Teaching Geography Workshop 1: Introduction – Part 1: El Paso/Ciudad Juarez
JIM BINKO:
Hello and welcome. I am Jim Binko, your host for this Professional
Development Workshop series on Teaching Geography. Over the past
two decades, I have developed and led dozens of teacher workshops and
summer institutes for the National Geographic Society. Together, we’ve
been trying to dispel some old ideas that geography is about memorizing
the names of state capitals and the lengths of the world’s rivers. Rather,
geography can help us understand many of the world’s great issues in
spatial terms. Just as history provides the temporal dimension to other
disciplines, geography provides the critical spatial dimension.
So our goal is to help teachers--not just in geography, but in social
studies, history and even the natural sciences. This workshop includes
both videos and important reading and exercises that you will complete
either on your own or, preferably, together with your study group. The
series is organized around the framework provided by Geography for
Life: The National Geography Standards. These standards were written
in the early '90s by a distinguished team of college and high school
educators.
There are 18 standards, grouped into six essential elements. They lay
out the kinds of things a student should know and be able to do at each
grade level. If you’ve done your homework, you’ve already begun to read
Geography for Life. I think you will find the assigned readings quite
helpful in preparing for the video programs you’ll be watching in the
workshops.
Each workshop includes two half-hour video programs. Each program
begins with a short documentary video case study about a place, its
people and how they are affected by geographic forces. Sixteen case
studies from all around the world, paired together with brief regional
commentaries by Dr. Gil Latz, will serve as a substantial introduction to
the core content of world regional geography.
In addition, Dr. Susan Hardwick will comment on the human geography
themes evident in each case study. Following the case study and
commentary, we move into the classroom to observe some innovative
teachers modeling exemplary instruction.
UNGENNETTE
HARRIS:
STUDENT:
The last time that we were in here, we worked on problems in refugee
camps. And then you were going to come up with some solutions to
those problems.
Number one. Hardly no water, and they’re very overcrowded.
STUDENT 2:
It’s in the Gaza Strip?
STUDENT:
Yeah, it’s the little thing right here...
NARRATOR:
Over the course of these workshops, we’ll visit many seventh-through
12th-grade classrooms across the country. Yeah.
RICK GINDELE:
You have about 12 minutes to figure out which neighborhoods you’re
going to target, then there’s three questions at the bottom there for you to
process.
NARRATOR:
We’ll spend lots of time with teachers and their students....this is, like,
income, and then we have the vehicles together right here. But, like,
those all really correspond.
FRANCES KELLY:
Hi, my name is Frances Kelly. Me and my group members did a Venn
Diagram on the culture difference between Kenya and U.S.A.
NARRATOR:
And we’ll see how the teachers integrate the geography standards into
lively and engaging real-world lessons.
SHIRLEY
HUTCHINS:
And let’s just do a little brainstorming here. Try and figure out why we
think AIDS is such a problem in Kenya.
NARRATOR:
Eighth-grade teacher Ungennette Brantley Harris uses geography to
connect her students’ daily lives to global issues.
HARRIS:
I try to get them, at the very beginning of the class, to understand that
geography is an everyday thing. When you get up, you know, if you had
cereal this morning, did you go out and cut the wheat? You know, it
came from somewhere. You know, how did it get to the grocery store?
There’s a process and that’s geography-that’s movement. And you just
might not think about it, but we need to understand what is going on in
the world and this is a way...,because young people really have the
tendency to not pay the news any attention, and if it doesn’t affect them
directly, then they are not understanding it. And I think the bombing of
the World Trade Center, or the...The World Trade Center brought
home...it was closer to home, then. And they took more interest in this.
But geography is everything.
BINKO:
Now we begin our first case study in the twin cities of El Paso, Texas,
and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. The goal is to help you strengthen your
geographic perspective and to pass it on to your students.
So have fun. It’s a great journey.
NARRATOR:
On the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, is a squatters’ settlement
called "Anapra." In 1980, this was empty desert. By the 1990s, tens of
thousands of residents have staked out small plots and constructed
makeshift homes. Most tie into the power lines illegally and run lamp
wires over the sand to light their homes. 1994-- we visit Concha Martinez
for the first time, living in this tarpaper shack. Like thousands of her
neighbors, she has no running water or sewers, no title to her land.
A single mother, Concha built this one-room home for herself and her
four children: Abel, 12, Adrian, ten, Wendy, five, and the youngest, Alexi.
Their incredible struggle, and a ten-year story of this place, will illuminate
the geographic perspective and help us see their world in spatial terms.
Their fate is strangely tied to a very different neighborhood on the other
side of Ciudad Juarez.
This community is called the Campestre, and it can help us understand
the rapid growth of Anapra. The Campestre is an elite enclave. Most
homes shelter wealthy business families.
Walls and gates. Dogs and guards. Only the housekeepers and
gardeners park on the street.
A lot of these laborers live in the squatters' settlement at Anapra. It’s a
striking contrast. The geography of wealth can be seen from the air. The
green lawns of the houses and country club in the Campestre abut these
large blocks of industrial landscape. This is where the many Campestre
residents go to work each day. They run the famous
Mexican\maquiladoras-- derived from the Spanish word for "mill."
Angela Escajeda is a researcher at the College of the Northern Frontier.
She has come to study not the managers, but the workers at these
plants. Here, thousands of mostly female workers assemble televisions,
toys and appliances--anything that requires lots of low-skilled,
inexpensive labor, usually by immigrants from other parts of Mexico.
RODRIGUEZ:
“Mi nombre es Imelda Rodriguez y soy originaria del estado de Durango.”
TRANSLATOR:
I come from the state of Durango, and I make $60 a week.
NARRATOR:
$60 is high by Mexican standards. It’s enough to draw thousands of
migrants north. The salary could have rescued Concha Martinez, who, at
the time, faced catastrophe.
MARTINEZ:
“Bueno, mira, yo soy de Tepic”
TRANSLATOR:
I come from Tepic, about 800 miles to the south. I came to Juarez three
years ago on vacation with my family, but my husband ran off with
another woman and left me alone with three children and one on the way.
NARRATOR:
She had no money and no marketable skills.
MARTINEZ:
”...pues, es que en la desesperación de que no...”
TRANSLATOR:
In my desperation at not being able to feed my children, I would have
taken a job in a “maquiladora” or done whatever job was necessary. But,
unfortunately, the “maquila” would not hire me because they did a urine
analysis and discovered that I was pregnant, so they didn’t give me a job.
MARTINEZ:
“Asi supieron que yo estaba embarasada, y no me dieron trabajo.”
NARRATOR:
Concha was desperate. Finally, after considering her options, she
responds like many other Mexicans: She heads north to the U.S. But
unlike some who cross the border, she hopes to return the same day with
money for her children.
Her destination is El Paso, Texas, the U.S. twin-city of Ciudad Juarez. In
the desert near Anapra, Concha shows Angela part of her three-hour
walk over the border. Six nights a week for five years, she has journeyed
north, alone in the total darkness. Every time, she risks the hazards of
the desert, only to face the U.S. Border Patrol. Now, at 4:00 a.m.,
Concha prepares to cross again. To ward off rattlesnakes, she crushes
garlic and applies it to the leg guards made of cigarette cartons. The
cigarettes themselves are concealed in Concha's clothing.
She buys them tax-free in Mexico and will try to smuggle them across the
border to sell in El Paso bars. On a good day, she’ll clear about $35. It
would take her three days to make that much in a “maquiladora”. If all
goes well, she will be on the U.S. side right about the time her children
are waking up to go to school. For Concha and her family, survival
depends on crossing the border-- illegally--almost every night.
BORDER AGENT:
It’s a group of three. I’ll let you know.
MAN 2 (\over radio\): 10-4. We'll meet up on the pipeline road.
MAN:
10-4, 104, looks like they’re going to be heading for the pipeline road
right there, just east of y'all.
NARRATOR:
To see in the desert at night, the U.S. Border Patrol has equipped a truck
with heat-sensitive night-vision cameras; it’s very near where Concha
crosses.
OFFICER:
Okay, take that road there.
NARRATOR:
From a hilltop almost two miles away, the agent directs squad cars in the
valley to a group of suspected illegals moving north over the border in the
pitch darkness.
OFFICER:
Okay, be advised, they’re down there by the tracks right now. They’re by
the tracks.
NARRATOR:
It’s a scene repeated many times a night: men and women, boys and
girls, drug smugglers and housekeepers sneaking through the sagebrush
to the land of opportunity.
OFFICER
(\over radio\):
NARRATOR:
OFFICER
(\over radio\):
NARRATOR:
10-4, take a left right there,and it looks like you’ve got them bushed-up.
Okay, hold up right there. If all y'all go out your driver's door right there,
they'll be right out from you there about two to five yards.
The border guards’ technology peels away the cover of night, revealing
the telltale thermal image of these illegals hiding under a bush. Busted:
undocumented immigrants responding to U.S. demand for cheap
Mexican labor. This group did not include Concha.
10-4 guys, good job, good job.
7:00 a.m. on the U.S. side at Concha's rendezvous. Did she make it?
The Border Patrol is everywhere.
(\dog barking\)
Concha never showed up. Did they catch her at the border?
Back in Anapra, a neighbor cares for young Alexi. The older children got
themselves up and off to their own school, here in Ciudad Juarez. But
the fate of these kids, indeed their whole society, is dramatized by
proximity. Their school is just a few hundred yards from downtown El
Paso. In many ways this is a single nation and a single economy. These
retail stores near the bridge lure thousands of Mexicans each day, who
must queue for hours just to apply for a crossing permit. But hundreds
who cross illegally, like these men, are caught and discharged back to
Mexico. There is no sign of Concha here, either. Like many El Paso
children, Concha's kids go home by bus. But when they pick up young
Alexi, they find their mother is gone. Was she injured in the desert or
perhaps detained at the border? Night falls without a trace.
(\music and conversation
\coming from bars\)
After searching bars near the border in El Paso, we finally found Concha,
selling cigarettes to the patrons. Earlier that morning, she was caught by
the U.S. Border Patrol crossing into El Paso. After being released, she
simply turned around and tried again in the evening. But in 1999,
Concha's luck ran out. After apprehending her yet again with illegal
cigarettes, the Border Patrol finally told her that the next time would mean
jail time.
Afraid of what prison would mean for her children, Concha took a job in a
”maquiladora”. It's a cut in pay, but a safe, reliable job. Gradually,
Concha Martinez hopes to save some money, obtain the permits and one
day start a legal business on both sides of the boundary, here in the U.S.Mexican borderland.
BINKO:
Geography provides a fascinating perspective on the story of Concha
Martinez and the twin cities of El Paso and Ciudad Juarez. A spatial
understanding of the border helps make sense of the places on opposite
sides. The National Geography Standards are very useful tools for
constructing curricula and lessons.
But first we need to better understand those standards. To do this, we
will apply several geography standards to the case study we just saw.
We expect that these concrete examples will help you transfer the
standards into your own practice, where you will apply them to content
and lessons in your own classrooms. The geography standards are
organized into six essential elements.
The first element is an overriding theme called, “The World in Spatial
Terms." So let's look back at the case study and see how the geographic
perspective helps us make sense of Concha's world.
NARRATOR:
The first standard is: how to use maps and other geographic
representations, tools, and technologies to acquire, process, and report
information from a spatial perspective. Here we superimpose map data
over a satellite photograph of Ciudad Juarez. On the west side is
Anapra, where Concha lives. On the other side of the city is the
Campestre, where many poor residents of Anapra commute to work for
wealthy homeowners.
The map helps us analyze the spatial organization of people, places
and environments on Earth's surface. One of its key concepts is
relative location. The wealth of many Campestre residents is tied to the
“maquiladoras” here. The business advantage of the maquilas can also
be explained by relative location. But first we have to change scale,
another key concept of spatial analysis. To look at this satellite photo,
you'd think the gray area was one single city.
Only when we zoom to a smaller scale and add this line does the
dynamic become clear. This is the border with the United States. The
“maquilas'” advantage is their relative location--that is, their location
relative both to markets in the U.S. and sources of labor in Mexico.
Access and infrastructure are key. Thousands of trucks leave the
factories each day and make the short trip across the border, laden with
competitively priced products bound for eager U.S. consumers. At a still
larger scale, the differences on either side of the border can be explained
by the second essential element: Let's see how these standards help us
make sense of El Paso and Ciudad Juarez.
Geoprapher Gil Latz
GIL LATZ:
Places and regions are human constructs. People create regions to
interpret Earth's complexity. We do it in our minds and we make maps
to generalize. Regions are a way to organize spatial similarities and
differences. A region has certain characteristics that give it a measure of
cohesiveness and distinctiveness that sets it apart from other regions.
After each video case, I'll be your host for an ongoing regional geography
segment.
Behind me will be a map of the region we're exploring. In this case, we
have to display both Latin America and North America because our case
study takes place on the border.
Geographers call Mexico and North America "formal regions." That's
because they correspond to nation-states or continents, and their
boundaries are usually fixed. Authorities in the more developed U.S.
region work hard to prevent encroachment on their territory by people
from less developed places south of the border. There's another regional
geography standard that helps us explain this tension. Culture and
experience influence perceptions of places and regions.
In the eyes of a U.S. border guard, there are two very separate regions
here, and his job is to enforce that division. But international borders only
define so much. Here, along the U.S.-Mexican border, geographers see
another kind of region, a borderland zone that straddles both countries.
In Mexico, for instance, “maquiladoras” now look much like huge U.S.
industrial parks. And mixed among Mexico's national icons are familiar
U.S. brands. To the north, this Texas church might be anywhere in Latin
America. Conditions in this Texas neighborhood, called a "colonia," are
similar to Anapra in Mexico. David Villalobos and his neighbors have no
running water and no secure title to the land they paid for. In contrast to
the border guard, David Villalobos sees this area as two parts of the
same place.
VILLALOBOS:
We were born in this area, basically across the border, that is, Juarez.
And we came here because our relatives are here.
LATZ:
For him, moving from Ciudad Juarez to El Paso meant "trading up" within
a single borderland region. So Concha's world can be explained in terms
of several different regions.
The international border that separates one formal region or state from
another can only tell us so much about the reality on the ground. For
teachers of geography, what's important to remember is that regions are
changing human constructs that help us interpret spatial complexity.
NARRATOR:
Along the border, the harsh environment provides many lessons. The
third essential element of the geography standards deals with the Earth's
physical systems. For Concha, survival depends on steady footing over
her steep and rocky path. We learn that tectonic forces raised the
mountains that she must cross every day to enter the U.S. They are part
of the physical processes that shape the patterns of Earth's surface.
But here in the borderlands, it's the geography of human systems that
best illuminates the spatial dynamics among people.
Geographer Susan Hardwick.
SUSAN
HARDWICK:
Human systems is the fourth essential element in the National
Geography standards, and I will be your host for a regular Human
Geography segment in this Professional Development series. Rather
than a regional map, behind me will always be a view of the whole Earth
to remind us that human geography standards apply to many places
around the world.
The College Board has just begun its Advanced Placement Human
Geography test for high school students, and many teachers seek inservice preparation. But for all teachers and students, human geography
standards can provide great insights into places like El Paso and Ciudad
Juarez.
Five standards help teachers focus the human perspective. For instance,
we'll explore the characteristics, distribution, and migration of
human populations on Earth’s surface to track the movement of
people north over the border.
The new cultural landscapes created by these populations reveal the
characteristics, distribution, and complexity of Earth’s cultural
mosaics – a picture that is constantly changing here.
We can explain uneven gender distribution in “maquiladoras” by mapping
the patterns and networks of economic interdependence on Earth’s
surface.
Knowing the processes, patterns, and functions of human settlement
can help us plot the self-constructed squatters' settlements that appear
and expand in Anapra and the U.S. colonias.
We can note changing enforcement policies at the border as we consider
how the forces of cooperation and conflict among people influence
the division and control of Earth’s surface.
Of course, human geography is always influenced by the ways people
interact with the environment. This is the fifth essential element in the
National Geography Standards.
NARRATOR:
Within this element, Geography Standard 16 addresses the changes
that occur in the meaning, use, distribution, and importance of
resources. The most critical resource in this borderlands region is water,
as growing populations try to turn this... into this. Right on the Rio
Grande, water is accessible for now. But on the Mexican side,
transportation is often crude.
At the metropolitan scale, a single view shows great spatial variation.
Mexico, in the distance, remains dry and brown, while here in the wealthy
Texas hills, water pumped from the river valley nourishes a residential
oasis. Can this arid environment sustain such water consumption on one
side of the border, let alone on two?
The sixth and final essential element in the National Geography
Standards addresses the uses of geography. Being geographically
informed allows understanding of the relationship between people, places
and environments over time. We can apply geography to interpret the
past.
And geography can help us interpret the present and plan for the
future of places like El Paso and Ciudad Juarez. To stem the tide of new
illegal immigrants, the American government wanted to tighten its
borders. In 1994, they planned this steel fence along a section right near
Concha's home in Anapra. The proposal drew this response from the
residents, who compared it to the Berlin Wall.
In 1995, the U.S. government finally built the fence, ending near the
hilltop with the night-vision cameras. And it has built similar fences near
cities from California to the Gulf of Mexico, trying to stop illegal migration
from one region, one country, to another. To a large degree, they have
succeeded, but only in reducing urban crossings.
This is the border in the desert, west of El Paso. It runs for 600 miles.
Now migrants have to walk out here to cross. The press reports many
Mexicans dying from exposure and shoot-outs with U.S. ranchers on
remote borderlands. But still they cross. The new, get-tough policy
has had an unintended and ironic consequence. Not long ago, primary
Mexican wage-earners like this man frequently traveled north to work and
south again to rejoin their families. They repeated the cycle easily and
often. Now, since the Border Patrol has made it harder to cross, more
Mexican workers bring their whole families and migrate more or less
permanently. The 2000 census revealed that eight percent of Mexico's
citizens now actually live in the U.S., supported by an economy that
demands their hard work and low wages. Is this the best policy for both
countries? Can we educate a new generation of leaders to apply the
lessons of geography and plan for a better future?
BINKO:
Policy on the border creates a vital and fascinating debate that will affect
us for decades. Whatever the outcome, the big picture and the crucial
details require a spatial perspective.