They have brought Mexico to the border, with Day of the Dead and Las Posadas celebrations, in a region that once only feted Halloween and Santa Claus. Indian languages now echo through the valley. Meanwhile, full-time work has been an invigorating elixir for these Indians. Many have eagerly doffed traditional customs that kept them poor and benighted back home. They have joined Protestant denominations.
Indian children dress in tennis shoes and t-shirts and are enthralled by television and videogames.
San Quintin is one of these places where you can see Indians looking to the future for an identity. Zeus Garcia was one of the greatest Indian basketball players to come out of Oaxaca. Today he is a bus boy in Santa Monica and coach of the best Oaxacan basketball team in the Los Angeles area. This is the story of one man's obsession with a sport. Since the 1970s, Ciudad Juarez has bet its development on maquiladoras, the assembly plants where thousands of young people, primarily women from rural villages, put together stereos, toys, clothes, blenders and a good many car parts for export across the border.