Saludos a todos! My name is Itzel Garcia-Mejia. I am a junior at Oberlin College where I am pursuing a double major in History and Latin American Studies with a minor in Politics. We have just completed our first week living in Nogales, Sonora. The week before that we were in Mexico City. We drove down in Hermosillo after a sad goodbye to our wonderful host families in Tucson and caught a plane
to Mexico City. After a few changes to our itinerary as a result of the manifestations taking place in the Zocalo, we spent three full days sightseeing and conversing with various people about Mexico´s political and migratory history. Our guide was Frida Gaytan who participated in the 1999 student protests at the UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico) –in addition to showing us around the city she spoke to us about her experiences during the 1999 student movement as we sat on the grass at the UNAM.We went to the Frida Kahlo museum in Coyoacan and to the top of La Torre
Latinoameri
cana and looked out over the city. We spoke to anthropologist Percy Betanzos who gave a lecture on migration patterns within Mexico and how it has changed as a result of NAFTA (el Tratado de Libre Commercio). We also spoke to lawyers from PRODESC (Proyecto de Derechos Economicos, Sociales, y Culturales) who discussed the role of multinationals in workers’ rights violations.The excursion to Mexico City fed straight into our four day Fall Break in which most of the students stayed in the city. The
n we flew back to Hermosillo, drove back to Nogales, and arrived at La Casa de la Misericordia, which we visited during our Tucson Orientation Week, for our Nogales Orientation. This two day orientation included a very brief contrast tour where the coordinators pointed out the various maquilas and neighborhoods, a safety talk by the coordinator of our Nogales housing, and a tour of the new UA facilities in Nogales, AZ where we´ll be having class every Friday. The orientation wrapped up with a reception at a salon de fiestas in Nogales where we met our host families. The following day we had our first meeting with Alberto Morackis and Guadalupe Serrano about the altar that we will help design and build for el Dia de los Muertos.The program has exposed us all to a number of influential groups and individuals related to the effects of NAFTA on Mexico—hopefully at the end of the semester, our Policy Proposal papers (which we just found out will be presented to students at UPN and to an ESL class in Cochise County) will spark substantive discourse about what can be done in the areas of international trade and immigration. As the elections and the term of a new president approach, dialoguing about these very issues becomes even more important. I can´t think of a better timing for this material.
