Violence in Mexico Deters U.S. Universities
Sandy Huffaker for The New York Times
Victor Clark Alfaro, a lecturer at San Diego State University, in Tijuana, Mexico.
By MARC LACEY
Published: June 26, 2010
MEXICO CITY — From perfecting their use of the subjunctive in colonial Puebla to exploring the anthropological aspects of Tijuana’s gritty underside, American college students have long used Mexico as a learning lab. This summer, however, far fewer will be venturing across the border, as universities and students alike fear the violence tied to drug gangs that have caught some innocents in the cross-fire.
Jennifer Szymaszek for The New York Times
Students Erin Callahan, right, from Berkeley, CA, and Chris Cogburn, from Austin, TX, center, work on an assignment given by their teacher Arturo Torres, left, in their beginners’ Spanish class at International House in Mexico City.
In March, two Mexican university students were killed at the prestigious Tecnológico de Monterrey when fighting broke out between Mexican soldiers and drug traffickers on the streets outside. Universities in the border cities of Ciudad Juárez and Reynosa. have seen violence tread dangerously close to their campuses as well.
A direct result of the attention-getting bloodshed has been the mass cancellation of study-abroad programs throughout the country, including those hundreds of miles from the most dangerous areas. Some educators on both sides of the border consider the reaction to be an exaggerated response.
“To make an analogy,” said Geoffrey E. Braswell, an associate anthropology professor at the University of California, San Diego, “I would not have considered taking students to Mississippi during the early 1960s or to Chicago during the 1968 Democratic convention,