Posted 7:52 AM by Anonymous

Ciudad Juarez

Read this Salon article about murdered women in Juarez and thought back to when I visited that city. The article talks about how Juarez has been transformed in the past decade by the influx of foreign corporations using the city's residents for cheap labor. I was there in 1990, before any of that happened. Here is how I remember Juarez.

My parents, sister and I had pulled into El Paso after driving across Texas from San Antonio. That drive seems endless -- there's nothing in sight but hills dotted with scrub brush, and the sky hangs overhead, casting cloud-shadows onto the desert sand. The highway runs straight through it, two lanes, no one else on the road, nothing on the radio when you turn it on. The dial just spins. Civilization -- not here.

When you reach El Paso, it's cruddy and not a place you'd want to live, but at least there are other people there. We parked at the Best Western where we were staying, got our room, which got no natural light and was decorated in an unflattering dark color scheme, and decided to go exploring. My parents were keen for my sister and I to visit another country, which we'd never done, so we walked down the street to the bridge over the Rio Grande, paid 15 cents to the toll man, and strolled into Mexico.

Ciudad Juarez was instantly different. If we'd thought El Paso was cruddy, we had been wrong. Trash littered the main street, which was lined by sidewalks paved with red brick tile. Small shops flanked the sidewalk -- a candy store here, a card store there. We purchased some candy sealed in plastic bags and walked south down the street toward the main market. There were lots of other tourists thronging the road, overweight women in loud print shirts dragging little kids by the hand. I was 14, so I wouldn't hold my parents' hands, but they told me to stay close, and I did. This was new, unfamiliar, uncomfortable. Spanish conversation buzzed all around us as residents of Juarez went about their business alongside the visitors.

When we reached the market, we wandered around in awe. Inside this huge building, tents and stalls were set up, selling items for incredibly cheap prices. I saw a glass box for half the price it cost at home in New Jersey, and my parents encouraged me to bargain further. I ended up buying it for a quarter of its New Jersey retail price. Having been instructed not to drink the water, my sister and I split a Coke in a bottle at the food court, where tourists chatted loudly and sweated heavily.

When we left the market, we walked back up the street toward El Paso. My dad, always the explorer, turned onto a side street. "Where are you going?" I asked, feeling a buzz of unease settle at the base of my spine. "I want to see the city; get off the main drag," he said. "I don't think that's a good idea," my mom fretted, but she had no choice but to follow him or be left in the flowing mass of people as he wandered into the bowels of the city.

We got as far as one block, then stopped. The tile-paved sidewalks were gone, replaced by dirty cement. The road itself was no longer paved, just an expanse of dusty dirt. All of the buildings were wood, no stores in sight, just houses, and no tourists. It was much quieter. A group of men sat on a street corner, watching us silently and smoking cigars. Other people lounged in doorways or walked along the street. It felt like they were all looking at us. There was no hustle or bustle; just silence and heat and stillness in this small desert border town. "Come on," I said. "Let's go back." My dad glanced around, nodded, and followed us without a word.

We crossed over the bridge -- this time passing through customs, where my mom had to leave behind a honeydew melon she'd bought and we all had our identification inspected by a very strict officer. I was incredibly relieved -- I had hated Juarez -- and wondered what it would be like to live there and not be able to leave. The Rio Grande is tiny -- just a trickle of water maybe a foot deep and six feet wide here, lined with razor wire. I don't think the razor wire extends along its entire length -- I mean, that huge expanse of nothing in Texas can't be patrolled all the time. I wonder why people settle here, in this town that is so close but never going to offer much in the way of opportunity for most people who come to it. I read that it is a far larger city now, and I wish never to go there again.