Walking the streets of the colonias is the only way to understand the people. Meeting with the working poor in an office, church, or school cannot tell the whole story.

The people are not looking for charity. We approach them as friends and explain that we come to learn about life in the colonias from the people living in the colonias. We explain that we know the media misleads us about the factories paying employees $120 each week. That statement often provokes laughter, and the family shows us a pay stub. The most frequent weekly pay we see is less than $60.

Walking the dirt roads to visit the families, schools, and people on the road is a way to begin to understand life in the colonias. Seeing the dust whirl and beat against freshly hung laundry takes on a meaning. Noticing a mother washing her child with a garden hose and a father shaving while looking into a mirror nailed to a tree tells a story. When the rains come, the road can be so muddy that you feel your tennis shoe being sucked off your foot.

Homesteading a vacant piece of land is not easy. Many walk more than a mile to shop for groceries. Electricity is often impossible. Until neighbors pay for their utility pole and transformer, the line cannot be brought to your house. Many people run their own thin line from the nearest utility pole, along the road and into their house. Looking at many of these cardboard shacks, you see there are no fuse boxes. The current runs directly into the house. Enough electricity reaches the house to power a small appliance and a few lights.

All of this, and knowing that many only bring home less than $60 and that some parents must skip meals so their children can eat, creates an expectation of hopelessness. We expect the families will quickly ask for help and explain the difficulties of life. The exact opposite continues to be our experience.

Talking with the people we meet on the road and with the families we randomly visit exposes us to what seems like unreasonable joy, happiness, and hope. Seldom do these people complain. “Why waste time complaining? Why worry and hope that somebody will fix everything? These are my problems and it is up to me. I just hope things will improve. My children receive a good education and many things are good.” This is the typical reply when we ask if they worry or expect the government to help.

Some houses are built where there is no real infrastructure. We walk along pathways that lead to the houses. Climbing steep hills to return to the main road strains our muscles. When we arrive at the road, our breathing is labored and we are about to complain. Then we realize that life for these people includes this daily climb. The children climb it every day to go to school.

Many families do not share their most pressing problems at first. We build trust and friendship. Eventually, we learn that a child needs surgery or that a child cannot attend school because the family cannot afford the school uniforms and materials.

Walking the streets, we learn some of the impact of foreign countries that build factories in Mexico. We see waste pipes that empty into streams that pour into the Rio Grande. We see too many children with birth defects. We see the paychecks of the poor.

Walking the streets, we see hope, faith, love, and joy as we see life all around us. We also see individuals who are hungry, in need of medical care, and in need of a few gallons of clean drinking water. We stop and help as we walk the streets of the colonias.

No textbook, movie, or story comes close to experiencing the colonias and the lives of these working poor as walking the streets of the colonias.