Scenes from 2007 September 16

Program Update September 18

We began the week with a field trip in our UACJ class Temas Fronterizas, touring the downtown commercial district of Ciudad Juárez with our professor and a local businessman. We saw various markets, the former headquarters of the city government, the main cathedral, and a furniture store that was still ornately decorated from when it was the most illustrious ballroom in the city.

Other classes have been going well. In our class on globalization and the border, with program director Amy, we discussed the nature of the urban environment, and whether Juárez and El Paso are two separate cities or a single metropolis with an international border passing through it. While we didn’t arrive at a definite conclusion, it has become more and more clear in our time here that El Paso and Juárez are very closely related and interdependent.

All of us BSP students are taking an elective class at UTEP in addition to our other program classes, and mine is a sort of introductory survey in Chicano Studies, a subject that I have been realizing is often woefully neglected in education on the East Coast, where I’m from. Living here in a setting where I, as a white person, am a racial minority has been an unusual and very good thing for me, and learning from an academic standpoint about the history of Chicanos in the United States is serving as a good supplement to that “real-life” learning experience.

Over the past few weeks we’ve been getting started at our field study sites on both sides of the border. Mine is the Opportunity Center, a homeless shelter in El Paso. It is a last-resort shelter, meaning that it opens its doors to people who are denied at other facilities, and is also one of the few centers in El Paso that does not require clients to provide documentation of their citizenship. As a result, it is both diverse and busy, and all sorts of interesting situations arise. So far I’ve been working at the front desk, doing intakes for new clients and overseeing the dayroom, where many of the residents stay during the hot El Paso afternoons. I’m also planning to volunteer in the Center’s education program and its drug and alcohol abuse program.

We ended the week with a Party to celebrate el 16 de Septiembre, which celebrates the beginning of Mexico’s War of Independence from Spain. It is in important day in Mexico, and throughout the country government officials give their own recreations of the “Grito de Dolores,” the exhortation that the priest Miguel Hidalgo gave to his parishioners Sept. 16 1810, calling his parishioners to take up arms for the cause of independence.  All of the students came with our host families, enjoyed delicious food, dancing, and a piñata, and later went out to enjoy the holiday festivities throughout the city.

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