Monday, October 1, 2007
The Myths of the USA
and/or Mexico Safety Valve
By Rosa Martha
Villarreal
Henry Nash Smith's 1950 classic Virgin Land, published 25 years after the closing of the American frontier, provides an insightful glimpse of
America in the throes of Manifest Destiny. Central to the psychological formation of the United States was the myth of the
frontier as an Edenic garden, and its ability to avert the corruption and social chaos brewing in the industrialized city-slums
of Europe. Rather than create institutions to deal with the issues of industrialization, American politicians — many
of them gifted men such as Jefferson — looked to the frontier as a safety valve to alleviate the potential social and
political tensions.
However, Smith's astute analysis points out that the availability
of boundless lands:
“… did not make an end
of unemployment and social problems. On the contrary, the three decades that followed [the passage of the Homestead Act] were
marked by the most bitter and widespread labor trouble that had yet been seen in the United States. […] Unemployed workmen
in the eastern cities were not ordinarily able to go West and succeed as farmers. They seldom had the money needed to transport
their families to the free public lands and to feed and shelter them until a crop could be made; and even if such a worker
managed to establish himself, he was unlikely to succeed without the skills that could
be obtained only through a long apprenticeship.” [Emphasis mine]
More than fifty years after the publication of Smith's analysis,
we are witnessing a similar scenario in Mexico and its perceived necessity for a safety valve through immigration to ease
the tensions created by overpopulation of its poorest, least-educated, and unskilled workers.
Mexico's insistence that as many as half a million workers
per year be permitted to immigrate to the United States in a comprehensive immigration reform has virtually killed any chance
of amnesty for the 12 million or so undocumented persons in the U.S. As with the 19th century American intelligentsia,
many well-meaning policy-makers today believe that the seemingly endless supply of U.S. jobs will not only ease social tensions
in Mexico (i.e., another revolution) and create a win-win economic scenario for both countries, but elevate the human condition
of the poor by including them in the American Dream.
Their arguments are not completely without historical precedent.
For over a century the United States has provided jobs for Mexico's dispossessed, and, by extension, given them the capital
to create opportunities for themselves. My maternal grandfather is an excellent example.
Born into poverty, my grandfather went to work in Texas as
a 14-year old in 1902, first as an assistant cook on a cattle drive and then as a cook on the railroads. By his early 20's,
he had saved up enough money to buy a good size farm in Coahuila, Mexico, and he became one of the most commercially successful
farmers of that time. The anecdotes abound about young, Mexican men working in the United States and returning home to make
their fortunes.
However, this is where Smith's observations about the myth
of the American frontier safety valve repeat themselves in Mexico. Despite the "jobs frontier" of the U.S — and it was
indeed a wide-open border in those days — Mexico went on to experience one of the bloodiest civil wars (revolution)
of the century. Additionally, despite another 10 million Mexican nationals living in the United States today, Mexico has seen
the rise of violent guerrilla groups and the emergence of the socialist PRD (Party of the Democratic Revolution) as a major
political actor.
For the last fifty years, the so-called "safety valve" has
not alleviated Mexico's growing pains as it transitions into a first world economy; it has merely delayed the development
of the institutions that must address the lack of opportunities for the lower classes and the social disparities between ethnic
Hispanics and indigenous Indians and dark-skinned mestizos. Moreover, just as the
American city workman of the 19th century lacked the skills to succeed in the frontier, the poor of Mexico lack
the skills to successfully compete in the information-age economy.
To achieve a realistic economic solution for the undocumented
population in the United States, the pro-immigration side ought to consider a compromise whereby a moratorium period on immigration
should be enacted. With proper education and time for assimilation, immigrants will be able to compete and prosper in an information-based economy, not merely put food on the table.
Furthermore, the intelligentsia on both sides of the border
should foster the proper climate for economic development in the Americas, even if this means embracing some form of globalization.
Globalization is as inevitable today as industrialization was in the 19th century, but likewise requires new institutions
to protect human rights.
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© Rosa Martha
Villarreal, 2007. Rosa Martha Villarreal, a MexiData.info guest columnist, is a member of PEN USA. She is the author of The Stillness
of Love and Exile (Tertulia Press 2007); and Chronicles of Air and Dreams: A Novel
of Mexico. She can be reached via e-mail at rvillarreal@tertuliamagazine.com.
