Looking at the interchange between populations of Mexico and the U.S. trying to serve their needs by crossing lines, it’s difficult not to think of ways it could be reversed, providing each side what they want without leaving their own country. Such a though immediately throws one up against some of the most vexing problems of our times. Which would be hardest to do, provide better paying jobs in the third world or cheaper housing in the developed world? Anyone other than those with the luxury of doctrinaire rigidity will squirm after a half hour standing watching the “pollos” dare the border. It’s so easy to focus on their desperation and need. Can’t we, who have so much that we’re getting unhappy and unhealthy from it, spare them a little? But it doesn’t take much reflection, or much observation of the swarm of young, to realize that no economy can feed the world–nor cope with unbridled birth. Is it really legitimate for a country to run things so poorly that it holds it’s neighbor responsible for caring for it’s overflow? Does a swarm of ignorant peasants into California help anyone out, really? Has the traditional American absorbency of immigrants changed over time, or are we just applying the principle of, “I’ve got my piece of paradise, everybody else stay out”?

So is sex. The contrast between the safe, regulated, non-threatening prostitution in Tijuana and the wild, dangerous, drug-ridden ugliness on San Diego streets is illustrative. Conversely, San Diego permits topless and nude dancing, and so has nice places where sailors and college kids can observe the evolutionary advantages of opposable nipples in a safe, clean, liquor-free environment. In Tijuana (for some inscrutable reason) topless dancing is frowned on and only available in straightout whorehouses where one doesn’t sit without slamming Tequila. It seems to be a universal principle of the vice business that you tend to get the worst aspects of whatever you don’t allow.
Whereas we see the South as menacing us with a flood of drugs, Latin Americans see things exactly the reverse. To them, our uncurbed appetite for drugs (and our abdication of the responsibility for the legal regulation of it) has led to a distortion and destruction of their economies, the growth of powerful criminal elements that threaten their stability, and the infection of their populations with our decadent habits. There is much to the second point of view–hard drug use (and AIDS incidence) in Mexico radiates from the border and areas of high foreign population like Vallarta, Acapulco, and Mexico City.

The same could be said for other vices. Border towns give the impression that morals are looser south of the border. In fact, the opposite is true; Americans in the Red Zones and junk markets of Juarez, Matamoros, or Tijuana are seeing a rapidly changing billboard of their own buying tastes, just as any television or supermarket is a reflection of the people who shop, select, and “vote” there. The sleaze of the border town is a mirror held up to the border. Even the question of language becomes distorted; we think of a “Mexican muleskinner” as a font of obscenity, but actually Spanish is a very clean and simple tongue. Mexican’s have a hard time comprehending the way our everyday speech is steeped in expressions like “Pissed Off”or “Don’t fuck around”, or the way shirts that read “Shit Happens” or “Fuck me, Suck me,” push everything local out of the market.

There are horses for rent on Mexican beaches, and motorcycles. They sell powerful fireworks to shoot off a night. This adds a little special fun to the beach at Rosarito and San Felipe and Puerto Penasco (or makes them hellishly obnoxious, depending on your point of view). All those activities are illegal on most American beaches, so Americans get an image of Mexico as a place to tear around raising hell on the beaches. Obviously none of these are traditional Mexican beach activities; the horses and cycles and rockets are there because Americans come there and want them.