From the Editor: ‘El otro lado’ (Surprises in Nogales, Son.)

Somehow it was appropriate that I entered Mexico last week through a gate I’d never taken before. Because although I’ve been to Nogales, Sonora, many times, I was about to see it through very different eyes.

I headed over with a small group that included Bob Phillips, executive director of the Santa Cruz Community Foundation. In short, they help the people of Santa Cruz County — and this sliver of Mexico — help themselves. On the other side we met a fireball of woman named Alma Cota de Yanez, who does what Bob does but in Sonora with a foundation called FESAC.

The day was dedicated to scoping out programs where both foundations play a role. Much of the Santa Cruz effort is focused in the United States, but this day was for Mexico.

About a minute after climbing into Alma’s vehicle, I’d traveled farther into Nogales than 90 percent of the tourists. We were beyond the trinket shops — what’s left of them, anyway — and into a world far different than I expected.

Without a doubt, Nogales, Sonora, is a volatile place. Violence has spiked in the past couple of years and it’s all tied to the drug cartels. Alma said it’s not something you dwell on. Some places you avoid, and you go on with life.

With that dealt with, I settled in to watch Bob and Alma help the poor. Or so I thought.

That idea, too, was quickly dispatched with two realizations.

First, the poor, it turns out, are pretty good at helping themselves. Next, they’re not all poor. In fact, much of Nogales, Sonora, is filled with people just like us. And there are about a half-million of them.

That second realization was driven home as I sat in front of 16 teenage girls at a public high school. Each was either pregnant or had a baby. My Spanish is good enough to understand their stories, and it’s eye-opening to hear them first-hand.

In Mexico, a teenage mother is largely on her own other than her family. Paying for daycare is out of the question, the government doesn’t step in, and the boyfriends take off. Two of the 16 girls live with the fathers of their babies.

“It’s hard to leave him at home,” one young mother said of her son. “But I know I won’t have anything to offer him if I don’t come to school.”

“It’s hard to be a teenage mother and a student,” another said.

It sounded just like the U.S. These weren’t girls involved in drug trafficking or looking to hop the wall to “el norte.” They’d made a mistake and wanted to make the best of it by providing good homes for their children.

The room was thick with emotion, and one girl in the back row, just three months pregnant, looked like she was still trying to figure out what hit her.

They are part of a pilot program started in August and funded by FESAC, not the government. For months the director worked free; today she gets $300 a month and hopes the program can continue another year.

Free hair cuts

Not long before we visited the school we were at a building that serves as a classroom, dining hall, kitchen, sewing room and whatever else is needed.

Women were receiving hair-cutting lessons when we arrived and were glad to see a customer come through the door for his free cut. The circuit blew as they plugged in the clippers, but soon they were up and running — and learning.

These women weren’t looking for a handout, just a hand. And the program helps them and hundreds of others master skills that provide the very basics for their families.

Later, we visited a home for the elderly built in 1962, where some of the residents were simply left at the door by desperate family members. It’s run by an order of sisters from Culiacan, and has 38 residents. It’s also in quite a state of disrepair.

But this was a banner day. The sisters were taking inventory of soap, rice and other necessities donated during a “stuff the bus” event across town. It’s a day-by-day existence, but God has provided, and they are grateful.

We then headed to a much poorer neighborhood and walked straight into a jewel. It’s a community center/daycare that serves the area well. We saw two school girls playing on a computer after school, and young children in daycare whose parents pay $9 per week. The white walls and spotless floors were a contrast to the mud and tattered homes right outside the window.

But it’s a government center and that, in Mexico, can be an uncertainty. So the residents in this dirt-poor community are building a new facility on their own, with their own money and hands.

Creativity comes alive

Our final stop held the biggest surprise: A year-old performing arts center where kids wrestled to learn the clarinet and piano, created beautiful paintings and kicked up a storm in dance classes as their mothers waited patiently outside.

Nogales, I realized, was a city I’d visited many times but had never really seen.

Tucked in an upstairs corner of the city-owned center was an incredible history museum with photos that shared more than a century of all the good and bad of the town. An absolute treasure, and the employees were proud of it.

One man said he had taken it upon himself to rescue the metal dedication plaques on the corners of historic buildings before they were torn down. “We can’t save the buildings, but we can get these,” he said. “It’s our history.”

The last person I spoke to was among the most interesting in this long but satisfying day. His name is Jose Luis Garcia, and he goes by Kiko. He’s an artist, but he’s also a messenger.

“We want you to spread the word that there’s another side of Mexico,” he said, with his hand on my shoulder. “Not all of us want to jump over that wall.”

— Dan Shearer

About the foundations

The Santa Cruz Community Foundation serves the Nogales, Arizona, region and beyond by offering technical support and structure to organizations. They assist the Boys and Girls Club of Santa Cruz, St. Andrew’s Children’s Clinic, health centers and food banks. It also partners with a sister foundation, FESAC, in Nogales, Sonora. Information: 520-761-4531; www.sccfaz.org.

FESAC (Fundacion del Empresariado Sonorense, A.C.) provides similar support in Nogales, Sonora. It promotes fund-raising and citizen participation as it identifies and addresses community issues. Information: www.fesac.org.