THESE PEOPLE ARE OUR GARDNERS, TAKE CARE OF OUR CHILDREN, DO THE THINGS WE DON'T WANT TO DO. MOST OF THE TIME, THEY ARE INVISIBLE

When I was in the Army at Fort Bliss, Texas at El Paso with Juarez, Mexico, just over the border. We use to regularly get lectures about the pitfalls of crossing the border, especially if we drove: the possible accident, the laws of Mexico, the mordita, the payoff. In fact, when you went to Mexico, you regularly took a handful of dollars to pay off anybody who resembled authority.

The intrusion of politics in what to do about Mexicans crossing the border illegally, the numbers already illegally here, etc. have become big political issues. There's the intrepid vigilante group, the Minute Men and let's not forget the National Guard confronting the "would be" border crossers.

I do readily admit that when you are not directly involved, it is easier cogitate your navel. A friend of mine who lives on the edge of the desert close to Sierra Vista, Arizona has tale after tale of Mexicans crossing his property and trashing it. You would think, according to my friend, all our problems stem from South of the Border. Well, hardly.

It is a problem but not insoluable. Movies are one venue to get a handle on the problems and the directions to go. We should pay more attention. One movie, Bordertown, does what movies are suppose to do, at least what I like, instruct and tell a good and compelling story or confront a societal problem. Bordertowm does all of these. It is about the murders of young women working in the factories on Juarez, going home alone at night, being attacked, murdered and their bodies buried in the desert. Some estimates say that thousands have died.

Bordertowm took on NAFDA, Mexican profiteers working these poor women, often way to young, for pittance in wages, no protection at night--the rich getting richer on the backs of the poor.

As movies go, there are a few implausible things but the movie does its job in bringing the problems to light. Jennifer Lopez, as an actress, is good I think. I don't know why she gets panned so much, probably reviewers can't separate singer/lifestyle from her job. Damned if I know.

This is the third movie I think which does a good job with issues of immigration from Mexico and highlights problems. Jack Nicholson's, The Border, was one: Three Burials of Estrada was another one. And, who can forget the hopelessness and happenstance of a wonderfully sweet Mexican nanny in Babel.

A book called The Reapers Line speaks to the same issue and absolutely one of the best books I've ever read in highlighting the real border problem which is DRUGS. Although about drug interdiction, it hit the migration issue and hard. One of the best statements on the subject, something like, "The problem with our immigration policy isn't the poor Mexicans trying to gain a better life for their families but those who are profiting from them like the drug lords,etc." What we may need to root out corruption is Denzel Washington in Men On Fire. Denzel confronts kidnapping in Mexico where he kills everybody but the director.

The final hit has to be our own lack of common sense in our approach to our neighbors to the South. If we took a fraction of the money we have wasted in Iraq to root out corruption in Mexico, improve the possibilities for the workers, they wouldn't want to come to the U. S. Will we do anything? I doubt it but movies like Bordertown keep trying.