Excerpts from an interview with activist and biculturalist Santiago Maldonado from: Oscar J. Martinez, Border People: Life and Society in the US-Mexico Borderlands. University of Arizona Press.

Santiago Maldonado, a Mexican American, Details the Lives of Undocumented Immigrants in Texas, 1994

When I was about eight years old, I worked in the cotton fields in the El Paso area. I used to chop weeds and pick chiles and onions. I averaged ten or twelve dollars a day. It all depended on how much I would pick. Even though the child labor laws prohibit kids from working all day long like I was doing, it was common for the parents to take all the family to the field.... People used to be transported to the fields every day. There was this place right across the international bridge coming from Judrez on El Paso Street. Every morning from 4:00 to 5:30 A.M. the buses would leave and go to the farm fields. I would make it a habit to be there on time around 4:00 every morning and get aboard the buses.

The majority who got on the buses were people from Judrez or people from South El Paso. The people from Judrez were Green Carders. I recall one evening when certain Mexican aliens were on the buses and the Immigration and Naturalization Service officials came aboard the buses to inspect to see if anybody was an illegal alien. Somebody behind me got nervous when they saw him. He got all panicky and decided to get out of the bus through the back door. He started running. An officer started running after him. He caught up with him, and what I saw was really something. He beat him up completely. I could hear the Mexican yelling and yelling for the agent to stop beating him up. He was beating him with a club stick, a macana. Finally he stopped. The man was put in a van and detained. I guess he was transported back to Mexico. The illegal alien didn't provoke or resist the officer when he was caught. The officer just wanted to make it look like the illegal was really doing all the resisting, and he wasn't. He seemed like a very good man when he was in the bus.

I recall many instances in Dell City and in El Paso when the Immigration raided the fields. The majority of my friends in the fields were illegal aliens. All the time they would talk about being afraid of getting caught by the Border'Patrol, which had a habit of checking the fields. Every time we could see they were coming, the Mexicans would run and hide. It was a daily routine, always going on. Some were lucky and some weren't....

In terms of Mexicans crossing illegally, I would say that the main crossing point along the entire boundary would be the area ... adjacent to the river, two blocks to the west of the El Paso-Judrez bridge. More people cross at that point than any other point that I can think of. I've talked to people who have come all the way from South America and from the interior of Mexico, but the majority are usually from Judrez. The reason I'd talk to them is because I live close to the presidios where the aliens used to hide from the Border Patrol, especially in the rest rooms, on the roofs, under cars-you name it, you'll find them everyplace. Sometimes I do my best to help them. I'll tell them, "The Border Patrol is hiding here and there. I would recommend that you cross at this point so you won't be caught." If I have a car, I'll give them a ride. If I can't get transportation, I'll call a taxi to help them. I've done this a lot.

I'm not really afraid because I got used to it. I know all the ways to escape the Border Patrol. I know where to took. I just don't even think about it. My grandfather was caught twice for transporting illegal aliens in the Sierra Blanca area, and he served two jail sentences. The last time he was put on probation. I got a lot of encouragement from him because I really looked up to him, and that's why I started doing it. Plus it was the, fun of obtaining money. I don't charge high prices. As a matter of fact, in the majority of the cases I don't even charge. Sometimes if I don't have gasoline in my car, I ask them for a dollar or two. I just do it to help them. When my grandfather was doing this, a lot of illegal aliens were being ar- rested, rounded up, and transported back to Mexico. The growers were in desperate need of more cheap labor. My grandfather didn't have a job at that time. That was the only avenue he had, and he took it.

People cross at every hour of the day and night. Occasionally Border Patrolmen station themselves in my neighborhood, but because of a lack of manpower and so many people crossing, they have to turn their attention to other locations, so that leaves the opportunity for more people to cross close to my home.