Interview with Jorge Bustamante at the University of Notre Dame
November 19, 2004

My name is Jorge Bustamante. I am a professor of sociology at the University of Notre Dame, and I have been studying the border for quite some time. I live at the border; I live in Tijuana.

Tijuana is the location of one of the two opposites that characterize the relationship between the two bordering countries. In Tijuana–San Diego you find a vicinity that involves the counties of Southern California, with a higher income per capita than the whole United States. In contrast, you find the counties of Southeast Texas that border with the state of Tamaulipas, Mexico—the counties with the lowest income per capita in the whole United States. So this makes for a quite heterogeneous region. In comparison with the rest of Mexico, for instance, the border region represents conditions that are above the national average in Mexico in whatever indicator you want to use of socioeconomic development. This is in contrast with the situation of the United States, where the border area, with the exception of Southern California, is of lower economic development than the rest of the United States. So the border very often means different things for different people along the border, where about 10 million people live.

The border is also a very dynamic place that could be seen from an optimistic perspective or a pessimistic perspective. For instance, Time magazine had a feature article on the U.S.–Mexico border portraying the border with very optimistic eyes, like a place that would have a brilliant future. And that might be nothing resembling either the United State or Mexico. They called it Mexamerica. That was a very optimistic view. This was a feature article that was published about two years ago.

Now, very recently, they published an article on the border with a totally opposite view, very pessimistic, about immigration as something very negative that is happening to the United States, and [the border] as a place where there is traffic of people, traffic of drugs and crime. So the two [articles] are probably representations of this heterogeneity that characterizes the border.

In the future this is going to be the place where the economic integration, that is, the integration of the Mexican economy to the United States economy is going to be more salient, is going to be more all-inclusive of the aspects of life: economic, cultural, social. And this is also going to be associated with some microcosms of the relationship between the United States and the whole continent of Latin America, because the border with Mexico is not only the border with the country, it is the border with a different world, the world of Latin America. So the border is a place where you can find the basic characteristics of the relationship between the United States and the rest of the continent of Latin America.

I think that the border will represent opportunities for economic competition of the United States with other regions of the world. I think that the way some communities of the border, such as Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, have grown in a process of interaction that involves an interdependence of the two cities is going to be where you will find new opportunities for competition of North America with other areas of the world, particularly with Europe and with the Asian markets.

So it’s a place where the contrast that characterizes the relationship between the United States and Latin America is going to be represented in a very concrete way by opportunities and certain problems that derive from the contrast between the economy of the United States and the economy of Mexico: the cultures, two languages, two religions’ predominance, like in Mexico the Catholics and in the United States the white Anglo-Saxon protestant. But this with particular shades that correspond to the life of the border.

Even though it is very valid to speak about the border region in terms of the common denominator of the vicinity between the two countries, the border region could be subdivided in subregions that correspond to specific conditions that are quite unique. You could conceptualize a subregion, one that corresponds to a vertex of Monterrey on the south in its economic relation with the border region—particularly with the area of Reynosa and McAllen, which have a very promising future in the way they are developing—and this in relationship with Houston in another vertex with San Antonio. So you would have some sort of a triangle in which you find Monterrey at the south, with Houston toward the east and San Antonio toward the west. And this is going to be a subregion that is going to grow in importance and in its implications for the two countries. This also is going to play an important role in the competition of the United States and Mexico, as North America, with other regions of the world.

The border development that you can see between Reynosa and McAllen is going to be characteristic of these opportunities that I was referring to before. This is a place where the international elements of globalization are going to be very present and are going to determine the way the two countries together at the border region are going to interact with other regions of the world on very advantageous conditions.

With reference to the vicinity between cities, I think you can find examples of different levels of integration between the two sides of the border. A specific case is Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, where you find two communities that have been living under a process of interdependence for a long time, and I see these conditions expanding into a number of opportunities.

I don’t want to portray an only rosy picture of the border. The contrasts between the conditions of the two countries are going to dictate certain limitations, for instance, one that has to do with the national security, which is something that has been a salient feature of the border relations ever since 9/11. I think that in the future the conditions of national security are going to be present but are going to be diluted into the variety of relations that shape the conditions of these interactions, this interdependence between two communities such as Ciudad Juarez and El Paso. I think that in this area you will find the advantage of the possibilities of enrichment, cultural enrichment, that you have with the cultures of the two sides.

At the same time, you have an enclave where the representations of globalization are going to be quite present and with different developments on the two sides of the border and where the opportunities to find a laboratory of the international relations of the United States with other countries are going to have an interesting representation in the interactions you find in Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, where you find the aspects related to different currencies, and you find the opportunities of different languages, different cultures. This is something that has to be observed on a long-term basis to realize what is the importance in the future of the border and the number of dimensions that I have referred to, such as the cultural, economic, the social and the environmental as well.

The border represents a challenge for the quality of environment that has to be faced by the two countries. Already there are mechanisms of that in the Border Environmental Cooperative Commission, where you find the best capabilities of the two countries for mutual cooperation, for an environment that doesn’t have any border and that has to be shared by the peoples of the two sides.

The challenges of the border include, obviously, the notion of sovereignty of the two countries, the notion of national security of the two countries. So the people of the two sides will have to learn how to adjust to the fact that the border is a place where things have to be checked in terms of what derives from two different nations and two different sovereignties. This has already begun after 9/11. At the border you have seen a number of adjustments in measures taken by the United States to respond to the needs of national security. The people of the Mexican side have been learning to adjust to these new conditions. And what you find is a representation of a very encouraging experience of two countries living in peaceful conditions in places that represent the most intensive crossings of international borders in the world. That is the case of Tijuana, that is the case of Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, and this is taking place under very peaceful conditions. I think that in this respect it’s an example to other parts of the world.