Normalized Death: Everyday Living in Juarez and Other Possibilities

The culmination of poverty, militarization, war on drugs, neoliberal economic policies, struggling nation-states, and racism have hurt youth and children in myriad ways. The following sections examine (1) death or dying in Ciudad Juarez,

(2) transmigrants’ struggling as they attempt crossing borders to the USA, and

(3) youth living in the USA without proper documentation.

In recent years in Ciudad Juarez, young people can easily be victimized. Some children and youth have their movement restricted by their parents for fear of victimization. Several are growing up with vestiges of PTSD and other forms of trauma (Rivera 2012). A binational cross-sectional study that measured the psycho­social and behavioral problems among children and adolescents in Ciudad Juarez and El Paso in 2007 and 2010 points to the significant impact that exposure to collective violence has on young children and adolescents in the border area. The study demonstrated that the mental health of children and their exposure to collective violence and poverty, especially in Ciudad Juarez, had an additive effect on chil­dren’s mental health. “Chronic exposure of children to violence has been shown to trigger a panoply of serious mental health problems, often manifested by depression, anxiety, acute stress disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, sleep difficulties, somatic symptoms, complicated bereavement, substance abuse, and antisocial and suicidal behaviors, among others” (Leiner et al. 2012, p. 411). From 2007 to 2012, it was common local knowledge that going back and forth to school or to the market meant the possibility of some form of violence, so people limited their everyday movements, public outings, and evening activities. “Families in this border area face strenuous consequences resulting from the loss of family members through death, torture, and kidnapping and constant exposure to violence through television and radio reports that is detrimental to children and families” (Leiner et al.

There is also the other side of violence when youth fall into violent lifestyles out of hopelessness or desperation. Many youth fall prey to working as abductors, sicarios (assassins), secuestradores (kidnappers), halcones (falcons/lookouts for military convoys or police forces for the cartels), or as mulas (mules running drugs, migrants,

or weapons across borders for drug cartels) (Moretti 2013; Chaparro 2014). These lifestyles shift the meaning of what is normal and routine. Marie Leiner's (2010) study noted that children in schools in Juarez preferred playing “narcotraficantes contra policias” (narco-trafficker vs. police) where no one wants to play the role of the police, because the police always lose and the “bad guys” are never punished. Simultaneously, suspicion and mistrust are rife, as neighbors, government workers, law enforcement, and military agents are viewed with suspicion.

Children learn to be fearful and alert, and young people learn to be suspicious, wondering who is marked for death next. As violence is normalized, some children learn to live in fear or think of life as ephemeral, making the most of what time they have left. Helpless and hopeless, with few legitimate possibilities for work, school, or life, some youth become drug consumers. More, however, have grown defiant and refuse to succumb to this violence. The Marcha del Coraje, Dolor, y Desagravio (March of Courage, Pain, and Vindication) that took place in February of 2010 was a response to the Villa Salvarcar massacre of sixteen young people at a house party in Ciudad Juarez that January, which flourished into a social media network that grew to thousands of mainly young protestors and people standing in solidarity against such widespread community violence (Staudt and Mendez 2015). Ciudad Juarez youth used social networking to build solidarity. While there is ongoing disorder in the region, marginalized populations, including youth, remain hopeful about their futures and engage in a kind of transformative resistance, “that allow them [youth] to survive the daily infringement of their rights at the border” (Bejarano 2010, p. 392).

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