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
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