A cause to unite Latin AmericaVenezuelan liberator Simon Bolivar once wrote in his ‘Letter from Jamaica’ that the nations that now comprise Spanish-speaking Latin America should naturally be drawn to common causes, due to their “common origin, language, customs, and religion”. Over the years Pan Americanism floated in and out of intellectual fashion, though fading through the years as individual nations developed separate experiences and national identities.
Latin America has experienced a surge in continental identity in recent months, as their northern neighbor threatens to build a fence that will physically slice the hemisphere in half. If there was ever cause to make a collective protest against the United States, it is this. Nearly every country south of the proposed wall has a sizeable ex-patriate population in the US, and some, like El Salvador, receive significant proportions of their GDP from remittances.
By proposing the wall and attempting to make illegal immigration a felony, lawmakers are isolating an area of the world that we should have excellent ties with. There is no evidence that illegal immigrants are any more a source of crime or a drain on the economy than the proportion of our own population that is below the poverty line. Congress has made a new set of enemies at a time when we so desperately need friends.
latin america, border, Immigration, Illegal immigration, Politics
!dale, taylor! a cause indeed, despite whatever the wingnuts say!
ReplyDeletepersonally, i've never understood why those who are so agitated by migrant workers are so willing to espouse a cause that would, essentially, shoot taxpaying american 'citizens' in the foot (or the pocketbook, if you will).
unless they folks really like the idea of paying $9.00 for a head of lettuce? or am i just missing all of the folks in nyc who are eager to work picking vegetables at below minimum wage?
the bottom line? tighter immigration controls lead to domestic inflation. and product shortages. now, how well do you think that would play in rick santorum's district?
siga la lucha, taylor,
dkp
:D Coming up next, my ranting and raving against US farm subsidies.
ReplyDeleteThe wall is mostly being pushed by nuts from places like here (Arizona). Now, the obvious way to stem illegal immigration would be something like the McCain plan (allowing those already here to work and pay taxes legally-- would go a long way towards fixing Social Security while we are at it) while handing out prison sentences to those who hire people without proper documentation after everyone currently here is accounted for and given legal documents.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that starting in 1923 (the year that Isaac Asimov referred to when he wrote the line that will always stick in my mind: 'the year the Golden Door slammed shut.') there has been a disconnect between legal immigration quotas (what Congress wished them to be) and actual immigration (driven by market economics.) So we now have, after decades of accumulated differences, millions (maybe even as many as 20 million) people who we don't know about living in America. And people complain that today's immigrants don't assimilate. Well, they can't assimilate very well culturally when the culture locks them out!
But the nuts who want to build the wall, are also fools who don't realize any of this.
As to a 'United States of Latin America' (Brazil would I suspect refuse to join, seeing themselves already as somewhat of an international player), it is an intriguing idea, but are you aware of anyone in a position to make things happen who has actually proposed such a system? The EU would probably be the model (and there are certainly bigger linguistic differences within the EU than there are within Latin America) but even there, the transition has been bumpy.
Eli Blake said : "Brazil would I suspect refuse to join" a 'United States of Latin America'. Or maybe spanish speaking countries wouldn't like...
ReplyDeleteThe fact is Mercosur already exists but didn't succeed until now to really strenghen the links between the 4 members like EU did.