(no subject)
My ethnic studies class and I went to Tijuana for info on maquiladoras and the messed up stuff that happens in them. From what I gather, most of them are from Sony and Toshiba and companies like that. They put them in places like TJ so they can get away with paying people $4 a day for 12 hour shifts and mistreat the workers without any legal repercussions.
This is the border wall. The crosses are for people who have died trying to cross into the US. It goes for...a long ways.
I think past these walls is where people try to cross into the US through the desert.
A lot of people who work in the factories can't afford housing, so they build shacks to live in near the maquiladora.
This is their main water source. It used to be clear water, but now it looks like this because of the waste from the factories washing into it.
We visited a Zapatista office. The office is the center for worker's rights groups and feminista groups. The ladies there were really cool. Most of them work in a maquiladora, or used to. They were mistreated and sexually assaulted. One woman was injured on the job and is now a paraplegic. They didn't want to pay out, and she had no choice but to go back and work at the factory again.
This was like, a really nice Burger King.
It's really crazy how San Diego is right next to TJ, but people in San Diego act like it doesn't even exist. It also looks and smells just like Vietnam, btw. lol.
Also, LOL @ the white chicks who got their passports out to go from the US into TJ. There's no border patrol securing traffic that way, OK? These same chicks kept saying "omg this is like SO GROSS. it smells like, SO BAD." I was kind of embarrassed.