The Roots of Migration

YES! Weekly article

Being in Mexico, I was struck by the magnitude of the northern migration: Guatemalans, Hondurans, Salvadorans and Nicaraguans in Oaxaca City, preparing to travel through San Luis Potosi, Nuevo Laredo and then across yet another border into the United States; Oaxacans heading to Sinaloa and Baja California for construction jobs; Oaxacans heading virtually everywhere in the United States for work in Chinese restaurants; small tobacco farmers from Nayarit heading to North Carolina to work on large tobacco farms; Chinese immigrants reportedly shot by Mexican authorities in a van traveling through Veracruz.

As much as the staggering numbers of migrants I'm stunned by the utter brutality and exploitation of the process: Central Americans victimized by Mexican gangs that kidnap, rape and assault them; police and railroad employees that extort them; and coyotes that charge exhorbitant fees to take them across the border to the United States. And then there is the case of Farm Labor Organizing Committee organizer Santiago Rafael Cruz, who was murdered at his workplace in Monterrey in 2006. The likely reason is that the union's work cut into the profits of unscrupulous Mexican recruiting agencies previously in a position to demand illegal surcharges from workers applying to the H2-A guestworker progam.

This and more is detailed in my cover story, published today by YES! Weekly.

A brief overview of the history of US-Mexican relations

This painting (circa 1872) by John Gast called American Progress is an allegorical representation of Manifest Destiny. (Wikipedia)


United States acquired from Mexico, 1848 (Wikipedia)

By Ben Ansbacher

The United States of America and the United States of Mexico are neighbors on the North American continent. From its early history, the USA has played a dominant role over its neighbor, by virtue of its greater economic and military strength. Since its first century, the belief that the United States was God’s gift to the world has given it license to work its will on its neighbors.

On December 2, 1823, President James Monroe announced a United States policy which came to be known as the Monroe Doctrine. It warned the imperial European powers against interfering in the affairs of the newly independent Latin American states or potential United States territories. In other words, America reserved for itself the right to interfere in the affairs of its Latin neighbors.

The concept of Manifest Destiny was introduced in the 1840s. It was the historical belief that the United States was destined and divinely ordained by the God of Christianity to expand across the North American continent, from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean. Sometimes Manifest Destiny was interpreted so widely as to include the eventual absorption of all North America: Canada, Mexico, Cuba and Central America.

These values were the background for the Mexican War (1846-1848), won by the United States. A result was the Mexican cession which transferred California, Nevada, Arizona and Utah, as well as parts of New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming from Mexico to the United States. Along with statehood for Texas (1845), this transformed many Mexicans into American citizens.

As white Americans moved into the former Mexican territory, Mexican-Americans became second-class citizens. Now the role of Mexicans as original settlers of a significant part of the USA has been largely forgotten.

Over the years, the United States continued its involved with Mexico’s internal affairs. Porfirio Díaz was President of Mexico from 1876 until 1911 (except for four years). During that time he worked for economic reform in order to compete with the United States. He is remembered for saying, “Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States!”

Díaz was overthrown by Francisco Madero, who in turn was overthrown by Victoriano Huerta, with the backing of the US ambassador under President Taft. Huerta executed Madero with the tacit approval of the US ambassador. Shortly after that, Woodrow Wilson was inaugurated. He withdrew the ambassador and then reversed the US position and supported Venustiano Caranza in the overthrow of Huerta.

In 1917, Germany promised Mexico that it would get back the lands lost to the United States in the Mexican War if Mexico would only declare war against the United States. Caranza refused.

Lázaro Cárdenas became president in 1934. In 1938, during a strike, he took over the American oil companies in Mexico. The United States agreed to this on the condition that the companies receive fair payment, which was indeed paid during the 1940s. During World War II, Mexico manufactured war equipment in factories that the United States helped set up.

From World War II until 1970, Mexican presidents maintained close relations with the United Sates. Then after his election, Luís Echeverría Älvarez strained relations by cooperating with Cuba and Chile. Also at this time, illegal immigration and drug smuggling began to upset the United States. On the other hand, Mexican petroleum became a significant import for the United States.

In 1994, NAFTA joined Mexico more closely with the United States (and Canada) bringing mixed blessings, and giving the United States more control over the Mexican economy. Asked why the NAFTA treaty failed to protect Mexican growers of corn and beans, essential components of the Mexican diet, a US Embassy official, without defending the treaty, said that the terms had depended on the priorities and skills of the negotiators.

In the aftermath of 9/11, relations between the countries have changed, based on the US views of its security requirements. With little evidence of a threat, immigration enforcement has been beefed up, forcing Mexican emigrants, who followed a tradition of crossing without visas, into more dangerous routes of entry. A wall is being built, which puts the US in the same league as Soviet East Germany and Israel.

The rise of drug cartels in response to prohibition in the United States has become a Mexican problem both in violence among gangs and in widespread corruption. In response the United States, through the Mérida Initiative and the Security and Prosperity Partnership, is expanding its military influence and assistance throughout Mexico. Unfortunately, these forces may be used against protests by the poor, as well as against criminals.

In conclusion, one would hope that the United States, in deciding on policies towards Mexico, would put more weight on what is good for the majority of Mexicans and less on what it thinks is good politics in the United States.

Ben Ansbacher, a retired computer salesman from Burlington, NC, works with the group Fairness Alamance to support immigrants.

A delegate’s reflections on the Black-Brown connection

By Cynthia Brown

As a longtime activist and worker’s rights organizer, my peers and I advocated against the North American Free Trade Agreement because of its anticipated and now realized negative impact on workers and the environment within and outside U.S. borders. I have long since been concerned about the very real conflicts that have emerged over the years between African-American and Latino workers. The displacement experienced by African-American workers is a very real source of tension as a growing number of workers from Mexico, Latin- and Central America migrate into North Carolina and other states throughout the United States. I have observed and heard from poultry, textile and construction workers how that tension is exacerbated as employers make disparaging remarks to workers from both communities pitting them against each other. It is apparent this conflict between workers benefits employers who exploit the cheaper labor of documented and undocumented immigrants with the effect of suppressing the wages of all workers.

So, it was no surprise that I felt an affinity to my brother and sister immigrant workers from Mexico before I participated in the recent 10 day “Roots of Migration” trip with Witness for Peace. What amazed me was how deeply connected are the experiences of Mexican and other immigrants with that of the experiences of those of us who are descended of proud Africans who were enslaved here in the United States.

I was reminded of the experiences of enslaved people’s dangerous journey north within the United States toward freedom that was deeply dependent on stops in safe harbors along the Underground Railroad, as I sat in horror listening to the danger encountered by a Guatemalan woman leaving her home to seek work in the U.S. South. When I asked her why she had chosen to undertake the dangerous northward journey, she immediately recounted the fact that she and her husband had lost work in plants that had gone further south. Deeply emotional, she talked with tear-stained cheeks about the pain of not being able to pay her mortgage and feed her children. She talked about the vulnerability, danger and exploitation migrants face from “coyotes” — human traffickers who promise to help you across the U.S. border for an exorbitant fee. I was horrified by her experience of being left inside Mexico so that she had to hold on to the outside of a fast-moving train for five hours as she feared being raped and beaten by men traveling on the train and riding throughout the border area to prey on those like her desperately seeking a way to access work since there is no more work in her home country. Like those fleeing enslavement, she was clear that her safety to that point when we met her in Oaxaca City, had been deeply dependent on the kindness of strangers in a network of safe places she had been provided along her way.

As we visited with families in the remote, rural community of Cieneguilla, we heard over and over how families would rather stay at home if there were work. Instead time and again, able bodied male and female workers migrate north to toil in jobs that provide them enough money to send home to support children left behind with relatives for food, housing and school fees. Listening to these stories, conjured up memories of the Great Migration, the movement of approximately 7 million African Americans out of the Southern United States to the North, Midwest and West from 1916 to 1930. My ancestors migrated to escape racism, and like Mexican immigrants, left children with relatives “down South” as they sought employment opportunities in industrial cities, and better education for their children, all of which were widely perceived as leading to a better life.

The parallels were endless as I thought of a US economy that was built on the backs of free slave labor provided by my ancestors generations ago and the current US policy of exploiting the cheap and sometimes free labor of immigrants. Mexican advocacy for human rights protections from sometimes corrupt government operatives reminded me of African American struggles for civil, economic and political rights on the US side of the border.

This trip deepened my understanding of the reality that when one worker is oppressed all workers are vulnerable in a global economy. To strengthen workers’ conditions on both sides of the border will require a more just and humane immigration policy, a renegotiation of NAFTA that includes universal worker protections and a shift in US investment away from a failed strategy of increased police and military funding to fight a drug war to investment in living-wage job creation on both sides of the border and community-based drug treatment on the US side of the border to decrease or eliminate the demand for drugs.

Cynthia Brown is a 25-year social justice activist and organizer, part-time employee of the Conservation Fund, and founder/principal consultant of The Sojourner Group established in 2001. She has engaged community and non-profit organizational leaders in coalition building, organizing and advocacy on economic justice issues like workers’ rights, worker health and safety, welfare reform, anti-oppression (racism, sexism, class-ism, hetero-sexism, etc.), living wage work, environmental justice and sustainable development.

A delegation transformed

Roots of Migration delegation members Matt Emmick, Betty Marin, Ajamu Dillahunt and Tony Macias (l-r) prepare to visit the zocalo in Mexico City. (photo by Jordan Green)

By T. Anthony Spearman

The Witness for Peace delegation to Mexico City, Oaxaca and the countryside of Cieneguilla to explore the root causes of migration was a most amazing experience. The 10 days spent in Mexico were an immersion experience par excellence. Our delegation was comprised of two international team members and 20 delegates. Sixteen of the delegations lived in the state of North Carolina. Others rounding out the delegation were from Wisconsin, Georgia, Massachusetts and a representative from U.S Rep. David Price’s office in Washington, DC. I found the diversity of the delegation to be striking. The youngest delegate was a 17-year-old white female high school student. The oldest a 72-year-old white male. There were 11 males; eight white, two black and one biracial: nine females; six white, two black, one biracial and one other. A number of professions were respresented among us, including professors, justice workers, journalists, clergy, attorney and community and political activists. The delegation brought together a wealth on knowledge, experience and willingness to initiate change.

The willingness of the delegation to be change agents was apparent as they began to break down some barriers within before tackling the barriers without. The international team in their preparation saw fit to include a very creative exercise on race, diversity and privilege using the work of Peggy McIntosh. We were asked to join hands while a member of the international team posed questions and invited us to move forward or backward as the question affected us positively or negatively. A few of the delegates including the entire black contingent and those identifying themselves as other and biracial were left far behind the white members of the delegation. Time would not permit full processing of the exercise and the implications therefrom but we soon learned that a higher authority demanded a revisiting of the exercise.

Interestingly enough while traveling to Oaxaca a couple of days later, the bus driver made a derogatory racial comment to one of the black delegates which was overheard by one of the biracial delegates. The comment was, “Quieres tu nino?” Do you want your baby or did you come for your child? There was a darker skinned child in the community whom I’m sure would have to endure a number of racist remarks over the course of his life. It was quite apparent that racism sets an un-level stage in Mexico as it does in the United States. This was the case in Cineguilla, as many of the children there remarked “negro” and “moreno” among other comments. Tortino, one of the darker skinned children could never bring himself to interact fully with me and I could not help but to wonder what kinds of stories he has heard. Nonetheless, by the end of our time there I got him to shake my hand.

When the delegation returned to the city of Oaxaca, an opportunity to deeply process presented itself and layers of superficiality began rolling away. I came away encouraged by the work begun by this group. Some things that grow in the darkness were brought to the light of exposure. When that occurs, transformation can take place.

T. Anthony Spearman is pastor of African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Hickory, NC, and the president of the Hickory branch NAACP.

From Durham to Cieneguilla

Chickens peck at feed outside a home in Cieneguilla near a brick house under construction, paid for by funds from remittances sent back from the United States. (photo by Jordan Green)

By Dr. Steven A. Channing

It is raining in Cieneguilla, high in the mountains of southern Mexico. I listen to the sounds outside the window of my host family’s home: rain pattering on tin roofs, turkeys gobbling, children laughing. It’s a good moment to reflect on the 1,800 mile journey I’ve taken almost to the border of Guatemala, as one of 20 delegates with the organization Witness for Peace. For the past 25 years, Witness has shepherded “gringos” to places south of the U.S. border, to observe and sometimes help amend the effects of U.S. economic, political and military policies in Latin America. I am here to better understand the roots of migration from Mexico and Central America to Durham and countless other communities across North Carolina and the United States.

Concerned about the drumbeat of fearful calls against supposed “illegal alien” threats to our economy and national security, I chose to come to Mexico, and specifically to this little village of Cieneguilla, for a surprising number of young men and women from this place have lived and worked – are living and working today! – in Durham. They look familiar to me, short of stature, their skin a bronzed brown, black eyes and hair…. you’ve seen them too, busing our tables and cooking our food in local restaurants, painting and hammering, cleaning our toilets. From this little place of barely 2,000 souls, many hundreds have passed through our city, walking and working among us, seen and invisible.

Why do they take the long, expensive and dangerous journey to Durham? Frankly, this mountain-top community is prettier, and unlike Durham, at least thus far, they have chickens and turkeys in their back yards! They love their ancient Indian culture – Chatino is everyone’s first language, Spanish second, a smattering of English third. They leave a tight, tradition-bound place for the disorienting individualism of American life, to be hassled and hustled, charged upwards of $2,000 to be spirited across desert borders at night, be separated from families, often for years, to work 12 and 14 hour days off the books. They come for the same reason my grandparents came from Europe a century ago, to feed hungry children, to find jobs where there were none at home, do work many of us would find demeaning. They come in order to send remittances home that have helped lift up the lives of the old folks and children left behind.

Most of us are familiar with this story, and I understand how the current economic downturn has accentuated the fear. But would we be as hostile as many are if these folks were white, Canadian “illegals” desperately trying to earn meager livings? Do we understand how U.S. trade policies, including NAFTA, have crushed small farmers, as they benefit corporate agri-businesses? Do we acknowledge how an insatiable appetite for marijuana and cocaine and heroin right here in the United States is what’s really driving the “drug wars” south of our borders?

Like most of his friends, my host came to work in Durham not to stay but to return and live in Cieneguilla with a modest but real improvement his and his family’s life. They now live in a small concrete home he built for $1,200 with the money he earned following three years of harsh and unfriendly conditions working on North Roxboro Street. They no longer live in what is now the chicken coop, and to me at least, that seems like a good argument for a more fair and humane trade and immigration policy. I don’t claim to know exactly what it would look like, I just hope for a change for the better, in Durham and world wide.

Dr. Steven A. Channing is a historian and documentary filmmaker in Durham, NC.