Uncovering Mexico
Jeremy Schwartz is the Mexico correspondent for Cox Newspapers. He is based in Mexico City.What's on this page?
The entry titled "Back on the border."
Categories
Commenting is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. M-F
More recent entries
Home > Uncovering Mexico > Archives > 2007 > November > 26 > Entry
Back on the border
Last week we headed up to the border for a story in the Chihuahuan desert and for some turkey and stuffing with Nancy’s parents. We flew to Monterrey and took a bus up to Piedras Negras, across the border from Eagle Pass. After being in Mexico City for so long, it was a little jarring how different the borderlands are from the megalopolis: the landscape, the people, the Wranglers all share much more culturally with Texas than Mexico City. Just as border people in Texas complain the politicians in Washington, D.C. don’t understand the border, so too do their Mexican counterparts complain about the politicos in the Mexican capital.
It was also a little sad to see what is happening in our beloved Coahuila, where Nancy and I were married two years ago. The Coahuilan border is often called the “frontera blanca” (the clean border), a reference to the relative safety and absence of violence there, especially compared to Nuevo Laredo to the east and Ciudad Juarez to the west. But violence has been creeping into Coahuila in the last year, most likely the result of increasing federal pressure on other parts of the border. Saltillo, the state capital, has seen several high ranking police chiefs gunned down. It goes to show that no stretch of border is entirely immune from the narco-wars.
Meanwhile, the border area continues to boom, driven mostly by Mexican shoppers looking for deals on the U.S. side and a weak dollar. Mexican bus lines advertise all-day shopping trips to Eagle Pass malls and parking lots continue to be filled with Mexican license plates. And leaders on both sides of the Texas/Coahuila border continue to lead the effort against a border wall. Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster has become a spokesman of sorts, sparring with Bill O’Reilly and appearing on NPR.
Comments
Click here to report comment abuse.