In the wake of the immigration brouhaha...
LEIGH POMEROY
Latino immigrants are in the news today. They had the audacity — the audacity! — to march in the U.S. against certain provisions in the proposed immigration reform bill in the House. And you know what? Some of them weren't even U.S. citizens! Horrors!
Yet we've contended in these pages that they are American citizens — citizens of the Western Hemisphere — and that we must recognize our common bond and common responsibility to each other.
In other words, we are neighbors. And fences do not always make good neighbors.
Not that the solutions to the so-called immigration problem in the U.S. are easy. The disparity of wealth in this country versus the poverty on the continent — some of which is within this country — creates huge conflicts. If they are not open, festering wounds, they are, in the least, like viruses just waiting below the surface.
It is good that the President and the Republican Party are bringing up the problem of immigration, even if that "problem" was unearthed for political reasons in a series of push-polls around the country. But his solutions and the solutions of others within his party, particularly those who would wall off our southern border as Israel has walled off parts of the West Bank, will only exacerbate the problem in the long run.
Enforcing the laws against employers hiring illegal immigrants is correct. Right now the system is a farce; the law against hiring illegals might as well not exist. But by throwing those same employers the bone of a "guest worker" program is simply a play for votes and campaign dollars, and a way to keep wages low by importing noncitizen bodies who cannot vote for the other side.
Meanwhile, the rest of Latin America is looking upon us, the big bully of the north, with increasingly skeptical eyes. For those who have benefited economically from increased trade with the U.S., all is hunky-dory. But many still languish in poverty, see via the media the wealthy lifestyle of their northern neighbor, perhaps have been taken advantage of by that neighbor's octopus-like corporations (such as in the privatization of municipal water systems), and they wonder if that's really fair. And they elect leaders — horrors! — that represent that point of view.
Making enemies of those who are trying to better their lives is hardly an American thing to do. Wasn't it Ronald Reagan, among others, who encouraged all Americans to pull themselves up by the bootstraps? That's precisely what most of our Latinos are doing, and yet the ones who had the misfortune of not being born in this country are threatened with being arrested on felony charges. Ronald Reagan would be ashamed.
Our neighbors to the south of us, from Mexico all the way to Chile, are seeing our duplicitousness — both good and bad. That's why leaders like Michelle Bachelet, Evo Morales and yes, Hugo Chávez have been elected. Our Latin American neighbors are reacting to the years of our supporting military dictators by using the tools we have taught them — the practice of democracy and the dream of upward mobility. If the consequences are something less than what our leaders wanted, so be it.
Immigration into the U.S. and the desire of the citizens of Latin America to determine their own lives without U.S. meddling are issues that run hand in hand. What happens in the future will be beyond what Washington can control. So Congress and the White House, regardless of whoever's in charge, better get used to not being in the driver's seat.
In short, the U.S. must act with our Latino fellow citizens rather than upon them.
(See the article below.)
Latino immigrants are in the news today. They had the audacity — the audacity! — to march in the U.S. against certain provisions in the proposed immigration reform bill in the House. And you know what? Some of them weren't even U.S. citizens! Horrors!
Yet we've contended in these pages that they are American citizens — citizens of the Western Hemisphere — and that we must recognize our common bond and common responsibility to each other.
In other words, we are neighbors. And fences do not always make good neighbors.
Not that the solutions to the so-called immigration problem in the U.S. are easy. The disparity of wealth in this country versus the poverty on the continent — some of which is within this country — creates huge conflicts. If they are not open, festering wounds, they are, in the least, like viruses just waiting below the surface.
It is good that the President and the Republican Party are bringing up the problem of immigration, even if that "problem" was unearthed for political reasons in a series of push-polls around the country. But his solutions and the solutions of others within his party, particularly those who would wall off our southern border as Israel has walled off parts of the West Bank, will only exacerbate the problem in the long run.
Enforcing the laws against employers hiring illegal immigrants is correct. Right now the system is a farce; the law against hiring illegals might as well not exist. But by throwing those same employers the bone of a "guest worker" program is simply a play for votes and campaign dollars, and a way to keep wages low by importing noncitizen bodies who cannot vote for the other side.
Meanwhile, the rest of Latin America is looking upon us, the big bully of the north, with increasingly skeptical eyes. For those who have benefited economically from increased trade with the U.S., all is hunky-dory. But many still languish in poverty, see via the media the wealthy lifestyle of their northern neighbor, perhaps have been taken advantage of by that neighbor's octopus-like corporations (such as in the privatization of municipal water systems), and they wonder if that's really fair. And they elect leaders — horrors! — that represent that point of view.
Making enemies of those who are trying to better their lives is hardly an American thing to do. Wasn't it Ronald Reagan, among others, who encouraged all Americans to pull themselves up by the bootstraps? That's precisely what most of our Latinos are doing, and yet the ones who had the misfortune of not being born in this country are threatened with being arrested on felony charges. Ronald Reagan would be ashamed.
Our neighbors to the south of us, from Mexico all the way to Chile, are seeing our duplicitousness — both good and bad. That's why leaders like Michelle Bachelet, Evo Morales and yes, Hugo Chávez have been elected. Our Latin American neighbors are reacting to the years of our supporting military dictators by using the tools we have taught them — the practice of democracy and the dream of upward mobility. If the consequences are something less than what our leaders wanted, so be it.
Immigration into the U.S. and the desire of the citizens of Latin America to determine their own lives without U.S. meddling are issues that run hand in hand. What happens in the future will be beyond what Washington can control. So Congress and the White House, regardless of whoever's in charge, better get used to not being in the driver's seat.
In short, the U.S. must act with our Latino fellow citizens rather than upon them.
(See the article below.)
Analysis: How the US 'lost' Latin America
There is trouble ahead for Uncle Sam in his own backyard. Big trouble.
04/03/06 BBC -- It is one of the most important and yet largely untold stories of our world in 2006. George W Bush has lost Latin America.
While the Bush administration has been fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, relations between the United States and the countries of Latin America have become a festering sore -- the worst for years.
Virtually anyone paying attention to events in Venezuela and Nicaragua in the north to Peru and Bolivia further south, plus in different ways Mexico, Argentina and Brazil, comes to the same conclusion: there is a wave of profound anti-American feeling stretching from the Texas border to the Antarctic.
And almost everyone believes it will get worse.
(For the entire article, go here.)
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