Overview:

This documentary reveals the complexity and magnitude of the environmental situation created by over 2000 maquiladoras, or factories run by international companies on the Mexican border. It also gives a sense of the energy and imagination found in the diverse mix of people from grass-roots, governments, academia and industry, who are re-thinking traditional notions of borders as they engage in the search for solutions to the problems of pollution.

Previewing Activities

What is pollution and how is it regulated?
What do you know about relations between the US and Mexico?
Have you ever been to Mexico? How were the conditions different from those in the US?
How might the standard of living in Mexico influence the work force and their income?

Post-Viewing Activities

What is a maquiladora?
What kind of environmental regulations exist for factories in Mexico?
What were some of the ways that people were trying to improve the environmental conditions?
What were the three border regions that this documentary covered?

Class Projects

Research one of the solutions that the experts were either using or planning on using to help improve the border region. Write an essay on the pros and cons of this method.
Pick one of the pair cities from the film. Research the most prevalent environmental issues, including water and air pollution. Be sure to include the major causes of these problems.

How to Borrow this Video:

The videos owned by the UNC-Duke Consortium in Latin American and Caribbean Studies are housed in the Outreach Office of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. They are lent free of charge. For information on films and reservations, please visit http://isa.unc.edu/film/films_main.asp.

Suggested Readings

· Excurra, Exequiel. The Basin of Mexico: Critical Environmental Issues and Sustainability. Brookings Institution, 1999.

· Simon, Joel. Endangered Mexico: An Environment on the Edge. Sierra Club Books, 1997.