Blurred Borders - International Community Foundation

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14.5% perceived the border as having a negative impact. This figure correlates closely to KPBS/Competitive Edge poll which identified 15% of San Diegans as having a strong negative perception of Tijuana. Of those Tijuanenses surveyed by Cross Border Business, over 11% of Tijuanenses believed that their proximity to San Diego had negative impacts to their community. The Cross Border Business Associates poll found that over 91% of San Diego County residents surveyed had been to Tijuana at least once in their lifetime but less than 58% had been back across in the past year. Nearly 21% had not been back to Tijuana in over four years. By contrast, among those Tijuanenses legally able to visit United States (a total of 66%), well over 90% had been to San Diego at least once in the past year. For all of the concerns about crossing the border, there is nevertheless a general sense among a collective sampling of English- and Spanish-speaking San Diegans that living at or along the border is a good thing. Among Tijuanenses, there were surprising similarities with respect to the net benefits of the border as illustrated by Table 6. Table 6 Perception of San Diego-Tijuana Residents of the Impact of the Border Impact of the Border? Tijuana Perspective n=411 San Diego County Perspective n=614 Positive Impact 68.1% 68.7% Negative Impact 11.2% 14.5% No Impact 20.7% 16.8% What is one to make of the San Diego-Tijuana border region and of the perceptions of its area residents? Do good “borders” make good neighbors? Local columnist Neil Morgan characterized it best when he observed that the region is “the most populous, innovative and schizophrenic metropolis along the U.S.-Mexico border, north or south.” 23 KPBS’s survey results reveal this to be the case among English-only speaking residents of San Diego with the exception of the San Diego’s fast-growing Hispanic community, which is embracing the border and making the most of its unique strategic advantages for culturally competent health care, education, as well as shopping, employment, family ties, and recreation. Impacts of Human Migration While the emphasis of this report is not human migration or immigration policy per se, it must be acknowledged that many of the socio-economic issues and challenges impacting the San Diego-Tijuana region today are the direct result of often contradictory and ineffective policies on human migration and immigration from both the U.S. and Mexican federal governments. On one hand, America’s strong demand for cheap labor and the country’s inconsistent policies on 23 Morgan, Neil, “Come for food, stay for the renaissance,” San Diego Union Tribune, September 28, 2003, page B2. 8
immigration, including ineffectual employer sanctions and limited enforcement beyond the immediate border, has led to a rise in migration, human suffering and, in a growing number of cases, death. On the other hand, the government of Mexico has encouraged, indirectly through its economic policies, the migration of thousands of its citizens away from their communities of origin and to the border region in search of jobs in the maquiladora program and beyond as a way to promote poverty alleviation. In many respects the problem of extreme poverty in Mexico’s migrant-sending regions such as Oaxaca, Guerrero and Chiapas has been beyond the control of the Mexican Government to effectively manage. Today there are over 50 million people living in extreme poverty in Mexico---close to 50% of the country’s entire population. Also, there is an annual need to create an estimated one million new jobs. With Mexico having experienced one of the worst economic crises in its modern history in the mid 1990s, the Government of Mexico’s challenge to create new jobs has not been easy. Over the past 40 years, the San Diego-Tijuana region has experienced periodic increases in migration that corresponded to Mexican economic crises. However, the wave of human migration to our binational region during the 1990’s was arguably of a different sort. Here, the key differentiators were the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), expanded trade liberalization, and Mexico’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) that, among other things, led to the elimination of government price supports for the country’s agricultural sector. Though NAFTA and trade liberalization has had economic benefits to the United States and Mexico, the same cannot be said for the thousands of rural farmers from Mexico’s heartland who have found it virtually impossible to compete with the larger, more cost-competitive and productive U.S. agricultural sector. Mexico’s lack of competitiveness in agriculture is best illustrated by the fact that today 20% of the Mexican workforce is in agriculture yet this sector produces only 5.5% percent of the country’s GDP. In the United States, in turn, the agricultural sector employs 2.6% to the total workforce while producing 1.4% of GDP. 24 The net effect has been that Mexico is now a net importer of many basic commodities from the United States, including corn, powdered milk, milk substitutes and meat that it once could fully supply without imports. 25 In the case of Mexico, a number of its agricultural jobs are not coming back. Like the steel towns of America’s Northeast, villages and towns across Central and Southern Mexico are becoming ghost towns with a growing number of their residents now living in Mexico’s northern border or in the United States. In this sense, for many migrant workers, the rules of the game have changed. Their roots and family ties may remain in places like Oaxaca, Jalisco and Guerrero but today these regions provide little economic hope. 24 Michael D. Layton, “NAFTA: Threat or Opportunity for Mexican Agriculture?” El Universal (Mexico D.F., Mexico), February 10, 2003 25 Cornelius, Wayne, A. “Impacts of NAFTA on Mexico-to-US Migration,” NAFTA in the New Millenium (Edited by Edward J. Chambers and Peter H. Smith), La Jolla: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego, p. 294. 9
Page 1 and 2: Blurred Borders: Trans-Boundary Imp
Page 3 and 4: Tijuana-San Diego Non-Profit Organi
Page 5 and 6: Dedication Blurred Borders is dedic
Page 7 and 8: About the Editors Richard Kiy: Kiy
Page 9 and 10: Executive Summary Over the years, t
Page 11 and 12: prosperity and long-term competitiv
Page 13 and 14: CHAPTER I WHY THE BORDER MATTERS
Page 15 and 16: While Tijuana’s economic impact t
Page 17 and 18: Table 2: San Diego County’s Hispa
Page 19: Table 4: Impressions of Tijuana by
Page 23 and 24: in 2005; and 390,000 to 439,000 in
Page 25 and 26: implementing such a system at the b
Page 27 and 28: Among the principal aims of this re
Page 29 and 30: CHAPTER II DEFINING THE BORDER AND
Page 31 and 32: Jobs alone will not keep San Diego
Page 33 and 34: For those cross-border residents th
Page 35 and 36: Table 7: San Diego Matriculas (1995
Page 37 and 38: Table 9: Selected Demographic Chara
Page 39 and 40: CHAPTER III THE CASE FOR INCREASED
Page 41 and 42: few binational fiber optic networks
Page 44 and 45: Income disparity, both between and
Page 46 and 47: Thankfully, there is a growing cons
Page 48 and 49: Identifying San Diego-Tijuana's Sha
Page 51 and 52: CHAPTER IV PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE:
Page 53 and 54: (December 2003). 94 A used home’s
Page 55 and 56: However, for many, securing a place
Page 57 and 58: areas away from San Diego’s cente
Page 59 and 60: Securing Water Supply: An Imperativ
Page 61 and 62: esidents change their energy use pa
Page 63 and 64: Regional Workbench Consortium The R
Page 65 and 66: CHAPTER V EDUCATION - ISSUES AND OP
Page 67 and 68: Ysidro Elementary School District,
Page 69 and 70: Almost 95% of secondary schools in
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example is the Binational Migrant E
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and possess a strong commitment to
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Additionally, gaps between ethnic g
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in the business world on both sides
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CHAPTER VI ENVIRONMENT—BETTER COL
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Mexico and U.S. sources into a prot
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wildlife habitat. Furthermore, othe
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projects related to air quality and
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Fisheries management is a global ch
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The project’s potential environme
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corporations, academic institutions
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Environmental Education Environment
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There are, however, unresolved envi
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What is still lacking are strong re
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public and private partnerships) wo
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Medical care in Mexico is attractiv
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per 100,000. 247 By ethnicity, Afri
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Gastro-Intestinal Diseases Intestin
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Undocumented migrant workers are es
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Hispanics represent 30% of the Cali
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County for their migrant farm worke
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Pharmaceuticals It is estimated tha
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declined over the last two decades
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collection and re-distribution) and
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Other efforts to promote community
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options have put increased pressure
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arrests in the Hispanic population
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strengthening the coalition. Among
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• Prisoner re-entry program in Ti
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The level of cultural exchange betw
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About the Mexico/United States Bord
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the innovative work undertaken by t
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given the post-9/11 heightened conc
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26.2 million visitors spending in e
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Cross-Border Institutional Ties Nee
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the border region necessitate takin
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• Expand the level of elder and y
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Comisión Estatal de Servicios Púb
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Morales, Rebecca. 2001. “Educatin
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Appendix A: Crossborder Business As
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population as being native to the c
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in Mexico reported having visiting
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� First, that a majority of both
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Table 1H San Diego Survey Results -
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1. Tijuana Results 3 Neutral 3 0.7%
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contrast is the difference in ranki
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conduct surveys at the sites. Based
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(especially for the Central San Die
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Table 2D: Crosstab - Purpose & Freq
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Appendix B LISTING OF MIGRANT-SERVI
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Escondido Community Child Developme
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TIJUANA-SAN DIEGO NON-PROFIT ORGANI
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Patronato Escuela para Padres de Ba
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EDUCATION (continued) AGENCY ADDRES
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ENVIRONMENT (continued) AGENCY ADDR
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Page 183 and 184:
Page 185 and 186:
HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES (continue
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Page 189 and 190:
Page 191 and 192:
Page 193 and 194:
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PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE: URBAN & RE
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B-29 border to enhance trade and co
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Appendix C: San Diego andTijuana At
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Definitions Canasta Basica: Defined
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