D e s e r t E x p o s u r e 
January
2008
Letter from Palomas
Page: 2Perez says there is less drug violence now, but it's clear his job is still dangerous. When asked certain questions, such as where he's worked before, the police chief gives a blank look. He won't allow any photographs of himself.
Public offices may look bare, but the concern of Palomas residents is too often hunger. Pilar Martinez, who runs a stand called Gorditas Pily in front of the Catholic Church on the plaza, is caring for six grandchildren and says, "Sometimes we don't have anything to give them." She says they sometimes eat three times a day, or twice, or only once.
It's no wonder the new maquiladora has no trouble finding workers. Most employees at AAMSA are young, single men and women supplementing their family's income.
The AAMSA engineering manager, Arturo Ramos, from Ascension, arrives for our interview after the five-minute exercise period for workers, typical of Japanese companies. He is young, bright and friendly.
Ramos was educated in Casas Grandes, and is obviously enjoying his job. He says AAMSA has factories all over the world, in Asia, Europe, Africa, as well as about 10 plants in Juarez. The company opened a plant in Palomas because so many Palomenses had been commuting to the Ascension plant after the economy bottomed out.
The factory floor is modern and light-filled, like most maquiladores. One difference between the personnel here and in Juarez is that the gender balance is about equal in Palomas, while in Juarez the typical worker is female. "There aren't as many women here," is Ramos' explanation.
The figure of $60 per week is somewhat deceptive because of the generous benefits workers receive, especially the medical benefits. They receive comprehensive medical care, and spouses and children are included in the plan, although "the great majority of the employees are single," Ramos says. Workers get Christmas bonuses and six days of vacation.
When I remark that $60 a week still isn't very much, Ramos rolls his eyes and grins disarmingly. "It's what all the maquiladores pay," he says. Others comment that AAMSA pays a little more than the small furniture factory in town owned by Philip Skinner, an American who lives in Columbus.
During a meal break at 6 p.m. there were five groups of people outside AAMSA selling burritos, either on the sidewalk or in nearby locales that had just opened up. The tiny wooden booth to the right of the door is run by Manuel Miranda, who complains that the sellers on foot haven't bought a license as he did, and they drive down the prices.
Miranda was deported from the US in 1992 after being falsely charged with drug trafficking, he claims. He grins broadly to mask the pain while he tells his story. He lost a $30,000 construction job he'd held for years, his wife and kids, and his house. He says he returned illegally in 2000 and was jailed for four years. That's when he came to Palomas. He now has a new wife and kid and is selling burritos for 50 centavos each.
Deportees are all over the place in Palomas, some sent back for working without papers, others for involvement with the drug trade. Raul Acosta, now selling second-hand items from a flatbed truck near the park, says he was deported after doing agricultural and construction work in Arizona and Denver. "A lot of people are selling second-hand things since they closed the border," he says. It seems as if used clothes flower on every other block on fences and on racks.
For deportees, the jolt of returning to the Mexican economy is hard. The pay is abysmal, yet the cost of living is not much less than in the US. The cost of food made in Mexico is substantially lower, but the cost of electricity can be much higher. Miguel Hernandez at Burritos Jazmin says he used to pay $30 for a two-month period for electricity in his very small store, but the price leaped to $140 for the same period in the fall.
As in the US, the cost of food is rising, perhaps most dramatically for wheat flour, with which many northern Mexicans make their staple tortillas. It's recently risen from 55 cents a kilo to 90 cents, says Antonio Rubalcaba of the Super Vasquez grocery store. Corn flour has risen just from 85 cents to 90 cents. Rubalcaba says the prices of milk and oil have risen, too.
One place that distributes food to people is the Casa de Amor, whose primary purpose is to care for children of prostitutes or drug addicts. There are big burlap bags of potatoes in the living room that a church woman in Las Cruces brought. "Many more people come asking for food since the closing of the border — about twice as many," says Manuela Vasquez, "house mother" at the refuge.
Palomas clearly stands at a crossroads. No one really knows whether the population will continue to fall from the 2005 census figure of 5,748 people or whether it will become a maquiladora boomtown in a decade.
There are some energetic people who can get ahead even in the stagnant economy of Palomas, like Carmen Magallanes, who with some other women has started a daycare center called Los Colores with federal money. They sold tamales to raise money for trips to Juarez to get funding.
Other people, like Esther Valdez Monje, whose husband's car-repair business dropped so drastically, say they'll probably move back to Casas Grandes. "It'll be better there," she says assuredly.
But it is not an easy winter in Palomas for so many people used to some of the former perks of life on the border.
Borderlines columnist Marjorie Lilly lives in Deming.