared with her four children, some dishes on the floor, a pile of clothes, and a calendar with a picture of the Virgin of Guadelupe that hung on the wall.
One of the leaders of our group, a humanitarian who has dedicated his life to the women and children in these forgotten Mexican communities that NAFTA-The North American Free Trade Agreement-built, found a hammer in the van and struck the lock over and over again until it shattered. The woman from Oaxaca smiled and invited us into her home. The house was so small, we could barely fit inside. As I turned to leave, I took a five dollar bill out of my pocket and told the woman in my broken Spanish that the money was for a new lock. I had no idea how she would find one on that day, out in the middle of nowhere, in this settlement that is located at the bottom of Tijuana’s landfill.
This colonia, or neighborhood, called Milenio Nuevo—New Millennium, was the poorest colonia we had worked in all week. There was a sense of desperation and hopelessness in the air there that worked hard to smother the dignity of the women and children who made their homes out of cardboard boxes and scraps of wood. But everywhere I looked, within the makeshift fences, the milk-crate walls, the one-room homes nestled in between mounds of garbage, I found smiles, and laughter, and children who were loved. The women carried their children like treasure, keeping them close to their chests and guarding them like gold. The women in Milenio Nuevo would gather around our vans to get jugs of water, bags of rice and beans, new socks, and small “health kits” that contained things like toothpaste, Band-Aids, shampoo, and Tylenol. There were many women who asked for more than one, to bring back for a sister or a friend. We never had enough of anything. These women needed so much more than bags of beans and headache medicine, but it was all that we could do with the money that we had, and in the seven days that we were there.
During that week, I made four trips into Downtown Tijuana, driving a rattling van that was on the verge of death across miles of bumpy, canyon dirt roads into the take-your-life-in-your-hands Tijuana traffic, bringing fifty-two young girls and fifty boys from one of the colonias to buy new shoes. (I had 26 girls in my van each trip) On our first journey into the heart of the city, after leading two long lines of girls and boys into the Tres Hermanos shoe store, our leader of the group, the humanitarian, pulled me aside and told me that there was a place that he wanted me to see. He gave me directions—“walk up to Avenida Constitución, take a right, walk down three blocks, and turn right at the Church. We’ll be ok here, take the others and go.” I had been to downtown Tijuana on a similar trip last year, so I felt cool and confident about walking around on our own. We were just blocks away from Avenida Revolución, the grotesque area of town that caters to the American tourists who coming looking for Tequila, leather goods, obnoxious t-shirts, photos with burros (donkeys) spray-painted to look like Zebras, Strip clubs, and of course, traditional Mexican food like Big Mac’s and Whoppers.
We made our way down bustling streets that were home to food carts that sold churros, fresh fruit, and tamales, vendors selling Mexican newspapers, shoe shine booths, women selling rosaries and candles for lighting in the Catholic church, and some of the poorest, elderly, indigenous women I have ever seen, sitting on street corners with cups extended in their weathered, arthritic hands, hoping to get our spare pesos, which most of us gave freely.
I had no idea where we were going, or what we were supposed to be looking for. We were only a block away from the U.S./Mexican border fence, in a neighborhood that I knew American tourists never see. More cardboard homes, more gang graffiti, more drug addicts lying in corners—I wondered if the students in my group were afraid. I turned where we were told to turn and led the group up Coahilla Street. Only seconds passed before I knew why we were sent to this place. We were now in the heart of the Red Light district, and my heart broke for the 100th time during our time on the border.
The prostitutes who lined the streets were all very young, too young. There were girls who couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen years old. Some girls wore nothing but lace bras and miniskirts, and they all had on too much makeup and high heels that would be impossible for me to walk in. Some of the women were older, in their twenties, leading the only white men I had seen that week in Tijuana into the cheap motels where they were working. I made eye contact with some of the girls, but most of them looked the other way when we passed. None of us spoke to the girls knowing that we could jeopardize their lives if we appeared to be “rescuing” them. We walked and walked, passing girl after girl after girl—girls with no future, girls with no protection, girls whose eyes were void of emotion and life. We passed them in silence, and continued to walk in silence back to the fortunate girls who were getting a new pair of shoes. We were all in shock. We were all hurting inside.
We made the circle back towards the shoe store, and found our humanitarian friend waiting on the corner. When the young women in my group saw him, they all broke down and cried. They were traumatized. They were afraid. We felt so angry and hopeless and sad. Our friend told us that he sent us there because “nobody cares about those young girls, not the Catholic Church that you passed, not the police, not the Government, not even missionaries who work in Tijuana, and most definitely, not the Americans.” He told us that some of the girls are held against their will, sex slaves from all over Mexico—girls who were promised a job in the factories if they left their families and came to the border. He told us that all of those young women will most likely die before their 18th or 25th birthday. They will die from AIDS, from drug overdoses, or they will be murdered.
Life is hard for women in Tijuana. Life is very hard. The women, young girls, and children I met in Tijuana are on my mind everyday, and have continued to be in my heart. I wish that you could meet the women that I met, embrace them, and see how beautiful their spirits are. I wish that you could understand their pain, their struggles, but most importantly, their strength and ability to survive.
Next time you see the media reporting about the crime, drug trafficking, "illegal aliens" and danger on the Mexican border, remember that there are women and children there.
Next time you hear a politician promote free trade with Mexico, remember that there are poor women and children there doing most of the work.
And next time you hear college students bragging about their drunken times in Mexico over Spring Break, tell them you know a little about the women and children there, and of ways to go crazy with kindness, rather than with Tequila y cerveza.