Building Bridges, Not Borders

For many Americans, the border with Mexico defines our national sovereignty and identity. It extends almost 2,000 miles between four of our Southwestern states and six northern Mexican states. Few Americans could name the six--Baja California, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, Sonora and Tamaulipas--yet these states increasingly are in our lives.

Recently, I visited Juarez. As I crossed from the United States into Mexico, I realized that there are no meaningful boundaries between these two worlds. More than 600 million people legally cross the border both ways each year, much to the chagrin of those who would tightly seal every entry point. Those who work, shop and enjoy the comforts of a devalued peso or the luxuries of American goods know all too well the futility of “controlling” such a border.

Today, the border has become the entry point to discuss meaningful binational public policy. As Mexicans migrate in greater numbers to Mexico’s industrial north, we will share common space and problems. Our air, water and ecosystems already are part of our binational identity. By 2020, the border region population will have doubled, to 22.8 million, adding greater pressure on scarce natural resources. With this increased population pressure, Mexico and the United States must continue to integrate their regional policy so that a sustained growth is possible without compromising our shared groundwater aquifers, our major desert regions and our valuable rivers and coastlines. Without such strategies, we will suffer the consequences of expanding major environmental hazards beyond California’s New River, considered one of most polluted rivers in the United States, containing toxic industrial waste and at least 15 deadly viruses such as polio and cholera.

Fortunately, binational partnerships in this region are emerging. Funded by philanthropic organizations like the Ford Foundation and Inter-American Foundation, organizations such as the Comite Ecologico de Ciudad Juarez, an environmental education and advocacy group, are tackling the pressing problem of environmental contamination in the maquila, or duty-free manufacturing and assembly zone. On the Sonora/Arizona border, Enlace Ecologico (the Ecology Connection) has played a critical role in promoting right-to-know legislation on environmental hazards. Similar organizations are developing from Tijuana to Matamoros.

Local binational collaboration also may work on public health issues that have no boundaries. With increased population growth in this region, we also see greater concentration of Third World poverty conditions. On both sides of the border, there are pockets of colonias, semirural substandard housing areas where residents have no waste water treatment or running water. I visited one of these areas on the outskirts of El Paso where 95% of the residents tested positive for hepatitis A. A new diagnostic lexicon for doctors in the border region has emerged that includes such diseases as dengue fever, malaria and shigella. Without aggressive binational public health strategies, these diseases may spread throughout the United States.

The border region has a relatively youthful demographic profile and high fertility rate, unlike many regions of the U.S., where the reverse is true. So the border area will require educational models that recognize the binational identity of these youth. This goes beyond the issues of Spanish and English fluency to the broader issue of a shared educational and cultural experience by border dwellers.

Recently, philanthropic organizations on both sides of the border met in Juarez to discuss philanthropy and shared funding strategies for border issues. Rejecting the rhetoric of nationalism and isolationism, the philanthropic community has taken an important step in shifting the American debate on the border. By ignoring the popular anti-immigrant trend, these organizations have infused the discussion with a reality where lines in the sand have little meaning and visions for change build bridges--not borders--across communities.