HispanicVista Columnists - March 28th, 2005

By Patrick Osio, Jr.

Steven Camarota, Director of Research at the Center for Immigration Studies, made this statement on the Lou Dobbs television anti-Mexico immigration crusade program – “If you are not for sealing the border, you are for illegal immigration.” Dramatic words for a person who attempts very hard to pass himself off as a “research director of a non partisan, tax-exempt educational organization.” The statement was directed at a Lou Dobbs guest who was under the mistaken belief that he was there to debate the issue of border security and illegal immigration. It turned out to be the discussion between Dobbs and Camarota on one border (US-Mexico) and Mexican illegal immigration with the added terrorists may cross from Mexico. But Dobbs would not allow the Canadian border to be part of the ‘debate.’

By Felipe de Ortego y Gasca and Gilda Baeza Ortego

 Abstract:

While the U.S. Rio Bravo Borderlands is currently suffused with economic development, there has been a growing concern that the region suffers from intellectual flight or a brain drain that ultimately impedes the objectives of economic development and characterizes the region as an intellectual wasteland. This paper assesses that proposition from social and historical perspectives and posits recommendations for sustainable development of intellectual capital in the U.S. Rio Bravo Borderlands.

The expression ‘Intellectual flight’ conjures up for the mind a gaggle of endangered rara avis winging its way north from the U.S. Rio Bravo Borderlands towards some safe sanctuary far from the madding crowd, some place where the rara avis can thrive.

From the Publisher’s Corner 

By Sal Osio, JD

Almost 200,000 American expatriates are registered as residents in Baja California, Mexico with the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana. At best this statistic is misleading since it’s not mandatory for Americans to register with their Consular office when living abroad, particularly if they maintain a mailing address in the U.S. Registration is a voluntary initiative recommended in order to grant Americans living abroad the recognition and protection of their Consulate should they be in need of assistance. Accordingly, a more accurate estimate may be double the number of registrants, say 400,000 American expatriates residing in Baja.

By Joe Armendariz
 Mr. Schiavo - the adulterous husband of Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman stuck in a so-called: "persistent vegetative state" - is, himself, stuck in a persistent vindictive state. And I am fascinated, and, frankly, unnerved by the craftiness of her foes.

I believe the fight between those who wish to save Terri's life and those wishing her life were just...well, over already, indicates a spiritual battle of biblical proportion. The nature of this incredible struggle is discernable to many but completely invisible to most. What I observe unfolding hour, by excruciating hour, strikes me as diabolical Writ Large. 

By Manuel Hernández

Once upon a time, there was an inconspicuous young man, who was born captive and into a humble and impoverished family. One day, the king, lord and ruler of the captive Nation sent out an official proclamation. He had heard of the young man’s royal heritage and wanted to destroy him. After being forewarned supernaturally, the young man’s family fled and lived in a far and distant land until it was safe to come back home. At the age of twelve, the young man sat down with the greatest teachers’ of his time and imparted the greatest gift he had received from his father: education. After eighteen year’s of intense preparation, assessment and education, the young man was ready to begin his internship. 

By Robert Miranda

Milwaukee County almost passed a resolution, which would have cut off Clear Channel Communications from access to any future contracts. The employer of the Mark Belling show watched in disbelief as the board voted 10 against and 9 for pulling Clear Channel’s contract.  The vote was close.

The Coordinating Committee Against Hate Speech supported the resolution; the group is spearheading the campaign to have Mark Belling removed from our public airwaves. A desperate last-minute lobbing effort by Clear Channel representatives, led by Cindy McDowell, appeared to have made the difference in swaying the vote away from having the resolution sent to County Executive, Scott Walker, for his signature. The county executive; however, would have surely vetoed the measure, and without enough votes to override the veto, the measure would have failed ultimately.

By Erika Robles
When I look at the world, I see a divided place. A place where the powerful rule and become greedier and where the powerless become poorer and more frustrated. Several sets of events have taken place in recent months; events which have changed the world and its inhabitants. Selfishness and indifference has become more common than ever before.
It's sad to realize that humanity –with a few exceptions- has chosen to ignore the sufferings of millions of people. Since 9/11, the U.S. has launched a war on terrorism. The U.S. will spend this year $500 billion on the military but only $16 billion (one-thirtieth) to address the plight of the poorest of the poor. The World Bank estimates that 1.1 billion of people live in extreme poverty…

By Talli Nauman

Americas Program, International Relations Center (IRC)

Mexican President Vicente Fox speaks some English, as becomes a leader of a nation bordering the world’s largest English-speaking nation. For his part, U.S. President George W. Bush speaks some Spanish. The former Texas governor even started an oil company named Arbusto, which he might know is Spanish for Bush. However, the two presidents speak different languages in more ways than one. Let’s take the language they use when speaking about security issues--the main subject of the March 23 North American summit with Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin…

By Richard N. Baldwin T.

     In competitive sports, business and especially on the competitive world stage between countries the old axiom is that to even stay in place, you have to run. To stand still is to go back. And make no doubt about it; México is in full reverse.

     México was, a few years ago, in the top 10 countries favored for foreign investment. Last year México sank to the low 30s in the race of countries attracting foreign capital investment. I think that we are still ahead of Uganda.

     In the "blush" early years of NAFTA, México rose to the second highest exporter to the US. Canada is and was number one. Now México is third, behind China who is also flooding the Mexican markets. Worse yet, México never took advantage of the window of time for doing the reforms necessary to really take advantage of NAFTA.

By Rafael Fernandez de Castro and Rossana Fuentes Berain

For all its bureaucratic faults, the European Union represents an important advance in the relations between nations, transforming once bitter and war-prone rivals into a model of cooperation, prosperity and community. The United States, on the other hand, blessed with two stable and peaceful neighbors, has no need for such a tight regional alliance. Or does it?

The meeting last week among the three North American leaders - President Bush, President Vicente Fox of Mexico and Prime Minister Paul Martin of Canada - at Mr. Bush's Texas ranch may have represented the beginning of serious discussion of that question.

By Raoul Lowery Contreras

War protesters keep trying, they march, they chant, they “pray.” They fail, however, at influencing the American body politic.  This was so visible on Saturday, March 19, when handfuls of war protesters attempted to undermine our war in Iraq that has reached astronomical heights of success, despite ankle bites from terrorists who are helped, aided and comforted by these very war protesters.

Other than a few thousand demonstrators in “Baghdad by the Bay,” San Francisco, nowhere in the country did they manage to turn out massive demonstrations.  In New York City, the New York Times reports that 350 people showed up, as did in Brooklyn.  Some towns and cities, again according to the Times, turned out less than a dozen people.

By Luis J. Rodriguez

In 1996, I was present at a meeting of gang members and community leaders in San Salvador. Heavily tattooed young men, one with a hand mangled from a hand grenade blast, told of the horrifying violence and gang warfare that had succeeded the battles of the 12-year civil war on El Salvador's streets. Aside from their tattoos, what was striking about these gang members is that they had grown up not in El Salvador, but in the United States, and that the gangs they were in - Mara Salvatrucha and 18th Street - were started in Los Angeles.

That gathering was startling evidence of the globalization of United States-based gangs. Just how much Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, has grown since then was evident this month when the Department of Homeland Security announced the arrests of 103 gang members in New York State, Miami, Washington, the Baltimore area and Los Angeles.

Mara Salvatrucha is now reported to operate in 31 states and five countries, with 100,000 members across Canada, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico.

History

By John P. Schmal

(sic)… Oaxaca's rugged topography has played a significant role in giving rise to its amazing cultural diversity. Because individual towns and tribal groups lived in isolation from each other for long periods of time, the subsequent seclusion allowed sixteen ethnolinguistic groups to maintain their individual languages, customs and ancestral traditions intact well into the colonial era and – to some extent – to the present day.   For this reason, Oaxaca is – by and large – the most ethnically complex of Mexico’s thirty-one states.   The Zapotec (347,000 people) and the Mixtec (241,000 people) are the two largest groups of Indians, but they make up only two parts of the big puzzle.

Even today, it is believed that at least half of the population of Oaxaca still speaks an indigenous dialect. Sixteen different indigenous groups have been formally registered as indigenous communities, all perfectly well defined through dialect, customs, food habits, rituals, cosmogony, etc.

By Miguel Pickard 

Human migration is as old as the human condition itself, but rarely before have emigrants suffered so many hardships and perils in their journey. Throughout Mesoamerica (Mexico and Central America) emigrants are in the crossfire.

In their home countries, economic policy has failed to create needed jobs. Quite the opposite: In the agricultural, industrial, and service sectors jobs are disappearing faster than new ones are created.

For many smallholder farmers the situation is so serious that migrating has become the way of surviving; that is, migrating is not a complement for the reproduction of the campesino family in the marginal areas of the country, but the crucial element of survival.

Patrick Osio, Jr. has written a short but intensive manual on the Mexican perspective on numerous issues between our two countries. The manual is an in depth primer on the culture and protocol for better understanding Mexicans that in turn allows establishing personal and business relationships, and how to avoid the most common faux pas that can ruin relationships and business deals.

The manual is available through Electronic delivery for $9.95 making it possible to download the manual to save on your hard drive, printing its entirety or particular sections while reaping considerable savings over printed copies.