Web Letters: A City Made of Waste

Mr. Cruz makes many observations about San Diego and Tijuana that are difficult to evaluate given the lack of stastical information he provides. One has no idea how many bungalows are moving south of the border and how many McMansions are being built (actually, building here has slowed down considerably). However, the greatest flaws of his article are the unanswered questions he raises and the assertion that the informal sector may "become the basis for a new paradigm of...sustainability." Just what would this new paradigm look like?

Karen Kinney

San Diego, CA

Those informal houses near NAFTA factories may be convenient if these people want to find work. The famous sucking sound of jobs going south took the jobs not only of American citizens and permanent residents but also of temporary workers. I caught the end of a piece on CNN, about a temporary worker from Guatemala, who had to get a bus ticket home from his consulate because there was no work for him in the US. Not only the factory jobs but some California farmers have also gone south, looking for cheap labor.

There was a fairly recent story on several news outlets about a farmer who said that he had gone to southern Mexico because he couldn't find enough pickers in California. It was mentioned rather casually that he had paid his workers $9 an hour in California, but he only had to pay them $11 a day in Mexico. He wondered why the workers didn't work as hard in Mexico as they did in California. Fleetwood sent their trailer production down to Mexicali from Rialto. In California they paid workers $20 an hour, but in Mexico, workers received $3 an hour. Many of the workers who lost their jobs in California were Americans of Mexican ancestry.

As for the American jobs that went south, the American market that supported both the American and other workers from points south disappeared with those jobs. Those jobs in America provide the disposable income to support two-thirds of the American market. But cheer up: those trailers make good temporary housing too, if the workers who make them can afford them. Perhaps Mexico can replace the US in providing temporary work for people from Central America.

Pervis James Casey

Riverside, CA