When the Border Is Just Next-Door, Crossing Over It Is a Fact of Daily Life Melissa Block - NPR.org
go to original April 6, 2017

Nogales, Mexico, is packed with pharmacies, salons and dental clinics, offering services at a fraction of what they would cost in the U.S. (Elissa Nadworny/NPR)

Depending on where you sit, the U.S.-Mexico border is:

a) a dangerous frontier that allows drug traffickers and illegal immigrants to cross freely into the US, or

b) a familiar frontier that is navigated as a regular part of everyday life.

For people who live along the border in the twinned cities of Nogales, Ariz., and Nogales, Mexico, it's nearly always the latter.

The sister cities are known collectively as Ambos Nogales, or "Both Nogales."



Nogales, Ariz., is less than a tenth of the size of its Mexican counterpart: about 20,000 people compared with 250,000 on the Mexican side.

In both directions, cross-border excursions are a normal thing.

If you live on the Arizona side, you just take a short walk to the crossing, follow the small sign with the red arrow that says "TO MEXICO," pass through a turnstile, and there you are in another country.

One of the first things you'll see is the border wall stretching between the two countries. In Nogales, it looms 18 to 30 feet tall. It's made of rusted steel tubes reinforced with concrete, with steel plates on top. There are 4-inch gaps between the bars, wide enough for people on opposite sides of the border to hold hands through the openings.

Walk just a bit farther into the city, and you'll find pharmacies, salons and dental clinics offering services at a fraction of what they would cost in the U.S.

In fact, many Arizonans we meet in Nogales tell us they cross over into Mexico all the time for haircuts, manicures or a bit of nightlife. (Many also swear the tacos are better on the Mexican side, though our unscientific taste tests could not confirm this.)

Read the rest at NPR.org

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