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CO - READ THE QUESTIONS BEFORE WATCHING THE DOCUMENT

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CO - READ THE QUESTIONS BEFORE WATCHING THE DOCUMENT

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CO - CROSSING THE BORDER TO GO TO SCHOOL

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CO - CROSSING THE BORDER TO GO TO SCHOOL

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CO - about 5mn

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Kids who cross Trump's border wall every day for school

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CE - TRUE LIVES OF THE BORDERLANDS, 2011 by Peter Laufer

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CE - TRUE LIVES OF THE BORDERLANDS, 2011 by Peter Laufer

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2- CE TRUE LIVES OF THE BORDERLANDS PETER LAUFER CALEXICO

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WHERE ARE CALEXICO AND MEXICALI LOCATED ?

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WHERE ARE CALEXICO AND MEXICALI LOCATED ?

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CO - 2.45

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Where I Come From | Where I Come From Calexico | Mexicali

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CE - A BORDERLESS COMMUNITY from Michael Dear

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CE - A BORDERLESS COMMUNITY from Michael Dear

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CALEXICO - It's 11 p.m. and Fernando Bastidas is stretching out his lanky frame in a booth at Donut Avenue, a 24-hour doughnut shop blocks from the border. He's waiting for a ride to the Spreckels Sugar Company factory in Brawley, about 23 miles north. He's a machine operator at the factory and tonight, he's working the graveyard shift, from midnight to 8 a.m.

"There's not many jobs around here in the valley," Bastidas says. He normally drinks coffee at the doughnut shop but it's warm tonight, so he sips iced tea from a large Styrofoam cup. Next to him is a black cooler containing the potato and cheese soup he's packed for lunch, which he expects to eat at 4 a.m.

Bastidas, a United States citizen, has lived for a decade in Mexicali, Mexico, where the rent is cheaper, so Donut Avenue has become a regular stop along Bastidas' cross-border commute to the Imperial Valley.

"I've got a three-bedroom house, with three bathrooms and a three-car garage, all fenced up and everything, for 110 bucks," Bastidas says. "You can't even use the restroom down here for $110 a month," he said of Calexico.

For decades, thousands of people who live in Mexicali have entered the U.S. legally through the port of entry in the middle of the night and waited in downtown Calexico for rides to the fields in Southern California and Arizona. A shorter line at the point of entry means a longer wait on dark street corners or inside one of just a few all-hours restaurants in the border city, which is home to about 40,000 people.

For many, Donut Avenue has become a way station along this long commute from Mexicali to the Imperial, Palo Verde and Coachella valleys. It offers people shelter from the cold winter nights and balmy summer mornings; a place where they can find breakfast, sandwiches and coffee, as well as companionship and, occasionally, a few minutes of rest before starting work at sunrise.

The Desert Sun spent 12 hours overnight at Donut Avenue in mid-June to chronicle the role the shop plays in the lives of workers who commute across the border daily to harvest the region's fruits and vegetables.

A Cambodian refugee opens a doughnut shop

It's 11:23 p.m., one of the quietest hours of the night in Heng Sim's doughnut shop.

Sim came to the United States as a refugee from Cambodia in 1980. He learned to bake doughnuts at Winchell's Donut House and then bought his own doughnut shop in Ontario in 1984. He opened his second shop, Donut Avenue in Calexico, in 1992.

Immediately, Sim says, Donut Avenue became an early-morning reunion point for farmworkers.

"The people that work in the fields are really hard workers," Sim says. "I welcome them to come in, and relax, and get a coffee and a doughnut."

Over the years, Sim has grown accustomed to workers arriving at Donut Avenue at 2 a.m. and waiting three or four hours to try to get a day of work. Some days, he said, they don't even get jobs. The grueling schedule, he says, is a testament to their work ethic.

"I know they work long hours," Sim says. "Sometimes they fall asleep so I just let them."

'Nobody gets used to the sleepless nights'

It's 12:04 a.m. and a worker slouches forward in a booth at Donut Avenue. He rests his head on the cool table, taking a quick nap before heading out to the fields.

People who commute from Mexicali to the fields of Southern California and Arizona are generally U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents. Most workers won't start until sunrise, but they cross the border in the middle of the night to avoid long lines at the Calexico port of entry. Sometimes, it takes them half an hour to cross; other times, it takes up to four hours.

The first workers to arrive at Donut Avenue tonight are those harvesting corn in Westmorland, 31 miles northwest of Calexico, and Calipatria, 33 miles north. Their shift begins at 2 a.m. Afterwards, they will cross the border and return to Mexicali to sleep, shower, eat and begin the cycle again.

"I'm accustomed to the work," says farmworker Pedro Ontiveros, who lives in Mexicali and has a green card. "But nobody gets used to the sleepless nights."

The regular late-night customers

It's 12:50 a.m. and Amalia Vázquez is restocking the doughnut case. Vázquez, who lives in Calexico with her 1-year-old daughter, is one of three employees working at the doughnut shop between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.

Vázquez seems to recognize many of the workers purchasing cold bottles of water, doughnuts and sandwiches to bring to the fields. Throughout the night, she jokes with the regulars as she fills their coffee cups and rings up their orders, the cash register singing open as she deposits their dollars and pesos.

The last few hours of her night shift were fueled not only by coffee, but also by upbeat banda music.

'You have everything here'

It's 1:37 a.m. and Donut Avenue and Jack in the Box are among the only open restaurants near the border.

At this hour, the brightly lit doughnut shop is a refuge in the sleepy border city. Workers stream in. The shop also serves hamburgers and burritos, drawing a few hungry people in search of a late-night meal. A rougher-looking, heavily-tattooed crowd mostly keeps to themselves in a corner of the restaurant.

"There are addicts, there are drunks and there are farmworkers," worker Gloria Contreras of Calexico says of Donut Avenue. "You have everything here."

Time is money, but not for everyone

It's 2:54 a.m., rush hour for people seeking work in downtown Calexico. Some sign up for work with field supervisors; others climb into colleagues' cars.

While people are not paid for the time they spend waiting at Donut Avenue, employers should compensate people for the time they spend traveling from downtown Calexico to the fields, says Blaz Gutiérrez, directing attorney for the Coachella office of California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc., a law firm that provides legal services to farmworkers and other low-income Californians.

He pointed to a 2000 state Supreme Court decision, Morillion v. Royal Packing Company, which says if an employer requires workers to meet at a departure point at a certain time and requires them to ride company-provided transportation to the worksite, then he or she must pay people for travel time.

"The question of compensability begins when your employer experiences control over your life," Gutierrez says.

He says some workers should be paid for up to five hours of travel time each day. If they were compensated for those hours, he says, it could be easier for them to afford rent in Imperial County.

Gutierrez adds: "Even if you had the rent, even if you could make the ends meet, it's very challenging to find a suitable place to live in Imperial County."

Recruiting workers outside the doughnut shop

It's 3:02 a.m. and the street corner outside Donut Avenue has become an unofficial work recruitment site.

$1 for 6 Months.

A group of workers form a circle around field supervisor Francisco Moreno, who holds a clipboard and wears a wide-brimmed hat in anticipation of the soon-to-rise sun. This morning, he's signing up 25 people to work in the tomato fields in Mecca, about 83 miles northwest of Calexico. Several people lobby for work with Moreno, who the workers call el profe, a nod to his former job as a teacher in Mexico

A few steps away, another field supervisor is looking for workers to harvest melons in Holtville, about 16 miles northeast.

The desert sun rises on another hot day

It's 5:22 a.m. and the street corner outside Donut Avenue is quiet, save for a farmworker who sings to himself. Nearly all the other workers have left for the fields. It's already 79 degrees.

Farmworkers enter the fields early in the morning so they can finish their labor before temperatures peak in the desert. The state has also taken steps to protect people from the health impacts of extreme heat. Under California law, farmworkers have the right to fresh, cool drinking water; shade when temperatures reach 80 degrees; and 10-minute cool-down periods every two hours once temperatures reach 95 degrees.

That day, temperatures in the Calexico area will reach 115 at 3:40 p.m.

After the casino, a night at the doughnut shop

It's 5:44 a.m. and Gloria Barraza is one of the last members of the night crowd waiting at Donut Avenue.

Barraza had played the slot machines Tuesday night at the Golden Acorn Casino in Campo, a small community located between Calexico and San Diego. At the end of the night, she took a casino shuttle to Calexico. But she missed the last bus of the evening to her home in Brawley and the next one didn't depart until the morning. So she waited overnight inside the doughnut shop, where she felt safe and surrounded by friends.

Barraza worked as a bartender in Calexico for 14 years and recognized many of her former patrons at the doughnut shop. Throughout the night, she joked with customers as if she were back in her old watering hole, chiding one for wearing a dirty shirt and greeting others enthusiastically.

This morning, as her former patrons begin their shifts in the fields, she leans against the building and watches the sunrise from outside the doughnut shop.

Another crowd of regulars

It's 5:53 a.m. and Donut Avenue looks like an ordinary doughnut shop. As light streams through the windows, the shop fills with another crowd of regulars.

A Calexico High School student eats a maple bar. An older man reads a newspaper. A woman who works in an onion packinghouse waits for a ride, so she can pick up her final paycheck of the season. To prevent the onions from smelling like latex, she says, she's prohibited from wearing rubber gloves while she sorts fresh onions from the dried and rotten ones. She uses lemon juice, she says, to remove the sharp smell of onions from her hands.

Visits don't end at retirement

It's 8:11 a.m. and Miguel Estrada sits alone, sipping iced tea through a red straw. Estrada, 83, came to the U.S. under the bracero program, which brought millions of Mexican guest workers to the country on temporary, mostly agricultural labor contracts, between 1942 and 1964.
Rebecca Plevin reports on immigration for The Desert Sun. Reach her at rebecca.plevin@desertsun.com. Follow her on Twitter at @rebeccaplevin. This story was produced by designer Andrea Brunty.
At another table, Juan Bañuelos savors his morning coffee and a doughnut. He used to maintain golf courses in the Southern California desert. Nearby, four friends, all former farmworkers, share a booth and stories.

Despite retiring, the men are accustomed to starting their days at Donut Avenue, before the mercury reaches triple digits.

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12 hours in a Calexico doughnut shop: After crossing the border, workers gather here before sunrise

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Enable the ambient audio feature Enable the ambient audio feature This audio enhanced story is best with headphones. Turn audio on Turn audio off CALEXICO - It's 11 p.m. and Fernando Bastidas is stretching out his lanky frame in a booth at Donut Avenue, a 24-hour doughnut shop blocks from the border.

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CE - READ THE QUESTIONS BEFORE  READING YOUR TEXT

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CE - READ THE QUESTIONS BEFORE  READING YOUR TEXT

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From LatiNation, 2017 4.46mn

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Erasing The U.S. -Mexico Border With Art | LatiNation

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"Why a designer turned the US-Mexico Border into an Art Installation", The NewYorker, 2019

Observe the photograph and explain how art can be a committed act,.

Watch the report and explain the artist's goal with such installation.

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Volunteers painting the border fence between the USA and Mexico (2017)

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THE DESERT SUN from Rebecca Plevin (2019)

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THE DESERT SUN from Rebecca Plevin (2019)

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CO - 3.48

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McFarland, USA Official Trailer (2015) - Kevin Costner Movie HD

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EVALUTATION EO FINAL TASK CALEXICO CHRONICLES AMC