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Love America? Buy Mexican.
Gustavo Arellano
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TEXT OF COMMENTARY
Kai Ryssdal: When she was in Latin America last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton promised that the Obama administration is going to do more to fight drug violence. That violence has been a particular problem in Mexico. It has disrupted everyday life in some parts of the country. It's adding to the strain on the Mexican economy. And it's affecting immigration here.
Commentator Gustavo Arrellano explains how.
GUSTAVO ARRELLANO: A friend gave me a belt a couple of months ago but not just any length of leather. It's a "cinto pitiado" -- an arabesque piece of art traditional to the Mexican home state of our parents, Zacatecas. Each is crafted over weeks, woven with threads derived from the agave plant. Mine is mid-level nice, and it's still worth hundreds of dollars. And great to hide the biggest guts, too!
My amigo gave it to me for free under one condition. He asked -- pleaded, really -- that I tell everyone I could about the cinto pitiado, and urge them to buy one.
Zacatecas is suffering a Gran Recession like us. But there, it's exacerbated by something far more sinister -- the narco wars. Gone are the days when caravans of folks from my family's ancestral villages drove from Southern California to their Mexican homes and return with their trucks crammed with local goodies. We were just some of the hundreds of thousands of Zacatecan expats who annually injected their home state's economy with millions.
We can tolerate police bribes, but kidnappings and ransom notes? No.
Even worse, the narco wars have put a chokehold on Mexico's longtime lifeline to First World status: the money immigrants send back home. It ranks second only to oil as a source of revenue to the country's economy. Mexicans now have to think twice before wiring cash to their loved ones south of the border. The wrong people may notice and shake them down.
But still, Mexico needs money from its emigrants. Mexicans already have informal economic networks, but perhaps the American government can lessen tariffs on artisan goods from Mexico. It'll motivate more Mexicans on both sides to create import businesses and lessen Mexico's current dependence on emigrant money.
Oh, and for the anti-immigrant loons in the audience? What are you doing listening to Marketplace? But seriously: Buying Mexican will keep more Mexicans in Mexico and fend off the invasion. Love America: buy Mexican.
RYSSDAL: Gustavo Arellano writes the "Ask A Mexican" column for the Orange County Weekly.
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google search of "cinto piteado" shows pictures and websites....even a youtube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKyatQw4Reo)
Gustavo makes circuitous humor with this issue, "Love American? Buy Mexican." The immigration issue isn't something new. The population explosion - worldwide - isn't new. Trying to suddenly stop both on accounts of finally being a target of terrorism is silly at best, and "loony" at worst, (especially when you see how we practically ignored the latter in Northern Ireland for 30 years).
My grandfather came here at the age of 14 when Pancho Villa stole some of his father's horses. He didn't want to leave the country of his birth, but he had to. He joked about it later though, when describing the situation in his father's flippant attitude by saying "That United States, I hear she's a pretty nice country. Maybe you ought to go see what it's like before that Villa puts you in his lousy army, that stinking horse thief!" Grampa never would have left Mexico if he didn't have to. By all accounts he would miss it for the rest of his life. He did well if you call slaving away in a steel mill for 47 year well. He raised seven kids by himself after his wife ran off! He sent money home even during the Great Depression. He only got his citizenship on the Bi-centennial year, and never attempted to sneak back across the border to visit. We went to El Paso once to visit a sister who lived there, but that's as close as he ever got.
For me, Mexico and the United States have a special relationship. Both started out as rivals in the old world's conquest of the new. They should act like family members having grown so close alongside one another, and yes, they should in that have some boundaries. We can overcome these problems.
Mexico needs something to compete against the industry of drug supply that the USA's astronomical demand has created. It all goes back to economics and opportunity. If you have good opportunities you wouldn't mess with drugs! The way the Feudal system in England died out was in steady diversification of trade. So yeah, Love America? Buy Mexican.
I agree with Mr. Arrellano. The dislocations created for the people of Mexico and their relatives and friends in the USA by the narco traffickers are our problems, too. Mexicans are our neighbors, for goodness' sake. Let's treat them as such a be good neighbors to them.
I find it amusing that the anti-immigration loons cannot tell the difference between a NPR program and an APM program. Besides are these not the same people who complain about people using "Politically Correct" speech. They really need to look in the mirror, before claiming the moral high ground.
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