ABSTRACT
Although the two authors live in different countries with correspondingly distinct rhetorical and cultural systems, they also live just 40 miles from each other in perhaps one of the largest outsourcing economies in the world. The El Paso/ Ciudad Juárez area has a population of 2.3 million people and has over 1,000 maquilas or joint U.S.-Mexican manufacturing plants. In these plants, parts and materials are shipped into Juárez for assembly by Mexican personnel, and then the finished product is shipped back into the United States or exported elsewhere. Many of the shipping warehouses are located in the El Paso region. Thus, the cross-border, mutual influence is significant, with many U.S. maquila personnel living in El Paso and commuting to Juárez daily, and many Mexican personnel working side-by-side with U.S.-Americans and commuting to El Paso for shopping and recreation. Like many people in this border area, Thatcher and Garza-Almanza are in constant contact with each other. They can work together in the morning on a project in Juárez or Las Cruces, New Mexico and then cross the legal, geopolitical border and return in the afternoon to their own country.
