While some Georgetown students spent their spring break in exotic locations around the world and some stayed on campus to study for upcoming midterms, 12 Georgetown students had the opportunity to learn and travel with the Border Awareness Experience trip in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
Sponsored by the Center for Social Justice, these students spent their breaks at Catholic annunciation houses on the United States-Mexico border, sites where Mexican immigrants can obtain access to food and shelter essentials. Program participants studied immigration issues and assisted the houses’ approximately 50 residents with meal preparation.
During the first-ever entirely student-led BAE trip, Octavio Gonzalez (CAS ‘06) and Jane Li (SFS ‘07), both alumni of the program, chaperoned students as they visited the U.S. Immigration Court, talked to the Drug Enforcement Agencies about the cocaine and marijuana cartels in Juarez and visited the Mexican sweatshops known as maquiladoras.
The participants also experienced the hardships currently facing Mexican immigrants to the U.S. The participants ate and slept like immigrants and were responisble for planning daily meals for the entire group on a budget of 50 pesos, or five dollars, a day.
Carmen Fitzsimmons (CAS ‘08) recalled that their diet consisted mostly of rice, beans and tortillas as a result of limited resources.
After returning to Georgetown, Tham Luong (MSB ‘08) reflected upon how superficial life in the United States can be.
“In Mexico, we visited a church made out of adobe, and we just ate beans and rice-the simplicity of it was breathtaking and beautiful,” she said.
“People live and work in these conditions everyday. But back here at Georgetown, I see people walking around with their Prada bags and expensive clothes, and I say to myself, we do not need all of this.”
For chaperone Li, her experiences in Juarez made her question her own opinions on many of the issues relating to the Mexican border.
“I learned about the intricacies of the U.S.-Mexican border and that these issues are often more complicated than we would like to imagine them,” she said. “The trip challenged my views on immigration, international trade regimes, and about my role in the world.”
According to the Center for Social Justice, BAE will be reprised next year, again offering Georgetown students an opportunity to work at the annunciation houses of Juarez.
