Will The U.S. Ever Divorce Mexico Or Will Mexico Ever Divorce The U.S.?

    
     Whether we admit it or not, it is impossible for Mexico and the United States to divorce. Impossible, because the United States and Mexico are chained together, although each country calls the river that links them by a different name.

     Of all Latin American countries, Mexico is the most economically dependent on the United States. This pitiful economic dependency keeps growing. It is a basic fact that Mexicans know and fear.
     During the 1980’s Mexico’s economic growth averaged zero, but there were a million new hands looking for work every year. The International Monetary Fund tried, during the 1990’s, to turn the screws of free market and free trade designed by the old Scotsman, Adam Smith. However, there was little economic growth; but every year there were at least a million new hands looking for work.
     In the United States there is a demand for cheap Mexican labor to clean toilets in Houston, wait on tables in Vail, work in the mines near Albuquerque, and the packing houses of Chicago, the fruit fields of Napa. Most North Americans won’t do this work for such low wages, so demand for cheap labor is steady. The supply, therefore, is ready to hand. For this reason, millions of Mexicans looking for work food into the United States.
     An invisible hand, said old Adam Smith, guides supply to meet demand: and this time the ancient professor from Edinburgh is right. In 1970, there were 8,000,000 Mexicans in the United States; in 1990, there are 20,000,000; by 2010, there will be over 40,000,000.
     I hear complaints that “wetbacks” are taking jobs away from the North Americans. Who’s fault is it? The Mexicans? The North Americans? Or both?
     Personally, the situation with illegal Mexicans can best be explained with a cartoon I once saw while in Mexico during Easter in the early 90’s. A Mexico City cartoon had four frames. One: Uncle Sam drops his pants and a Mexican peasant injects heroin into his behind while Uncle slips him a wad of bills. Sam says: “Oh, how you corrupt me!” Two: the peasant hands a reefer to Uncle Sam and pockets bills. “Oh, how you corrupt me!” Three: the peasant gives Sam a whiff of cocaine and takes the bills. Four: Uncle Sam screams: “Stop corrupting me!” and the peasant shrugs his answer: “I aint got no work.” He pockets more bills.
     Here we have the economic law of supply and demand. Millions in the United States want to shoot, puff and sniff the stuff and more than half the Mexicans have no fixed work. Many find work cultivating poppies and pot or moving Peruvian coke to secret warehouses near the United States border.
     Such is the supply and demand employment situation of illegal aliens in the United States. Locally, are illegal aliens taking all jobs away from Brown County residents? Most people would say, “Yes!” I say, “No!” Why? Start looking at the Sunday edition of the Green Bay Press-Gazette and you will note that there are many jobs available. I would like to know why these jobs aren’t being filled by Brown County residents.

     I am fully aware that many of these jobs do require a college degree. But, shouldn’t those Brown County residents who act and talk like they are better and smarter than illegal aliens, therefore, have the necessary education? Or did the illegal aliens use up all the available financial aid at the colleges and universities and further supplement their income with AFDC payments?

     Do I sound off the wall? I’m only repeating what I have heard some Brown County residents state as facts these past thirty-seven years that I have lived in Brown County.

     This much I do know! If I was not able to provide food, clothing, and shelter for my wife and daughter in the United States, I would legally or illegally seek employment in another country. If because of my love for my wife and daughter I was labeled an illegal alien, I could care less. Worse things have happened to me as a fourth generation law abiding citizen of the United States.

Antonio G. Saldaña

The Six Logs

Have you ever participated in a Whodunit? A mystery novel, play, etc. in which a crime is solved at the end by the principal character, usually a detective, using clues scattered throughout the story. If you have never been afforded the opportunity, here is your chance.
First of all, the following poem will be used in place of a novel or a play. Second, choose one principal character in the poem. Third, whoever you choose as the principal character that is the character you will become in order to solve the mystery. Fourth, you will not receive any clues. Fifth, I welcome letters from anyone who feels they solved the mystery. And finally, the mystery that you must solve is, “Who or What Killed the Following Six Humans?”

Six humans trapped by happenstance
In black and bitter cold.
Each one possessed a stick of wood,
Or so the story’s told.


Their dying in need of logs,
The first man held his back;
For on the faces around the fire
He noticed one was black.

The next man, looking cross the way,
Saw one not of his church,
And couldn’t bring himself to give
The fire his stick of birch.

The third one sat in tattered clothes.
He gave his coat a hitch.
Why should his log be put to use
To warm the idle rich!

The rich man just sat back and thought
Of the wealth he had in store;
And how to keep what he had earned
From the lazy, shiftless poor.

The black man’s face bespoke revenge,
As the fire passed from sight;
For all he saw in his stick of wood
Was a chance to spite the white.

The last man of this forlorn group
Did nought except for gain,
Giving only to those who gave
Was how he played the game.

Their logs held tight in death’s still hands
Was proof of human sin.
They didn’t die from the cold without;
They died from the cold within.
(Unknown)

Were these six deaths senseless?

Was it necessary that they perish? What life experience(s) caused each individual to ignore the good they held in their hand? Did each of them fully comprehend that by not allowing the good in their hand to achieve its purpose meant their death? Was Plautus correct when he said that “No man is wise enough by himself.”

Will you withhold your log or use it wisely!

Antonio G. Saldaña

Feature Column For Expressing My Thoughts And Ideas

     On Tuesday, January 13, 1998, the Green Bay Press-Gazette carried a story entitled Man’s voice, lost for 19 years, restored: Larynx transplant declared a success. In a nutshell, the story informed the reader that “a man who lost his voice in a motorcyle accident 19 years ago rasped ‘Hello’ and ‘Hi mom’ just three days after the first larynx transplant since 1969.”

     I am almost certain that such a story went unnoticed due to Super Bowl XXXII. Timothy Heidler, the forty-year-old gentleman who received the transplant could not compete with the likes of Brett Favre, Antonio Freeman, Reggie White and other such greats in a town who adore the sport of football. It caught my attention because it brought back a lifetime of memories.

     At birth, I was born with voice complications that were to remain with me until age thirty-two. As far back as I can remember, I was always losing my voice for extended periods of time. This problem manifested itself a lot stronger once I began school and especially reared its ugly head during the winter months.

     Because the cold months compounded the problem, the doctors always treated me for a sore throat and told my parents I was very sensitive to cold weather.

     On a daily basis, my throat always felt like there was something stuck in it. For this reason, I was constantly clearing my throat to the point of causing it to bleed.

     In my elementary schooling, some of my teachers gave my parents their unsolicited medical diagnosis. They felt that my voice loss was more “psychological” than “physical.” They could not have been more wrong!

     Because my family did migrant work, we traveled to different states and thus attended various schools.

One school district in particular decided they had the perfect answer to my “psychological” problem. They began sending me to a speech therapist.

 I remember that the therapist was a very nice lady who wore bright red lipstick. I also recall the difficulty in trying to produce the simple sound necessary to speak the word “he.”

     I was able to graduate from high school and college without having major problems with my voice. In college I earned a teaching degree in Spanish and immediately found a full-time job. Several years of teaching took its toll on my voice.

     In one of the school districts I taught, I became friends with a teacher whose father-in-law happened to be a medical doctor. He wanted me to meet his father-in-law and one day the opportunity presented itself after school. After conversing with him for a few minutes, he asked if my voice always sounded harsh and raspy. I explained that this was a lifelong problem.

     He suggested a well-known doctor in Madison who specialized in throat problems. Several visits to the doctor revealed that my problem was not “psychological” but “congenital .”

      I had been born with a deformity in my throat as a direct result of mom inhaling pesticides that were sprayed on the crops she harvested as a migrant worker.

     I felt very angry towards the people who had insisted my condition had been psychological. Several months after the operation, I decided to let the anger go. Why? “A still small voice spake unto me, ‘Thou art so full of misery, Were it not better not to be.” (Alfred Lord Tennyson).

     In the coming weeks, I am due for a check up but expect that all will go well. If things go accordingly, I will silently say of the doctor and everyone involved, “I thank you for your voices, thank you, your most sweet voices.” (Shakespeare).

     Remember, just because a doctor cannot diagnose a medical problem it does not mean that an individual is not sick. Sometimes it is better not to voice an unsolicited opinion.

Antonio G. Saldaña