TIJUANA, Mexico — Never a particularly pretty place, the border is at its ugliest right now, with violence, tensions and temperatures all on high.
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The raffish charm of old Ciudad Juárez is reflected in an old-time bar in 1998.
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Times Topics: Mexico | Arizona Immigration Law (SB 1070)
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Recent violence in Ciudad Juárez.
Once thought of by Americans as just a naughty playland, the divide between the United States and Mexico is now most associated with the awful things that happen here. In towns from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico, drug gangs brutalize each other, tourists risk getting caught in the cross-fire, and Mexican laborers crossing the desert northward brave both the bullets and the heat. Last week, a federal judge in Arizona blocked portions of new far-reaching immigration restrictions that she said went way too far in ousting Mexicans. Meanwhile, National Guard troops are preparing to fill in as border sentries.
All these developments are unfolding in what used to be a meeting place between two countries, a zone of escape where cultures merged, albeit often amid copious amounts of tequila. The potential casualties at the border now include a way of life, generations old, well-documented but decaying by the day.
The flow of people at the border has never been one way. The 1,969-mile stretch has long been a netherworld crossed by Americans in search of forbidden pleasures as much as by Mexicans desperate for work.
It is an area neither completely Mexico nor completely El Norte. And a dollop of danger, a quest for sin, was always part of its charm.
The modern story begins with Prohibition, when Mexico became the place for thirsty Americans to go for a cheap, legal drink. Over the years, the lure of cheap booze gave way to quickie divorces, dog races, strip shows, slot machines and brothels where fathers sometimes brought their sons when they hit 16. Through it all, there were plenty of drugs — medicinal (cut rates with no prescriptions) as well as illegal (marijuana, cocaine, herThe Mexican Border’s Lost World - NYTimes.com
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