Rant about Immigration, the World Bank, Bartolome de las Casas

Just got back from Mexico City, yet another time.
However, I can talk about that soon when I get back.
I´ve really learned a lot here. Some of it I´ve written about in papers for school. I haven´t touched on much of it here. I´ll put aside everything I now know about Spanish-language literature (from Spain, Cuba, Argentina, some from Mexico, etc.) and focus instead on current events.
Even that´s really too much to put in words, which is precisely the problem. Mexico is probably one of the most important countries for people in the U.S. to understand. Out of fear, people in the U.S. would rather ignore it, or if that doesn´t work, build a wall that can be seen from outer-space (the Chinese will still say theirs is prettier as it isn´t made from used airplane parts, but it makes very little difference from outer-space).
To me, the people who shout ¨stop the illegals¨ (as though being ¨legal¨ or ¨illegal¨ was something permanent, or making legal migration simple was out of the question) ignore all the real issues on both sides of the border.
It would be like saying the solution to Child Labor abuses and/or a rise in crimes by minors would be to stop having children. People almost never target the harder-targets: The corporations who hire the ¨illegals.¨ In the case of crime along the border I would also have to include many people on our side who sell guns and buy drugs. There´s a reason why here, farther away from the border things are often more calm.

There´s other things the ¨anti-illegals¨ people I have yet to hear anyone mention Mexico´s debt crisis for instance, mostly because it would hurt the rather childish ¨patriotism,¨ that you hear in these debates. Most Mexicans I´ve talked to know there´s a difference between loving one´s country and loving the country´s government (almost no one I´ve met here likes Mexico´s government).

To paraphrase one on-line poster to a news article I read a week ago, ¨these people live next to one of the most generous countries on earth.¨ Exactly. We, (especially through the World Bank, whose head the United States appoints) lend money to countries, and then they have even more problems paying it back. Anyone wonder why Mexico can´t pay for decent public schools, research, etc.? True, Mexican education is good by Latin American standards, and many people are willing to stay farmers rather than go on to ¨better¨ things.
However, I am not stupid enough to believe that the World Bank loans money to countries so that they can be great economic powers to compete with the U.S. No one in the U.S. really wants that. Look at how we reacted to Japan in the 1980s, and China right now. It´s notable that although the U.S. can take some credit for Japan, China has largely avoided links to U.S.-dominated financial institutions, and has ¨globalized¨ largely on it´s own terms. I am admittedly not an expert on China, and I wouldn´t put it up as an example for other countries to follow. These issues are admittedly complex, and I´ve just brushed the surface.

(A surface largely based on the writings of former world bank president-turned critic Joseph E. Stiglitz, whose work I´ve read in class here at CEMAL. Some might say it´s not worthwhile to read a U.S. author in Mexico, but he uses Mexico as an example many times, and it´s better to see the country he uses as an example for ones´ self before judging what he says. It´s one of the many advantages of doing a U.S. program in Mexico).

Oh, and then there´s the other equally uninformed ¨side¨ of the immigration debate, which does little more than say ¨we are a nation of immigrants¨ as though we were always a nation of migrant workers who due to currency exchange rates found it to our advantage to work in the U.S. and return to our home countries. Are we ready to be a nation of migrants?
Not to mention Mexico´s own issues regarding its southern border, and the U.S. selling arms to Guatemala, the violence in the 1980s which brought many Guatemalans into the U.S. to escape a government that was being funded by the U.S., but far worse than anything we have ever allowed at home. (admittedly I´m rough on the U.S. here. It´s far more patriotic to try to change my country than try to tell some other country how it should act. My role model-here is possibly Bartolome de las Casas who...

You know what? I´ve already touched on way too many subjects to even begin to get into Spanish colonial history. CEMAL is great for learning about these things. I´ll just leave it at that for now. Any questions on the above?

Note: I will write part two of the Complete Idioto´s guide. Do not worry.

Tepotzlan v. Amatlan

One of the great thing about doing so many flashbacks this week is that I can look back at things I haven't covered and try to mix them up in ways that show people the contrasts that exist there.

Tepotzlan is, as I've already said in my facebook album on the subject, a very new-agey town, where hippies and other outsiders have taken over to some extent. It has great mountains though, and some nice ruins. The new-agey thing is kind of fun actually, but...

It was different from my class experience with the indigenous side of Mexico in the same municipality, this time in the city of Amatlan. Visiting the house of Ignacio ("Nacho," a community leader in nearby Amatlan) with him explaining the conquest, the pre-hispanic history, the government's (in his opinion) useless projects and the role of religion, including a trip out to a sacred natural rock arch with pre-Nahua-era petrogliphs was definately one of my favorite experiences connected to classes.

I may have doubts about the fact that the Spanish left them with this land only because they had purchased it back. Like reservations in the U.S., I've since concluded that it is not the best agricultural fields, in spite of its sacredness. Yet somehow at the time I didn't consider such things.

Mexico has a complex relationship with its indigenous past. Often people try to throw it off in order to advance themselves, wanting to be culturally closer to Spain, France, or the U.S., a process hastened by the inquisition and now less violently by migration and globalized trade. Still, it remains among the things I find most appealing (and often hidden to U.S. eyes) about Mexico.

Hacienda

After visiting the Ixlilco Ejido we stayed at an Hacienda linked to Antonio's family. I did not mention it there becauses that post was too long already. It was a learning experience. Now, haciendas are quaint resorts for tourists. Previously, they were where the upper-classes kept the Indigenas and Mestizos growing shugar for them, often holding them there through debt.

Above: The beginning of the Hacienda system, using "encomienda" slavery (debt came later after slavery was illegalized. Picture by Diego Rivera

In the 1940s hacienda owners had to choose which part of the land they wanted to keep. Usually this meant their house.

It was very luxurious compared to my time in Ixlilco. We still had class sessions though, often talking about what we saw and about the differences in legal systems and what "The Law" means (why, for example "illegales" is considered an OK term here in Mexico by those who have been illegally to the states, but isn't really the best term to use for them back in the U.S.). And of course, Ivan Illych's "To Hell with Good Intentions."

The hacienda was one of the most beautiful places though that I've seen here in Mexico. With cane-warehouses converted into pools, I wasn't sure of what to make of past and present here. They seemed distinct, contradicting, yet both here.

La llegada (the arrival)

Note: This is the first of my psedo-chronological catch-up posts. I've done quite a few things by now, classes, homestays, etc. This is how I got to Cuernavaca.

The flight went smoothly. I did wait a good bit, but my ipod kept me going for that time. I thought they'd arrive earlier, so I had an airport staffer announce my name. It was interesting the whole pronunciation issue. I had to explain that it wasn't Poe-oonds.

Moises drove us through Mexico City. If I understood him correctly, Mexico City restricts who can drive on which day of the week. However, that sounded so confusing that I wasn't sure if I'd misunderstood him.

Eventually we got to Cuernavaca, passing the statue of Emilio Zapata on the way. I'd have to say that the scenery, particularly the mountains on the way there, impressed me.

In later days I started to miss pointless things such as signs being separate from walls and not painted onto them, or that houses not have walls reinforced by glass bottles or barbed wire. Looking back on those days now, I'd say that it was rather childish of me to desire everything to resemble East Tennessee.

In fact in an early class excersize, we were asked how many of us had relatives in another country, and I remained sitting, thinking that I was not like the Mexican staffers who had sons or nephews working in the U.S. (rather common for many people I've met here, but I'll return to that later). It had not registered with me that I was now in a different country . In fact I sometimes even, without meaning to, referred to the United States as "here."