On Monday, I went with this group to a few Colonias in El Paso. Colonias are basically small rural communities that sit close to the U.S.-Mexico border. There are several hundred of these just in El Paso and several thousand just in the state of Texas. I drove to the Colonias with Laura, a promotora who works out there. She was super cool- I really enjoyed learning about her health promotion work and hearing about her experience migrating from Juárez 13 years ago. And I actually got notified of the Supreme Court's ruling on SB1070 while I was in her car, which seemed quite fitting!
Our first stop was a trailer, where we visited a mother and her adult son who has cerebral palsy. They are undocumented and the mother shared with us the incredible story of how some young men carried her son (in his wheelchair) across the Rio Grande into the United States several years ago. They are from Juárez and the reason they came was that although they had health care coverage, there were not many available resources for individuals with disabilities. Further, the parents were not making much money working (the woman worked in a factory) and were thus struggling economically. Now, living in El Paso, the family still has many problems. Their home is certainly adequate, but the woman and her husband attempted to build a wheelchair ramp themselves, which is falling apart. Therefore, it's very difficult to get the son out of the house to go to doctor's appointments or to just be around other people. Because they're undocumented, the mother is often afraid to drive anyway, so they're pretty much home-bound. Additionally, they don't qualify for Medicare or Medicaid, so they rely heavily on the promotoras and on the kindness of others, especially for help with the son. Although it was a sad story, it was an overall pleasant visit that ended with sharing sweets and orange juice.
I don't like the idea of taking pictures of peoples' houses as "poverty tourism". But I did take a picture of one of the Colonias that we drove through:
I saw many abandoned or ruined homes like this one throughout the day. The amount of litter on the ground was also very noteworthy. Laura told me that there is trash pick-up in some of the Colonias, but she feels like a lot of the people who live there aren't accustomed to throwing trash in barrels. I guess this isn't surprising, as most of the rural parts of Juárez that I've been to are also strewn with garbage for lack of trash pick-up, and Laura said that most of the Colonias are populated with Juarenses.
The Colonias vary in how much access they have to a variety of important things. For example, some have access to piped water and sanitation, while others don't. Some have access to school buses, while others don't. Most have access to electricity, but some still don't. To be honest, I really felt like I had crossed into Mexico when I was there; it was incredibly mind-blowing to see this lack of infrastructure within the United States.
Our next stop on Monday was the Socorro Mission:
It's basically a really old church, but was cool to visit nonetheless. Before heading back to downtown El Paso, we stopped at a giant souvenir store called Saddle Blanket. I felt like such a tourist; they had everything from cowboy boots to earrings. Needless to say, I didn't actually buy anything.
I just decided that I'm going to write about the rest of the week later because there is so much to say and I don't want this to become a super long entry.
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