Los Nogales: Two faces of a hard border wall
Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Sonora not only are connected commercially but also through family ties on both sides. Photo by Julio Cisneros
Two desert cities are united by history and culture, but divided by a border wall. Amid the pandemic, one Nogales flourishes, while the other suffers
Editor’s note: This story was written for palabra as part of A Better Life?, a podcast produced by Feet in 2 Worlds exploring how COVID-19 has changed immigrants’ lives and challenged their ideas about the promise of America. Listen to the full podcast episode produced by Maritza L. Félix and Julio Cisneros in the link above.
There is a frightening silence these days in Nogales, Arizona. On Morley Avenue, the heart of what used to be the city’s vibrant downtown business district, you can count on one hand the number of people out on the street.
In March of 2020, at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the United States government sealed the border between the U.S. and Mexico.
“What we're losing right now … is that floating population of 50,000 to 60,000 people that come in from Nogales, Sonora, to Nogales, Arizona daily,” says Arturo Garino, mayor of the city on the U.S. side of the border.
Producer Maritza Félix interviews Gregory Kory at his store, La Cinderella in Nogales, Arizona. Photo by Julio Cisneros
Stores on Morley Avenue that have managed to survive are open for business thanks to loans and grants from the federal government. Others have signs saying “closed” stuck to their windows. Some storefronts have broken glass and cobwebs, and there’s a lot of dust.
Today, only a few vehicles cross the border that divides the two communities that share a common name. Gone are the long lines at the ports of entry that connect two countries and the two cities. There are no scrambles for parking space or frustrating waits in store check-out lines.
Desolation is seen and felt.
It’s as though life in Nogales, Arizona has been put on hold.
For Gregory Kory, one of the owners of La Cinderella, a store that sells women’s shoes and accessories, waiting for the few customers that do come in is “like watching paint dry.”
Yet, not far from La Cinderella, on the other side of the border wall, the Mexican Nogales remains vibrant.
Nogales, in Mexico’s Sonora state, sounds and feels different.
There is much construction. Trucks grind their gears and compete against barking dogs, and the hypnotic beat of reggaeton songs sneaks through the windows of taxis driving around the city. Newspaper vendors call out to customers, and ice cream vans roll from one neighborhood to the next. There are parades on the streets and karaoke nights in the restaurants. And there are lines everywhere, at the supermarket, the street markets, and for parking at shopping centers.
"Mexico has benefited, in some ways, from border restrictions. The fact that there is a need to buy, and not being able to do it in the United States, forces people to consume locally, and that helps economic recovery," says Julio César León Gil, president of Nogales, Sonora’s chamber of commerce.
Restaurant owner Margarito Salvador, agrees. Salvador, known to locals as Chava, already had a carnitas restaurant in a popular neighborhood. But during the pandemic he opened two more. Although his business has done well, for which he thanks his customers and the blessings of the Virgin of Guadalupe, he says he still believes it is time to reopen the border.
When the United States closed its border to tourism and other nonessential travel, the Trump administration gave assurances the restrictions would be temporary. They were designed to protect public health during the coronavirus pandemic. More than 18 months have passed, however, and the restrictions continue to be extended month by month. For a short period Mexico imposed its own border restrictions, but they were not vigorously enforced.
The economic impact
Visitors from Mexico contribute up to 70% of sales tax revenue in Arizona border communities, according to the Arizona-Mexico Commission, which promotes trade and tourism. And a University of Arizona study says that in the Nogales district alone, the number of people crossing the border fell from almost 2 million to 552,000 between January and April of 2020. Border crossings climbed back up to 1.25 million in March 2021.
Yet in Sonora state, year-to-year international sales increased 14.5% in 2020, according to DataMexico and the government of Sonora.
In Sonora 108,000 infections and at least 8,200 COVID-19 deaths have been reported since the pandemic began. In Arizona more than 1.1 million cases have been reported. And, in September, Arizona passed the grim milestone of 20,000 Covid-related deaths.
Yet amid the tragedy of the pandemic, there has been a change in the economic narrative for Mexicans along the border. The COVID restrictions have forced Mexicans, especially Sonorans, to invest their pesos or dollars in their own country. They are not the only ones. According to the Mexico Economy Ministry, Sonora is among the five Mexican states with the greatest growth in foreign investment. Companies such Amazon, Ford, Stanley Black & Decker and more decided to establish or expand their services there despite the pandemic.
But the gains in Mexico have produced a crippled economy in U.S. border communities. The constant flow of immigrants from Mexico and other Latin American countries has long been seen as a sign of United States superiority. But perhaps the pandemic has made a point: the U.S., at least its once-thriving border cities and towns, need Mexicans as much as Mexico needs the U.S. and its dollars.
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Maritza L. Félix is a freelance journalist, producer and writer in Arizona. She is the founder of Conecta Arizona, a news-you-can-use service in Spanish that connects people in Arizona and Sonora primarily through WhatsApp and social media. She is the cofounder , co producer and cohost of Comadres al Aire.
She is an JSK Community Impact Fellow at Stanford, IWMF Adelante, Feet in 2 Worlds, EWA and Listening Post Collective Fellow and one of the Take The Lead’s 50 Women Who Can Change the World of Journalism 2020 cohort. She is currently a media leader of the Executive Program in News Innovation and Leadership in Journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.
Julio Cisneros is a six-time Emmy Award winner with over 20 years of experience as a reporter, editor, and director for Spanish-language media outlets in the U.S. He was named Journalist of the Year in Nevada by the U.S. Small Business Administration in 2003. Cisneros is the author of a memoir and a novel, both in Spanish. Cisneros is a professor at Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications at ASU.