Posted on 05/31/2006 7:29:19 AM PDT by hedgetrimmer
Back in the early 1990s, when Los Angeles was stuck in the pits of a deep recession, somebody facetiously suggested that if Southern California were returned to Mexico _ maybe throw in south Texas and the San Joaquin Valley as well _ it could improve the economies of both countries.
But given the current debate about immigration in all its economic and social complexity, that facetious idea left an increasingly compelling question: Where _ and what _ is the border? The obvious answer is that it's the line established by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848, which ended the Mexican War and ceded huge tracts of territory to the United States, and later revised by the Gadsden Purchase (1853), which added yet more territory, especially in what became Arizona and New Mexico.
But with every passing day, the border seems less like a line and more like a region _ American, Mexican, Asian, even Canadian _ a place of many languages and cultures within a single global economy and with thousands of cross-border institutions and associations dealing with common issues. It's an amorphous region, maybe more a metaphor like "Silicon Valley," but far larger.
That doesn't mean giving up on border enforcement or on attempts to curb large employers from hiring and exploiting illegal immigrants, or failing to enforce the labor laws. But it requires recognition of the new world growing up around us _ and new institutions. In the global economy it will not go away.
Aneesh Aneesh, a sociologist at Stanford, points out that many of the Indian engineers who shuttle between high tech California in Palo Alto or Mountain View and high tech India in Bangalore or Mumbai tend always to long for the place they're not. In Bangalore, there's a gated community of homes with red tile roofs and wide front lawns that could just as easily be in California.
A generation ago, Mexican workers shuttled routinely between their jobs in this country and their homes in Michoacan, Zacatecas and Jalisco. As tougher border enforcement made the crossing more expensive and risky for the illegals, many more stayed in the United States, sent for their families and drove up the illegal population.
But the links with families in Mexico, the billions of dollars in remittances sent back by immigrant workers on which much of Latin America depends and the U.S.-born children and other legal residents in the same American households have all become a routine part of the "border" landscape.
The boycotts and other demonstrations of recent weeks are all attempts to demonstrate the importance and power of immigrants, legal and illegal, and the growing border region in which they live.
Some are as counterproductive as the recent vote of state Senate Democrats endorsing the May Day school boycott was stupid.
It's likewise stupid to argue that kids who don't speak or read English fluently should be resegregated into special school programs and given a pass around the state's high school exit exam. To ask for that kind of treatment only reinforces nativist fears that all this is part of some insidious reconquista conspiracy.
The reality is much more complicated. California, and much of the country behind it, is growing a new kind of society and anyone who doesn't live an isolated life in California or New Mexico or Arizona or Texas _ and lately in Iowa or Nebraska or North Carolina as well _ has to be aware of it, just as most Mexicans are.
Mexican workers, says essayist Richard Rodriguez, take the idea of California back to Mexico: 47 percent of Mexicans would prefer to live in the United States. What scares us is that we're becoming the hemispheric people that we're not sure we want to be. The old census-type categories _ black, brown, Hispanic, Asian _ are becoming obsolete here. Our ever-more hyphenated children, as Rodriguez points out, don't look like their grandparents. In the valley, the Hmong kids who say they don't like the Mexican kids speak with a Spanish accent.
Even if you don't get into the complexities of our evolving cultures, or consider the thousands of cross-border business, environmental, medical and educational groups, the hard realities of a global economy make the case. Is it possible in the age of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, to freely move goods and capital across international borders without a heavy impact on labor as well? Low-skill immigrants and their children are putting a serious strain on schools and other services in California, a fact that liberals rarely talk about. But as long as Americans want the labor, they'll get people.
Robert Pastor, former Latin American adviser at the National Security Council, says the problems generated by the North American economy can no longer be contained in the United States or Mexico or Canada.
They require creation of a "North American Community" with coordinated cross-border drug, crime, transportation, immigration control and trade policies, and an international development fund.
That's probably a long way off. But the new world that requires it is already here.
Robert Pastor friends in the media.
If California were given to Mexico they both would be bankrupt in a few months. If Texas were given to Mexico, well Texas would be a republic again with Mexico as its first state!
If this is permitted, I want to include this link. It is of an organization that we hear very little about but is actively working to take away the borders. It is located in Santa Fe, NM and just "appointed" Bill Richardson as its honorary president.
http://www.northamericaninstitute.org/
I think it should be watched and exposed.
California is practically bankrupt. The liberals can stop the spending spree.
Sorry, I meant to say: The liberals can't stop the spending spree.
Contrary to this writer's assertion ... There is nothing "complicated" about the current problem.
The illegals want all of the benefits of living in America but refuse to become Americans
The solution is equally simple -- sned them back...NOW!
quote "The old census-type categories _ black, brown, Hispanic, Asian _ are becoming obsolete here. Our ever-more hyphenated children, as Rodriguez points out, don't look like their grandparents."
Not a single person in my entire family or extended family has married outside of their race, so we all look exactly like our grandparents. My family has been in Texas for nearly 150 years and we don't plan on giving it up to Mexico without a fight.
One Rotten Apple.
Feudalist system, yes.
Yesterday was kinda of downer for me. I watched TV and was reminded of the beginning of hurricane season. I thought about how the government was all prepared for Katrina. Even the Alabama Power had radio spots telling people that if they owned chain saws to keep at home as more accidents were caused by "untrained helpers". FEMA had statements that they were prepared for Katrina and all would go well (these reports are no longer on the internet).
Look what happened after all of paper work was completed. All we saw immediately after was incompetence and chaos.
The Red Cross started raking in millions before and during this disaster. G.Bush named daddy and Clinton the head guros for collecting millions before he acknowledged the disaster of Katrina. The sheriff of Hattisburg, Miss. was arrested because he confiscated a truck of ice and gave it to those Americans in need. People trying to help were pushed back by the Red Cross, FEMA and other govt. agencies. However, during this disaster, Americans did not stop giving of time, work and aid. Groups traveled many miles with chain saws and cleared roads that the power companies could not do. Groups of Americans also took small boats to New Orleans and rescued people. FEMA and the Red Cross tried to stop groups with hot meals as someone called my brother for a different route to get in.LOL!
FEMA has had one year to get its act together. If they can control a #4 or 5 hurricane, and provide the necessary aid immediately and not 5 or 6 days after the disaster, then I will have to agree that we are in trouble.
They require creation of a "North American Community" with coordinated cross-border drug, crime, transportation, immigration control and trade policies, and an international development fund.
That's probably a long way off. But the new world that requires it is already here.
There will always be a portion of the border that lets drugs in. Crime always follows. Again, it looks like Americans will have to do what the govt. won't do and that is build fences along the border. This will happen if the govt. doesn't get it act together.
Obviously, it's all the USA's fault, and by logical extension: Bush's fault. Again. Too. Once more. Yet again. /sarcasm
The Mexican police will only arrest you for carrying a gun if you are an American. If you are a Mexican they will, at most, confiscate your gun.
Like I said previously, it will take Americans to close the borders.
the problems generated by the North American economy can no longer be contained in the United States or Mexico or Canada
The US is head over heels in debt and Mexico is in debt. I don't know about Canada. Somehow, I don't think NAFTA lived up to its' promises.
Yeah, you're right......he's only had approx. 6 yrs. to do something about the problems and costs associated with illegal immigration. I know he's been busy setting up new "democracies" in various parts of the world, meanwhile his lack of attention to our problems is greasing the skids for our 'constitutional republic' to become similar to a south of the border 'banana republic'. Gee, I wonder how fast he'd move if it was one of his relatives raped, robbed or murdered by one of these new arrivals who are "just looking for a better life"?
But the idea that US prosperity, since NAFTA if you like (but why not since 1980?! or 1960, etc...), has caused this problem is standing matters on their head. Our success has "forced" Mexico and Latin America to have failing, often corrupt governments and economies, "forcing" illegal immigration? I would have to see a lot more argument and less hyperbole before I would even consider such a position as having any basis in fact. And no one else even thought it worth comment.
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