HispanicVista Columnists


Why so many people coming across?
By Elsa Salazar Cade

It’s biology! So sorry to break the news to you, but it’s all about biology. If more people had studied their biology in school, we would understand so much better what all these issues are all about and face the truth about why we do what we do. We should consider the implications for our children and the future of the nation. But no, we want to deny that science has anything to do with this and see the world through red or blue glasses and then ignore the consequences for the results. Ultimately, we behave in a way that maximizes the “fruit” of our investments and reduce the waste of our efforts. But it depends on who we regard as our family and why this has implications for the future of Americans. What does that have to do with immigration, education and racism in America and the Mexican Americans who have been a part of this nation for many generations?

First, let’s understand that God, ( in his wisdom) or Mother Nature/evolution (whatever your orientation) created a family of creatures known as humans to walk the earth. We come in a variety of shapes and colors and are able to move about the earth due to a wonderful brain that has allowed us to go beyond our original “design”. Many British convicts were sent to Australia and settled there in spite of a terrible cost to the lives of their children, skin cancer. Mexican folks pull on warmer clothes and march across a political border to seek funds that will better the lives of their children. This is not new and will continue despite the protestations of some of the lighter skinned folks whose forbears also came across the waters in order to escape persecution from the English crown for their religious beliefs. Humans move about the Earth and adapt to the new places in order to live out their lives and raise their families. Armadillos are moving north, too.

Most of us understand the law of supply and demand and adhere to some form of capitalistic philosophy. “If I earn it I should spend it as I wish” except for some community agreed upon restrictions. So given this philosophy and the law of supply and demand, is it any wonder that there is a flow of immigrants into the U.S. to serve the needs of Americans. If a fellow is concerned about immigration then he should cut his own lawn and the woman scrub her own toilet. Sorry to say, it is pretty much as simple as that. Granted that would mean less time to go shopping and golfing. To have a spotless home or a good golf score allows some folks to fit in better with the Joneses and have more status in their particular socioeconomic group. There is research now that points to happiness being a function of having more that your neighbors regardless of the social group. If you’re poor you are happier if you have more than the surrounding poor folk, if your are rich, then more than your rich neighbors. Resources equal success and power. Success and power can be passed down to your children. Mexican illegal immigrants come across because they can send money home to enrich their families. Mexico encourages it because the money that comes in is more than tourism dollars coming in. As long as that is happening it won’t change. No fence no matter how high will change that.

So, if white Americans were really serious about stemming the flow of immigration then they must haul their butts off of the couch, get out there and do the things they expect the illegal immigrants to do. Things like, I don't know, like RAISE YOUR OWN CHILDREN. Work is a Mexican value, perhaps because poverty is not so far in the past for many of us or our families. The small brown folk know that if your don’t work hard, the least you will get is what the poor blacks folks have which is not much. One word, Katrina. Mexican immigrants have a history of servitude but not slavery and hence we don’t give the Patron the evil eye when he gives us the order. We know that if we don’t like it, we can move up the road and find another housewife that sees herself above cleaning up the urine around the bottom of the toilet. The notion of servants is very appealing to many who consider it a question of status to have a nanny, a gardener, and a maid. At so cheap a price and they are soooo very nice about it. “She is like a member of our family!” A poorly paid member of the family.

If Mexican Americans looked different from the children of the maid would we be in the same large overcrowded schools? Would charter schools be the solution for failing schools, if the Americans of Mexican decent looked more like the children from Americans of European decent? I won’t answer that for you, just asking. But bigotry is a bigger tent than that, poor white children in poverty stricken neighborhoods were actually regarded even less for their “failure” to be more like the rest of the white folk. Because they prove it is not just about race. So in bitterness, many poor whites rail against illegal immigration as the source of their problem instead of those who are better off and refuse to put the nation’s wealth behind all the children of America. They are against quotas because their white children aren’t included. Because their whiteness is NOT an impediment to the progress of their children but neither is it a benefit. How do those Minutemen have the time? Don’t they have jobs? They were even hanging around the Canadian border and we know them Canucks are just rushing to get in.

So education next becomes the “ticket” to the next level of social advancement. If you control that then there is less competition for yourself or your kin. So it is back to biology, i.e your kin. We now “know” that shopping at Walmart is bad for American workers but we can’t afford NOT to shop after losing our job. We are always demanding the lowest price. If we really stemmed the flow of illegal immigrants, the price of fresh foods would sky rocket. So would building costs, with the building industry already at the mercy of the high price of steel! So rant against the poor immigrant if you must, but you also consider that someone is benefiting from their work and it might just be us.

Americans need to look beyond the aspects that make us different from one another and become united behind our own children and our own future. We need to see that our Mexican American (Black and poor White) children are American and should be educated well. . Like the tale of the lion and the mouse, when we help those less powerful than ourselves we help ourselves the most. Decent wages should be paid for difficult work and in an honest way. We must recognize that illegal workers will continue to flow across the borders so long as employers pay under the table. This is why Hispanic Americans are not in solid agreement on the issue of illegal immigration. It is not the fault of the illegals who come across, but the employers who wave the carrot. We are all in this together and only when we recognize this, will any of these problems be dealt with. These are not just values but actual biological forces at work and will continue to operate as long as we don’t recognize the effect of these forces on the future of our nation, the United States. It is not about being Republican or Democrat, but American. We cannot stand as a nation strong and indivisible without this, for proof see France.

Elsa Salazar Cade ecade@telusplanet.net