Saludos from Sophie!

Saludos a todos! We've now been living in Nogales, Sonora for a little more than two weeks and yet so much has happened. In Tucson, time seemed to fly by, and that seems to be happening yet again. Here are some updates and thoughts on my time here in the borderlands so far:

First, a little about me...I´m one of the massive Oberlin crew here on the program. I´m a senior and will be graduating in May with a major in Comparative American Studies with minors in History and Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies. I´ll likely be returning to my homebase
in the San Francisco Bay Area after graduation, but my time here in Arizona and Sonora is definitely putting thoughts in my head about moving down here.

Living and working in Ambos Nogales feels more like a study away experience than Tucson did, for a range of reasons with the most obvious being that we´re living in what is officially another country. Here in Nogales I´m also one of the two of us having the experience of crossing the border every single day for my field study--waiting in line, answering an ever-changing set of questions at the border checkpoint, and seeing on a daily basis the multiple and overlapping realms of life and culture on the border.

While Ambos Nogales is handsdown considered a border town, sometimes even called "one city in two countries," during our time in Tucson many of us found that opinions really vary on whether that city 60 miles away from the border is truly a border city. But especially for
those of us living on the Latino-predominant Southside of the city and commuting daily to the University and Dowtown business districts, the borders that exist within the city and the city´s proximity to the border were very apparent and felt on a daily basis. Class and race segregation
isn´t of course an exception in U.S. and other cities, but, for example, when you see on one side of town border patrol trucks patroling every few minutes along with every other stripe of law enforcement possible and they´re almost completely absent from the rest of the city, the reality of the border is not an abstract thought.

In Tucson I lived with an amazing family on the far southside of town in a full house of four daughters ages 5, 12, 17, and 21, their mom and dad, and Gucci, their white toy poodle. There were also often houseguests on weekends, mostly family visiting from Hermosillo, Sonora to go shopping and hang out. Getting to know all of the girls was really fun and I think they welcomed having an "older sister." My host parents were also super welcoming and understanding of our busy schedule, especially my host mom. She´s a socialworker who works at a local women´s shelter, and it was really interesting learning about her work and
the general scene of doing social work in the Tucson area. I also spent a lot of time with my "real famliy" at my grandmother´s house in Tucson and with some of my other many family members who live in the area. Although I´ve been going to Tucson my whole life to see family, I finally got the chance to really get to know the city and get a much wider view of the
region related to border issues.

For my field studies in both Tucson and Nogales, I´ve been working with ESL programs doing assistant teaching and helping with various projects. In Tucson, I worked at Literacy Volunteers of Tucson, a non-profit volunteer-based literacy program with both ESL and Basic Literacy classes for adults. With LVT I worked all over the city in several different
classes of various levels--often within one class there´s everyone from beginners to advanced--and helped the fulltime tutors with acitivities. My other main task at LVT was helping with preliminary assesment of students´English skills to place them in classes and for the tutors to get a sense of what should be covered in their material. These assesments and some of the classroom time provided a lot of one-on-one time with students, which I really enjoyed. The vast majority of students were Spanish speakers, but there were also a few Somali, Russian, and Chinese students in some of the classes as well. The morning classes were mostly stay at home moms who often said their main reason for wanting to learn more English is to help their kids with homework. Many of the students also cited work reasons and
wanting to communicate with younger family members who don´t speak Spanish
as their reasons for taking the classes.

In Nogales I´m working with Santa Cruz County Continuing Education, which is an adult education and workforce development program run by the county. Classes just started last week, so I don´t have a lot of experience there yet, but I´ve been getting to know the group of staff and teachers, all of whom have also been very welcoming and curious about the BSP program. Because the program is state-funded instead of by foundation and donations
like at LVT in Tucson, they have to conform their curriculum to very rigid state standards, which I'm learning all about. Also, because they receive federal and state money, as a result of Prop. 200 here in Arizona, students must prove their legal status to enroll in their programs. Here, instead of jumping around to a bunch of classes, I´m working with one class and one teacher here, in the beginning level class. In Nogales, Arizona, almost everyone speaks Spanish, and the city is bilingual everywhere you go. I´m looking forward to the rest of the next few weeks as I get to know the students better!

Like in Tucson,my host family here in Nogales is also really great and a good match for me. I'm living with a young couple who are both busy professionals in the city. My host mom Mercedes is a doctor of public health and works at the General Hospital here. She is also the housing
coordinator here in Nogales for the program and really awesome in general. My host dad, Ricardo, is a sociologist and professor at one of the universities here. A tried and true sociologist, he´s very inquisitive and loves discussing social issues here and elsewhere and asking me about U.S. politics and life. We also spend a lot of time talking about the music and
culture of his self'proclaimed ¨heyday¨in the 80´s, including groups such as ACDC, Metallica, Guns and Roses, NWA, TLC, Madonna, Converse Allstar sneakers, and hairstyles such as shaggy long hair pulled back into ponytails on men and flattops.

Now it´s just about getting more settled in Nogales, yet, as we´ve talked about in the group a lot, when you´re on the border and constantly moving back and forth and in-between languages, political perspectives, countries, cities, getting settled isn´t necesarily the name of the game. With the election coming up and the economic meltdown, it´s such a wild
time to be out of the country. Both the election and the economy are big topics here....and with the Mexican national economy and the local border economies so intimately tied to their respective ¨other side¨, the effects of the economic woes are super apparent, most obviously with the sudden devaulation of the peso to around 12 or 13 to the U.S. dollar now.

What else? I´m really excited about the upcoming Dia de los Muertos altar-making and celebrations. I´ve been to celebrations in San Francisco and have always loved this day, and I¨m really exicted to see how big it is both here in Nogales and in Tucson. The trip to Mexico City was really fascinating and fun--a definite valuable addition to our understanding of the "bigger picture" of the economic, political, and social of Mexico and globalization. The talk by Frida Gaytan about the student movement of 99-00 was especially interesting and inspiring.

That's all for now!
Sophie