Blogs from Tamaulipas, Mexico, North America - page 2

June 24, 2007 We arise early and are on our way. We realize that we will arrive at the border late in the afternoon. I do not want to cross at a Nuevo Leon in the middle of the day, so we head to the Laredo-Columbia Solidarity Bridge. I have mixed feelings about us crossing at Columbia. I know that it is about an hour to an hour and half out of the way. But I also know that you can wait in line even longer if you cross at Nuevo Laredo. Moreover, there are the obvious safety concerns. We take the cut-off and head northwest of Laredo. I arrive at the crossing point with almost 2000 pesos (about $200 usd) in my pocket. I see a gas station. I stop. We fill the tank, buy ... read more

In a culture as family-oriented as Mexico’s, it should probably come as no surprise that the most important day of the week for Mexican prisoners is the Sunday visiting day. Between Tuesdays and Saturdays, visitors are allowed to come into the prison between 9am and 5pm but must stay confined to the first floor of each cell-house. But on Sundays, the prison administration takes these visits to an entirely different level by organizing a grand event - almost like a carnival - complete with mariachi dancing, lucha libre fighting, and even moonwalks for children. Last weekend, we were able to experience this visiting day celebration for the first time. Being accustomed to the visitation policies in American prisons, I was blown away by the amount of freedom given to the inmates and visitors as well as ... read more

Although there is no one way to describe any prison, my experiences over the past two years have led me to believe that there are two very different types of incarceration in the United States. On one side of the spectrum are prisons like Stateville Correctional in Jessup, Illinois, which punishes inmates by placing them in Orwellian-style panopticon cellhouses with little-to-no focus on rehabilitation or their return to the free world. On the other side of the spectrum are prisons like the Youthful Offender System in Pueblo, Colorado, which houses potentially dangerous minors with the sole intention of rehabilitating them so that they never wind up in a real adult penitentiary. While there a number of differences between these two types of prisons, the most striking is the ultimate goal of incarceration: one is to punish ... read more

My first introduction to Laredo, Texas came eight years ago, when a college friend who grew up in Laredo invited me to visit him for a few days after our freshman year. Since then, I have returned to this city a total of four times and have still not tired of it. But this time, my visit to Laredo is not for pleasure. Instead, I am here to film the prison in Laredo’s sister city of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico for a National Geographic prison series. Last night, I along with my three fellow crew members arrived in Laredo, Texas to begin our three-week ‘incarceration’ in CERESO II. While I had been to the prison once before for a scout, I was very anxious to see what, if anything, had changed in the passing year. I was ... read more

Tuxpan was a nice place to spend a couple of days. The sun did come out while we were there and so we spent a day by the hotel pool since it was more to our liking than the nearby beach. After a few hours of playing in the pool and lounging in the sun, the bugs came out in full force and again we were ate up! The archaeology museum was closed for renovations; go figure. We were told the quickest and easiest way to go to the Cuba-Mexico Friendship Museum was to take a boat across the river and then it was only a few blocks walk. This museum was also under renovation, but only partially. We were able to view a collection of pictures of Fidel Castro, one of his suits, and ... read more