"I know each one of you, like I know my own smell." - El Guapo,
addressing his cadre of banditos in the movie Three Amigos
Hola, amigos y amigas!
It is never easy to write about a funny thing when at its core, it isn't really funny. For those of you that don't know much about American history, large portions of the US were once populated by Mexicans, largely under Spanish rule. California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas and New Mexico all fell under the American flag and were permanently annexed as a result of the Mexican-American war in the late 1840's. A few years later, after a brief secession, some of these states were re-taken by northern forces in the American Civil war. Ironically, Texans will often boast "Don't mess with Texas", when in fact, messing with Texas was a common and not particularly dangerous past-time in the 19th century.
The Mexicans didn't do very well for themselves in the war and eventually surrendered. Their surrender was not unconditional, however, and various treaties allowed numerous groups of indigenous people to stay right where they were after the brutal series of conflicts in the southern American regions. One would think that a country having occupied such a large portion of Mexico might suffer the occasional pang of guilt that generally follows acts of extreme violence. No my friends, you will never be able to find an American who can tell you any more about the Mexican-American War than a likely fictional account of what happened to poor ol' Davy Crockett at the Alamo.
Oh my friends, today the Mexicans are feared in a wholly different way. Not because they will storm the Alamo with superior military forces, but because they often threaten to displace low paid workers there. The math is simple. In Mexico, wages are low to nonexistent and in the US, they are not. Mexicans are therefore inclined toward a higher monthly income and the brave ones head north across the border. Undocumented workers who cross the border "illegally" are often willing to work for less that the legal minimum wage, making it that much harder for a red-blooded American to find a shitty minimum wage job. Scary, scary, scary.
Strangely my friends, on America's northern border, First Nations people (formerly known as "Indians") are free to cross the Canada-US border without harassment or customs checks or anything. They have extra rights for being indigenous. Strangely, the indigenous people further south have no such rights. There are no provisions in the law at all that allows a Mexican to return to their ancestral homeland. It's clear from this, my gentle readers, that Americans do NOT fear Indians.
And so, when Americans talk about "Immigration", they are not talking about how many potato-munching Irish or sports contract-seeking Kenyans are going to pour into the country if "something isn't done". They are talking about Mexicans, the people whose land they stole and put up strip malls and miniature golf courses. Whatever will they do?
Take care my friends and live without fear until my next post.
Sir Robyn
