Nogales, Mexico. April, 2010

It was just coincidence that I traveled from Tucson to Mexico on the day that Arizona passed its controversial bill allowing officers to stop and check anyone’s credentials in an attempt to snare illegal immigrants. But between that and the recent spate of bordertown violence by Mexican drug kingpins (the sheriff of Nogales and his son had been gunned down on the street about a week before my visit), it’s no wonder I only heard one other American voice in this sleepy town usually crawling with gringos in search of serapes, huaraches, decorative tiles, tin souvenirs...and the dirt-cheap pharmaceutical wonders and services offered by the many, many farmacias and dentistas on every block. Ironically, I heard more English spoken here by local hawkers (“Hello, sir,” “We have everything, mister”) than I heard in South Tucson where I’d purchased my van ticket in Spanish and where none of my other fellow passengers spoke en inglés. I lazily checked out the Nogales supermercados and just enjoyed walking along, taking pictures, joined at one point by a chatty high-school girl in a Catholic school uniform. Along the highway back to Tucson, our return van was stopped by Border Patrol USA and I smiled, thinking of “no racial profiling,” as everyone’s papers were checked...except mine.