Juarez Falters Despite Yankee Tourist Dollar
January 10, 1962

JUAREZ, Mexico—As the largest Mexican city along the 1,800-mile U.S.-Mexican border, this community of 300,000 gets a big slice of the $520 million spent annually in border cities by American tourists.

Yet the town seems to be going broke.

Recently a 25% reduction in salaries of all city department heads, including Mayor Humberto Escobar, was approved at a special session of the Juarez City Council.

The mayor's expense account of 2,500 pesos a month ($200) was abolished altogether, and the police chief's salary was reduced from 3,000 to 2,000 pesos a month ($165).

Protest Late Pay

Policemen, teachers and city employees have complained that they are not paid for as long as 90 days at a time. Reformers claim that policemen make up for it by "mordidas" (bribes) from tourists, and point out that many teachers have been driven to part-time bartending and city employees to driving taxis.

Juarez is the national headquarters of the Partido Accion Nacional (PAN), a right-wing political party which charges that Juarez' government is spending all its money for projects which "smack of Russian ostentatiousness but which do not help the average citizen one bit."

"We have one of the fanciest and most expensive sports arenas in the world in Borunda Park," a PAN official said recently. "It's like the Russian subway—all show but with no direct benefit to the people."

Won't Answer Charges

The federal government will not answer PAN's charges, but points out that the National Border Program, which is supposed to "face-lift" and "clean up" the border, is providing a good look at the economies of the border towns.

"There are many reasons that border towns should be the most prosperous in the nation, and the border program will correct bad administration to bring this about," a program spokesman said.

Juarez, like Tijuana, suffers because its population ballooned faster than the city could successfully absorb it. Its dependence on the tourist dollar rankles many of the educated Mexicans and some insist that somehow the United States is to blame.

'Keep Your $2.50'

Jose Ramirez Sepulveda, a senior engineering student at the Juarez Agriculture College, explained it this way:

"What do you think of Kennedy's Alliance for Progress?^[*] I think I would say, in all respect: Mr. Kennedy, keep your $2.50. You see, as I understand it, the plan will be initiated with $500 million. There are 200 million Latin Americans. If the 500 million is distributed equally, each Latin American would get 31 pesos and 25 centavos—or $2.50 American money.

"As I say, I think I would tell Mr. Kennedy to keep his $2.50. I would offer Mr. Kennedy a better solution. If he wants to sleep well, and not worry about communism in Latin America, I offer him free of charge this simple solution: Persuade his millionaires to stop buying our products so cheaply and selling theirs for so much. This theory of buying cheap and selling high is not conducive to good relations."

Juarez has had the border's biggest anti-American demonstrations in the wake of the abortive Cuban invasion, but Juarez and El Paso, Texas, across the Rio Grande, enjoy better relations than such sporadic demonstrations might suggest.

El Paso a Model

One of the reasons lies in the improved lot of El Paso's large Mexican-American population since the end of World War II. A town in which, for example, Mexican-American children were not allowed to swim in the same public swimming pools as "Anglo"-American children before the war, El Paso is now a model of democratic living.

Another example: ex-El Paso mayor Raymondo Telles, a Mexican-American, was the first member of his race to become mayor of an important Texas town—a thing undreamed of before the war—and is now President Kennedy's ambassador to Costa Rica.

The southwest is the area in which the American and Mexican cultures can blend most successfully because the Mexican side and the American side of the southwest are geographically really one. The only thing that divides the nations physically is an easily crossed bridge or a border line.

Seek Closer Ties

And ever since the war, both Mexicans and Americans seem to be looking for a closer association—perhaps as a result of mounting world tensions.

* The Alliance for Progress, initiated by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, encouraged political and economic reforms in Latin America as a way of countering potential revolutionary movements such as the 1959 Cuban Revolution.

Take the case of Columbus, N.M., a small border town about 60 miles west of El Paso.

The dedication of a state park to Pancho Villa in Columbus a few years ago was roughly akin to honoring the Mexican army at the Alamo. Yet it has happened—45 years after Villa's army raided Columbus, killing 16 Americans and burning part of the town.

The day after the Columbus attack, President Wilson ordered a punitive expedition of 15,000 men under Gen. Pershing to go into Mexico and get Villa.

Hoped for Help

Wilson and Pershing had reason to believe that President Carranza would co-operate with the expedition for Villa was fighting Carranza's forces.

The Americans, though, didn't consider Mexicans' supersensitivity about having foreign troops on their land. (There was historic reason for the feeling: The French once attempted to put a dictator in Mexico. The Americans had taken about half of Mexico's territory after the Mexican-American War, and during the 30-year reign of dictator Porfirio Diaz, foreigners ran almost everything.)

Anyway, President Carranza voiced his objection to the entrance of U.S. troops—even if they were out to capture his deadly enemy—and on June 17, 1916, notified Gen. Pershing that further invasion would be resisted by arms.

The American troops withdrew without accomplishing their mission.

Forty-five years later, on March 18, 1961, the Pancho Villa Park was officially dedicated in Columbus.

Bill McGraw, outspoken editor of Columbus' The Southwestern , said of the dedication: "There's been rumbling that it shouldn't be named the Villa park at all. By some obscure reasoning, they say it honors Villa, a bandit, etc."

"Well, then, by the same spurious logic, I want the name of Virginia changed, because it honors a British queen and I am a democrat . . . and don't want New York to be called New York because it honors the Duke of York and I'm against him and his kind, too . . . ."

No Pollyanna Park

"If they want to build a Pollyanna State Park, let them put it in Santa Fe, or California, or Texas, or wherever else these 'fairweather' patriots are living."

"We in Columbus want it the Pancho Villa State Park for the simple reason that it is the only one that makes sense. Sabe?"

At the dedication ceremonies, however, Gov. Teofilo Borunda of Chihuahua tried to express more noble sentiments concerning the new park's significance. He said,

"You (people of Columbus) have risen above bitterness which came about as a result of times of violence experienced by all nations at one time or another. You have risen above any thought of revenge because you not only know democracy—you practice it."