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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| El Paso school a haven along violent border |
| 2009-05-20 |
| EL PASO, Texas (CNN) -- Marina Diaz knows each day could be her last when she leaves for school each morning. But that doesn't stop her from making the trip from her home on the dusty outskirts of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, a key battleground in Mexico's drug wars, to El Paso, Texas, where she attends high school. From the moment she catches a bus to downtown Juarez, she is mindful of her surroundings. This is a city that saw 1,600 homicides last year. She warily watches the federal soldiers patrolling the streets. Diaz, 18, finally relaxes after she clears customs at a border checkpoint and passes the "Welcome to Texas!" sign greeting pedestrians at the intersection of El Paso Street and 6th Avenue in downtown El Paso. From there, it's another five minutes to the Lydia Patterson Institute. She is not the only student making the trip across the border each day. In fact, most of the students in the school do it: About 70 percent of the institute's 459 students live in Juarez. Some are American citizens with Mexican parents; others are Mexican citizens who carry a student visa to any one of three U.S.-Mexico border checkpoints in El Paso that serve tens of thousands of students, white-collar workers and day laborers each day. Students describe their lives and daily challenges » When she gets to the school each morning, Diaz changes out of her jogging pants and into her uniform skirt. "Because of the people over there, I don't feel comfortable with the men and stuff, so I wear pants," she explains. "You definitely see a difference here. The streets, they are more clean here than they are in Juarez, and I think the people respect you a little more. You don't have to worry about people giving you trouble." El Paso, population 734,000, has long enjoyed the benefits of strong community ties with its industrial sister city of approximately 1.5 million. But the violence and insecurity created by the war between the Mexican government and the drug cartels has strained that relationship. For students at Lydia Patterson, who live in Juarez and cross the bridge each weekday, the small, United Methodist preparatory school has become a safe haven in the months since drug-related violence in Juarez has intensified. "My school is a home for me because I have teachers and they treat me like parents," says Hazel Barrera, 18. "Here, they take care of us and they make us feel comfortable and safe." Lydia Patterson's faculty and administrators -- many of whom are graduates of the school, and also reside in Juarez -- say the school's mission is very much the same as it was when it was founded nearly 100 years ago as a sanctuary for Mexican families fleeing the violence of the Mexican Revolution. "Our students are exceptional, and I always tell them I respect them and I admire their courage because they're living through this horrible time," says the school's president, Socorro Brito de Anda. |
| Posted by:GolfBravoUSMC |