ARIZONA & MEXICO

councils operating along the Arizona-Sonora border from Yuma-San Luis Rio Colorado to Douglas-Agua
Prieta. The United States-Mexico Border Health Commission (USMBHC), public universities, and the
health departments of the State of Arizona and the State of Sonora have provided critical support for
the operation of the these councils for years.
Communities of Knowledge
The Climate Assessment for the Southwest (CLIMAS), a regional group of scientists based at the University
of Arizona that work in partnership with Sonoran universities (COLSON, UNISON and UNAM) is part of
a regionally integrated assessment of climate impact in the Sonoran Desert. This group of experts has
identified high socioeconomic and climate related vulnerabilities in the major urban areas of the
Arizona-Sonora region (Wilder et al, 2013). They have also found varying institutional capacity, including
inaccessibility of appropriate data and climate information, as well as trained personnel to utilize climate
knowledge appropriately. The group has concluded that co-generation of climate knowledge to inform
water policy and the development of internet-based platforms to facilitate access to information should
be expanded on both sides of the border, but with emphasis in Sonora.
Another example is the Arizona-Sonora Inter-university Consortium (ASIC), comprised of Arizona State
University and three of Sonora’s higher education institutions (CIAD, UNISON and COLSON) which seeks
to influence and accelerate regional development through the creation of a transborder innovation
and knowledge ecosystem that is sustained through collaboration among scientists, policy-makers and
entrepreneurs from a variety of fields. In some way, ASIC is an effort initiated two decades ago to develop
a long-term plan for an integrated Arizona-Sonora binational region that is able to compete and improve
quality of life in a global economy (Wong-González, 2005). These two cases are good illustrations of the
types of activities that networks of knowledge-based experts engage in. They work – through academic
discourse and research – to articulate cause-and-effect relationships for complex border problems, frame
public debates, propose specific policies, or identify salient points for a transborder regional vision.
Citizen Networks
Formal transborder networks have also emerged to link the growing immigrant Latino community in
Arizona with their home communities in Mexico. In recent years a number of Clubes de Oriundos or
Hometown Associations (HTAs) have been created mainly in Tucson and Phoenix. These transborder
communities serve multiple functions, including helping newcomers adjust to Arizona as well as
providing important social and cultural connections between immigrant communities in the U.S. and
their communities of origin in Mexico. Though initially rising as philanthropic enterprises, HTAs have
evolved gradually into innovative forms for cross-border networking that are able to stimulate local
economic development by channeling remittances, skills, and business knowledge while simultaneously
helping to reduce the pressures to emigrate among residents in some rural communities in Mexico
(Castles and Miller, 2009). There are currently more than 57 Mexican HTAs registered in 6 cities in the
State of Arizona, chiefly associated with rural towns in northwest and central Mexico (IME, 2015). In
Phoenix alone, there are 42 of these organizations registered in the Mexican consulate. Increasingly,
regional Latino nonprofits such as Chicanos por la Causa (CPLC) and the Concilio Latino de Salud (CLDS)
are taking first steps to establish ties and develop strategic partnerships with Arizona HTAs. As these
partnerships develop, the impact of Mexican hometown associations in the larger Arizona’s community
will also grow.
81 • ARIZONA & MEXICO • ARIZONA TOWN HALL • APRIL 2016