The Plight of the Unauthorized Immigrant Worker

[Cleita]

This is a rough draft of something I am working on as a letter to the editor. I just heard some bitch on C-Span this morning calling in about illegal immigrants and how are we going to get rid of them? I had to say something that needs to be printed in the mainstream media somewhere. I don't want to put it up in GD for obvious reasons.

Criminalization of unauthorized immigrant workers (a definition preferred by the Pew Hispanic Center) by calling them “illegals” needs to change in the light of historical evidence. Most of them are not criminals, in the real definition of the word, and the very few who engage in criminal activity are amateurs. The real criminals know how to bribe and buy their way around our system. Back in the ante-bellum south runaway slaves also broke the law and became “illegals” chased by dogs and bounty hunters if they couldn’t reach the north in time.

The unauthorized immigrant workers, who are attempting to escape from oppression, economic servitude and poverty have traditionally looked to “el norte” for salvation and hope in their bleak lives, risking crossing the border illegally and living like hunted animals while trying to survive. The present day protests and civil unrest in Oaxaca, Mexico, that are getting very little press in this country, points to this, the root problem of the historical immigration north.

When they come here they find prejudice, low wages and many times find themselves virtually enslaved to unscrupulous business interests. These new “illegals” are victims not criminals much as the runaway slaves were back then. Yes, they broke laws, but unjust laws. They weren’t the real criminals.

It’s time for Americans to divest their racist heritage and to really look at this problem objectively. First we need to stop thinking in terms of borders and more in term of boundaries between countries. In prehistoric times, tribes often claimed certain territories for pasture and resources, boundaries, but there were no borders until historic times. Boundaries shifted depending on the tribes in charge. Even so people passed through these boundaries unmolested for trade. Many of them stayed intermarrying with the resident tribe.

Often there were wars for control of certain prized resources. Then the winning tribe would take over and enslave the indigenous population that was left. This is what happened here. Europeans came, conquered and enslaved. Borders are written in the dirt and on maps, a necessity that happened in Europe back in Roman through medieval times to keep the Mongolian hordes from crossing into Europe for plunder. Here in the New World the invading Europeans set up borders although there were no invading Mongolians as there had been in Eurasia.

In the New World, the conquering Europeans set up borders where once there were only boundaries. In the nineteenth century the last of the indigenous slaves along with African slaves, who had been imported to this New World in shackles found themselves in the bottom rung of the economic ladder even after they were freed from bondage. This economic class system exists until today. Yet, indigenous people cross borders with few problems in most Latin American countries where the Spaniards and Portuguese colonized the Americas. Even here in America, before 9/11 changed things, Americans and Canadians used to cross quite freely between their countries.

But somewhere along the line the USA/Mexico border became a bone of contention with Americans prior to the events of 9-11, which is being used to blame everything that’s wrong with America today as well as launch pre-emptive wars for plunder even though these problems existed before. This has to stop. We need level headed thinking to solve what is being presented as a problem. There is a problem, but the problem isn’t the one being concocted and presented to Congress. The real problem is that we have populations of starving, underprivileged people within driving distance of our more affluent cities.

So how about starting to think in terms of boundaries instead of borders.? The affluent American cities have jobs available that could go to the bottom underclass of Latin American if they are allowed to cross into the north for the purpose of looking for work. If they find work, they need to be protected by our laws, encouraged to join unions and encouraged to learn our language and culture if they intend to stay here. Talk of building walls and other nonsense doesn’t solve the real problem. It only solves the problem in the heads of those who don’t want anyone who doesn’t look and speak like them being a co-worker and neighbor.

How do we go about changing the character of the average American for the good of America?