Good Neighbors

There’s an old saying: “Good fences make good neighbors.” Well, it may or may not but it looks like we will be fi nding out pretty soon. International border fences may be a little different. Any of us who have ventured down to Mexico got to see a few border fences, walls and border crossing stations. For border town residents the gates have been about as easy to drive through as getting onto an Oklahoma Turnpike. But that was “yesterday.” This is now.

About a year ago my wife and I drove down to Nogales, Arizona to visit with our son Ron. I might say that the outstanding feature of Nogales is a rusty steel wall that divides Ambos Nogales. But I wondered how old the rusty wall was. Who built it? Well, history tells us Nogales was founded in 1892 and become a prosperous border town. No fences. Just International street divided Nogales until 1918. Felix B. Penaloza, the presidente municipal (mayor) of the Mexican half then had a 6 wire, six strand fence 6 feet tall built right down the border on International street.

Mayor Penaloza also requested that the U. S. erect a border fence to aid in control of who went back and forth, at least there in Nogales. These two fences soon became well patrolled by the U. S. Army and Mexican Border agents. Today, a 10 mile-long rusted steel border wall is the defi ning feature of this city. So why did both nations want a fence there? It was because of Pancho Villa. He was an outlaw of the time who raided towns on both sides of the border, looting and making life miserable for both Mexicans and Americans. Then came World War I. More fences appeared at Douglas, Arizona; Calexico, California and Tijauna and other sites.

Right after the border fence was complete in Nogales, (1918) a man tried to cross illegally and U. S. Border agents opened fire. The startled Mexicans whipped out their guns and when the smoke and dust had cleared 12 people lay dead, including Mayor Penaloza who had rushed down to try to restore peace. Well, so much for peace.

The American fence in Nogales soon served as a model of how to deal with an unsecure borders and fences were built throughout the region. By the 1940’s tall chain link fences as well as good barb-wire fences were up to help control immigration and to keep cattle from straying all over the place. One U. S. Border Patrolman in 1940 said the most immediate effect was to detour the illegal’s around the ends of the fences to areas that were rough and waterless deserts. Thousands of migrants died in these desert wildernesses trying to come to America.

In the 1960s President John F. Kennedy taking note of the situation introduced a new green card program. This would allow America farmers access to the thousands of hands needed to produce the crops in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. It also gave the migrants legal access to come work in America, legally. The Kennedy program (bracero program) finally came to an end. Opponents said it was ruining America and so forth. So the work program ceased and things went back to where they were and are. The once popular idea around the turn of the has suddenly became a political hot potato. The concept of a wall has changed. It has become a humanitarian crisis.

I hope the varying hostile forces of government can get together real soon and do the right thing.

You’ll be doing the right thing when you take your family to church next Sunday. You’ll be glad you did.

Wayne Bullard, DPh

waynebullard@sbcglobal.net