HispanicVista Columnists
The Awakening of a Spanish Dragon
By Robert Miranda
The right-wing radicals have pressed the notion in the immigration debate that Americans are losing their jobs because of “illegal immigration”.
This argument is meant to distract from the real issue of employment in the United States of North America and that is Corporate America’s abandonment of the U.S. American worker.
While many around the nation speak of the economic drain “illegal immigrants” cause our economy, the debate fail to speak point out how big manufacturing businesses in the United States have moved jobs out of this country in order to pursue cheap labor.
Global competition they will argue is what is causing these corporations to leave the United States in order to compete, and one way to do that is to search for cheap labor abroad. 2
This argument illustrates one of the fundamental issues being debated in immigration. The reason why undocumented people are in the United States of North America is because of the fact that they’ve been recruited to fill unskilled low-wage jobs the typical U.S. American worker shuns. And as corporations leave the United States in pursuit of cheap skilled labor in countries that have an abundant pool of cheap skilled labor, skilled U.S. workers are finding it difficult to accept unskilled positions that pay less and are work intensive. Americans will not work jobs that pay wages far below to what they have become accustomed hence why most low-wage jobs are occupied by immigrants—documented and undocumented.
The immigration debate is missing another factor however, and that is the international economic factor. What does the immigration issue in the United States have to do with the global economy?
Well, some of you may have heard many Latinos saying that America is waking up a “sleeping giant”.
Most U.S. North Americans will ask, what “sleeping giant?” Latinos only constitute about 14% of the United States population. Furthermore, undocumented immigrants have no political standing in the United States, so how are Latinos able to sway politically the United States government into doing what they want on immigration?
All one has to do is step back a bit and view this whole immigration matter from a global perspective. Forget for a moment the local issues and recall what took place this month.
The influence of Latin American countries entering into the U.S. debate on immigration is catching U.S. officials by surprise.
Recently, foreign ministers from eight Latin American countries entered the U.S. immigration debate urging Congress to pass a "comprehensive" immigration reform package that would provide immigrant workers guest worker status and a way for undocumented immigrants to become citizens; this is unprecedented.
You have to ask yourself, what is going on here?
The answer is simple: the United States has lost its influence in Latin America. The immigration issue is now international. The demonstrations mark the first massive example of mass resistance to the desire of the Right-wing to criminalize migrant labourers and to establish fortified borders.
Latin American nations are telling the United States government to deal with the issue in a manner that is sensitive to the human needs of the undocumented and documented immigrants involved.
What’s more, you have to attribute this unprecedented action to the fact that China’s influence in Latin America has given Latin American nations, once reliant on U.S. commerce, an alternative market that frees these nations in Latin America from dependency on U.S. commercialism.
The United States of North America is in trouble economically world wide.
First, because of U.S. narrow minded political policies in the Middle East, China is now able to hold sway with Arab nations both politically and economically. China is especially making headway into the Middle East as its economy becomes stronger and grows more rapidly; China is in need of oil.
Second, in Latin America, China is becoming a leading political and economic partner with newly elected governments in Bolivia, Chile, and Peru. It has established strong political ties with Venezuela and has established economic interest with Brazil.
China also controls the Panama Canal and is able to engage in trade with Cuba.
So, standing to U.S. policy on immigration by these countries has signaled a new vision of trade and political networking between China and Latin America. This places American corporations at a big disadvantage. Competition for Latin American markets will become strained if the United States of North America’s government continues to press punitive actions against the immigrant community and build fortified walls along its southern border.
China’s interests in Latin America will grow because of the crazy and zany way the Republicans have been acting against the Spanish speaking immigrant community. The economic impact against the U.S. is ominous. With the Middle East in an uproar and Latin America rising up against U.S. policy against immigrants—the sleeping giant has awakened.
It is a dragon that speaks Spanish and Chinese.
Robert Miranda, a frequent contributing columnist to HispanicVista.com (http://www.hispanicvista.com/) is a national award winning columnist, Latino community activist and Editor-in-Chief of the Milwaukee Spanish Journal. Email at: rmiranda@wi.rr.com