A Report from the First Annual Southwest Border Social Forum

This forum was organized due to a call for a U.S. Social Forum that arose out of the World Social Forum, which took place this year in Caracas, Venezuela, January 24–29. Since the decision made in Caracas to hold the first US-based forum in June 2007 in Atlanta, Georgia, regional meetings are starting to take place so that different issues can be presented to a national and international audience. Originally planned for early May, the first Southwest Border Social Forum, one of these regional meetings, was delayed until October due to the demonstrations and marches by immigrants and their supporters on and around May 1st, 2006.

The over-arching themes of this much-anticipated forum were “Women, Walls and Water.” Participants joined activities that began on Thursday, October 12th in a march against NAFTA from downtown Ciudad Juárez to the US-Mexico border crossing at the Santa Fe Bridge. People marched denouncing the North American Free Trade Agreement’s effect on the farmers and working-class citizens of Mexico.

A large portion of the marchers included past immigrant laborers known as braceros who participated in the U.S. guest worker program that existed between 1942 and 1964. Many of these people, predominantly men now nearing old age, are still waiting for the Mexican government to pay them the remains of their due earnings. A portion of the workers’ earnings were withheld during their time employed in the fields of the United States and given to the Mexican government with the idea that it would be given back. It is generally recognized that this money has disappeared. One marcher, Javier Romero, who participated in the labor program from 1957-1964 simply declared, “Government, pay us our money.”

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