Econ 295 / SOAN 291

We had a tour of Ajo and listened to someone tell us about efforts to revamp the economy!

Ajo used to be a mining town; however, when the major industry ceased production, the area suffered enormous economic consequences.  Being from West Virginia, the story of Ajo is not at all unfamiliar to me.  Small towns are declining everywhere in America.  On top of that, people are continuing to migrate to the cities, concentrating the American population in urban areas.

As we walked through Ajo, I was impressed by the strategies to improve the economic stagnation.  The city has been putting a great emphasis on the arts, decorating the downtown section and encouraging people to stay in affordable housing and work on whatever projects occupy their time.  I also admired how the city is trying to improve the infrastructure and appeal to organizations needing office spaces or headquarters.

Even though I saw hope in Ajo, the strategies for economic growth will probably not have a significant impact on the area.  The reality of the changing locational demographics in America just means bad news for a place like Ajo.

In Ajo, we learned about farming, ate some great food, and enjoyed some prickly pear lemonade!

On Thursday, we began bright and early with a talk by a small-scale farmer and a Native American quite passionate about promoting traditional foods.  As we sat at the table, we got to try some tepary beans, “old fashioned granola,” and spicy things (I think they were dried chilis, but not 100 percent sure).  The foods tasted very good to me! In regard to the small-scale farming, I saw a lot of positivity.  For starters, I believe that people who farm have a greater appreciation for the natural world and the food they have to eat, and secondly, endeavors such as these are great for bringing local communities together!

However, I would be lying if I told you that I do not have reservations about small-scale / traditional farming.  First, the food that is harvested requires much more labor than what is needed on a giant cornfield in Kansas.  Furthermore, the prices of locally grown food are EXTREMELY high.  The flower pictured above costs 12 dollars.  While I think it is great that local farmers encourage people to eat healthier, many people would not be able to consume enough calories even if they dedicated their whole food budget to foods such as the flower pictures above.

I don’t mean to spread negativity in this post; however, this is what I thought during the food tour, and I want my blogging to be an accurate reflection of who I am.

While the border has always been an issue in politics, the election of Donald Trump undoubtedly increased public discussion about the issue.  Visiting the parts of American closest to Mexico will undoubtedly play a role in how I look at the issue of sovereign borders.

While we were on the Tohono O’odham reservation, I could not believe how many border patrol agents were monitoring the area with an EXTREMELY close watch.  I will never forget what happened during an early morning run with Pat and Professor Guse.  A few feet away from me in a large vehicle, a group of agents either stopped or significantly slowed down as I ran on the road, (I cannot exactly remember) and they all seemed to be trying to figure out who I was and what I was doing.  For a moment, I was moderately freaked out.

After listening to a guest speaker at the souther border, (Needless to mention, many dogs in the vicinity made me smile even though a part of myself knew that they have sad and unfortunate lives in the grueling heat.) I now have a deep understanding of the reasons not to build the wall.  However, I disagree with those who say that people can always go over or under walls – I believe that really big structures (the kind one can see on the borders between Israel and the Gaza Strip) undoubtedly impede movement.  Nevertheless, for me it comes down to a cost benefit analysis – will the reduction of the need for border patrol agents cover the costs associated with a wall which will only significantly stop migrants if it is a tall and extremely expensive barrier?  My gut feeling is probably not, and when you look at the harm a wall would do to the natural environment and the Tohono O’odham people, America definitely should not invest in a small wall.  As for a larger, more expensive structure, building such a thing would probably not be worth it.

I had a few thoughts about what education means in poorer areas such as in and around the reservation.

1. They should have access to education of the same quality and caliber as any other student in America, or at least that state. But what specific pedagogy do you use? I don’t mean to sound elitist, but I think the schools in the area should offer the minimum general education requirements and then focus heavily on teaching and certifying technical skills. These are realistically what the people from these area are able to find work in,  work that is vital to the community. Offering other courses such as those found at at W&L that are a bit more “fluff” like art history, music, drama are really not too useful to them. But if a student from the reservation would like the opportunity to study them, how do you prepare them when you focus on technical skills? I was very glad to hear the community college has an informal agreement with Arizona State and U of A to transfer students.

 

2. Culture. While I just said that the more “fluff” subjects be de-prioritized at the expense of technical education, I do believe that there is a place for education dealing with formal study of the student’s culture. Formal language , history and culture courses are essential if they want to maintain their culture. I am also impressed with how well they accommodate outsiders at the college. I saw they only had an about 85% Amerindian enrollment and the rest was other races. These people are given an amazing opportunity to study the culture. This is impressive to me because my own tribe (Kickapoo) limits who can and cannot learn about the culture, the language and the worldview.  Even I can’t learn the language. I applied to learn it when I read it was listed as an endangered language. I was denied because I am Kickapoo maternally, and they say culture must be passed through a male relative to be valid.

 

3.  After education, what’s next? This is the one I really struggle with, because I hope I can make this choice one day. After you graduate, after you get a great job, do you go back to help the place you grew up in? As we say in the water management office, it makes a huge difference to the community. If not it will face a massive “brain drain” where education may flow in, but the net benefits are realized elsewhere. As we also heard, they took a big pay gap when they went back to help their community. How can poor communities make themselves a valid option for the educated, the successful to come back and reinvest themselves in the society?

 

 

Any thoughts form the ECON portion of the class, I am super curious about #3

 

Growing up on the border, I crossed the bridges between the Eagle Pass, Tx, and Piedras Negras, Coah. probably over 1,500 times. (twice a day for every day of school). My grandpa was even immigration chief for my Mexican home district.

Despite this, I had very rarely seen an trouble with the system, that is to say I had only seen the border shut down once in my life and I don’t really remember it. It was during 9/11. Despite my many border crossings, about 99% of them have been through a legal port of entry where each country agreed to set up formal customs and immigration authorities. (1% swimming in the Rio Grande, sometime even with friends whose parents are US border patrol). When we saw the San Gabriel gate my reaction was originally to be freaked out. What the hell is a gate doing that is unguarded from one side?

 

Hot take- when I heard about the man who owned the property and had actually welded the gate shut to prevent the movement through it, I thought I would have done the same if this were the case on our ranch on the border. I would not have tried to sell them the ranch through,  I just don’t want my home to serve as a hub for illegal crossings.

 

Did anyone ask him what he thought of having an unofficial border crossing on his property, especially one under the turf of the Sinaloa Cartel? (El Chapo’s people) I would be scared shitless. My ranch is one of the two places where people can cross the usually 100 ft. wide and strong currented Rio Grande on foot and we have the same problem, but with the Los Zetas Cartel.

 

While the Tohno are right in saying this was their land first, I find the argument of their right to free and unrestricted movement to Mexico absurd as a Mexican citizen claiming they have a right to move to Houston or San Antonio. (Both previously Mexican territory). The land was conquered and they should have no claim to it in Mexico and therefore no unrestricted access to an actual  sovereign country. Mexico for this reason does not recognize the sovereignty of indigenous lands.

 

We also have to take into consideration the sad fact that the living conditions of the Tohono coupled with their American recognized status have made them prime targets to be recruited as human and drug smugglers. I have met some back home in Texas- can you really blame anyone for not wanting that in your backyard?

 

I do not think that closing the gate was a solution, or even an attempt at one, but rather an unfortunate side effect of a broken immigration system and a bi-national failure on the war on drugs, with the Tohono caught in the middle. It wasn’t their fault, it wasn’t the rancher’s fault. Everyone acted rationally, can you really blame anyone for that?

I noticed that many times when we were discussing the culture of the Tohono and of the surrounding communities, we would have a native person give their experience on the subject t hand. This however was followed by an American explaining the more complex nuances of the situation. We saw this at the museum and especially at Ajo. Both groups of people were especially hospitable and I am very grateful they were so open to talking with us, but I almost have a sense that there was some paternalism in the actions of the Americans. This is a common problem in many places that have suffered colonialism, but I wouldn’t think I would see it so close to home. When I think of post-colonial paternalism, I think the former Rhodesia or the Dutch Indies, and even Latin America, but I don’t think the US. I don’t know why I had never thought of this, given we are all familiar with the history of colonialism spanning into the early 20^thcentury and continuing now with Puerto Rico, Guam, Marshal Islands, etc.

 

 

There has to be a balance to being able to tell the story of not only Native Americans but all marginalized groups of people. While I agree that it may be necessary to have a white person help spread the story (given we live in a white hegemony), it’s not theirs to tell. I am reminded of Prof. Markowitz’s experience working with the Smithsonian, where a white institution aimed to do well and tell the story of the marginalized group but in their own way as opposed to the way the Tohno wanted it told.

 

Is this a problem faced by other exploration societies and museums, is National Geographic? Discovery? The American Museum of Natural History? Are all of these institutions complicit? I don’t know, but National Geographic released a special edition in 2018 that dealt with their history, especially on their earlier issues depicting the hierarchy of races with pictures from a Sub-Saharan expedition . But how do we really deal with this problem? While an apology is definitely a step in the right direction, it really doesn’t address the issue. We can’t expect every society studied to be able to review everything written about them like we can. We can say confidently that many of the most remote tribes and peoples that are fetishized and exoticized by explorers writing about them don’t have subscriptions to these publications.

 

I feel at minimum if you study a society you should do so objectively firstly, and then you should be able to provide the people the final draft of the results for their approval before publications. After all, it’s their history, and you want to make sure you have it right. To this end, I feel this is mutually beneficial.

While we sat in the museum for a long, but fruitful, seven hours, there were many interesting things I learned. One of those things that Peter and a few others touched on and that I was reminded of throughout the trip was the amount of work and effort put into archeology, preserving artifacts, and essentially being the safekeeper of history/culture. It was fascinating to understand more fully the amount of work as well as gain a deeper appreciation for the things that archeologists and historians do. Archeology had always seemed to be somewhat of a dying field to me and I could not have been further from the truth. Another thing that was interesting to see was the amount of paperwork done to release reports on all types of things and how each agency had to read through a book full of reports before responding. I’m sure there is a massive amount of legal documents archeologists have to deal with just to mark a site for excavation or discovery, and that’s just the beginning.

Repatriation is another thing I got to see at a personal level, I had heard about the importance of it in locating artifacts but to see it adding to the history and being a key in preserving O’odham ways was fascinating. When Peter told us there was something coming in from Princeton and how many O’odham artifacts were scattered due to colonialism I couldn’t help but wonder how many artifacts were still in hiding or lost and how finally the O’odham were claiming their history back. Although by the end of the seven hours I was just straight up not having a good time, the information was very pertinent and all of it was worth it.

I have now entered another country and consider myself a world traveler. I wouldn’t call myself the most cultured man in the world, but some might. I thought I had achieved it with a simple step under the fence, but to my dismay, Peter told us it was actually a little farther back so I ran under the metal rod type fence. I found the border to be a very interesting visit and was honestly surprised at the type of patrolling and security surrounding it. I envisioned more of a fencing type situation or a more permanent border, but evident in the different places along the border we saw, it is more of a shifting type of border with patrolling cars along different areas. It makes sense when thinking about it, the Sonoran Desert is a large area and any type of fence would most likely be subject to weathering or simply tactics to get over or around it, so the best way includes a mix of a wall for things like car barriers as well as patrolling. From what was communicated by Kendall Jose and others we talked to about the border, and supported by facts, the remote desert areas experience far less smuggling than one would be led to believe because of the simply vastness and difficulty of traversing the long distances without being spotted. It was a great thing to be able to see because it allowed me to continue to shape my beliefs regarding the border and cemented the non-need for a wall. Crossed the border! (failed attempt )

Isn’t it funny how we, from one of the richest schools in the nation, went to learn from one of the poorest ethnic groups in the nation for the purpose of education. In anthropology and sociology and in studying impoverished and oppressed groups, there lies an inherent power gradient and hypocrisy. I would almost push this to the point that if we do not actively advocate or do things to solve the unjust poverty Native Americans and the Tohono O’odham face, then we have failed. We now possess more knowledge about the O’odham than the majority of the world, and in possessing this knowledge and having experts and residents take time out of their day to educate us, there may be responsibility with it. 38 percent of the Tohono O’odham are in poverty. Around 25 percent face unemployment. The real crisis on the border is the alarming humanitarian crisis unfolding in front of our eyes. And we’re going to chalk this up to a cool learning experience, or a nice trip to the Southwest. Don’t get me wrong, the opportunity and ability to learn about a resilient, beautiful culture is amazing, but I wonder about the opportunity of the O’odham to learn about the things they are passionate about. I wonder about the opportunity the O’odham had in the past to learn about themselves in boarding schools with their language and culture stripped. I wonder about the woman at the museum who told us many O’odham were scared or hesitant to teach their children their own language, in fear they would be punished for it. Becoming more educated about a subject can never bring harm, but I ask if there’s something wrong in seeing injustice and letting it slide. Of this we’re all guilty, and I don’t know the answer. 

In case you were wondering, by the time we reached Ajo, my shingles were well on the road to recovery. Sitting at the airport now, I still can feel remnants of my shingles, but I have officially finished all of my anti-viral and biotic medications and am feeling a lot better. Thank God for recovery and thank God for Western medicine! As for a shingles recurrence (which I am deeply terrified of), the internet says I’m in the clear for the next 3 years at least while the virus gets out of my system. Hopefully I’ll never have to go through the Hell of Shingles again.

Now, sweet Ajo. I know we had briefly talked about Ajo before heading out to AZ, but I wasn’t really sure at all what to think pre-visiting the old mining town. Honestly, though, I was enchanted by its charm and resilience. I think it’s so beautiful that the town is attempting to revitalize through art and artists — I’ve read about city revitalization through art in places like Philly, but I’ve never seen a project like Ajo in action. I love that little town. In fact, I could see myself there some time down the line staying there as a resident artist… There truly was something so charming and inspiring about the place. Also, I could live off of the sweet potato quesadillas and prickly pear lemonade at the farmers market kitchen.

I’m currently sitting at the airport thinking over the trip, this year, the class, and everything in between. It is a strange feeling to be at the end of a chapter I, at a time, desperately wanted to be over (not the class, but this academic year). I am only a week out, and then I hit freedom (finally) again. That is a good feeling. But it is strange, too.

I remember this time four years ago at the same place in my high school experience — my junior year served as my first introduction into the idea of freedom and love, music and love, love, love love. Freedom and love. I was so excited at the prospect of college and freedom, and it’s hard to believe this period is nearly coming to a close again. When the week ends, I’ll have finished my third year at Washington and Lee, and I’ll be on the countdown to my last days here. That’s a really strange feeling. But it does feel appropriate to have finished up this year in the desert — the biome which I have always felt most free within and connected to. In reference to myself this time four years ago, I aspired to be a desert woman, and I still aspire the same. It feels also appropriate to have ended the trip in Ajo — an artist’s haven — and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument — where I could yell OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW at the top of my lungs and have it echo back to me three more times before the canyons went silent again. I love the desert. And I am glad to have seen a taste of the traditional way of life here. All I’ll say in closing after this long ramble is — as always, the desire to learn and connect more has arisen once again, and I am both grateful for all that has happened before and everything that is to come in time.