We will export our poverty!
“Mexico Is to Blame for Our Illegal Immigrants” by Robert Klein Engler — This is yet another good editorial in the alternative media.
How many times do we read or hear that hardworking Mexicans are coming illegally to the U. S. to improve their lives? These Mexicans take low paying jobs because these low paying jobs are better than poverty in Mexico. Yet, why is it that most journalists do not ask the more important question about this migration: Why are there no jobs in Mexico for its citizens in the first place?
The lack of jobs in Mexico is not a problem you can lay at the feet of U. S. citizens. The U. S. is not responsible for Mexico and its poverty. Lack of jobs in Mexico is a Mexican problem that the Mexican government refuses to solve. Furthermore, U. S. elected officials and business men and women should not put the interest of Mexican nationals above the interest of U. S. citizens. It bears repeating that U. S. citizens ought to put patriotism before profits, too.
There are many reasons why Mexico does not have enough jobs for its citizens. Some of these reasons like the historical and cultural differences between the U. S. and Mexico should not be overlooked when we consider why the tide of illegal immigration ought to be held back. When Mexicans come illegally into the U. S. they not only bring their poverty, but a complex of cultural and historical baggage as well.
Instead of questioning why there are no jobs in Mexico, most illegal immigrants just take the easy way out and cross the border. Illegal immigrants from Mexico only have personal ambitions, not national allegiances. If illegal immigrants cared half as much about their own country, as they do about their pocketbooks, then they would stay in Mexico and work for social change there.
Also note that any discussion of NAFTA by the media is off the table. I thought that was supposed to generate jobs in Mexico too.
I think the position here obscures the issue. There are jobs in Mexico – but the minimum wage in Mexico is $3.44/Day – here in the US it’s $5.35/hour. Of course people leave Mexico to take low payings jobs in the US – they pay ten times what they could make in Mexico.
Mexico has been – and continues to be – an oligarchy. The vast wealth of that country is concentrated in very few groups – Mexico has more billionaires than Suadi Arabia. It’s easy to say to people – take care of your own social problems – but the Mexican citizens simply do not have the economic or political power to effect significant change in their country. From 1910 – 1920 the Mexican Revolution swept in waves over that country – killing more than a million people. Unrest didn’t really stop until the oil companies (mostly foreign owned) were nationalized in 1938 – but after all that the economic power of the country was still concentrated in the hands of the same rich families who controlled it for generations before the revolution.
In 1915 there was an outbreak of xenophobic lawlessness along the Texas Mexican border in south Texas. A proclamation (the Plan de San Diego) was put out enciting Mexicans to rise up and take Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona back from the US. A few trains were derailed and irrigation canals and railroad bridges burned. Texas Rangers were called out, and in a a few years more than 5,000 Americans of Mexican descent were killed along the border. The Mexican population of the border – these were people who had lived there for a hundred years or more – left – decamped across the border into Mexico (where the Revolution was raging). The only thing that stopped the slaughter was that so many people left that the farmers along the Rio Grande could not get anyone to work their fields or pick their crops. It was only when those Anglo farmers (mostly recent immigrants from the upper Midwest) protested to the government that they were losing money that the Rangers were called off – and these American citizens felt safe enough to return.
If these folks who are so paranoid about illegal Mexican workers got their wish it would be the same thing all over again. I’m no fan of Shrub – but he’s right about Mexican immigration – we need to have a work card program – allow them in to work.
Some of these reasons like the historical and cultural differences
they not only bring their poverty, but a complex of cultural and historical baggage as well.
I’m not usually politically correct, am I folks?
But this is basically code for “lazy, brown people”. Who doesn’t have cultural and historical baggage. What the hell are they talking about? The siesta tradition doesn’t make one lazy.
And the last paragraph about them taking the “easy way out” by coming to the States is just asinine. How do we know they aren’t contemplating the elitist and corrupt political culture back in Mexico City while they dodge the Border Patrol?
There surely are problems with Mexican governance, and the reform of its economy and legal system. It’s an excellent point that it rarely made.
But these so called irreconcilable “cultural differences” don’t exist. That’s what they said about the Irish 100 years ago. It’s base pandering to instinctual xenophobia.
Kevin and T.C.
You both make very valid and correct comments.
You must, however, not let this be known to the Bushites as Mexico does have oil. If you add the equation of a lack of democracy then the nation becomes ripe for a search for weapons of mass destruction. Forget the mild TexMex chili, try some of the real stuff for a taste of true WMD chemical warfare.
I am very sure that when Bush invades Mexico, it will be to restore democracy.
I wondered why we won the Mexican American War. Mexico was considered to be the logical winner. Mexico was well armed, patriotic and numerous. The Duke of Wellignton, recognized as the pre-eminent General of his time predicted a North American Defeat. An out numberedd American Army on its first clash with Mexico barely survived. The Americans were anticipating a fight the next day. The Mexican soldier was spoiling for a fight. The next day, the Mexican general called a retreat. They lost more men in the retreat then in the fight.
Historians say the North American Army was so pitiful, they if they lost one battle, it would be over. On the way from the coast to Mexico City, there were two possible routes. Both were guarded by two separate Mexican Armies. By chance, the North American Army started a battle with one of the Amies. Hard pressed, the fighting Mexican General asked for reinforcements. It was denied because victory would not help the career of the languishing general, Santa Anna.
History tells us of the character of a people. This is because culture, a way of doing and thinking, lasts longer then any political organization. From what I know of Irish Character, I know you will not find these kind of episodes in Irish History.
Its not about small brown people. It is about a culture of corruption so endemic that the gross betrayal of national interest has no consequence. A culture, the way a people do things, persists over time. People enculturated in corruption will sacrifice any public good for the personal. In this culture, the difference in the oppressed and oprressor is “who has the power.”
The problems with the Mexican Government are not a departure from a better era. They are the perpetual status.
The Irish entered legally. They were proud to be Americans and did not have dual citizenship. Nor did they demand any American territory for Ireland. Nor did they smuggle drugs into America. Nor were our boarder guards attacked by the Irish. It took a famine, not low wages, to drive them from Ireland.
If I advised you not to cross the street because of the traffic and was wrong. It does not mean that ,now, there is no traffic in the street. Nor does the earlier criticism of the Irish mean that it is not now valid for Mexico. Mexico should be evaluated on its own merits, not on Irish merits. It should be evaluated on the needs of a society with limited resources versus the earlier society that seemed to have unending resources. It should be evaluated against an extensive social welfare system versus the earlier limited system.
I consider it racism to say or hint that it is about brown people rather than the preservation and interests of the most unique culture/society in the world, the USA.
I’m with Wally. Why do ordinarily honest people have to couch their objections to an open border in terms of “potential terrorist” , national security, ect, when the real issue is preserving our culture. There is no sensible reason to throw away the baby with the bath water while blathering about diversity. A very small percentage of the population buys into this p.c. crap anyway. Unfortunately there is no way to overcome politicians who want to expand their power base or business owners who want cheap labor.
I think that you need to be looking at both sides on this illigal immigratin in the U.S. I agree with you on the part that yes, Mexico needs to be at fault for entering illegally. Then again, they aren’t. You have to look at american industries or businesses that hired the very first illegal, because that is how word got back to them in Mexico. They of course would still try to enter, but not if they knew they wouldn’t be offered a job! So, they companies may “pretend” that they don’t want illegal immigrants in the U.S., but face it they hire them so U.S. companies, idustries, businesses are at fault no the Mexicans!.