Monday, September 29, 2008
Revisiting 'A New Time for Mexico' and Bilateral Affairs
By Rosa Martha Villarreal
Eleven years after its publication,
Carlos Fuentes’s A New Time for Mexico (University of California Press) remains an insightful analysis of Mexico
on the cusp of modernity. In his chapter, “So Far from God,” Mr. Fuentes provides his perspective of the troubled
relations between Mexico
and the United States, beginning with
the 1846 War and ending with the NAFTA and illegal immigration. The bulk of Mr. Fuentes’s essay reads more like an open
letter to the American public, refuting the essence of Ross Perot’s anti-NAFTA bombasts and defending the role of the
“undocumented” Mexican worker in the American economy.
Although NAFTA remains a lightning
rod for leftists and protectionists in both countries, with the passage of time and the success of the increased trade between
the nations the treaty has slipped under the radar of public consciousness. The
same cannot be said of illegal immigration where public opinion in both countries has grown further apart and hardened perhaps
beyond a reasonable solution. The impasse ranges from semantics (“undocumented immigrants” versus “illegal
aliens”) to misunderstanding of the other’s historical perception, leading to, at least from Mexico’s side, a public relations disaster.
Mexico’s official position
on immigration remains virtually unchanged from the last decade and echoes Mr. Fuentes’s discourse. While acknowledging
that he would rather his country “export products rather than people” (173), Mr. Fuentes argues that the presence
of a large illegal Mexican workforce is due to the labor demands of the U.S.
economy. “[W]hen Mexico no longer exports workers, the United States will
go on needing them, and it will import them from other Latin American countries or perhaps from Asia” (175-6). In his defense of his fellow Mexicans, Mr. Fuentes asserts the economic contributions
of illegal workers, who after all do pay taxes – income taxes, sales taxes, and social security taxes or a combination
thereof.
In the United States, public
opinion has evolved from one of relative indifference and /or acknowledgement of the migrants’ economic contributions
to one of deep concern among the majority and downright hostility among a sizable minority. Mr. Fuentes and members of the
Mexican and American intelligentsia, then and now, dismiss the negative turn in American public opinion as mere racism. As an American Hispanic writer, I can attest from the hostile reaction on message
boards to my essays that, indeed, there are people who are unquestionably racist. However,
the racist argument doesn’t explain the apprehension of most Americans, including native-born Americans of Mexican descent.
Polls reflect a strong aversion, even among supporters of amnesty, to a continuous free movement of labor from Mexico and Central America to the United
States even when these workers and their families contribute to the economy as consumers
and taxpayers. The reasons are both pragmatic and philosophical.
An important, though partial,
factor in the downturn of American public opinion can be traced to rapid population growth in selected areas, being that Latino
immigrants, at least, tend to settle where there are historic Hispanic communities such as Texas (late 1500’s) and California
(late 1700’s). Any rapid population
growth from any group will invariably elicit misgivings, apprehension, and, at
times, outright hostility from the old-timers. Call it a flaw in human nature, and I offer the example of San Jose, California,
when it was still an agricultural town with vast orchards, fields, canneries, and packing yards. Beginning in the early 1970’s,
San Jose and the surrounding communities underwent a dramatic
change. The emergence of the high-tech and biotechnologies industries attracted
hundreds of thousands of workers from around the country. The infrastructure and schools were overwhelmed, and a housing shortage
ignited rampant speculation in real estate and exorbitant prices that, like a contagion, soon spread to the rest of California. Consequently, and much to the resentment of a good portion
of northern California natives, some of the nation’s richest farmland now lies under concrete, and only relics of the
Spanish-Mexican rancho era remain among high-tech campuses, housing developments, and shopping malls.
Though the analogy is not exact,
the recent mass migrations from Mexico and Central America have exacted some of the same negative reactions. Clouding the
issue, moreover, is that employers, now having an unauthorized workface in their grasp, have not paid competitive wages nor
provided health insurance. Thus, the contributions of the undocumented both as
consumers and taxpayer are disproportionately lower than other workers of similar economic status, and the added burden on
the infrastructure has reached a critical point.
I am certain that my literary
idol, Mr. Fuentes, would counter-argue that the problems of the communities in question – lack of healthcare, insufficient
housing, and poor schools, for example – were already in place, and that the addition of 6 million Mexicans did not
precipitate any crisis. It is true that the undocumented alone did not cause
these problems, and it is ludicrous and cruel to scapegoat them for scores of public ills. However, it also true that many
of the most impoverished migrants concentrate in selective areas such as Salinas, California,
and have become the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back
Nevertheless, most Americans
can deal with the facts on the ground and want a just solution. If mere amnesty and an orderly guest worker program would
solve the problem of illegal immigration, Americans would generally support it as they did in 1986. However, we remain dubious
that employers would end their addiction to cheap, illegal, subservient labor. The American public does not want to wake up
in 25 years to find another 20 million or so undocumented people living in the shadows, in sub-standard housing, without adequate
pay, and without health insurance whether they come from China or Croatia.
Furthermore, Americans are generally
insulted by the argument that unauthorized foreign nationals are good for the economy because they are doing the work Americans
won’t (can’t?) do: to wit former Mexican President Vicente Fox’s disturbing remark about African-American
workers, and his flippant suggestion to send more Mexicans to clean up after the Katrina disaster. This rationale is reminiscent
of the antebellum South’s justification for slavery. Then, plantation owners
argued that American workers simply could not perform certain jobs because Africans were better equipped for manual labor.
The refusal of American workers to be exploited does not mean they are lazy, and the insinuation only serves to deteriorate
American public opinion.
Mr. Fuentes asserts that the
presence of millions of undocumented people is untenable. I posit that it is immoral.
The aspirations of the undocumented are those of liberty and the pursuit of happiness, which Jefferson
qualified as human rights. But – and this is where the Mexican intelligentsia misses the mark – the rights and
the aspirations of the citizens of the receiving nation must also be respected. It
is not enough to make an argument based on economics and say, “This is good for you.” The desires and sensibilities
of the receiving communities – and the tax burden that comes from absorbing an impoverished population – have
to be taken into account with intellectual honesty.
It is important for our Mexican
counterparts in the intelligentsia to dispassionately examine the empirical origins of American public opinion. I am not a
policy expert but speak only from a bicultural perspective. Given the facts on
the ground as they stand today, the solutions offered by comprehensive immigration reform will never pass the threshold of
American public opinion because all of the reforms are on the American side.
Mexico, being the largest
sending country, should reciprocate by opening itself up to American investors. Yes, this means privatizing Pemex and other
sacred objects of Mexican patrimony. I intimately know – being connected
to Mexico by history, blood, and sensibility – that my position is anathema to Mexican nationalistic sentiments. However,
the global paradigm has shifted, for better or worse, away from nationalism. In the ancient indigenous philosophies was the
realization that, as Mr. Fuentes once put it, all things must die to be reborn. Thus, it is indeed a new time for Mexico.
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Rosa Martha Villarreal is a member of PEN USA, and an Adjunct Professor of English at Cosumnes River College in Sacramento, California. She is the author of "The Stillness of Love and Exile"
(Tertulia Press 2007), a recipient of the 2008 Independent Publishers Book
Award for Best Fiction in the Pacific-West Region;
and "Chronicles of Air and Dreams: A Novel of Mexico."
