[Mexico - US] Poverty and mythology crossing borders

from The Daily Bulletin

(Editor's note: This is a twice weekly column written Conor Friedersdorf, who is managing the Daily Bulletin's blog, or special Web site, on immigration issues. The blog is designed to provide a forum for opinions and information on immigration. The blog is at www.beyondbordersblog.com)

In small towns throughout Mexico and Latin America, children grow up amid crushing poverty and a complicated mythology about the United States.

As their fathers labor for a rich landowner or a local merchant, never earning enough to improve their lot, they hear stories about an uncle or a cousin who headed north. Sometimes the story is about how they died crossing the desert. Sometimes it is about how they worked washing dishes for five months, turned to selling marijuana and got thrown into a U.S. prison, then killed during a race riot a black inmate.

But sometimes the story ends happily. The uncle or cousin earns enough to get married, to buy a house and to send his children to college. Each time someone in the town gets a new satellite dish to prop beside their two-room house, word spreads that the money came from a son or nephew in the U.S.

Sometimes a man returns from the U.S. rich enough to retire. He builds a new home on the edge of town, drives a car newer that everyone else's and buys tequila for his friends at the local bar.

His children wear Nike shoes and go to study in Mexico City.

If you're a child growing up in that town, it doesn't matter how many people are killed crossing the desert. It doesn't matter how many illegal immigrants live ten to a room in the U.S., never escaping poverty. You believe that if you head to the U.S. you'll be among the immigrants who make it.

Today's composite character, 29-year-old Manuel, came from a small town like that. His views about illegal immigration are very different from those we've heard in previous columns. He marched in Los Angeles this week, a Mexican flag draped over his shoulders. If you hooked him up to a lie detector test and offered him $350 for his blunt views on immigration, here's what he'd say:

"My father worked his whole life, and when he died he left his family poor, hungry, with nothing. I'd rather die than have my wife and my daughter end up that way.

"When I came here my two friends got caught. I got through. My friend's cousin said he'd hire me for construction if I gave him my last $100. I've worked there for four years now, sending most of what I make home to my wife and kids.

"On the bus once someone asked me why I came here illegally, like a criminal. I never understood this. In my village the laws are for the rich people. They use the law to keep their power. If you are rich, you can break the law and no one stops you. For the poor, even if you follow the law, the police can say you broke it. You give them money or you go to jail.

"Then there is God's law. My mother taught the Bible to us as kids. Jesus said to honor God, and to treat others like you want to be treated. If you live with Mexican laws, you come to see that God made the laws a good man must follow.

"When I came here illegally I thought America was the same way. I understand now that Americans follow the laws more. I admire this. Still, I'd come illegally even today. Illegal immigration laws are like Mexican laws: The lucky people, the rich ones born in the U.S., are just using their power to get what they can from poor Mexicans. They let us work, but they make us illegal because if they let us in legally they'd have to pay us better.

"If America really doesn't want us coming here, then why do they let so many come? It is Americans who hire us. Yet we're blamed for coming here. We work hard. We make lots of money for Americans, and take just a little to send home to our families.

"You insult us for being illegal, but who enables us to be here?

"I'm proud to be here providing a future for my family. We Mexicans who make it across the desert, work hard and don't rob or cheat people should be proud. We live good Christian lives. That's why I wear the Mexican flag.

"I yearn to bring my wife and my daughter here. There isn't any future in our little town. If we could be here together, legally, then I'd fly the American flag every day. I'd tell my kids, this is a place where the law is fair for everyone.

"If my family can't come here, do you expect me to fly your flag? If you want to deport me, even though I work hard for Americans who hire me, do you expect me to love your country? If you call me a criminal, a dirty Mexican, but you let me stay as long as you can make money on me, do you expect me to respect the laws Americans break?

"What part of illegal don't you understand?"