More than just bloody turf wars between competing cartels, the current conflict in Mexico is shaped by free trade agreements, the rise and fall of political parties, massive amounts of US military funding and a voracious appetite for drugs north of the border. Macrina will draw on her experience, formerly as the Legislative Coordinator of the Mexico Solidarity Network and currently with the Casa del Migrante in Tijuana, Mexico, to unpack this complex situation.

Border towns such as Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez are caught between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, decades of maquiladorization have left border towns heavily invested in boom-and-bust industry that can all too easily move across the world in search of cheaper labor. Left without jobs in Mexico or in a depressed US economy, migrants arrive in Tijuana to find their "American Dream" has died before it ever started. Meanwhile, youth turn to cartels as the only remaining option.

On the other hand, via the 1.4 billion-dollar Merida Initiative US taxpayers are supporting a Mexican military fraught with corruption and human rights abuses, while also undermining the same military by allowing cartels full access to US-made arms and by cutting deals with high-level narcotraffickers. As Macrina explains, people in the US may feel this is "Mexico's problem," but taxpayer money and demand for drugs place Americans squarely within the scope of this conflict.

Join Macrina Cardenas Alarcon and the Mexico Solidarity Network for an in-depth discussion of the current situation, one that weaves together a political analysis of the conflict, an appreciation for social movements' acts of resistance and solidarity, and Macrina's firsthand stories from life in Tijuana.

*The Mexico Solidarity Network is an organization located in Chicago's Albany Park neighborhood dedicated to popular education and autonomous community organizing. In addition to our community work and speaking tours bringing Mexican social movement actors to the US, MSN also administers a unique, social justice-oriented study abroad program that allows students to learn about grassroots movements in Mexico by living with the families that comprise them. This 13-week, 16-credit program is accredited by the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana and our school of record in the US is Hampshire College. For more information: visit www.mexicosolidarity.com/studyabroad