Illegal Immigrants: In Search of the Mexican Dream
How many Mexicans are coming to America because their country's major malfunctions leave them with no other choice? The answer isn't zero, although that's what you might think after talking to certain Mexican politicans stuck in denial, writes Bridget Johnson.
Support Pajamas Media; Visit Our Advertisers
They say “denial” is a river in Egypt, but it’s actually a desert in Mexico.
As much as Mexico’s politicians stress that the dangerous trek across this expanse to slip across the American border is a pursuit of the American dream, they’ve paid no attention to Mexicans’ dreams.
Because for every Mexican who spends a season or more a world away from his family just to send home needed cash, there is a broken dream back home. Behind that is a broken system, a government that seems to have given up on utilizing the country’s resources, on valuing hard workers, and on keeping families together in their ancestral homelands for generations to come without living in fear of vicious druglords or abject poverty.
I spoke at length with former Mexican President Vicente Fox on his U.S. tour for his book %%AMAZON=0670018392 Revolution of Hope: The Life, Faith, and Dreams of a Mexican President %%, hope that apparently wasn’t meant for his paisanos as the book wasn’t released in Spanish and wasn’t released in Mexico.
While prodding the United States to accept more immigrants, grant illegal immigrants all the perks, and stop branding immigrants as people who don’t learn English (”I see most of them learning English”) or use fake or stolen identities to get jobs (”I don’t know any case of using different Social Security numbers”), Fox painted such a rosy image of Mexico that you’d think no one would ever want to leave.
When I prodded him on that message, he gave me these types of nuggets: “People think of Mexico as violent and crime-ridden, but it’s comparable to the U.S.” When I asked him about the fact that deaths of journalists in Mexico in 2006 were second in the world only to Iraq, he responded, “Let’s not generalize. Yes, I understand there was newspaper people that was killed. This is the exception; there are a few cases like this. I can assure that the crime in Mexico is no more than the crime here in the U.S. …Organized crime is exceptional, is bad, and that battle will be won. Mexico is a safe country. Mexico respects human rights.”
Denial.
On his tour, Fox reminded every journalist who got a sit-down with him that his grandfather, Joseph Louis Fuchs, immigrated to Mexico from Cincinnati before the turn of the century. But Fox’s grandfather left the United States because there was a malfunction in America at the time — discrimination against Catholics. How much was Fuchs going toward something as opposed to getting away from something bad?
Similarly, how many proud Mexicans begrudgingly leave their land of deep roots because they feel Mexico’s major malfunctions leave them no other choice?
While ordinary Mexicans eke out paltry wages from smog-choked Mexico City to the lush beaches, their government, police and judiciary have made corruption an art form.
Fox predicted that by 2040 the Mexican economy would be the “fifth largest in the world.” How, through its $25 billion a year drug trafficking industry?
This is a country that gets tough on drug cartels only when the U.S. is looking, where around 2,350 people have been killed just this year in drug violence.
Mexico is a country where the government can’t even accept the fact that the recent massive flooding that left half a million people homeless in Tabasco state could be due to poor dam management and dollars unspent on flood-control infrastructure. Instead, President Felipe Calderon lifted a line from the Al Gore playbook: “I can assure Tabasquenos that the origin and cause of this catastrophe is enormous climate change.”
This is a country that has seen the worst series of murders in memory — hundreds of women slain and hundreds more missing in Ciudad Juarez since 1993. And a government that has not only closed unsolved cases, but criticizes journalists who bring up the crimes.
And proving that poverty can make you do desperate things, this is a country that nearly fell prey to the neo-Socialist blather of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who promised Mexico the moon with the backing of Hugo Chavez.
And now Calderon, the president who claims he can fix it all, can’t even deliver a state of the nation address in front of his own congress.
When it comes to illegal immigrants dying trying to cross a desert choked with AK-47-toting traffickers, we can’t put a Band-Aid on internal bleeding. Between treating Central American migrants like dirt and then blaming the U.S. for violating illegal immigrants’ rights, Mexico’s leaders need to summon enough introspection to realize what their country can be, and then summon enough courage to take the painful steps needed to get there.
Because the American Dream is well-loved, but there’s absolutely no reason why there can’t also be a Mexican Dream — in a thriving, desirable homeland.
Bridget Johnson is a columnist at the Los Angeles Daily News.
| Comment |  Digg This |
 del.icio.us |
 |
 |
 PJM Home |
8 Comments
David Thomson:The illegal immigration issue will be a dominant one during the 2008 elections. It is time Americans reject the label of racism if they want some sanity to return to their borders. We treat our illegals far better than the Mexican government. Americans overall sense of guilt is unwarranted.
The politically correct Democrats are unable to resolve this crisis. Their “elites” can never say no to the unjustified demands of dark skinned people. Someone like Vincente Fox can always play them for suckers. The often less than perfect GOP is the only game in town. White guilt is destroying our civilization. Nonetheless, we must also stay clear of racists like David Duke and many supporters of Ron Paul. Seeking a proper balance is mandatory.
Nov 16, 2007 - 3:50 am southdakotaboy:The Leftist Dems in this country never admit to themselves that keeping a lid on these kind of things just makes the pressure grow until it expoldes. When this powder keg goes off it is going to be ugly for all involved.
The thing that is going to set it off is going to be a terrorist attack in this country by muslim extremists. They are going to do something awful and the Average Joe is just going to snap in a fit of pure rage.
We have had it with watching our schools fillup with kids they can’t handle, our hospitals going broke, jobs vanishing and wages hitting rock bottom. We are fed up with the crime( from over 70 people being kidnaped from Laredo TX to the fact we as citizens are told not to go to national parks on the border because of the drug smugglers).
Will we feel bad about it afterwards, most likely but not for a generation.
Nov 16, 2007 - 7:08 am pch1013:Wait a minute… According to FoxNews and the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. economy has never been healthier! Unemployment is near historic lows, homeownership is at record highs, and thanks to President Bush’s bold tax cuts, Americans have more money in their pockets than ever before and the Federal deficit is shrinking.
So what’s the problem?
Nov 16, 2007 - 9:59 am Seriously:The continued influx of the illegal immigrants from Mexico is the same as the Mariel boatlift under the Carter administration. Both added strain for law enforcement, social services, and unrest for the civil population.
With no pressure to Mexico to improve the quality of life for its domestic population, the United States will continue to bear the brunt of the the results.
I believe that the United States should continue to construct the wall on the border and/or widen and deepen the Rio Grande, AND use economic pressure on Mexico by the use of sanctions to force improvements. True, the US may hurt financially as well, but Mexicans with real financial and political power would be hurt worse.
The end results would be to lessen sharply the number of illegal immigrants. We would still welcome people who wish to immigrate legally and make this country their home.
Nov 16, 2007 - 10:04 am Jeffro:Remove the term “Mexican” or “Mexico” from the discussion about illegal aliens run amuck, and then try to argue your point. This isn’t a problem with one race or nationality. What, do the Libs think that there is some kind of magic “force field” at the border that only allows Mexicans to stroll across the desert into the United States?
Well I have sad news for you sunshine. It’s everyone but the Mexicans coming across the border that we should be worried about. But we can’t determine that, since they’re flying under the radar as the chants of “racist” cloud the issue anytime someone raises a concern about illegals entering this country in droves.
The bottom line is this: nothing else matters if we have no security in this country. If you don’t believe that then I guess you don’t need to lock your doors at night, right? So make sure they’re not locked from now on libsters because instead of deporting them, since you want them here, they’re staying with you. You got a problem with that?
You can just walk around the AK47’s, hand grenades, and training manuals that are accumulating in your garage. Not to worry, they just like collecting that stuff. Oh, and they’ll need an internet connection too. Gotta keep in touch with their friends, ya know?
Nov 16, 2007 - 1:32 pm Naughten:AMNESTY CONSIDERATIONS
It is very economically advantageous to use cheap Mexican seasonal agricultural guest workers; it is very socially and economically disadvantageous to let them stay after the crop is harvested. When seasonal guest workers do return to Mexico at end of the growing season, they return with money and experience, to contribute to the development of Mexico; and each year, when a new group of seasonal guest workers comes, they are eager to work for the same low non-citizen wages. And, when they return to Mexico at end of the growing season, they do not drive down the wages of American workers, by competing for jobs in landscaping, construction, sanitation, and housekeeping; and they do not use American governmental social services.
When seasonal guest workers come from all of the countries of Latin America, on a strict quota system, then every country benefits, not Mexico exclusively; and when they are well treated, the experience is mutually positive.
Mexico is land rich in natural resources; what makes it so socially and economically retarded are its Mexican People; and wherever they immigrate they bring their deplorable civilization with them. It is so inferior than none of them want to return to it.
The Mexican dream of regaining political control over Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California is America’s worst nightmare. Starting at all of the border towns, and spreading northward throughout America, like cancers, are thousands of deplorable Mexican neighborhoods. With each deportation America looks, smells, and sounds less like socially and economically deplorable Mexico. America is presently occupied by 12 -15 million Mexicans.
With the deportation of all the illegal immigrants, students will again be able to get good paying summer jobs, to learn responsibility and earn their way through college; blue-collar wages will rise; border towns will not be slums; Spanish will not be a second language; crime will go down; hospitals and prisons will not be overcrowded.
When all of the illegal aliens are deported, the Leftist Democrats and Neo-Conservative Republicans will lose millions of political supporters, and the vast amounts of money that they receive from the Mexican Lobby; and, those American businesses that exploit cheap Mexican labor will lose their illegal competitive advantages.
No advanced civilization in the World can coexist side by side with a retarded civilization, without a great wall or fence, strict guest labor laws, and armed border guards.
Nov 16, 2007 - 1:35 pm Ken Hahn:Mexico can only be reformed by Mexicans. Mexico exports those who want reform to the US and keeps the pressure under control. If we bring the border under control, Mexico will be forced to face its failures. Leave the border open and the corrupters face minimal pressure to reform.
We owe it to Mexico to control the border.
Nov 16, 2007 - 9:10 pm LSD:Nice article, Bridget.
As someone who has interest in Mexico, I feel that the uncontrolled migration of workers from Mexico represents a problem for Mexico. How can the country reform when the desperate person’s ultimate act is to leave rather than demand reform? The leaky border represents a ’safety valve’ that protects a corrupt government-class.
Nov 20, 2007 - 10:05 am