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.

Random Newsflash! Panic!

Yeah, an earthquake struck near Acapulco. Makes me feel happy that I'm among the few U.S. Americans who is somewhere else in Mexico besides Acapulco.

Yes, I write about problems here in Mexico. I'm not Mexico's PR dude, allright? But the news media hasn't done anything but insult Mexico since I've been here. It makes me want to find something good that is newsworthy about Mexico. And by that I don't mean "The dance club on top of Burger King near the Palacio de Cortez is excellent."

(which it is, sort of, at least in terms of lights and atmosphere, despite being on the second floor above a Burger King. although a bit heavy on pop and hip-hop. I prefer Aloha bar's techno music, or Eclipse's live band covering the Red Hot Chili Peppers in English: "I don' believe its b-eeh-d!" Sorry about that tangent anything to lighten the mood here!)

The job of the news media in the U.S. is to get people worried about things in other countries so that they don't worry about things "over here" (which is not where I am right now, hence the quotes). Sort of like the U.S. military.

U.S. people respond by hating their southern neighbors even more. Harder to place blame on U.S. drug purchasers, or U.S. gun trafficers for border violence. Not to mention the connections between NAFTA, peso-to-dollar rates, and undocumented migration to the U.S.

The Mexican media, meanwhile, mostly reports on Mexico, to control the Mexican people, sort of like the Mexican military, and many militaries throughout Latin America. Which is why they blew the whole swine flu thing out into a panicfest, then told us the number of cases was going down and we had nothing to worry about (I'd already quit worrying, but really it just meant "that's so last week's news" as far as they were concerned).

Sorry if this post offends anyone who works for the media, (and yes, we bloggers mostly parrot what the MSM gives us). Sensational news just sells better! That's why the Cristian Science Monitor is now only a weekly paper. I should put a bunch of pictures of me wearing "cubrebocas" just to increase ad revenue.

P.S. Is it just me or do I do my best writing at 2:00 AM after watching clips of Steven Colbert?

Embassy talk.

The only requirement for the day was that we go to the U.S. embassy to talk to the various officials there. That was the first part of our day.

Embassy officials are bound to be biased to supporting U.S. policies, whatever those are. Administrations have changed since they started their work, but policies often have not. However I found the talk to be refreshing in some ways, because, being a Warren Wilson student, I've heard the anti-NAFTA, anti-border-control arguements many times, perhaps too many times.

Concerning the boarder control issues, the consulate official pointed out that it's not as hard to enter the U.S. as Russia. Another official pointed out that Guatemala's boarder swith Mexico had some difficult steps involved for immigration as well, and even suggested that one of us write a paper on the subject of Guatemalan immigrants to Mexico. Of course he was trying to change the subject, but that doesn't make Guatemala any less important.

As far as NAFTA, the trade and agriculture delagates' response could be summed up by saying "There are winners and loosers" while adding that there are more winners than loosers. The particular example that we discussed was an example (brought up in Ixlilco, but not recognized by the locals as related to NAFTA) of no longer being able to sell onions. Of course it's true that they've started on new industries in Ixlilco, such as tomatos and figs, but especially with the tomatos they need government assistance to do so. Their particular village had good connections with PAN, so they could get help with greenhouses for tomatos. It seems to me that "loosers" may well stay "loosers" without that kind of help.

I heard another thing that I'm sure will come up again on this blog. One man (they were all men) said that the army was trusted more here than the police, which is why they are often deployed for civil purposes.

I'm not convinced, although I've heard before that the police here are often corrupt, perhaps due to their low salaries. The embassy personnel claimed that Mexio's attempt to create a more high-paid police force was met with violence. I didn't ask, but I've read in newspapers about private contractors taking some responsibilities as well, which I consider to be an even worse solution, and which has caused some controversy.

Oh, and one more thing. I heard from the embassy personnel that the military training given by the U.S. is primarily non-compbat training, including PR work. This was meant to be reassuring, but to me it sounded strange, and possibly a waste of money. Training other countries' militaries is one thing, but training them on how to promote themselves has a very weird ring to it in my opinion.

First real Post

Don´t feel like describing today yet. It was enough work just getting this blog up. but just to keep everyone the same level of up to date, here is what I wrote to my family in an e-mail recently (with a few modifications)

Hey, 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.

We´ve done the activity with the market prices today.The point of the activity was, using Morelos's minimum wage to try to find out if we could buy various "necessary" products at the market including shampoo, food, clothes for school. Then we came back and calculated these amounts in dollars. The dollars can be exchanged for far more pesos with far more buying power than the equivalent dollars have in the U.S.

It's what brings in tourists. It's also what drives people to migrate and then return here.Things that are cheap for us here are expensive for Mexicans making minimum wage or lower. Minimum wage is high here for Mexico, but I get the feeling that prices may also be higher.

I've taken the Spanish test at Universal (I think I did ok at everything except subjunctive).

I had a "Stupid American" experience today, when I confused the entrance for a waterfall with a gate for condominiums (thankfully the guard did not take my money). I finished ¨Crossing Borders,¨ which I thoroughly recommend, although I haven´t done the report on it due Friday. I did make it to desayuno this morning, waking up with my cell phone alarm (apparently ¨Flight of the Bumblebee¨works!).

I´ve found Cuernavaca so far to be interesting, generally easy to understand but somewhat disorienting. Typically in Tennessee and in Boston one can easily disern generally how old things are. I´ve not been to the historic landmarks, but the part of town we´re in seems to be of indeterminate age, simplistic with an occasional mock-Spanish florish here and there (especially on churches). Storefronts are nearly always painted rather than sleek ads or hanging tavern-style boards. They always convey the information boldly, except for condominiums, which as can be expected, try to be more subtle in saying that they are condominiums, instead emphasizing names like ¨El Bosque.¨

The house seems comfortable so far. Hopefully it will stay that way (we did have the talk about scorpions, bedbugs etc).