Zonas de Tolerancia

American Geographical Society Zonas de Tolerancia on the Northern Mexican Border Author(s): James R. Curtis and Daniel D. Arreola Source: Geographical Review, Vol. 81, No. 3 (Jul., 1991), pp. 333-346 Published by: American Geographical Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/215636 Accessed: 03-12-2015 20:03 UTC

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ZONAS DE TOLERANCIA ON THE NORTHERN MEXICAN BORDER JAMES R. CURTIS and DANIEL D. ARREOLA ABSTRACT. Zonas de tolerancia,or zones of tolerance, are quarters of prostitution and adult entertainment in Mexican cities. Along the border with the United States, two types of zonas may be identified: district zonas, which are located in or on the margins of traditional tourist areas, and compound zonas, which emerged since 1945 and are located outside the built-up area or in specific sites within the city proper. This study examines the spatial distribution of this element of border-city urban geography, the factors responsible for the origin and persistence of the zonas, and their characteristics as places.

INnorthern Mexican border cities, as elsewhere in urban Mexico, prostitution is often spatially restricted to designated zonas de tolerancia,or zones of tolerance. Zonas, as they are commonly called, may be located either in a city or on the outskirts of its built-up area. At least since the prohibition era in the United States (1918-1933), they have been vital and conspicuous elements in the Mexican border cityscape, a reflection of the importance of prostitution and adult entertainment in the local economies. The relative contribution of prostitution has declined from its peak in the years immediately after World War II, and precipitously so during the past two decades as economic reorientation has changed the traditional border economy. Nonetheless, prostitution remains locally important, and zonas persist in most of the border urban centers. Despite the crucial economic and social effects of prostitution, surprisingly little research has been done on its spatial aspects. Consequently, understanding of prostitution in the border centers generally and in zonas specifically not only is inadequate but also is distorted by sensationalized accounts (Demaris 1970). Over time, the sordid reputation of these areas has fed on itself, making it difficult to separate fact from fiction. This article, which is based on field research conducted between 1987 and 1990 in eighteen urban centers along the Mexican border with the United States, identifies two types of zonas and analyzes their spatial characteristics at both the regional and intraurban levels. Considered as well are the factors that may be responsible for the origin and the persistence of the zonas. Our concern is with the space-time setting of prostitution in these centers, not with prostitution per se. We seek to illuminate the processes contributing to the creation of a specialized component in the urban landscape and to determine its character as a place.

* DR. CURTISis an associate professor of geography at Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma 74078-0177. DR. ARREOLA is an associate professor of geography at Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287-0104.


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CITIES WITHOUT ZONAS

Mexican federal law does not prohibit prostitution; however, the extent and spatial characteristics of prostitution vary widely from place to place throughout Mexico, depending primarily on tradition and local governmental policies (BarreraCaraza 1974; Muriel de la Torre 1974; Romero and Quintanilla 1976; Codigos penal 1977, 68-69). Where prostitution exists, a simple spatial distinction can be drawn between cities with zonas and those without them. The absence of a zona does not mean that a city is entirely free of prostitution, but that if it is present it is confined to individual bars, other commercial establishments, and residences that are not clustered in a designated area. Similarly, even in cities with zonas prostitution may be found elsewhere in the urban region. Along the northern border, six of the eighteen cities that we surveyed did not have a zona: Tecate, Sonoita, Naco, Miguel Aleman, Camargo, and Matamoros (Fig. 1). Except for Matamoros, which had a 1990 municipiopopulation of approximately 303,000, these centers are all comparatively small, ranging in population from less than ten thousand in Sonoita and Naco to perhaps fifty thousand in Tecate (Reich 1984, 7; Martinez 1988, 127; Instituto Nacional 1990). Local authorities and published reports indicate that Camargo, Matamoros, Naco, and Miguel Alem'an each had a zona in recent years, and there may have been one in the other two centers (Weisman 1986, 41). Moreover, that a zona has been shut down does not mean that it will remain closed indefinitely. The zona in Reynosa, for example, had been forcibly closed by the state after an election of a governor who had campaigned on an antiprostitution platform; this zona has since reopened and is now one of the largest along the border. Obviously, zonas vary over time as well as space. The reasons behind decisions to close or to relocate zonas are complex, but they probably reflect shifts in public opinion and social attitudes, changes in local and regional economies, and political factors. As the Reynosa example suggests, changes in political leadership at either the state or municipio level have with some regularity led to clean-up campaigns to close the zonas and to rid the cities of prostitution (Frost 1983, 289). Reform has usually been short-lived, however, in large measure because of the considerable financial returns that prostitution generates both legally, through taxes, official fees, and personal income, and illicitly, through various forms of corruption. Twenty years ago, for example, a researcher concluded that prostitution, which added almost two million dollars to the city coffers, was "probably the major industry" in Ciudad Ju'arez(McNamara 1971, 6). DISTRICT ZONAS

Zonas were found in twelve of the eighteen cities studied. Based on locational, organizational, and landscape characteristics, the zonas could be differentiated into two distinct types: district and compound. The older of


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the two types is the district, which is defined as an area in a city with a clustering of commercial establishments such as bars, nightclubs, restaurants, and hotels where prostitution is tolerated on de facto, if not de jure, basis by local authorities, including the police. Brothels exclusively devoted to prostitution are rare along the border at present, if they exist at all. Establishments in a zona may also provide music, dancing, floor shows, and food and beverage services that attract customers who may not be interested in the services of a prostitute. For this reason, district zonas might best be thought of as adult-entertainment and erotic-amusement areas in which prostitution is only one of several activities, albeit a very significant one. Furthermore, in a zona, there typically are bars where prostitution is not allowed, and other commercial and residential landuses also exist there. Five cities were classified as having district-type zonas: Tijuana, Mexicali, Nogales, Las Palomas, and Ciudad Ju'arez.Except for Nogales, in which the zona is found on a single street a dozen or so blocks from the city center in


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a lower-middle-class neighborhood, the districts in these cities are located in the old core on the margins of traditional tourist areas (Fig. 2). In Tijuana, for example, the district is known as ZonaNorte and is located at the northern end of Avenida Revolucion, long the city's principal tourist strip. Similarly, in Ciudad Ju'arezthe two districts are found approximately 1.6 kilometers apart off Avenida Ju'arez,the traditional focus of tourism in the city. However, the best-known prostitution establishment in the city is not in either district. The size of the districts ranges from ten to fifteen blocks in Tijuana and Ciudad Juairez,the two largest border cities, with 1990 populations of nearly 800,000 each, to fewer than one block in the small, impoverished Chihuahuan town of Las Palomas. The boundaries of the districts are either sharply defined, as in Tijuana and Nogales, or vague and transitional, as in Mexicali and Ciudad Juairez. Historically, districts have been differentiated from each other and also internally by racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic considerations. At one time most border cities, especially the large ones, had more than one district. These areas were traditionally segregated into non-Mexican and Mexican zonas; in some centers separate districts were also designated for Chinese and blacks (Exner 1917, 209). Racial and ethnic segregation as well as differentiation by income and social status likewise characterize individual districts, where certain sectors or single establishments cater mainly or even


NORTHERN MEXICAN BORDER

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solely to one group or another. Further distinctions can be drawn between businesses with on-premises or off-premises prostitution and also between heterosexual, homosexual, and transvestite establishments. Contrary to popular belief, most clubs and prostitutes in these districts have long served primarily a Mexican clientele. A study made almost two decades ago reported that of approximately one thousand registered prostitutes in Tijuana, two hundred had a foreign clientele, one hundred had a mixed clientele, and seven hundred catered principally to a Mexican clientele (Price 1973, 94). In Ciudad Juairez,fifty-three bars were identified in the socalled American sector and fifty-nine in the Mexican sector (McNamara 1971, 5). Although differentiation by income group still exists, all evidence suggests that segregation by race and ethnicity has declined greatly in recent years as the number of zona visitors from the United States and other foreign countries has plummeted and as Mexicans have come to represent an even larger majority of zona patrons. No single club was identified that catered exclusively to persons from the United States, a pattern probably related in part to the rise of a Mexican middle class and to other significant social changes in the country, especially along the culturally sensitive border corridor, that would make such blatant discrimination against the Mexican population unacceptable. In many respects, the district-type zonas represent relicts of a previous era during which prostitution and adult entertainment played a far more important role in tourism than they do now. In some centers these zonas have been either eliminated entirely or relocated to more remote or less conspicuous sites. Even the five district zonas that have survived virtually all have declined in size and have taken on the classic characteristics of a zone of discard, having been badly neglected in infrastructure and landscape improvement compared with adjacent tourist quarters (Curtis and Arreola 1989).Zona Norte in Tijuanawas recently described as "a haven for alcoholics, drug addicts, prostitutes and criminal fugitives from both Mexico and the U.S.," and a place where the atmosphere "alternates between alcohol-fueled gaiety and a veiled sense of menace" (San Diego Union 9 July 1989). Although prostitution and sex shows flourish in the forty bars and motels of the zone, it remains a relatively small and isolated vestige of the inglorious past of Tijuana. Nevertheless, it also performs an important economic function. A tourism official in Tijuana once described the zona as "a very small area, very ugly," but one that still "feeds many families" (Cahill 1975, 36). COMPOUND ZONAS

Compound zonas were found in seven of the eighteen border cities: San Luis Rio Colorado, Agua Prieta, Ojinaga, Ciudad Acufia, Piedras Negras, Nuevo Laredo, and Reynosa. Compound zonas, frequently referred to as boys' towns (West 1973, 109), differ from the district type in locational and organizational ways as well as in landscape characteristics. All are, or at least


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THE GEOGRAPHICAL

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were originally, isolated from other sections of the city, typically near disamenity areas. They thus conform to the geopolitical sink principle, which argues that ostensibly immoral institutions have often been confined to areas with limited political clout (Symanski 1981, 129). The zona in Agua Prieta, for example, is separated from its surrounding area by physical and landuse barriers that include a railroad to the west, an arroyo and a cemetery to the north, an industrial park and a baseball field to the east, and low-income housing to the south. The boys' town in Nuevo Laredo provides another instance: it is demarcated on the west from the main highway into town, Avenida Mexico, by a trucking area, a railroad, and stockyards; on other sides there are low-income housing and an industrial park. Although the zonas in Ojinaga and Ciudad Acunia are situated several kilometers distant from the cities and the zona in Piedras Negras is discontinuous with the built-up area, the remaining compounds have all been encroached on. The compound at San Luis, once distant from the city edge, is now completely surrounded by in situ and squatter housing. It is even identified on a city map as a zona de hoteles, baresy restaurantes.Regardless of specific location and relative proximity to the city, all the compounds except the one at Piedras Negras are accessible only by unimproved, typically potholed roads. Although variations certainly exist, the internal structure of compound zonas is consistent (Fig. 3). Typically they comprise six elements. First, all of the compounds include institutional space. Because most of the zonas are walled, fenced, or otherwise structurally separated, each generally has a single entrance, most often a gate, that is presided over by armed police. The guards maintain security in the compound and also may collect nominal entry fees, procedures that underscore a principal attraction of the compounds: they offer a permissive yet protective environment for both prostitutes and patrons. In addition to the gatehouse and police post, other institutional structures may include medical clinics, where prostitutes who labor in the zona receive periodic gynecological checkups and blood tests. Although prostitution is not illegal in Mexico, prostitutes must register with the local government and must submit to required examinations. Nonregistered prostitutes, called clandestinas,typically are streetwalkers who are not affiliated with a specific bar and are not permitted in a zona. Inasmuch as many zona workers and patrons, especially foreigners, arrive by taxi, another ubiquitous institutional structure is the taxi stand, typically located near the main gate; for first-time visitors, a zona can be difficult to find. There may also be public facilities for long-distance and international telephone service. A second element in the internal organization of compound-type zonas is the primary clubs. Usually among the largest and certainly most attractive structures in a compound, these clubs are decorated with much neon and have exotic names. Often they are located near the main gate; they may even be fenced from the surrounding clubs and may provide their own security


339


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and parking attendants. These features help reinforce their studied image of exclusiveness. Invariably the primary clubs, which are more complexes than single structures, feature on-premises prostitution and cater to visitors from the United States and to well-off, generally young Mexican men. The third element is the secondary clubs and bars, which vary in size and range in appearance from modestly attractive to completely rundown. Often there is evidence of distance decay: the clubs farthest from the primary clubs are the least attractive. The secondary clubs tend to be more specialized in function than the primary ones. Some have strip shows; others offer music and dancing; still others are beer-and-tequila country-style Mexican bars. There are also homosexual and transvestite clubs, typically located on the extreme margins of a zona. Secondary clubs may or may not have on-premises prostitution. In general, they apparently cater to middle-aged and elderly Mexicans of low- and middle-income status. A fourth element is the cribs or flats, which are long, one-story structures partitioned into small single rooms, called accesorias,that open directly on the street. This arrangement allows the women to solicit trade directly from passing zona patrons. Cribs are usually located in the most inferior places in the compound, generally farthest from the gate and the primary clubs. The cribs represent the bottom of the highly structured social system of the prostitutes. The oldest and physically least attractive prostitutes are relegated to these dingy, austere rooms; the youngest and most alluring work in the


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THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

primary clubs. The secondary clubs are transitional between these two extremes. The cribs are frequented primarily by an older, poorer Mexican clientele. A fifth element in the compound zonas consists of low-order conveniencegoods and service establishments, including restaurants,food and drink stands, pool halls, beauty shops, grocery and liquor stores, and curio shops; the boys' town in Nuevo Laredo also has a tattooing establishment. There also are floating activities, such as food, flower, and curio vendors; photographers; and musicians. The final, sixth element is residences. Some of the men and many of the women who work in the zonas, including bartenders, shopkeepers, vendors, and maids in addition to the prostitutes and their children, live in the compounds, either in rooms associated with the clubs, in cribs, or in apartments. Most compound zonas appear to have experienced neglect and declines in patronage in recent years. The evidence is manifest in abandoned buildings, vacant lots, and an overall condition of deterioration. Still, in spite of decline and rumors of impending relocation, the boys' town in Nuevo Laredo survives and on a Saturday night is usually a crowded, lively place. Moreover, the new zona in Ciudad Acufnawas built in recent years, and several new primary clubs have emerged in various boys' towns. The landscape of the compound zonas clearly suggests an overall decline, but the pattern of change is complex and varies among the zonas. ORIGINS OF ZONAS

The district and compound zonas have different origins. The district type emerged first, probably during the last decade of the nineteenth century, when economic depression, caused by Mexican government restrictions on border trade, peso devaluations, and, in Chihuahua, water shortages, disrupted the local border economy (Martinez 1988, 114). The depression worsened in 1905, when the Mexican border cities from Tijuana to Ciudad Ju'arez lost their free-zone status (Langley 1988, 33). The border cities turned increasingly to enterprises that might appeal to the American market. During that period the districts remained relatively small and economically insignificant, because similar activities were readily available in the cities north of the border. Prostitution had existed in most communities on the United States side of the border since the arrival of the railroads, especially in San Diego and El Paso, where it flourished (MacPhail 1974; Martinez 1978, 30; Frost 1983). After the turn of the century, a new tide of moral reform sweeping the United States culminated in the passage of the Volstead Act, which prohibited manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages. The prohibition era lasted from 1918 to 1933; during this period, amid revolutionary chaos in Mexico, the border towns emerged as convenient yet foreign playgrounds, tantalizingly near but beyond the prevailing morality and rule of law north



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FIG.4-Nocturnal view of Avenida Juiarez in Ciudad Ju'arez during the 1940s. Source: Postcard from authors' collection.

of the border. Americans went south in search of alcohol, sex, gambling, and exotic diversions, such as bullfighting, cockfighting, and boxing, that were either illegal or too expensive in the United States (Machado 1982). The districts boomed, especially in Tijuana and Ciudad Ju'arez,where racetracks, plush gambling casinos, and European-style cabarets, as well as scores of ordinary bars and clubs, arose to appeal to both the middle class and the elite (Price 1973,49-56; PifneraRami'rez1983,430-445). In 1920 Tijuana was described as "a recrudescence of a Bret Harte mining camp or a Wild West main street scene in the movies, with a dash of Coney Island thrown in," and a place where "new joy palaces are being shot up overnight" (Summers 1974, 36). In 1926 the city supported some seventy-five bars, including a two-hundred-meter bar reputed to be the longest in the world (Pifinera Rami'rez1983, 437). The image of Tijuana as a wide-open town quickly took shape. The American consul in the 1920s, John W. Dye, called Ciudad Ju_rez

the "most immoral, degenerate, and utterly wicked place I have ever seen or heard of in my travels" (Martinez 1978, 57). In keeping with the themes of excess and indulgence that came to characterize the Jazz Age, the border cities acquired an image as havens of hedonism. It is significant that American investors and entrepreneurs in large part controlled the liquor, gambling, and prostitution interests; many of these so-called merchants of sin simply relocated to the border cities when Prohibition closed their businesses in the United States (Martinez 1988, 114).


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REVIEW

During the depression of the 1930s, tourism in the border cities collapsed, and President L'azaroCardenas closed gambling houses and racetracks in Mexico. The districts, however, prospered again during the war years and into the 1950s, especially in cities, such as Tijuana, Ciudad Juairez,and Nuevo Laredo, that were proximate to United States military installations. Tens of thousands of unattached servicemen stationed there sought erotic diversions; repeating the pattern of the 1920s, the border cities responded to the demands of the marketplace. During the 1940s and 1950s the border cities developed their notorious reputations, as the districts, now largely under Mexican ownership and control, took on a bawdier ambience meant to appeal to a young, military clientele (Fig. 4). This rather seedy quality is still affected in the few district zonas that have survived from the era. Although sentiments were voiced as early as the 1920s in Ciudad Ju'arez and the 1930s in Nuevo Laredo in favor of establishing cabaret districts outside the city (Machado 1982, 355), the present-day compound zonas first appeared during the 1950s,or perhaps earlier in some locations. They emerged largely as a reaction against the negative image of the districts and in response to the on-again, off-again campaigns to clean up the tourist areas of the border cities. This effort intensified in 1961 with the creation of the federal ProgramaNacionalFronterizo,which encouraged the development and beautification of the border cities (Dillman 1970, 487-507). Although segregated red-light districts for prostitution had been common in the United States during the late nineteenth century (Bullough and Bullough 1987, 224), the specific model for establishing compound zonas located outside a city proper likely dates from the early twentieth century and the United States military occupation of Chihuahua. During the expedition led by General John J. Pershing in 1916, Chinese and Mexican entrepreneurs followed the military and offered women and liquor. The expedition settled at Colonia Dublan, some eighty kilometers south of Ciudad Ju'arez,and remained there for seven months, during which time the vice vendors congregated around the camp (Sandos 1980, 625). The alarming number of men with venereal disease and the fear instilled in the Mexican population by American soldiers on the prowl for women led the local bishop to advise Pershing to set up a restricted district on the southern limits of the camp (Braddy 1966, 21). A Mexican managed the district and only Mexican prostitutes were allowed. Pershing assigned a military physician as health inspector, fixed a flat fee at two dollars, and the disease rate tumbled. Though a potentially controversial solution, there was little public outcry in the United States. As Pershing noted, it "proved the best way to handle a difficult problem" (Vandiver 1977, 2:622). When the American forces moved farther south to El Valle in 1917, a restricted zone for prostitutes was once again established (Fig. 5). This time, the Chinese, who had been involved in the vice trade in several border cities, especially Mexicali, were in charge of the zone. Although compound zonas did not emerge until perhaps the mid-1950s, This content downloaded from 200.52.254.249 on Thu, 03 Dec 2015 20:03:24 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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FIG.5-Restricted prostitutionzone (white tents on right) at camp of the U.S. Sixteenth Infantry near El Valle, Chihuahua, 1917. Source:United States National Archives.

the rationale for their creation mirrored the previous circumstances. In Nuevo Laredo, for example, local officials decided that the old district zona of bars and clubs near the Palacio Federal was a detriment to the central city and projected the wrong image to tourists. In 1964 the zona was moved to its current site and erected within a walled enclosure. More than a quarter of a century later,, its presence is once again generating controversy, because the city has expanded; rumors of impending relocation to a more distant site have surfaced. This spatial process was repeated in several border cities and is currently being followed in other regions of Mexico. PERSISTENCE OF ZONAS

It has widely been reported that prostitution in the Mexican border cities has declined markedly since its heyday in the 1950s (Martinez 1988, 115).

"There are two hundred registered prostitutes in Ju'areztoday when twentyfive years ago there were seven thousand" (Langley 1988, 37). Whether these assertions are entirely true remains uncertain, because documentation is 'difficult to obtain. It seems clear, however, that there are fewer prostitutes than in the not-too-distant past and that prostitution plays a far less significant role than it formerly did in the border economy. Among the reasons cited for this apparent decline are social changes in the United States, manifested in part by the emergence of topless and bottomless bars; the spread of pornography shops, massage parlors, and escort services; the wide availability of pornographic movies and videos; increased sexual permissiveness; and, most recently, the fear of AIDS. Other than an exotic setting and, perhaps, cheaper prices, the zonas have little to offer that is not readily available and certainly more accessible in the United States. A former nightclub owner in This content downloaded from 200.52.254.249 on Thu, 03 Dec 2015 20:03:24 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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Tijuana, who was driven from business by competition from the north, remarked, "We lost our monopoly on immorality" (Wall Street Journal 13 October 1988). It has been suggested that an increase in employment opportunities for young women in the border cities, especially in the maquiladoraassembly plants, may have contributed to the decline in prostitution (Langley 1988, 37). That argument was rejected during the summer of 1989 by a group of prostitutes in the city of Chihuahua, who, protesting closure of the zona there, threatened to strip in front of the government palace. A spokeswoman for the newly formed Chihuahua Prostitutes Union scoffed at a suggestion by the governor that prostitutes seek factory jobs. "Factoriesonly pay 60,000 pesos [$23.00]a week, and we make that much or more in two hours" (Daily Oklahoman8 August 1989). Although prostitution has declined, it has not been eliminated from the Mexican border cities, and zonas persist. The explanations for this persistence range from the sweeping to the specific. One argument is that prostitution "thrives in places like border cities where language and cultural differences foster impersonality and contempt between the adjacent societies" (Price 1973, 94). In a similar vein, it has been suggested that "vice is usually found in large doses in border areas and ports throughout the world, especially in regions visited by affluent tourists" (Martinez 1988, 11). This line of reasoning oversimplifies very complex, place-specific circumstances and ignores numerous counterexamples. Moreover, in Mexico, prostitution is not now and never has been confined to the border region; it exists throughout the country, especially in large urban centers, which further debunks the myth that it was caused by and caters primarily to tourists. The reasons that prostitution and zonas persist seem to have less to do with location than with other considerations. A simple, though mechanical, explanation argues that a demand for prostitution exists, both among foreigners and among Mexicans; that a continuing supply of prostitutes is available; and that the demand can be met in the context of a favorable operating environment. The factors that contribute to this situation, however, are fundamentally social and economic. Prostitution provides, through legal and illegal means, an important source of income at both the personal and institutional levels. Even more significant, perhaps, is that prostitution in Mexico is not universally viewed with the same sense of moral indignation that it ostensibly is in the United States. The value systems of the two countries differ, despite geographical proximity, and the cultural landscape reflects these differences. CONCLUSION

The spatial distribution of prostitution in the Mexican border cities has evolved through time. Before the 1950s, the activity was concentrated in the traditional tourist quarters, typically very near the points of entry. Estab-



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lishments that offered prostitution were found in a mixed pattern with other, tourist-oriented businesses. Although relicts of this era were identified in five of the eighteen cities in this study, the areas where prostitution was tolerated had retracted in size and shifted to the poorly maintained margins of the tourist area, becoming functionally quite segregated. In contrast with these district zonas, compound zonas emerged during the 1950s in locations either outside the built-up area or in specific, often inconspicuous disamenity sites in the city proper. In spite of much rhetoric to the contrary and periodic antiprostitution crusades, the combination of segregation and dispersal suggests that opposition to prostitution has been more geographical than social; attempts to control it have been explicitly spatial. Other studies of intraurban movement of prostitution have concluded that changing laws and law-enforcement patterns were the main catalyst for relocation (James 1975; Shumsky and Springer 1981; Gilfoyle 1987). In the Mexican border cities, the changing geography of prostitution stemmed largely from governmental efforts to create and project a wholesome image of the communities, especially their tourist districts. The strategy of eliminating prostitution from its traditional base in the tourist district, or at least displacing it from the core of that district, was intended to attract families and other tourists who might be offended by the activity, and thereby to broaden the base of tourism. Zones of tolerance have persisted, however, as a means of maintaining the revenue generated by prostitution, of providing a service evidently in demand by both Mexicans and foreign tourists, and of helping to control venereal disease and vice in general. These zones evolved as a spatial solution to a complex, interrelated set of economic and social imperatives. REFERENCES Barrera Caraza, E. 1974. Prostituci6n en Jalapa: Estudio de algunos socioeconomicos. Tesis en antropologia, Universidad Veracruzana, Jalapa, Mexico. Braddy, H. 1966. Pershing's mission in Mexico. El Paso: Texas Western Press. Bullough, V., and B. Bullough. 1987. Women and prostitution: A social history. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Press. Cahill, T. 1975. Tijuana confidential. Rolling Stone 9 Oct.:33-37, 68-70. C6digos penal y de procedimientos penales para el estado libre y soberano de Tamaulipas. 1977. Puebla: Editorial Cajica. Curtis, J. R., and D. D. Arreola. 1989. Through gringo eyes: Tourist districts in the Mexican border cities as other-directed places. North American Culture 5(2):19-32. Daily Oklahoman. 8 Aug. 1989. Prostitutes vow to strip in protest. Demaris, 0. 1970. Poso del mundo: Inside the Mexican-American border, from Tijuana to Matamoros. Boston: Little, Brown. Dillman, C. D. 1970. Urban growth along Mexico's northern border and the Mexican national border program. Journal of Developing Areas 4:487-508. Exner, M. J. 1917. Prostitution in its relation to the army on the Mexican border. Social Hygiene 3: 205-220. Frost, H. G. 1983. Gentlemen's club: The story of prostitution in El Paso. El Paso: Mangan Books. Gilfoyle, T. J. 1987. Urban geography of commercial sex: Prostitution in New York City, 17901860. Journal of Urban History 13:371-393. Instituto Nacional de Estadistica Geografia e Informatica. 1990. Resultados preliminares, XI censo general de poblaci6n y vivienda. Mexico. James, J. 1975. Mobility as adaptive strategy. Urban Anthropology 4:349-364.


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Zonas de Tolerancia

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