Sex Work and the City: The Social Geography of Health and Safety in Tijuana, Mexico

Chapter Two. Tijuana Today

CHAPTER TwO Tijuana Today Residents in the U.S.-Mexico border regions have overlapped economically, socially, and culturally for over 150 years. An estimated forty thousand residents of Tijuana travel to and from San Diego to work each day, spending an estimated one to three billion dollars on retail goods and services while in the United States (Lorey 1999). Family and social ties on both sides of the border remain strong, in spite of the increasing militarization of the border. Rural to urban and transnational ties continue to link migrants to their home communities , profoundly shaping their motivations, labor strategies, attitudes, and practices. By the 1980s the migrant population comprised nearly half of the total border population (Ganster 1999). More than any other factor, migration has shaped the demographic picture of the U.S.-Mexico border region. In 1990, the Tijuana service sector employed about 53 percent of the working residents of Tijuana; the manufacturing sector employed the remaining 46 percent (ibid.). Only 35 percent of the workers in Tijuana are considered part of the formal economy. Those who work in the informal economy do not have Social Security benefits or subsidized health insurance and must rely on an underfunded public health care system that provides for only the most basic needs.1 The majority of residents in Tijuana are below the poverty line. About 30 percent of workers in Tijuana make one hundred dollars a month (fifty-two cents an hour); 10 percent make less (msn 2002a). Less than 15 percent make enough money to shelter, feed, and clothe their families (ibid.). Very few have disposable income. In order to compensate for the lack of viable employment opportunities, over forty thousand residents commute to San Diego, where they are able to make about five hundred dollars a month (Ganster 1999). These workers make up Tijuana’s small emerging middle class. 24 Chapter Two Contemporary Migration The border acts as an escape valve; the departure of the large segments of the poor helps keep Mexico’s government stable (Schatz 1998). According to a former mayor of Tijuana, “Mexico hasn’t had a big social uprising because we have this escape valve[;] if there was no place to go, they’d have to make a solution here” (Parfit 1996: 105). Today,Tijuana is a city of just over one million residents, over 56 percent of whom are recent arrivals from southern Mexico (Ganster 1999). An estimated 20 percent are not permanent residents, and over fifty thousand are in transit to the United States. Contrary to popular fears of illegal immigration, only 1 percent of travel over the border into the United States is done illegally. About 25 percent of the city population is considered a floating population; they are not permanent residents of Tijuana and are in transit to and from the United States.The northward migratory flow is based on incentives found Figure 2.1. Southbound traffic into Tijuana. Lax border regulations allow free-flowing traffic into Mexico. The heaviest flows into Tijuana are at the end of the workday for commuters who work in San Diego and on weekends, when tourists flood the downtown area. Tijuana Today 25 in the United States, including jobs in agribusiness, construction, domestic, hotel, and restaurant services. This flow ensures cheap, if not always legal, labor, which increases profits and keeps costs low for consumers. Migrant workers are able to make more money in the United States than at home, but most must leave their families for long periods of time in order to do so. The vast majority of migrants work in the United States not just because it is an attractive option, but because they are unable to make ends meet at home. According to the Mexican secretary of social development, more than half of all Mexicans live in poverty, making less than $1.50 per day in rural areas and $2.10 in its cities (msn 2002a). One quarter do not have enough to eat. Since the 1990s, an additional 4.7 million Mexicans live in extreme poverty, comprising 52.6 percent of the population in 1992, and 69.6 percent after 1995 (ibid.). Today, poverty levels are close to 65 percent, and in 2002, another 1.3 million Mexicans fell below the poverty line (ibid.). In rural areas, more than 70 percent live in poverty (msn 2002b). The decreased quality of life in rural areas is directly connected...