Shoestring Effort Helps Tijuana Street Children

TIJUANA — It’s past midnight in this border city, and the downtown streets are throbbing. Disco music blares from clubs and cantinas. The screeching siren and revolving lights of a passing squad car barely turn a head. Overdressed working girls linger in the shadows. At the entrance to “burlesque” shows, men outfitted in black waist coats and frilly white shirts attempt to entice foreign tourists inside.

“Wanna see Mexican ladies?” one entreats. “No cover charge. No minimum.”

Almost unnoticed in the clamor, big-eyed, dirty-faced children, betraying no sign of late-night weariness, scurry up and down the streets like animated toy figures, hawking flowers or Chiclets, or just begging for a few coins.

In the midst of it all, Guillermo Alvarado cruises the streets, looking for his kids. Alvarado walks at a fast pace, good cheer emanating from his broad smile--a smile that befits his nickname-- El Payaso, The Clown.

Youthful Hangouts Are Scoured for Prospects

Alvarado brushes confidently through the entrance of an all-night al fresco taco stand and up a flight of back stairs to a makeshift video arcade--a cramped, dimly lit plywood loft where tiny children work the machines amid a cacophony of computerized sounds and a lightning storm of flashing lights.

“Let’s go, Alex,” says Alvarado, tapping the shoulder of a short-haired youth who appears no more than 10 years old. “We’re going to play football. You want to play?”

“Payaso!” the boy says. “Let’s play football!”

Alvarado and the boy leave together, looking to recruit more players from among other nearby youth.

It’s just another night’s work for the indefatigable Alvarado, who works in a novel, non-governmental program here aimed at the legions of so-called ninos de la calle-- street kids--who haunt the thoroughfares of Tijuana. Working on a shoestring budget, Alvarado and the program’s coordinator, Jose de Jesus Cordova, attempt to reach out to the estimated 3,000 to 5,000 children who spend much of their time on the city streets, attempting to hustle a living.

“These youths don’t respond to traditional government assistance programs,” explained de Jesus Cordova, a former street youth from Mexico City who founded the program in the summer of 1986 and keeps it running thanks to annual grants of about $7,700 from the United Nations Children’s Fund. “They have to be approached differently. They’re independent. They often resent authority.”

The approach is modeled on a methodology that has had success elsewhere in Latin America, notably in anarchic metropolises such as Mexico City, Bogota and Sao Paulo, where tens of thousands of street urchins have become a major social preoccupation--and the subject of numerous studies and seminal films such as Luis Bunuel’s Los Olvidados (The Forgotten Ones), about Mexico City youths, and Hector Babenco’s Pixote, concerning Brazilian street kids.

Migratory Center

Like other Latin America cities, Tijuana, a fast-growing city of more than 1 million people, is a major migratory center; the city constantly draws impoverished new residents from the Mexican countryside. Apart from the higher standard of living and availability of jobs here, Tijuana boasts another attraction: It is the gateway to the United States.

With the traumatic move to an urban center, once-strong family ties are often weakened. Here, as in other Latin cities, many poor children are drawn to the streets, where they can eke out a living selling small items or hustling. The majority appear to live at home and earn money largely for their family.

The youths are ripe for exploitation. Some are drawn to crime, drugs and prostitution. When asked, many say they admire the notorious narcotraficantes (drug dealers) whose exploits are regularly chronicled in the Mexican press.

Last month, a human rights group here presented evidence that Mexican police had tortured more than 100 minors. Officials vehemently denied the charges.

“These children are among the most vulnerable, marginal sectors of our society,” said Victor Clark Alfaro, an activist anthropologist who heads the human rights group that leveled the charges against the various police agencies. “Nothing is being done to help them.”

While Mexico has an array of child-care bureaucracies, observers say the agencies are under-staffed, under-funded, and generally ill-equipped to deal with the problems of the street children. Moreover, says Alvarado, the independent nature of the street children calls for a different approach.

Difficult to Reach

“The children don’t want to be told to do anything; there’s no point in doing that,” said Alvarado, a slim, animated man of 24 who seems perpetually on the move. “We try to help them to make their own decisions about life. What they accomplish has to be because of their own initiative.”

It is a difficult task. The program, which consists of the two staff members and several volunteers, has several aspects.

A sparsely furnished rented house near downtown provides bare lodging for about a dozen youths who come and go; the children contribute to the rent. Literacy lessons are conducted at the shelter, where donated food is often available. (Most of the children have had only minimal schooling; many don’t know how to read or write.) “Education is liberty,” says Alvarado, a working-class Tijuana native who himself began selling papers on the streets when he was 9 and went on to get a college degree.

Alvarado now gives classes in social work at the Iberoamerican University here; he also works part time with alcoholics.

The central part of the effort is known as Operacion Amistad, or Operation Friendship, in which the workers go out into the streets and attempt to befriend the youths. The idea, simply, is to gain their confidence, build the basis for a future relationship.

“It’s very hard; it takes a long time,” says Alvarado. “The children are very distrustful at first. Many have been abused.”

Starting with a simple game of midnight soccer or with a session of street theater, Alvarado attempts to gain the children’s trust. The hope is that, eventually, they will come to the literacy classes, and, if they are living on the streets, will move back home with their families or, at least, into the shelter.

‘Can Do So Little’

“Maybe we can only help shape the way of life of perhaps one in 20,” says Alvarado, who counts about 100 street children among his brood. “We can do so little; the problem is enormous. But even that one child is significant.”

For the future, Alvarado and de Jesus Cordova have high hopes. They would like to set up cooperatives of Chiclet sellers or flower-vendors, as well as a theater cooperative. To accomplish this modest goal, they have applied for a small grant from a Guatemalan foundation.

“These children are intelligent, astute--they only need a chance,” says Alvarado, “They made a decision to work, which in a way is a very adult decision. Many help support their families.”

Adrian Chavez Espinoza, 14, known as Ojos Verdes (Green Eyes), leads the way through the back passages of Tijuana. Adrian, who, like many of the youngsters, doesn’t like to talk about himself, was nonetheless anxious to show a visitor some of the after-dark haunts of the Tijuana youths. It was well past midnight.

“Here,” he says, pointing to a garbage-strewn site situated off a menacing alley, “we slept here a lot.”

Later, Adrian leads the way to another site--a dirt lot where Tijuana’s tourist photographers park their colorful carts overnight. Sneaker-clad feet protruding from beneath the carts attest to the presence of sleeping youths.

On this night, Guillermo Alvarado wants to talk to Dulce, a teen-age prostitute whom he has befriended. However, she is nowhere to be found.

‘Harder for Girls’

“It can be a lot harder for the little girls,” says Alvarado, standing in the middle of glitzy Revolution Avenue. “They’re easily exploited.”

Later, back at the modest shelter, some of the boys--there are no girls there currently--are asked to share details of their lives. Most are hesitant.

Their backgrounds attest to Tijuana’s role as a migratory way station: Many were born elsewhere or are the offspring of migrants from other Mexican states.

Fernando Quinones Correa, 12, known as Cholo, translated roughly as “Punk,” says his family came to Tijuana about seven years ago from the western state of Nayarit.

“I remember there were hardly any streets there; it was all land,” says Fernando, who periodically stays at the shelter along with his 15-year-old brother.

An older boy, Francisco San Gabriel Gomez, 16, was less hesitant about sharing some details of his life. He said he had been on his own since he was 8, living on the streets and elsewhere.

“My mother used to beat me; we just never got along,” says Francisco simply, seated, shirtless, in a room at the shelter.

Now, he says he works at a downtown disco, cleaning up and doing other chores. He says he can earn as much as $50 a week.

“This job is all right for now, but I’d like to do something better,” says Francisco, a well-spoken youth, who has little schooling but says he taught himself to read and write. “Maybe I can be a mechanic; I don’t know . . . One thing I can say, I’ve never robbed or done drugs. I don’t believe in that.”

A few days later, Guillermo Alvarado is walking the dirt streets of a Tijuana squatter’s neighborhood, visiting the homes of some of the youths with whom he has worked. There is no running water or electricity in most of this sprawling community, home to tens of thousands. It is one of many such neighborhoods here.

At one house, six children ages 6 to 17 share a one-room tarpaper-and-wood, dirt-floor shack with their parents. The father, himself a street vendor, has been imprisoned for molesting one of the children; he is now back home.

6 Years on Streets

The boy, Gilberto (a pseudonym), is 14. He has been selling Chiclets and other items on the streets since he was 8, and has been in and out of state institutions. He is an active, bright youth, proud to show a visitor an addition to the home he is helping to construct.

“Payaso, “ the boy greets Alvarado, acting very much the man of the house. “Come in.”

The mother, an attractive woman in her early 30s, says her boys fight too much. She says she would like them to go to school more, but it’s hard, particularly with her husband making so little money. She says Gilberto generally brings money home to help the family, although the boy also acknowledges spending quite a bit in video parlors and in other pursuits.

“I like working on the streets,” says the shirtless Gilberto, grinning.

The mother, a perceptive woman, groans. “I tell them, ‘You can’t always stay in the streets,’ ” she says, as her youngest daughter clings to her, adjusting her hair. “I want them to be responsible, to have responsible positions.”

After a pause, she adds, “I don’t want my children to end up like me.”

Over a hill and down a deep-rutted street is the home of Andres Paredes, 15, who is known as “Monkey,”--apparently a reference to his limp. He developed the limp in an accident eight years ago, when he fractured a bone near his right knee while playing. It was never fixed.

“We could never afford a doctor,” explains his mother, a massive woman who has nine other children.

Disagreements With Father

Andres has been on and off the streets. He, too, has strong conflicts with his father. A few years ago, he says, he ran away to Ensenada, where he hustled money cleaning boats and slept at nights outside or in boats.

“I didn’t want to stay home,” he explains, although he finally did return.

For Alvarado, Andres is counted as a victory: The boy did leave the streets to go back home. How long he will stay remains a question.

Just a week or so ago, a Tijuana doctor, Joaquin Ramiro Ramirez, agreed to do surgery on Andres’ leg for free. In four months, the doctor says, the boy will be normal again, assuming he maintains a rehabilitation schedule and makes his doctor’s appointments. For now, however, Andres is largely incapacitated, much of his leg bandaged after the delicate surgery.

“If this injury had been tended to eight years ago, he never would have had a problem today,” notes the doctor, seated in his office near downtown.

Despite the operation, however, there are still difficulties. The entrance to Andres’ cinder-block home is up a steep incline, meaning he basically has to be carried up and down. Often, there is no transportation to the doctor’s office, a few miles away. On this day, however, Guillermo Alvarado is there to provide a ride in his battered American station wagon, circa 1969.

“Andres is one of the boys whom we’ve reached,” says Alvarado, ending an exhausting day of interviewing families in the rugged neighborhood. “It’s important that he sees the doctor regularly . . . Andres, all the boys, they have to decide for themselves how to change their lives. Andres has taken the first steps from the streets. We can’t make that decision for them. We can only provide them with guideposts, with the possibility of an alternative. But they have to want to change.”