16th article by Cendrars

Mexican-U.S. Border Talking Points
by Marcelle Cendrars

“…a labor supply which, on the one hand, is ready and willing to meet the short term work requirements and which, on the other hand, will not impose social and economic problems on them or on their community when the work is finished…. The demand for migratory workers is thus essentially two-fold: to be ready to go to work when needed; to be gone when not needed.” — Kitty Calavita (1)

When confronted with someone who’s too quick to laud “defending our borders” in talk, try some of what’s below. A mere baby step in the direction of significant change:

1. Ask them where they get their current information from other than mainstream outlets. AND –putting them on the spot– casually ask whether or not they’re familiar with some of the historic moments or the details of NAFTA. Do that in a non-threatening way, in a manner that does not humiliate. Briefly.  Then, during one of your pregnant pauses, recommend that they read No One Is Illegal: Fighting Racism and State Violence on the U.S.-Mexico Border by Justin Akers Chacon and Mike Davis. (2)
Translation: What the hell do you know? Think about that. Do something about it.

2. Ask them if they know how the U.S. expropriated and annexed what was northern Mexico territories. Then ask them if they know when that happened. The U.S. had    occupied California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada Utah Colorado, and parts of Wyoming and Oklahoma, and when the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) was ratified, Mexico lost those territories, AND was forced to drop all claims to Texas. All that represented half of Mexico’s land, AND three-fourths of its non-human resources.
Translation: What exactly was stolen from Mexico? How long ago? Meaning?

3. The unwarranted invasion of Mexico demonstrates the global-historic process by which wealthier nations forcibly subdue less developed nations for the purpose of economic exploitation.
Translation: Part of an arrogant, destructive pattern here?

4. As part of Manifest Destiny Syndrome, the racist rape of Mexico sought to justify the nullification of Mexican and Indian sovereignty and territorial integrity in tandem with westward expansion.
Translation: Racism has been intertwined with theft and greed throughout our history.

5. Read the following Thomas Jefferson words of 1801:

“However our present interests may restrain us within our limits, it is impossible not to look forward to distant times, when our rapid multiplication will expand beyond those limits, and cover the whole northern if not the southern continent.”

An option is to provide a handout for them to read (out loud, preferably) in your presence. Regardless, you can underscore that our crude materialistic philosophy declared that our economic and other institutions were superior to that of others, AND that that gave us the right to transcend borders.
Translation: Essentially a repetition of #4. To elaborate, drive the point home, underscoring arrogance, questioning fundamental intentions today, subliminally.

6. Newly acquired lands were promised to poor people of “other races” who fought to displace the Mexicans and Indians.
Translation: Highlighting how soldiers were recruited, and spotlighting the indigenous element.

7. Inhabitants of Mexico’s former territories (who remained) were treated like second-class citizens, AND robbed of their riches and rights in clear violation of promises delineated in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Demoralization and destitution were brought about at this juncture, making the vast majority to the ranks of the working class at best. As per the Federal Land Act of 1851, they were legally violated.
Translation: The downward spiral was a function, in great part, of disregard for law.

8. Blatant racial attitudes circulated in official circles, providing ideological cover for U.S. expansionism, while also creating an outlet for the pressures of class inequality. Poor farmers and laborers migrating into what was Mexican territory were given opportunities denied them in the established states back east. This made things easier for elites who owned most of the territory of the initial U.S. land-grab (from Native Americans). It diffused class consciousness, by making poor easterners compete with “the lower races,” AND helped capitalists with later land consolidation for railroads, mining, and agricultural interests.
Translation: Racism, from the beginning, defined Anglo/Mexican AND U.S./Mexico relations. Also, a repetition of #6, with an underscoring of capitalist vested interest. AND an introduction of the role of class tensions.

9. Enabled by the compliant dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz (1876-1911), U.S. capital flooded into the veins of the Mexican economy. Suffering one invasion every ten years between 1820 and 1921, and other debilitating events, encouraged U.S. administrations to become extremely opportunistic with Mexico. The U.S. has a long history of intervening in Mexican affairs to guarantee pro-U.S. business attitudes/interests.
Translation: What role have corrupt Mexican officials, tainted by the lure/impact of uninterrupted foreign influences, played in the downward spiral of Mexicans?

10. As early as the 1920s, U.S. interests controlled 80% of Mexican railroads, 81% of mining’s total capital, and 61% of total investment in the oil fields. Rail lines made it easy for workers to follow the flow of Mexico’s wealth as it traveled to U.S. markets and banks.This resulted in mass dislocation of Mexican workers. Foreign interests ensured that by 1910, believe it or not, 96% of Mexican families were landless, and that the artisan class in the cities was displaced.
Translation: Follow the money, you’ll follow the labor, and you’ll be able to follow the gist of what’s been going on. “Conspiracy” on a Grand Scale.

11. Mexico is manipulated into piling up astronomical neo-liberal loans, amounting to half of the total of Mexico’s exports (mostly oil to the U.S.)…while simultaneously being forced to restructure their society so that the wages of the Mexican worker fell faster than in any other Latin American nation over the last few decades, AND one of the most massive transfers of wealth from poor to rich nations world history takes place.
Translation: Something’s rotten in the state of NAFTA…and beyond.

12. While the standard of living for Mexico’s workers and poor reaches the level of catastrophe (with 80% of Mexicans in poverty), and laborers on both sides of the border suffer unconscionably on all counts (including toxic exposure for child labor), migrants become plentiful, the playthings (wage-wise) of U.S. beneficiaries.
Translation: Why should U.S. citizens, let alone U.S. business exploiters, care about granting concessions to Mexicans while holding all the cards (Mexico being almost entirely dependent on the U.S. for trade), and $3.3 billion is pumped out of their pockets for the San Diego economy alone?

13. Only 1% of the Mexican population risks life and limb to cross the border. That gets ALL the attention of vigilantes, governors and the average uneducated citizen in the U.S. But virtually no attention to paid to the windfall profits of U.S.-backed corporations (like GM, Dupont and Dow Chemical) operating on Mexican territory. AND NO ATTENTION WHATSOEVER IS PAID TO THE ASTONISHING FACT THAT by 1996, twenty-four Mexican families had joined the ranks of the world’s one hundred wealthiest families. (3)
Translation: Not everyone is suffering on the mundane plane. Boy, can people be ignorant…and unfeeling. See the “Translation” under #10 above again.

The above is a baker’s dozen to provoke thought, AND, hopefully, action. Let me know if you need additional help. This just barely scratches the surface of what’s soooo unseemly.

Footnotes:
(1) Inside the State: The Bracero Progam, Immigration and the INS (New York: Routledge, 1992), p. 21. The defeat of the labor movement in the fields in the late 30s encouraged U.S. growers to continue using immigrant labor, as a guarantee against union incursions…to the benefit of agricultural capitalism up through today. There is a long history of “guest workers” being seriously abused…with “good” laws un-enforced.
(2) The author has borrowed shamelessly here from the Chacon/Davis work. The words aren’t always the author’s, but this presentation –and the degree to which it is effective, or not– certainly is. Their work is invaluable.
(3) From another Haymarket book, updated in 2006, Eric Touissant’s Your Money Or Your Life: The Tyranny of Global Finance (p. 135)

Marcelle Cendrars, whose solidarity with Mexican farmworkers can be traced back to the supporting Teatro Campesino in the mid-60s. is reachable at bcendra[at]yahoo[dot]com. The author is convinced that positive, significant change is possible, and she is actively involved in California in doing something about the status quo.