LATINO MYTHS
1 Xi Wang
LATINO MYTHS
2
Cover Letter
Dear Jenny,
In this submission, I am trying to use nine pieces of evidence to
show the common myths used in describing the Latino.
For this submission, I concentrated most of my efforts on
providing the facts that refute the myths 1 and 2 because they
are entirely inaccurate. For the first myth, the shreds that
disprove the myths are that Latino are not a homogenous group;
Latino do not exist naturally, and they do not have racial
features to identify them quickly. Facts that refute the second
myth include; Latino in America pay taxes, Latino work for
their money, and they have limited access to government
support. Lastly, the third myth on Latino being unregistered
immigrants is refuted by the fact that there is a law to control
the influx of people in different regions in the U.S., immigrant
policies identify and classify them as Americans, and there is
increased naturalization of the Mexican immigrants.
What I struggled with most in myth one was differentiating
between the first and the third evidence of refuting. For the
second myth, I struggle with differentiating points on laziness
and Latino coming to destroy the American economy. If I were
given more time, I would work on strengthening my refutation
by developing more evidence on the myths. In the third myth, I
struggled with identifying the various policies related to
different shreds of evidence.
I think the most substantial parts of this submission are the
ability to learn, integrate, and even internalize all the
knowledge and eventually to put it down on paper as an essay.

A question I have for you is: Have you ever had such myths and
misconceptions on the Latino?
Sincerely,
Xi Wang
Please help me to revise the essay with the red comments as
well as grammar if you find any. and all the revision need to be
done along with “track change” No outside or additional sources
need, and you may keep every source has mentioned in this
paper.
Introduction
In America, various myths and misconceptions have been
developed to define Latino. Often, these myths and negative
thus affecting the lives of the Latino. In this paper, three myths
are presented together with shreds of evidence that refute their
applicability and relevance. The first myth about Latino is that
they are homogeneous; they naturally exist, and that Latino is
easily identifiable among other people. Nonetheless, the myth is
incorrect as Latino are not homogenous because they originate
from different backgrounds. Besides, they are did not naturally
exist in America. Still, they are as a result of immigration, and
they are do not have characteristics that make them be easily
identified.
The second myth about Latino is that they came to
America to take over the government; they are extremely lazy
and that they are dependent on the government support
programs. As well, the myth is incorrect because Latino also
pay taxes to the government; they often encourage productivity
and investment in America. Finally, Latino do not necessarily
depend on government support, given that there are strict
eligibility requirements that hinder them from using the
services.
The final myth is that Latino is unregistered immigrants in
America. The myth is refuted by the evidence that there are
several policies established to control the arrival of immigrants
from different regions, there are policies help register the
immigrants, and increasing level of naturalizing Immigrants

from Mexico. The paper elaborates on the nine shreds of
evidence that refute the three myths, each myth containing three
pieces of evidence.
Myth 1 (Please help me to come up with one topic sentence for
myth1 based on what I have in the introduction and the whole
myth1 content, so that make the transaction between each myth
more fluent and concise. )
Latino comprises of several sub-groups with different ancestry
One of the typical stereotypes and mentality regarding the
Latinos in America is that they have a shared ethnic
background. Latin America is a group of Latin people who
originate from different nationalities with unique linguistically
(Holloway, 2008, p.5). Antiago-Valles & Jiménez-Muñoz assert
that the idea of homogeneity is quite extensive to the extent of
some politicians treating Latino Americans as culturally unified
people. It is racially diverse, so making the ethnic category
rather than a race (Gutiérrez, 2008, p.129). Technically, anyone
from central, South America and the Caribbean can be described
as Latino because the regions were previously empires of
Spanish, Portuguese, and French.
Furthermore, the Identity of Latino differs from the region they
inhabit. In the United States, Latino are defined in terms of
their nationalities or the countries that they originated. For
example, in the case of the Midwest and Southwest, Latinos are
people who originally came from Mexico. In the eastern part of
America, particularly New York and Boston regions, Latino are
people who are considered to have limitations of
communications with the Dominicans and Puerta Ricans (Meier
& Melton, 2012, p.737). In this case, Latinos are defined by
their inability to communicate with o people other in the region.
In the case of Miami, Cubans, and Central America, Latinos are
groups for interpreting Latin America. They are people who live

in Latin America.
Latino is made of People with Diverse Cultures
Generally, Latino has different cultures and background as they
are immigrants from other nations. It is not easy to classify
them as people from a particular region like South America due
to the specific culture and practices they uphold altogether.
Latino as a group have a rich and diverse history from the
indigenous culture, European colonization, African slavery, and
global immigration. As a result, it is sophisticated and
challenging to describe with a single identifier. Like the case of
difference between the southern accent and east coast accent,
the subgroups in Latino also have original dialects (Betancur,
2012, p34). For instance, the Spanish spoken by Latino in Chile
is hardly recognized by those in Argentina or Peru. Besides,
Spanish and Portuguese are not the only languages spoken by
Latino. Others use Guarani, Haitian Creole, Quechua, and even
Dutch. The difference in the dialect implies that they all have
different origins and may also fail to understand each other due
to the language barrier.
In the United States, Espitia states that Latino originated from
different countries and had different cultures. Culture refers to
the learned system of knowledge, beliefs, norms, attitudes,
values, and behaviors shared by a group of people. Each of the
Latino nations has a unique way in which people tend to think,
conduct themselves, and even practice. For that reason, they are
tied between practicing their native culture and that of the
country they live in. For instance, in the case of Mexican-
Americans, they remain loyal to both the Mexican and American
cultures (Gutiérrez, 2008, p.257). The desire to uphold their
traditions in a foreign country promotes cultural diversity due
to the uniqueness of each culture. Latin-Americans do not have
universal practices shared amongst them that can be used to
distinguish them from the rest of the people. Therefore, it is not
possible to identify them from the community.
All Latinos do not have similar cultural Identity
In the United States, there is always a general assumption that

Latino has particular racial and identify characteristics that
differentiate them from the rest of the Americans. Often, they
are perceived to belong to a given race, thus ease of Identity.
According to Coba et al. (2015, p.5), Latino have been
racialized such that they are considered native Americans and
African Americans. For these reasons towards these groups are
regarded largest in a group of minorities. European Americans
tend to be discriminated against Latino as they are considered
minorities in the nation. Flores (2004, p.184) asserts that not all
Latinos are a mix of Spanish and Indian. Therefore, it is
impossible to associate and identify them as a particular race or
ethnic group. Over the years, Latino has been interacting with
other people like black, whites, and Caucasians, thus leading to
diversity in color and appearance of Latino.
In America, based on the 2010 census, the number of Latinos
who identify as whites continues to increase (Cuevas et al.,
2016, p2135). In 2010, 53% of the Latino identified as white,
while 2.5% were classified as black. In this case, one cannot
identify one as a Latino based on their physical appearance.
Some Latino people are Caucasians. They can either be white,
black, indigenous America, Mestizo, as well as the Asian
descents. In this case, Latino from the groups are considered
different in their appearance and physical characteristics.
Myth 2(Please help me to come up with one topic sentence for
myth2 based on what I have in the introduction and the whole
myth2 content, so that make the transaction between each myth
more fluent and concise.
Latino Immigrants pay taxes
Despite the claim of Latino Immigrants hurting the U.S.
economy, they significantly take part in the growing of the
economy. They buy local products and at the same time,
promote job development through business. For instance,
immigrants who engage in entrepreneurial activities in Della are
quite over-represented. Immigrants own a third of the business
operations in the city, thus playing a significant role in

developing the economy of the town. They pay taxes like any
other citizens, including the property tax, even for those in
rental houses (Lima, 2010, p.6). More than half of the
undocumented immigrants have government income. They incur
deduction in the form of Medicare taxes, and Social security
from their paychecks. Annually, immigrants in America
contribute a total of $90 to $140 billion as taxes. The
government of the United States received approximately $11.64
billion as revenue from undocumented immigrants alone.
In Della, immigrants pay $1.9 billion to the federal government
and $ 591.1 million as state taxes (New Americans in Dallas,
p.9). Precisely, immigrants do not negatively impact the
American Economy. If anything, they make up 25% of the
American engineering and technology organizations established
in the last decades. 24% of the employees working in science,
technology, math, and engineering in Della comprises of Latino
immigrants. Companies like Google, which is co-founded by
immigrants, play a key role in employing American citizens.
New Americans in Dallas (p.9), 20,405 immigrants who are
business owners in Dallas. They produce a total of $ 495.9
million as proceeds to the government.
Immigrants increase productivity and stimulate investment
On average, Latino immigrants in America raises the living
standards of native people working in the country by raising
their wages and lowering the prices. This way, they play an
essential role in the development of the economy. Immigrants
and natives in America have different levels of education.
Nevertheless, their jobs are highly interdependent. The presence
of an immigrant worker increases the efficiency of the native
workers who are perceived as more competent than immigrants.
Suarez-Orozco (2012, p 5) argues that growth in production
results in high income and, subsequently, increased pay.
Immigrant workforces arouse new investments and consequently
increase the labor demand. Work competition between new
immigrants and native worker positively impact the wages of
the later. Immigrants are perceived as cheap labor and with a

low level of education. As a result, the majority of immigrants
accomplishing casual and low-income jobs (Bacon, 2008, p.59).
Generally, immigrants and native American employees do not
compete for positions at work. Instead, they often balance the
work of U.S. employees, thus increasing their efficiency. For
instance, the availability of low-skill immigrant workers
enables farmers born in the U.S. to enlarge farm-related
production hence growing employment opportunities and
income for American laborers.
There are strict eligibility restrictions
There is a myth that immigrants dependent on public benefits
from the federal government. The myth is untrue because
undocumented immigrants are illegible for the benefits program.
There were strict regulations that they require to fulfill for them
to be legible for the programs, thus making it difficult for them
to attain the services efficiently. The requirements are only
applicable to the legal immigrants in America (Perea, 1997, p.
24). In this case, Latino immigrants work hard to obtain earning
and meet their needs. Among the public programs and assistance
that the undocumented immigrants are illegible for unless after
documentation include: Supplemental Security Income,
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Medicaid,
Medicare, Social Security, and food stamps.
There are only a few instances that undocumented immigrants
can be treated as an exception for the requirements and receive
the support. For example, one can always receive help if they
are victims of trafficking regardless of being undocumented
immigrants. Besides, it is not a guarantee for all the legal
immigrants to benefit from the support. One needs to have lived
in America for at least five years (Suarez-Orozco, 2012, p.16).
Immigrants are denied the services besides social security being
deducted from those of them who are working in public offices.
Research indicates that fewer immigrant families are using the
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP as
compared to the native living in poverty (Hanson, 2009, P.11).
According to Welcoming Dallas Strategic Plan that 12% of

children from native families have access to the Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) than for immigrants
children. 18% of children with native parents use NANF, while
only 5% of kids from immigrant parents have access to the
same.
From a study, ordinary immigrants acquire products and
services at higher prices than average citizens. Essentially,
Latino immigrants pay more taxes than the services they receive
from the government in the form of education, law enforcement,
and healthcare. Greenstone & Looney (2010, p.6) state that from
a cost estimate conducted in 2007, the process of legalizing
unauthorized immigrants in America increases federal income
by $48 billion, while the government would only incur a cost of
$23 billion from public services.
Myth 3((Please help me to come up with one topic sentence for
myth3 based on what I have in the introduction and the whole
myth3 content, so that make the transaction more fluent and
concise.
Then, please help me to come up with the sub-topics based on
each evidence I have here, just like what this paper did on the
last two myth’s evidences.
Evidence # 1(Terminology of illegal ):
Another evidence to prove that the myth is incorrect is that
there is an existence of immigrants in America who entered the
country through crossing the border illegally, the use of the
term illegal immigrants or aliens is not appropriate or correct to
their situation. Cecilia Malmstrom, the European Commissioner
for Home Affairs for the E.U. in 2010, explained that the term
illegal immigrants do not exist and that people may come to the
E.U. and might be required to use irregular ways, but no human
being is illegal. Using the word 'illegal' to refer to their
situation is inaccurate and harmful (UNHCR). For example, the
points below this bullet point, but indented, are related ideas
under this sentence's main idea.
This example has to be ending with refuting the myth3(most

Mexican are illegal immigrants), for example, why the
terminology of illegal has refuted the myth3, be concise and
clear instead of just introducing the term.
For example, the term "illegal" is also oppressive, whereby it
has been used to define disadvantaged groups at different times
throughout history, like the Jewish migrants fleeing the
Holocaust, people, and acts in violation of the segregation laws
of South Africa (1948-1994), and the United States (1876-1965)
(UNHCR). In research by UNHCR, it threatens solidarity and
costs lives, labeling the entry and stay of immigrants as 'illegal'
often results in the automatic criminalization of anyone who
might help them. It undermines social cohesion; the use of
'illegal' encourages suspicion and mistrust of those who simply
look 'foreign' or different, often on the basis of their race,
ethnic origin, or religion (UNHCR). This statement is harmful
because it is dehumanizing; calling immigrants' illegal' deny
their innate dignity and human rights, and characterizing
immigrants' existence as illegitimate ignores their experiences
as workers, women, men, children, families, and the elderly
(UNHCR). It prevents fair debate, the criminalizing of irregular
immigrants rather than addressing the laws and policies which
create irregularity, prevents a truthful, respectful, and informed
the debate on immigration (UNHCR). And lastly, it increases
social divisions and gives rise to racial profiling, xenophobia,
and hate crimes (UNHCR).
Evidence #2(Policy)
Before introducing the policy evidence for the myth, please
make the transaction here more fluent, by saying “because of
the word ‘illegal’ is not accurate enough or too offensed, there
are several policies help to make us believe the undocumented
Mexican has decreased…” you can come up whatever sentence
you think is better.
There are a number of policies that shows that many migrated
people in the United States are registered under various policies
and laws provided by the government the United States of
American, according to which throughout the time in history we

can say that currently most of the Mexican Americans are not
illegally present in the United States of American. (Make this
sentence shorter and more concise) This evidence shows that
there is big decline of illegal immigrants in 1965 and 1986,
according to the act of 1986 presented by the government of the
United States of American.
(Need a short topic sentence) For example, in 1960s government
replaced with global quota system as 20,000 per country, they
imposed quotas on Western Hemisphere migration for the first
time ever (120,000 total, no country specifics), and opened up
immigration opportunities for people from Asia and Africa, but
severely restricted migration from Mexico, the Caribbean, and
Latin America. Similarly, in 1976 amendments, they imposed
20,000 per year quotas on Western Hemisphere countries and
closed a loophole that had allowed undocumented Mexicans
with U.S.-born children to legalize their status. In the early
1960s, migration patterns entailed 35,000 annual entries and
200,000 bracero entries per year, and now the entire hemisphere
capped to 20,000. It can see that the figure continued to rise, in
1976, when the 20,000 per country quota was imposed, the INS
expelled 781,000 Mexicans from the United States. Meanwhile,
the total number of apprehensions for all others in the world,
combined, remained below 100,000 per year (Massey and Pren,
2012).
Another evidence to prove that this myth is incorrect is the
naturalization of Mexican people in America is increasing. The
overall rate of legal aliens to the United States preferring to
demand and obtaining is through its most crucial level is higher
than two decades. Although in words of naturalization rate,
Mexican Americans who are the single biggest group of legal
aliens by the nation of origin, delay great behind holders of
green-card eligible to employ of different portions of the world.
Another point that supports this argument is that in the
immigration policy discourse, legislative debates and anti-
immigrant politics in the United States have evolved, and
Mexican Americans have been acknowledged in different

societies. Mexican migration to the United States occupies a
central role since it contributes to many transformations in the
migration policies. Most of the Mexican immigrants in the U.S.
moved due to many reasons (Chavez, 2008, p.7). A section of
them migrated due to labor reasons. When working in the U.S.,
they receive temporary visas, which allows them to live there
until their terms of stay expire, or they renew their permits and
continue working and living there. The inclusion of such
policies in the United States helped Mexican Americans become
legal citizens of that country.
For example, Pew Research Center measures utilizing the
several new Census Bureau data of the United States accessible,
which shows that two-thirds 67 % of legal aliens qualified to
ask for citizenship of the United States had demanded and
received citizenship by the year 2015. That is the largest
percentage after the mid- the 1990s. However, between Mexican
legal immigrants qualified to stamp, just 42 % had asked for
and received citizenship of the United States by the year 2015, a
standard light increased after 2005 and one of the weakest
amongst every immigrant group when it occurs to the nation of
origin. Being a part of a more comprehensive study of Hispanic
aliens covered in late 2015, Pew Research Center proposed
green-card holders among Mexican why people who had not but
grow adapted citizens of the United States. The several usual
ideas focused on lack of time, poor English abilities, or energy,
and the price of application the U.S. citizenship. Those seem to
be important limitations, as approximately all legal aliens from
Mexico stated people would choose to convert U.S. residents
eventually. (Gonzalez-Barrera, 2017).
In general, make the whole final paper more concise, fluent and
organized. No any big change needed, all the revision should
base on what ideas this paper already come up with.
Conclusion
The many myths that define Latino in America have
greatly affected the perception of many towards them. Often,
Latino is considered homogeneous, have natural existence, and

even have characteristics that identify them easily. The myths
had been refuted by the fact that Latinos are from different
origins, they came to America as foreigners, and that they lack
common characteristic that can identify them as an ethnic
group. Besides, the Latinos significantly contribute to the
American economy through taxation, they participate in job
creation, thus not lazy, and they depend on their provision and
not government support. The myth that Latino is unregistered
immigrants proved incorrect by the policies that are meant to
control the inflow of immigrants in America, immigrant policies
that help in recognizing and classifying them appropriately, as
well as the naturalization of the immigrants The myths tend to
portray Latino people negatively, but they are not true.

References
Bacon, D. (2008). Illegal People: How globalization creates
migration and criminalizes immigrants. Beacon Press.
Betancur, J. J. (2012). Critical Considerations and New
Challenges in Black-Latino Relations. Reinventing Race,
Reinventing Racism, 23-42.
Chavez, L. (2013). The Latino threat: Constructing immigrants,
citizens, and the nation. Stanford University Press.
Cobas, J. A., Duany, J., & Feagin, J. R. (2015). How the United
States racializes Latinos: White hegemony and its
consequences. Routledge.
Cuevas, A. G., Dawson, B. A., & Williams, D. R. (2016). Race
and skin color in Latino health: An analytic review. American
journal of public health, 106(12), 2131-2136.
Flores. J. (2004). The Latino Imaginary: Meanings of
Community and Identity
Gonzalez-Barrera, A. (2017). Mexicans Among Least Likely
Immigrants to Become American Citizens. Retrieved 20
November 2019, from
https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2017/06/29/mexican-
lawful-immigrants-among-least-likely-to-become-u-s-citizens/
Greenstone, M. & Looney. A. (2010). Ten Economic Facts
about Immigration. The Hamilton Project. Accessed from
https://www.hamiltonproject.org/papers/ten_economic_facts_ab
out_immigration
Gutiérrez, D. G. (Ed.). (2004). The Columbia History of Latinos
in the United States since 1960. Columbia University Press.
Hanson, G. H. (2009). The economics and policy of illegal
immigration in the United States. Washington, DC: Migration
Policy Institute.
Holloway. (2008). T.A. A Companion to Latin American
History. Holloway, University of California, Davis Waltham,
MA: Wiley/Blackwell, 2008.Gutiérrez, D. G. (Ed.). (2004). The
Columbia History of Latinos in the United States since 1960.

Columbia University Press.
Lima, A. (2010). Transnationalism: A new model of immigrant
integration. The Mauricio Gaston Institute, University of
Massachusetts, Boston.
Massey, D. S., and Pren, K. A. (2012). Unintended
consequences of U.S. immigration policy: explaining the post-
1965 surge from Latin America. Population and development
review, 38(1), 1- 29.
Meier, K. J., & Melton, E. K. (2012). Latino Heterogeneity and
the Politics of Education: The Role of Context. Social Science
Quarterly, 93(3), 732-749.
New Americans in Dallas. Welcoming Dallas Strategic Plan:
Plan for Civic, Economic, Linguistic, and Social Integration &
Inclusion 2018-2021. Accessed from
https://dallascityhall.com/departments/wcia/DCH%20Document
s/COD-WCIA-Booklet.pdf
Perea, J. F. (Ed.). (1997). Immigrants out: the new nativism and
the anti-immigrant impulse in the United States. NYU Press.
Suarez-Orozco, M. M. (2012). Everything you ever wanted to
know about assimilation but were afraid to ask. The new
immigration (pp. 81-98). Routledge.
UNHCR. (n.d.). WHY ‘UNDOCUMENTED’ or ‘IRREGULAR’:
WHY NOT ‘ILLEGAL’. Retrieved from
https://www.unhcr.org/cy/wp-
content/uploads/sites/41/2018/09/TerminologyLeaflet_EN_PIC
UM.pdf

LATINO MYTHS
1 Xi Wang
LATINO MYTHS
2
Cover Letter
Dear Jenny,
In this submission, I am trying to use nine pieces of evidence to
show the common myths used in describing the Latino.
For this submission, I concentrated most of my efforts on
providing the facts that refute the myths 1 and 2 because they
are entirely inaccurate. For the first myth, the shreds that
disprove the myths are that Latino are not a homogenous group;
Latino do not exist naturally, and they do not have racial
features to identify them quickly. Facts that refute the second
myth include; Latino in America pay taxes, Latino work for
their money, and they have limited access to government
support. Lastly, the third myth on Latino being unregistered
immigrants is refuted by the fact that there is a law to control
the influx of people in different regions in the U.S., immigrant
policies identify and classify them as Americans, and there is
increased naturalization of the Mexican immigrants.
What I struggled with most in myth one was differentiating
between the first and the third evidence of refuting. For the
second myth, I struggle with differentiating points on laziness
and Latino coming to destroy the American economy. If I were
given more time, I would work on strengthening my refutation
by developing more evidence on the myths. In the third myth, I
struggled with identifying the various policies related to
different shreds of evidence.
I think the most substantial parts of this submission are the
ability to learn, integrate, and even internalize all the
knowledge and eventually to put it down on paper as an essay.
A question I have for you is: Have you ever had such myths and
misconceptions on the Latino?
Sincerely,
Xi Wang

Introduction
In America, various myths and misconceptions have been
developed to define Latino. Often, these myths and negative
thus affecting the lives of the Latino. In this paper, three myths
are presented together with shreds of evidence that refute their
applicability and relevance. The first myth about Latino is that
they are homogeneous; they naturally exist, and that Latino is
easily identifiable among other people. Nonetheless, the myth is
incorrect as Latino are not homogenous because they originate
from different backgrounds. Besides, they are did not naturally
exist in America. Still, they are as a result of immigration, and
they are do not have characteristics that make them be easily
identified.
The second myth about Latino is that they came to America to
take over the government; they are extremely lazy and that they
are dependant on the government support programs. As well, the
myth is incorrect because Latino also pay taxes to the
government; they often encourage productivity and investment
in America. Finally, Latino do not necessarily depend on
government support, given that there are strict eligibility
requirements that hinder them from using the services.
The final myth is that Latino is unregistered immigrants in
America. The myth is refuted by the evidence that there are
several policies established to control the arrival of immigrants
from different regions, there are policies help register the
immigrants, and increasing level of naturalizing Immigrants
from Mexico. The paper elaborates on the nine shreds of
evidence that refute the three myths, each myth containing three
pieces of evidence.
Myth 1
Latino comprises of several sub-groups with different ancestry
One of the typical stereotypes and mentality regarding the
Latinos in America is that they have a shared ethnic
background. Latin America is a group of Latin people who
originate from different nationalities with unique linguistically

(Holloway, 2008, p.5). Antiago-Valles & Jiménez-Muñoz assert
that the idea of homogeneity is quite extensive to the extent of
some politicians treating Latino Americans as culturally unified
people. It is racially diverse, so making the ethnic category
rather than a race (Gutiérrez, 2008, p.129). Technically, anyone
from central, South America and the Caribbean can be described
as Latino because the regions were previously empires of
Spanish, Portuguese, and French.
Furthermore, the Identity of Latino differs from the region they
inhabit. In the United States, Latino are defined in terms of
their nationalities or the countries that they originated. For
example, in the case of the Midwest and Southwest, Latinos are
people who originally came from Mexico. In the eastern part of
America, particularly New York and Boston regions, Latino are
people who are considered to have limitations of
communications with the Dominicans and Puerta Ricans (Meier
& Melton, 2012, p.737). In this case, Latinos are defined by
their inability to communicate with o people other in the region.
In the case of Miami, Cubans, and Central America, Latinos are
groups for interpreting Latin America. They are people who live
in Latin America.
Latino is made of People with Diverse Cultures
Generally, Latino has different cultures and background as they
are immigrants from other nations. It is not easy to classify
them as people from a particular region like South America due
to the specific culture and practices they uphold altogether.
Latino as a group have a rich and diverse history from the
indigenous culture, European colonization, African slavery, and
global immigration. As a result, it is sophisticated and
challenging to describe with a single identifier. Like the case of
difference between the southern accent and east coast accent,
the subgroups in Latino also have original dialects (Betancur,
2012, p34). For instance, the Spanish spoken by Latino in Chile
is hardly recognized by those in Argentina or Peru. Besides,
Spanish and Portuguese are not the only languages spoken by
Latino. Others use Guarani, Haitian Creole, Quechua, and even

Dutch. The difference in the dialect implies that they all have
different origins and may also fail to understand each other due
to the language barrier.
In the United States, Espitia states that Latino originated from
different countries and had different cultures. Culture refers to
the learned system of knowledge, beliefs, norms, attitudes,
values, and behaviors shared by a group of people. Each of the
Latino nations has a unique way in which people tend to think,
conduct themselves, and even practice. For that reason, they are
tied between practicing their native culture and that of the
country they live in. For instance, in the case of Mexican-
Americans, they remain loyal to both the Mexican and American
cultures (Gutiérrez, 2008, p.257). The desire to uphold their
traditions in a foreign country promotes cultural diversity due
to the uniqueness of each culture. Latin-Americans do not have
universal practices shared amongst them that can be used to
distinguish them from the rest of the people. Therefore, it is not
possible to identify them from the community.
All Latinos do not have similar cultural Identity
In the United States, there is always a general assumption that
Latino has particular racial and identify characteristics that
differentiate them from the rest of the Americans. Often, they
are perceived to belong to a given race, thus ease of Identity.
According to Coba et al. (2015, p.5), Latino have been
racialized such that they are considered Native Americans and
African Americans. For these reasons towards these groups are
regarded largest in a group of minorities. European Americans
tend to be discriminated against Latino as they are considered
minorities in the nation. Flores (2004, p.184) asserts that not all
Latinos are a mix of Spanish and Indian. Therefore, it is
impossible to associate and identify them as a particular race or
ethnic group. Over the years, Latino has been interacting with
other people like black, whites, and Caucasians, thus leading to
diversity in color and appearance of Latino.
In America, based on the 2010 census, the number of Latinos
who identify as whites continues to increase (Cuevas et al.,

2016, p2135). In 2010, 53% of the Latino identified as white,
while 2.5% were classified as black. In this case, one cannot
identify one as a Latino based on their physical appearance.
Some Latino people are Caucasians. They can either be white,
black, indigenous America, Mestizo, as well as the Asian
descents. In this case, Latino from the groups are considered
different in their appearance and physical characteristics.
Myth 2
Latino Immigrants pay taxes
Despite the claim of Latino Immigrants hurting the U.S.
economy, they significantly take part in the growing of the
economy. They buy local products and at the same time,
promote job development through business. For instance,
immigrants who engage in entrepreneurial activities in Della are
quite over-represented. Immigrants own a third of the business
operations in the city, thus playing a significant role in
developing the economy of the town. They pay taxes like any
other citizens, including the property tax, even for those in
rental houses (Lima, 2010, p.6). More than half of the
undocumented immigrants have government income. They incur
deduction in the form of Medicare taxes, and Social security
from their paychecks. Annually, immigrants in America
contribute a total of $90 to $140 billion as taxes. The
government of the United States received approximately $11.64
billion as revenue from undocumented immigrants alone.
In Della, immigrants pay $1.9 billion to the federal government
and $ 591.1 million as state taxes (New Americans in Dallas,
p.9). Precisely, immigrants do not negatively impact the
American Economy. If anything, they make up 25% of the
American engineering and technology organizations established
in the last decades. 24% of the employees working in science,
technology, math, and engineering in Della comprises of Latino
immigrants. Companies like Google, which is co-founded by
immigrants, play a key role in employing American citizens.
New Americans in Dallas (p.9), 20,405 immigrants who are
business owners in Dallas. They produce a total of $ 495.9

million as proceeds to the government.
Immigrants increase productivity and stimulate investment
On average, Latino immigrants in America raises the living
standards of native people working in the country by raising
their wages and lowering the prices. This way, they play an
essential role in the development of the economy. Immigrants
and natives in America have different levels of education.
Nevertheless, their jobs are highly interdependent. The presence
of an immigrant worker increases the efficiency of the native
workers who are perceived as more competent than immigrants.
Suarez-Orozco, 2012, p 5) argues that growth in production
results in high income and, subsequently, increased pay.
Immigrant workforces arouse new investments and consequently
increase the labor demand. Work competition between new
immigrants and native worker positively impact the wages of
the later. Immigrants are perceived as cheap labor and with a
low level of education. As a result, the majority of immigrants
accomplishing casual and low-income jobs (Bacon, 2008, p.59).
Generally, immigrants and Native American employees do not
compete for positions at work. Instead, they often balance the
work of U.S. employees, thus increasing their efficiency. For
instance, the availability of low-skill immigrant workers
enables farmers born in the U.S. to enlarge farm-related
production hence growing employment opportunities and
income for American laborers.
There are strict eligibility restrictions
There is a myth that immigrants dependent on public benefits
from the federal government. The myth is untrue because
undocumented immigrants are illegible for the benefits program.
There were strict regulations that they require to fulfill for them
to be legible for the programs, thus making it difficult for them
to attain the services efficiently. The requirements are only
applicable to the legal immigrants in America (Perea, 1997, p.
24). In this case, Latino immigrants work hard to obtain earning
and meet their needs. Among the public programs and assistance
that the undocumented immigrants are illegible for unless after

documentation include: Supplemental Security Income,
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Medicaid,
Medicare, Social Security, and food stamps.
There are only a few instances that undocumented immigrants
can be treated as an exception for the requirements and receive
the support. For example, one can always receive help if they
are victims of trafficking regardless of being undocumented
immigrants. Besides, it is not a guarantee for all the legal
immigrants to benefit from the support. One needs to have lived
in America for at least five years (Suarez-Orozco, 2012, p.16).
Immigrants are denied the services besides social security being
deducted from those of them who are working in public offices.
Research indicates that fewer immigrant families are using the
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP as
compared to the Native living in poverty (Hanson, 2009, P.11).
According to Welcoming Dallas Strategic Plan that 12% of
children from native families have access to the Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) than for immigrants
children. 18% of children with native parents use NANF, while
only 5% of kids from immigrant parents have access to the
same.
From a study, ordinary immigrants acquire products and
services at higher prices than average citizens. Essentially,
Latino immigrants pay more taxes than the services they receive
from the government in the form of education, law enforcement,
and healthcare. Greenstone & Looney (2010, p.6) state that from
a cost estimate conducted in 2007, the process of legalizing
unauthorized immigrants in America increases federal income
by $48 billion, while the government would only incur a cost of
$23 billion from public services.
Myth 3
Evidence # 1:
There are a number of policies that shows that many migrated
people in the United States are registered under various policies
and laws provided by the government the United States of
American, according to which throughout the time in history we

can say that currently most of the Mexican Americans are not
illegally present in the United States of American. This
evidence shows that there is big decline of illegal immigrants in
1965 and 1986, according to the act of 1986 presented by the
government of the United States of American.
For example, in 1960s government replaced with global quota
system as 20,000 per country, they imposed quotas on Western
Hemisphere migration for the first time ever (120,000 total, no
country specifics), and opened up immigration opportunities for
people from Asia and Africa, but severely restricted migration
from Mexico, the Caribbean, and Latin America. Similarly, in
1976 amendments, they imposed 20,000 per year quotas on
Western Hemisphere countries and closed a loophole that had
allowed undocumented Mexicans with U.S.-born children to
legalize their status. In the early 1960s, migration patterns
entailed 35,000 annual entries and 200,000 bracero entries per
year, and now the entire hemisphere capped to 20,000. It can
see that the figure continued to rise, in 1976, when the 20,000
per country quota was imposed, the INS expelled 781,000
Mexicans from the United States. Meanwhile, the total number
of apprehensions for all others in the world, combined,
remained below 100,000 per year (Massey and Pren, 2012).
Evidence # 2:
Another evidence to prove that the myth is incorrect is that
there is an existence of immigrants in America who entered the
country through crossing the border illegally, the use of the
term illegal immigrants or aliens is not appropriate or correct to
their situation. Cecilia Malmstrom, the European Commissioner
for Home Affairs for the E.U. in 2010, explained that the term
illegal immigrants do not exist and that people may come to the
E.U. and might be required to use irregular ways, but no human
being is illegal. Using the word 'illegal' to refer to their
situation is inaccurate and harmful (UNHCR). For example, the
points below this bullet point, but indented, are related ideas
under this sentence's main idea.
For example, the term "illegal" is also oppressive, whereby it

has been used to define disadvantaged groups at different times
throughout history, like the Jewish migrants fleeing the
Holocaust, people, and acts in violation of the segregation laws
of South Africa (1948-1994), and the United States (1876-1965)
(UNHCR). In research by UNHCR, it threatens solidarity and
costs lives, labeling the entry and stay of immigrants as 'illegal'
often results in the automatic criminalization of anyone who
might help them. It undermines social cohesion; the use of
'illegal' encourages suspicion and mistrust of those who simply
look 'foreign' or different, often on the basis of their race,
ethnic origin, or religion (UNHCR). This statement is harmful
because it is dehumanizing; calling immigrants' illegal' deny
their innate dignity and human rights, and characterizing
immigrants' existence as illegitimate ignores their experiences
as workers, women, men, children, families, and the elderly
(UNHCR). It prevents fair debate, the criminalizing of irregular
immigrants rather than addressing the laws and policies which
create irregularity, prevents a truthful, respectful, and informed
the debate on immigration (UNHCR). And lastly, it increases
social divisions and gives rise to racial profiling, xenophobia,
and hate crimes (UNHCR).
Another evidence to prove that this myth is incorrect is the
naturalization of Mexican people in America is increasing. The
overall rate of legal aliens to the United States preferring to
demand and obtaining is through its most crucial level is higher
than two decades. Although in words of naturalization rate,
Mexican Americans who are the single biggest group of legal
aliens by the nation of origin, delay great behind holders of
green-card eligible to employ of different portions of the world.
Another point that supports this argument is that in the
immigration policy discourse, legislative debates and anti-
immigrant politics in the United States have evolved, and
Mexican Americans have been acknowledged in different
societies. Mexican migration to the United States occupies a
central role since it contributes to many transformations in the
migration policies. Most of the Mexican immigrants in the U.S.

moved due to many reasons (Chavez, 2008, p.7). A section of
them migrated due to labor reasons. When working in the U.S.,
they receive temporary visas, which allows them to live there
until their terms of stay expire, or they renew their permits and
continue working and living there. The inclusion of such
policies in the United States helped Mexican Americans become
legal citizens of that country.
For example, Pew Research Center measures utilizing the
several new Census Bureau data of the United States accessible,
which shows that two-thirds 67 % of legal aliens qualified to
ask for citizenship of the United States had demanded and
received citizenship by the year 2015. That is the largest
percentage after the mid- the 1990s. However, between Mexican
legal immigrants qualified to stamp, just 42 % had asked for
and received citizenship of the United States by the year 2015, a
standard light increased after 2005 and one of the weakest
amongst every immigrant group when it occurs to the nation of
origin. Being a part of a more comprehensive study of Hispanic
aliens covered in late 2015, Pew Research Center proposed
green-card holders among Mexican why people who had not but
grow adapted citizens of the United States. The several usual
ideas focused on lack of time, poor English abilities, or energy,
and the price of application the U.S. citizenship. Those seem to
be important limitations, as approximately all legal aliens from
Mexico stated people would choose to convert U.S. residents
eventually. (Gonzalez-Barrera, 2017).
Conclusion
The many myths that define Latino in America have greatly
affected the perception of many towards them. Often, Latino is
considered homogeneous, have natural existence, and even have
characteristics that identify them easily. The myths had been
refuted by the fact that Latinos are from different origins, they
came to America as foreigners, and that they lack common
characteristic that can identify them as an ethnic group.
Besides, the Latinos significantly contribute to the American

economy through taxation, they participate in job creation, thus
not lazy, and they depend on their provision and not government
support. The myth that Latino is unregistered immigrants
proved incorrect by the policies that are meant to control the
inflow of immigrants in America, immigrant policies that help
in recognizing and classifying them appropriately, as well as the
naturalization of the immigrants The myths tend to portray
Latino people negatively, but they are not true.
References
Bacon, D. (2008). Illegal People: How globalization creates
migration and criminalizes immigrants. Beacon Press.
Betancur, J. J. (2012). Critical Considerations and New
Challenges in Black-Latino Relations. Reinventing Race,
Reinventing Racism, 23-42.
Chavez, L. (2013). The Latino threat: Constructing immigrants,
citizens, and the nation. Stanford University Press.
Cobas, J. A., Duany, J., & Feagin, J. R. (2015). How the United
States racializes Latinos: White hegemony and its
consequences. Routledge.
Cuevas, A. G., Dawson, B. A., & Williams, D. R. (2016). Race
and skin color in Latino health: An analytic review. American
journal of public health, 106(12), 2131-2136.
Flores. J. (2004). The Latino Imaginary: Meanings of
Community and Identity
Gonzalez-Barrera, A. (2017). Mexicans Among Least Likely
Immigrants to Become American Citizens. Retrieved 20
November 2019, from
https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2017/06/29/mexican-
lawful-immigrants-among-least-likely-to-become-u-s-citizens/
Greenstone, M. & Looney. A. (2010). Ten Economic Facts
about Immigration. The Hamilton Project. Accessed from
https://www.hamiltonproject.org/papers/ten_economic_facts_ab
out_immigration
Gutiérrez, D. G. (Ed.). (2004). The Columbia History of Latinos
in the United States since 1960. Columbia University Press.
Hanson, G. H. (2009). The economics and policy of illegal

immigration in the United States. Washington, DC: Migration
Policy Institute.
Holloway. (2008). T.A. A Companion to Latin American
History. Holloway, University of California, Davis Waltham,
MA: Wiley/Blackwell, 2008.Gutiérrez, D. G. (Ed.). (2004). The
Columbia History of Latinos in the United States since 1960.
Columbia University Press.
Lima, A. (2010). Transnationalism: A new model of immigrant
integration. The Mauricio Gaston Institute, University of
Massachusetts, Boston.
Massey, D. S., and Pren, K. A. (2012). Unintended
consequences of U.S. immigration policy: explaining the post-
1965 surge from Latin America. Population and development
review, 38(1), 1- 29.
Meier, K. J., & Melton, E. K. (2012). Latino Heterogeneity and
the Politics of Education: The Role of Context. Social Science
Quarterly, 93(3), 732-749.
New Americans in Dallas. Welcoming Dallas Strategic Plan:
Plan for Civic, Economic, Linguistic, and Social Integration &
Inclusion 2018-2021. Accessed from
https://dallascityhall.com/departments/wcia/DCH%20Document
s/COD-WCIA-Booklet.pdf
Perea, J. F. (Ed.). (1997). Immigrants out: the new nativism and
the anti-immigrant impulse in the United States. NYU Press.
Suarez-Orozco, M. M. (2012). Everything you ever wanted to
know about assimilation but were afraid to ask. The new
immigration (pp. 81-98). Routledge.
UNHCR. (n.d.). WHY ‘UNDOCUMENTED’ or ‘IRREGULAR’:
WHY NOT ‘ILLEGAL’. Retrieved from
https://www.unhcr.org/cy/wp-
content/uploads/sites/41/2018/09/TerminologyLeaflet_EN_PIC
UM.pdf

Jlt~J ~~1lv
~:J (bg cJ.--
Three
DISPLACEMENT
AND MIGRATION )
Forcing People into the Migrant Stream
In the years since the passage of the North American Free Trade
Agreement, critics have focused on the favorable investment
climate
it created in Mexico for large North American corporations.
They've
documented the treaty's high cost in labor rights, employment,
and
the environment, and the way it undermined laws and
regulations pro·
tecting the social gains of working people in all thtee signatory
coun-
. tries, Canada, the United States, and Mexico.
Less attention has been given to the relationship between the
treaty
and migration. It's still a Common critique that NAFTA freed
the
movement of goods and capital but not the movement of people.
On
the one hand, this seemS quite an underestimation of the treaty's
im-
pact. During the years follOwing NAFTXs implementation in
I994, a
greater number of people moved from Mexico to the United

States
than in almost any other period in our history. On the other, it
seems
to suggest that NAFTA should have regulated migration just as
it reg-
ulated trade and investment. In the current political
environment, this
would more likely have led to contract-labor programs than to
the free
movement of people.
In the one period in which a bilateral agreement between the
United States and Mexico did regulate migration, Congress
established
the bracero contract-labor program, which lasted from I942 to
I964.
Today similar labor programs are popular once again among
politi-
5I
52 Illegal People
cians in washingtoh and Mexico City. International trade
negotiations
have begun to dis~s even more extensive schemes. The Mode 4
pro-
I
posal made at the Forld Trade Organization talks in Hong Kong

in
2005 would essentially create a new international guest-worker
sys-
I
tern, guiding the flow of migrants on a global basis to fuJfill
corpo-
rate labor needs. I
Trade and immigration policy, especially in the post-cold war
world, are part of ~ system that produces displaced labor and
puts it
to use. A close relltionship does exist between US. trade and
immi-
gration policy, in +hich the negotiation of NAFTA played an
impor-
tant part. But it did not lead to greater freedom of movement for
workers and farm~rs across the US.-Mexico border, nor did it
give
those migrants gr~ater rights and equality in the United States.
Trade negotiatibns and immigration policy were formally joined
together when the p.s. Congress passed the Immigration Reform
and
Control Act (IRCA) in 1986. Immigrant-rights activists
campaigned
against the law be~ause it contained employer sanctions,
prohibiting
employers for the I first rime on a federal level from hiring
undocu-
mented workers. Ih their view, the proposal amounted to
criminali2-
ing work for the uhdocumented. IRC-Ks liberal defenders
pointed to
its amnesty provis~on as a gain that justified sanctions, and the

bill did
eventually enable +er 3 million people living in the United
States with-
out immigration 10cuments to gain permanent residence.
Yet few noted one other provision of the law. IRCA set up the
Com-
mission for the Stuay of International Migration and
Cooperative Eco-
nomic Developmeb.t to study the causes of immigration to the
United
States. The commission was inactive until 1988, but began
holding
hearings when thJ United States and Canada Signed a bilateral
free
trade agreement. Mer Mexican president Carlos Salinas de
Gortari
made it plain he flvored a similar agreement with Mexico, the
com-
mission made a re~ort to the first President George Bush and to
Con-
gress in 1990. It fopnd, unsurprisingly; that the main motivation
for
coming to the United States was economic. To slow or halt this
flow,
it recommended "~romoting greater economic integration
berween
Displacement and Migration 53
the migrant sending countries and the United States through free
trade" and that "US. economic policy should promote a system
of
open trade." It concluded that "the United States should
expedite the

development of a US.-Mexico free trade area and encourage its
in-
corporation with Canada into a North American free trade area,"
while warning that "it takes many years-even generations-for
sus-
tained growth to achieve the desired effecy"
The negotiations that led to NAFTA started within months of
the
report. As Congress debated the treaty; President Salinas toured
the United States, te1ling audiences unhappy at high levels of
immi-
gration that passing NAFTA would reduce it by prOviding
employ-
ment for Mexicans in Mexico. Back home he and other treaty
proponents made the same argument. NAFTA, they claimed,
would
set Mexico on a course to becoming a first-world nation.
'We did become part of the first world," Juan Manuel Sandoval
says
bitterly. "The backyard."
NAFTA was part of the corporate transformation of the Mexican
economy-a process that began long before it took'effect in 1994,
That
process moved Mexico away from nationalist ideas about
development
policy; which had been advocated from the end of the Mexican
Revo-
lution in 1920 through the 1970S.
Nationalist development became part of Mexico's official
ideology
in the 1930S. Nationalists advocated severing the ties most
Mexicans

believed held their country in bondage to its neighbor to the
north.
At the rime the revolution began, US. companies and investors
owned
oil fields, copper mines, railroads, the telephone system, great
tractS of
land, and other key economic resources. To be truly
in.dependent, the
nationalists believed, Mexico had to establish an economic
system in
which those resources were controlled by Mexicans and used for
their
benefit. The most important route to control was
nationali2ation, in-
tended to serve rwo purposes-to stop the transfer of wealth out
of
the country and to use state ownership to set up an internal
market,
in which what was produced in Mexico would be sold there as
well. In
54 illegal People
theory. at least, thi government had a stake in maintaining
stable jobs
and income, so iliat workers and farmers could buy back what
they
produced. I .
Mexico, under President Lazaro Cardenas, established a
corporatist
system in which obe political Party, the Party of the Mexican
Revolu-

tion (PRM), repr~sented, or in practice controlled, the main
sectors
of Mexican socieiy-workers, farmers, the military, and the
"popu-
lar" sector (which included government employees and
professionals).
I
After World War n the PRM was reorganized and became the
Insti-
tutional ReVOIUtiofary Party (PRI), which governed until 2000.
In I939
Mexican capital and the Catholic Church organized the National
Ac-
I
tion Party, which finally came to power six decades later.
PRI governmJts administered a network of social services. The
social security sys~em, IMSS, established in I943, provided
healthcare,
while the governfuent housing corporation, INFONAVIT, set up
in
I972, built homes! The Mexican Constitution guaranteed
economic
I
and social rights, in addition to political ones, in a way the u.s.
Con-
stitution does notj Under Cardenas, Mexico expanded the land
reform
begun in I917, and redistributed haciendas in many parts of the
coun-

try. although sorrle vast cattle ranches and other landholdings
were
left intact. Land +as considered the property of the whole
country.
and thousands 0tejidOS, or farming communities, were created,
in
which farmers, 0 ejidatarios, held the land they worked in trust.
They
could not legally ell, rent, or misuse it. Most foreign ownership
of
land was prohibit~d.
Cardenas also hationalized Mexico's most important resource-
oil-in a popul~ nationalist campaign. Even schoolchildren were
encouraged to donate pennies to help compensate foreign
corpora-
tions for the exprbpriation of their holdings. National ownership
of
oil, and later eledncal generation, was written into the
Constitution.
Land redistributi6n and nationalization had a political as well as
eco-
nomic purpose-fue creation of a section of workers and farmers
who
could be depend6d upon to defend the government and its
political
party, into whichl their unions and producer organizations were
in-
corporated.
Displacement and Migration 55
After World War II, Mexico officially adopted a policy of
industri-
alization through impOrt substitution. In this development

strategy.
enterprises were created or supported that produced products for
the
domestic market, while imports of those products were
restricted.
The purpose was to develop a national industrial base, prOvide
jobs,
and increase the domestic market. '
Under that policy large state-owner enterprises eventually em-
ployed hundreds of thousands of Mexican industrial workers in
mines,
mills, transportation, and other strategiC industries. It was not a
so-
cialist economy-large capitalist enterprises thrived. But for a
while,
the policy prOvided economic security to many workers and
farmers.
Foreign investment was limited, although after Cardenas much
Mex-
ican capital operated in increasingly close parmership with u.s.
and
Canadian corporations. Enrique Davila, professor at San Diego
City
College and the Autonomous UniverSity of Baja California,
summa-
rizes that growing contradiction as "nationalism in rhetoric,
selling
out the country in practice."
Under successive PRI administrations, a vaSt gulf grew between
those who were integrated into the formal s'ector, and farmers
and in-
digenous communities who remained at the social margin,
especially

in the south. An even greater gulf widened between the political
and
economic elite, who managed the state's assets and controlled
gov-
ernment policy, and workers and farmers in general. To protect
this
elite, the country's political system became increaSingly
repressive,
especially toward those who wanted an independent political
voice.
Nationalist rhetoric often covered political crimes. Defense
Minister
Marcelino Garcia Barragan, almost certainly on the orders of
Presi-
dent Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, called out the army and killed
hundreds of
protesting students at Mexico City's Tlatelolco Plaza in I968.
Later,
President Luis Echevarria conducted a so-called dirty war
against Mex-
ican leftists-in which hundreds were kidnapped, tortured, and
"dis-
appeared" -all while pursuing a "nationalist revolutionary"
policy, as
it was called in the official language.
Contradictions in Mexican development became sharper in the
I970S. To finance growth while the price of oil was high,
Mexico
56 illegal People
opened up its finaidal system to foreign capital (mosdy from the

United States), and ine country's foreign debt soared. State
enterprises
still belonged to th~ government formally, but in effect were
hocked
by their managers ~o banks. Instead of plowing loans into
modern-
ization and effideht production, the money often wound up in
offshore bank accmlnts. Managers of state enterprises like the
oil com-
pany PEMEX ran phvate businesses on the side, along with
politically
I
connected union offidals. Rackets and corruption proliferated
while
labor and campesiJo leaders who challenged the system were
impris-
oned or worse. I
Meanwhile, in die 1960s, the first big dislocations from the
coun-
trySide began. Ciucfud Netzahualc6yod at the edge of Mexico
City be-
came one of the w6rld's largest slums, populated largely by
uprooted
farmers. The move±nent of people across the border with the
United
States grew as well! .
The accumulatiqn of debt, and the hold it gave to foreign
finandal
interests over the Mexican economy, spelled the end of
nationalist de-
velopment. Oil prides fell, the US. Treasury jacked up interest

rates,
and in 1982 the systb collapsed when Mexico could no longer
make
debt payments. Th~ government devalued the peso in what is
still in-
famous as the grea~ "peso shock." Agustin Ramirez, studying to
be an
agronomist at the university in Michoacan at the time,
remembers
that "the value of tie peso went from twelve to the dollar to five
hun-
I
dred sixty to the dollar in six months. The government not only
froze
jobs, but started laYmg people off. My promised job went down
the
drain. So if I had tel choose between being poor in Mexico and
poor
in the US., it was bbvious where I should go." The cutoff date
for
amnesty under IRCk, January I, 1982, was timed to give legal
status to
those who came pior to the devaluation in February, but not to
the
huge wave displaced by the shock itself.
The "nationalist" commitment to popular welfare was already
more rhetoric than reality by the 1980s. In the Constitution,
Mexicans
still had the right to housing, healthcare, employment, and
education,
but millions of people went hungry, had no homes, were sick
and un-

Displacement and Migration 57
employed, and couldn't read. The anger and cynicism felt by
many
Mexicans toward their political system is in great part a product
of the
contradiction between those constitutional promises of the
revolu-
tion a century ago, plus the nationalist rhetoric that followed,
and the
reality of life for most people.
The crisis was an opportunity for the PRI to weaken that
rhetorical
commitment even further. In a deJerate attempt to generate jobs
and
revenue for debt payments, the government encouraged the
growth
of maquiladoras, first permitted under the Border Industrial
Program,
begun in 1964. To develop the northern border region, the
govern-
ment had allowed fOreign corporations to build assembly plants
within
a hundred miles of the United States. The raw materials had to
come
from the US. side, and all the finished products had to go back
north
as well.
From 1982 to 1988 the number of border factories tripled, from
five
hundred to fifteen hundred, the number of workers they
employed

went from 150,000 to 360,000, and they accounted for 40
percent of
Mexico's total exports. Encouraging their growth set a process
into
motion in which today more than three thousand border plants
em-
ploy more than 2 million workers making products for shoppers
from
Los Angeles to New York. By 1992, the year before NAFTA
took effect,
they accounted for over half of Mexican exports, and in the
NAFTA
era maquiladoras became the main sector of the economy
producing
employment growth.
Maquiladora development encouraged foreign inveStment at
almost
any cost. It undermined the legal rights of workers and
communities
in the border area and the enforcement of environmental
protections
or other laws that could be viewed as discouraging investment.
Mex-
ico's future, in the eyes of the technicians who were reordering
its eco-
nomic priorities, lay in producing for the US. market rather than
for
consumers at home, whose income, after 1982, could not
support
much domestic demand anyway. That gave the government a
grow-
ing interest in keeping wages low as an attraction to foreign
invest-
ment, instead of high enough that people could buy what they
were

58 illegal People
making. Other incenlives to investors included a political
structure in
which official unioru! controlled restive workers rather than
organiz·
ing them to win bettbr conditions.
Protecting investdrs required changes in the system of land
own-
ership, since comparhes were reluctant to invest in factories or
other
productive enterprisbs if their tides could be challenged under
land
reform and land tenahcy laws. Salinas pushed through a drastic
change
I
in Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution, which had guaranteed
land
refo= and establish~d the ejido system. After the change, ejidos
could
I
sell land, and many did. About three thousand of thirty thousand
eji-
dos were legally conierted into co-ops, condominiums,
parmerships,
I

sociedades anonimas (Mexican private businesses), and joint-
stock com-
panies. It became a dune for landless people to setde and build
homes
on vacant federallanlis. Reforms began the reconcentration of
land in
the hands of wealiliy investors and agricultural companies,
while
many ejidatarios becabe agricultural wageworkers or left for the
cities.
As a result of t~g control of banks in the I982 crisis, the
Mexican
government becam~ the owner of foreclosed assets, which
included
mines and other priv~te businesses. It quickly began to sell
these prop-
erties off. By the eJly I990S Mexico had sold not just mines to
the
Larreas, but its steel bm in Michoacan to another elite family,
the Vu-
lareals, and its telepH.one company to the Mexican businessman
Car-
los Slim Helti. Fo=6: Mexico City mayor Carlos Hank
Gonzalez, who
controlled the CONksupo trucks and warehouses, drove the
city's
bus system deeply clto debt and then bought the lines in the
I990S at
public auction. Mexibo created a whole new stratum of
billionaires in
thi~:~~cans wLen't the only beneficiaries of privatization. US.
companies were all6wed to own land and factories, eventually
any-
where in Mexico, wiiliout Mexican parmers. US.-based Union

Pacific,
in parmership with ~e Larreas, became the owner of the
country's
main north-south rrw line, and discontinued virtually all
passenger
service, since it was less profitable than moving freight. As the
Larreas
and Union Pacific bdosted profits and cut labor costs, Mexican
rail em-
Displacement and Migration 59
ployment dropped from over ninety thousand to thirty-six
thousand.
In the I950S the railroad union, under left-wing leaders
Demetrio
Vallejo and Valentin Campa, had been so strong that its strikes
rocked
the government. The two were punished with years in prison.
But
when railroad workers mounted a wildcat strike to try to save
their
jobs from privatization, they lost and their union's presence in
Mexi-
can politics became a shadow. J .
After NAFTA the privatization wave expanded. Mexico's ports
were
sold off, and companies like StevedOring Services of America,
Hutchi-
son Port Holdings (HPH), and TMM now operate the country's
larg-
est shipping terminals. The impact on longshoring wages was
devastating. In Manzanillo and Lazaro Cardenas, the twO
largest

Pacific Coast ports, a crane driver made $IOO to $I60 a day
before pri-
vatization in the late I980s. Today crane drivers make $40 to
$50.
Slashing wages in privatized enterprises and gutting union
agree-
ments only increased the wage differential between the United
States
and Mexico. According to Garrett Brown of the Maquiladora
Health
and Safety Support Network. the average Mexican wage was 23
per-
cent of the US. manufacturing wage in I975. By 2002 it was less
than
an eighth, according to Mexican economist and former senator
Rosa
Albina Garabito. Former United Auto Workers representative
Steve
Beckman says that after the I98I debt crisis the Mexican
average
dropped to a twelfth or fifteenth of that in the United States,
depend-
ing on the industry-even during a period in which US. wages de-
clined in buying power. Brown says that in the twelve years
after
NAFTA went into effect, real Mexican wages dropped by 22
percent,
while worker productivity increased 45 percent.
Low wages are the magnet used to attract US. and other foreign
investors. In June 2006, Ford Motor Company, already one of
Mex-
ico's largest employers, announced it would invest $9 billion
more in
building new factories. Meanwhile, Ford said it was closing at

least
fourteen US. plants, eliminating the jobs of tens of thousands of
work-
ers. Both moves were part of the company's strategic plan to
stem
losses by cutting labor costs drastically and moving prodUction.
60 illegal People
All these economic changes displaced people. This tOO is part
of a long
historical process. P~ople were migrating from Mexico to the
United
I
States long before NfFTA was negotiated. Juan Manuel
Sandoval em-
phasizes that "Mexican labor has always been linked to the
clifferent
stages of US. development since the nineteenth cenrury-in times
of
prosperity by the intorporation of big numbers of workers in
agri-
culrural, manufacrufng, service, and other sectors, and in
periods of
economic crisis by die massive deportation of Mexican laborers
back
to Mexico:' I
From I982 through the NAFTA era, successive economic
reforms
produced more migtants. Ejidatarios who could no longer

survive as
farmers found jobs las farmworkers in California. Laid-off
railroad
workers traveled north, as their forebears had during the early
I900S,
when Mexican labo~ built much of the rail nerwork through the
US.
Southwest. Again, die displacement of people had already
grown so
I
large by I986 that IRCA established a commission charged with
rec-
ommending measurbs to halt or slow it. .
The [RCA commission's report urged that "migrant-sending
coun-
tries should encourake technological modernization by
strengthening
and assuring intellectual property protection and by removing
existing
impediments to inve~tment:' It recommended that "the United
States
... condition bilate~f aid to sending countries on their taking the
necessary steps toward structural adjustment. Similarly, US.
suppOrt
for non-project lenlling by the international finanCial
instirutions
should be based onlthe implementation of satisfactory
adjustment
programs:'
Beginning arouna I980, the World Bank and the IMF began im-
posing a one-size-fitJ-all formula for development, called
strucrural ad-

justment programs. I These required borrowing countries to
adopt a
package of economic reforms, such as privatization, ending
subsidies
and price controls, trade liberalization, and reduced worker
protec-
tions. After more mkn rwo decades, there is no strong evidence
that
I
this approach has achieved its stated goal of stimulating growth,
while
the toll on workinglpeople has been staggering. The IRCA
commis-
Displacement and Migration 6I
sion report acknowledged the potential for harm by noting that
"efforts should be made to ease transitional costs in human
suffering."
The North American Free Trade Agreement, however, was not
in-
tended to relieve human suffering. Mexico hoped to negotiate a
com-
mercial treaty, to gain access to U.S. markets for Mexican
goods and
raw materials, which had often feen barred by protective tariffs
im-
posed by the US. Congress. The United States and Canada
sought, On
their part, to make it easier for foreign companies to move
money and
goods across the border, to invest in Mexico, and to protect that
in-

vestment. But in I994, the year the treaty took effect, US.
speculators
began selling off Mexican government bonds. According to Jeff
Faux,
founding director of the Economic Policy Instirute, "The peso
crash
of December I994 was directly connected to NAFTA, which had
cre-
ated a speculative bubble for Mexican assets that then collapsed
when
the speculators cashed in:'
The government devalued the peso, trying to prevent a flood of
money back to the north, but also allowed bankers to freely
exchange
pesos for dollars. As businesses tried to repay debt with pesos
worth
only half as much, bankruptcies spread. According to Harvard
history
professor John Womack, the old "nationalists:' many now
private bil-
lionaires, took control of government policy. In the enSuing
political
crisis, the new president, Ernesto Zedillo, made a deal with US.
trea-
sury secretary Robert Rubin. Goldman Sachs and New York and
Span-
ish banks took control of the Mexican banks, and were
guaranteed
payment for refinancing Mexico's debt. '1 think about eighty
percent
of Mexico's finances now runs through New York and London,"
says
Womack, "The new Mexican government surrendered,
conceded, and
abandoned all the protections for Mexican businesses and

producers."
The arrangement negotiated with Rubin, he says, "was much
more
about finances than about trade, much more about the movement
of
capital, the creation of debt and derivatives, and the pursuit of
specu-
lation than about the movement of commodities:'
The US. government guaranteed the bailout, and in rerum Presi-
dent Bill Clinton demanded that Mexico use oil exports to
guarantee
debt payments to the banks. Mexico had histOrically used its oil
in-
62 illegal People
come to finance gov~nment expenditures, keeping taXes =emely
low for businesses add the wealthy; while starVing the state oil
com-
pany PEMEX of capital for modernization and expansion. Using
oil
income to pay debt clade matters even worse. In 2006 Manuel
L6pez
Obrador, the PRD' s Ipresidential candidate, said he would ease
the
pressure on Mexicans to migrate by raising the income of the
poor in
the countryside. But ~ven if a popular government had been
elected,
as seemed possible that year, it would not have had Mexico's
main
I

source of income available for alleviating poverty; granting
rural loans,
rescuing dilapidated ~Ocial security clinics, or raising teachers'
salaries
and building more schools in Oaxaca.
Mexico lost a milliimjobs, by the government's own count, in
I995·
That experience waJ repeated in 2000-200I, when recession in
the
United States, and th~ decline in consumer purchasing, led to
the layoff
of over four hundredlthousand workers in the maquiladoras.
NAFTA
became an accelerant, pouring gasoline on the fire of economic
re-
form. Instead of creating prosperity; it displaced workers and
farmers
I
at an ever greater rate.
I
The economic reform process required the Mexican government
to dissolve the CONAiSUPO stores. Mexican subsidies to
farmers were
I
ruled illegal, althoug]J. the US. continued paying huge
subsidies to its
largest growers unde~ the provisions of the US. farm bill, while
buy-
ing enormous quantities of farm commodities. At the same time,

CONASUPO's state-b Stores were held a barrier to the entry of
pri-
I
vate companies into the retail grocery business.
The ability of us.lproducers to grow com cheaply using
intensive
industrial methods affected Mexican growers long before
NAFTA. In
the I980s Mexico becbe a com importer, and according to
Sandoval,
large farmers swit~ed to other crops when they couldn't
compete
with US. grain dumping. But with no price supports, hundreds
of
thousands of small farmers found it impossible to sell com or
other
I
farm products for what it cost to produce them. And when
NAFTA
pulled down customls barriers, large US. corporations dumped
even
more agricultural pfoducts on the Mexican market. Rural
families
I
went hungry when tj:ley couldn't find buyers for what they'd
grown.
./

Displacement and Migration 63
It's no accident that the Zapatista National Liberation Army,
based in
poor indigenous communities in Mexico's southernmost state,
Chia-
pas, planned the beginning of an armed rebellion for the day
NAFTA
took effect. The Zapatistas knew what would happen to
indigenous
communities in the southern countryside. And the final
elimination
of tariffs on white com, beans, and other farm goods on January
I,
200S-the implementation of NAFTA:s final chapter-was greeted
by
demonstrations across Mexico.
Mexico couldn't protect its own agriculture from the
fluctuations of
the world market. A global coffee glut in the I990S plunged
prices
below the cost of production. A less entrapped government
might
have bought the crops of Veracruz farmers to keep them afloat,
or
provided subsidies for other crops. But once free market
strictures
were in place, those farmers paid the price instead. Veracruz
campe-
sinos joined the stream of workers headed for the Smithfield
plant in
North Carolina and points beyond.
Poor people in the cities fared no better. Although a flood of
cheap

US. grain was supposed to make consumer prices go down, the
op-
posite occurred. With the end of CONASUPO and price
controls, the
price of tortillas more than doubled in the years that followed.
Higher
prices intensified urban poverty; increasing the pressure to
migrate.
One company; Grupo Maseca, monopolized.tortilla production.
On its
board of directors are Federico Gorbea Quintero, president of
Archer
Daniels Midland Mexico, and Ismael Roig, ADM's vice
president for
planning and business development. (ADM is one of the United
States'
largest com producers and processors.) Carlos Hank Rhon,
whose
family formerly controlled CONASUPO, is now also a Grupo
Maseca
director. Meanwhile, Wal-Mart has become Mexico's largest
retailer.
Under its former development policy; foreignautomakers like
Forc,
Chrysler, General Motors, and Volkswagen had been required to
buy
some of their components from Mexican producers. Workers
labored
/'
in the parts plants that produced them. NAFTA forbids
governments
from requiring foreign investors to use a certain percentage of
local

content in their production. Without this restraint, the auto
giants
began to supply their assembly lines with parts from their own
sub-
64 Illegal People
I
sidiaries, often manufactured in other countries. Mexican parts
work-
ers lost their jobs by the thousands.
I
"The financial crashes and economic disasters drove people to
work
for dollars in the U.S.! to replace life savings, or just to earn
enough to
keep their family at Home together," Womack says. NAFTA
didn't re-
I
duce migration, as the IRCA commission predicted. Following
the
1994 crisis, it produc~d it.' More than 6 million Mexicans came
to live
in the United States lin the thirteen years after the treary went
into
effect. In just five years, from 2000 to 2005, the Mexican
population
living in the United States increased from ro to 12 million, and
the gov-

ernment predicted ruhnual migration would soon reach four
hundred
thousand per year. With few green cards, or permanent-
residence
visas, available for Mbacans, most migrants were
undocumented.
The Sensenbrenm,r Family Business
Economic reforms ahd NAFTA made a small group of investors
in
both Mexico and th~ United States rich, or richer. But when
people
were displaced by rWs process, where were they supposed to
go?
Not to the United IStates. At least, not according to Wisconsin
con-
gressman James Sedsenbrenner. In December 2005
Sensenbrenner
I
convinced his Republican colleagues (and, to their shame,
thirry-five
Democrats) to pass ohe of the most repressive immigration
proposals
of the last hundred ybars. His bill, HR 4437, would have made
federal
felons of all 12 rnilliorl undocumented immigrants in the United
States,
criminalized teacherl, nurses, or priests who helped them, and
built
a seven-hundred-mil~ wall on the U.S.-Mexico border to keep
people
from crossing. The bm never passed the Senate, but its wide
margin of

approval in the Hou~e was a vivid demonstration of how deep
con-
greSsional anti-~rant hysteria had become.
Representative Sehsenbrenner is more than just a leader of con-
gressional xenophobbs, however. His family is intimately
involved in
creating the conditiohs that cause migration, and they profit
from the
labor it makes availaBle. The family's connections, in
miniature, reflect
'" poll"," '00'1" _,ti •• ruclf.
~
Displacement and Migration 65
The Kimberly-Clark Company was incorporated in 1906,
andJames
Sensenbrenner's grandfather Frank became its head in 1907. It
became
one of the world's largest paper companies, and the family trust
remains an inrportant stockholder. The company's Mexican
coun-
terpart, Kimberly-Clark de Mbdco, is a close associate of the
Mex-
ican mining giant Grupo Mbdco. One of KC's former
executives,
J. Eduardo Gonzalez, is Grupo Mbdco's chief financial officer.
(An-
other Grupo Mexico board member, Luis Tellez Kuenzler, sat on
the board of the Carlyle Group, which included former
preSident
George H. W Bush. Kuenzler resigned to become secretary of

com-
munications and transport in the Calder6n administration after
the
2006 election.)
In 1998 Grupo Mexico provoked the strike in Cananea that cost
more than eight hundred miners their jobs. Many were
blacklisted and
left for Phoenix and Tucson. In 2006 the mining giant did the
same
thing at Nacozari, and twelve hundred more were permanently
dis-
charged, replaced by workers brought from southern Mexico.
With
the border just a few miles north, they too had no alternative
but
to cross it to survive. Those terminations, replacements, and
busted
unions successfully cut labor costs while world copper prices
were
climbing. Company profits increased.
During the months when N acozari mining families set out on
their
journey north, Congressman Sensenbrenner organized a series
of
rump congressional hearings on the other side of the border to
defend
his immigration proposal. As he and his Republican allies
toured
various U.S. cities, they fulminated against the undocumented,
de-
claring they had no place in the United States and should leave.
If they
didn't, his bill would send them to federal prison. In order to

house
those detained crossing the border without papers, contracts to
build
new detention centers had already been given to Halliburton
Cor-
poration, the company formerly headed by/U.S. vice president
Dick
Cheney.
One of those hearings took place in Arizona, but no one invited
any of the N acozari Or Cananea miners to testify. No reporter
Or politi-
cian asked Sensenbrenner where he thought they should go, or if
the
66 illegal People
family's business associates bore some responsibility for their
dis-
placement and subs~quent migration.
I
Other voices in Congress criticized the congressman's draconian
bill, arguing that th~ labor of migrants was needed in the US.
econ-
omy. Some 24 millio~ immigrants live in the United States with
doc-
uments, and I2 milli6n without them. If they all actually did go
home,
whole industries WOfWd collapse. Some of the country's largest
cor-
porations, complete! dependent on the work of immigrants,
would

go bankrupt.
One of these dependent corporations is the Sensenbrenner
family
business. Every year,lKimberlY-Clark converts tons of wood
pulp into
a leading brand of toilet paper and sells it in supermarkets
around the
world. Deep in US. rorests, thousands of immigrant workers
plant
and tend the trees tliat produce that pulp. Every year, laborers
from
Mexico, Central Arrlerica, and the Caribbean are recruited for
this
job. In towns like d Democracia, Guatemala, where the global
fall
I
in coffee prices has driven families to the edge of hunger,
recruiters
promise jobs paying bore in an hour than a coffee farmer can
make
in a day. They offer io arrange visas to come to the United
States as
guest workers, and fo~ their services charge thousands of
dollars. Hun-
gry families mortgage homes and land JUSt to put one person
on the
airplane north. I
In the United States, recruiters hand the workers over to labor
con-
tractors. They; in nuh, work for land-management companies,
who

tend the forests for ilieir owners. The landowners grow the trees
and
sell them to the pape~ companies. No worker gets overtime,
regardless
of the law. Companies charge for everything from tools to food
and
hOUSing. Griest work~rs are routinely cheated of much of their
pay. If
they protest, they're ~ut on a blacklist. Protesting wouldn't do
much
good anyway. The US. Department of Labor almost never
decertifies
a guest-worker contr1actor, and says the blacklist is legal.
The paper induscrr depends on this system. Twenty years ago, it
stopped hiring unemployed workers domestically and began
recruit-
ing guest workers. Ali a result, labor costs in the forests have
remained
Displacement and Migration 67
flat, while paper profits have soared. The low price of labor
allows
landowners to sell their trees for less, and Kimberly-Clark
profits from
the result.
In Latin America, economic reforms promote4 by the US.
govern-
ment through trade agreements and international financial
institu-
tions displace workers, from miners to coffee pickers, who join
a huge
flood of labor moving north. When displaced workers arrive in
the

United States, they become an indispensable part of the
workforce,
whether they are undocumented or labor under work visas in
con-
ditions of virtual servitude. Displacement is creating a mobile
work-
force, an army of available workers that has become an integral
part
of the US. economy.
The same system that produces migration needs and uses that
labor. Despite the claims of the IRCA commission and NAFTKs
pro-
ponents, one of the most important effects of the treaty and of
struc-
tural adjustment policies in general is the production of
migration.
"The economic interests of the overwhelming majority of [U.S.]
em-
ployers favor borders as porous for labor as possible," the
Economic
Policy Institute's Faux says. But labor must arrive in a
vulnerable,
second-class status, at a price they want to pay.
The US. immigration debate needs a vocabulary that describes
what happens to migrants before they cross borders-the factors
that force them into motion. In the US. political debate, people
like
the miners or pine tree planters are called job seekers, not
political
refugees. But when teachers and farmers in Oaxaca were beaten
in
the streets for protesting the fact that their state's government
can't
and won't provide a viable economic future, and then had to

leave
southern Mexico as a result, they became both job seekers and
refugees.
It would be more accurate to call these people migrants, .and
the
process migration. The miner fired in Cananea or Nacozari is as
much
a victim of the denial of human and labor rights as he or she is a
per-
son needing a job in the United States to survive. But in the
United
68 Illegal People
States and other weaIthy countries, economic rights are not
consid-
ered human rights. IIi this official view, hunger doesn't create
political
refugees. The whole fro cess that creates migrants is scarcely
consid-
ered in the U.S. immigration debate.
The key part of tfuat process is displacement, an unmentionable
word in the Washington discourse. Not one immigration
proposal in
Congress in 2006 and2007 tried to come to grips with the
policies that
uprooted miners, teaChers, tree planters, and farmers, in spite of
the
fact that members ofl Congress voted for these policies. In fact,
while

debating bills to criminalize migrants in 2007, four new trade
agree-
ments were intrOducfd, each of which would cause more
displace-
ment and more migration.
I
No speeches on me House or Senate floor connected the dots,
or explored real alte~atives that would protect jobs and rights
for
working families rega!rdless of what country they were born in.
This
is a kind of wilIful i~orance, in which flawed policy
assumptions
are treated as obviou~ truth and repeated endlessly in a skewed
pol-
icy debate: "Trade a~ements are needed to help increase
investment
abroad,N despite the Ippenly predicted "transitional cost of
human
suffering." "Economic reforms and foreign investment create
jobs
and prosperity.·· ''Im.nligration should be regulated to ensure
that cor-
porations in the Unit~d States have an adequate labor supply:"
Underlying these a~sumptions, however, is a harsh unspoken
real-
ity. Whether acknowl~dged or not, displacement has been
indispen-
sable to the growth 6f capitalism from the beginning. As early
as
the <700S, the English lenclosure acts displaced villagers by
fencing off
the commons where iliey raised sheep for wool. Together with

cottage
I
weavers who wove that wool into cloth, herders were driven by
hunger into the new tbrue mills. There they became the world's
firSt
wageworkers. Labo~ on the new industrial looms, they produced
the wealth of the £rit British factory owners and became the
first
members of the Briti& working class.
When Karl Marx dalled Africa of the eighteenth and nineteenth
cenruries "a warren fdr the hunting of black skins," he was
describing
the bloody and force~ displacement of indigenous communities
by
Displacement and Migration 69
the slave traders. Uprooted African farmers were transported in
chains
to the New World, where they became an enslaved plantation
work-
force from Colombia and Brazil to the U.S. South. Their-labor
created
much of the wealth that made the growth of capitalism possible
in
the United States and throughout the Americas. /
Displacement and enslavement produced more than wealth. As
slave owners sought to differentiate slaves from free people,
they de-
veloped and refined racial categories. Skin color and place of
origin

were used to divide sociery into those with rights and those
without
them, who became properry themselves. When Mr.
Sensenbrenner
called modem migrants "illegals," he used a category whose
roots
go back to these divisions, and the system of unequal status
they cre-
ated. Displacement and inequaliry are just as much part of
today's eco-
nomic system as they were at its birth in the slave trade and the
enclosure acts.
In the global economy, people are displaced because the
economies
of their countries of origin are transformed, to enable
corporations
and national elites to transfer wealth Out. After World War II,
the for-
mer colonies of the United States, Europe, and Japan sought to
stop
that expOrt of wealth. From Iraq to Tanzania to the Philippines,
they
embraced national economic development plans like Mexico's,
to en-
courage industries and enterprises producing for their own
people.
The economic reforms that followed the end of the cold war,
imposed
by wealthy countries and institutions like the World Bank and
the IMP,
destroyed those systems of national development.
An unjust order inspires rebellion and movements to change it,
however, like the Zapatistas in Chiapas or the teachers in
Oaxaca. In

EI Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, when people tried to
upend
that social order, they confronted not just the armies of their
own
elites but, often, U.S. military intervention. Those wars also
produced
displacement and migration.
At the end of his paean to late-twentieth-century capitalism,
The
Lexu.s and the Olive Tree, the New York Times correspondent
Thomas
Friedman makes clear the reason those wars were fought.
"Markets
function and flourish only when properry rightS are secure and
can be
70 Illegal People
enforced, which, in rum, requires a political framework
protected and
backed by military po~er,,, he says. "Indeed, McDonald's cannot
flour-
ish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the u.s. Air
Force
F-15. And the hidden fi~t that keeps the world safe for Silicon
Valley's
I
technologies ro flourish is called the U.S. Army, Air Force,
Navy and

Marine Corps. And thJse fighting forces and institutions are
paid for
by American taxpayer dollars."
Smedley Buder, the Marine major general who led u.s. interven-
tions in China, Central America, and the Caribbean from the
rum of
the century to the 1930f' said it better. In a 1935 article for the
radical
magazine Common Sense, he recalled, '1 spent 33 years and
four months
in active military servibe and during that period I spent most of
my
time as a high class mJscle man for Big Business, for Wall
Street and
I
the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for
capitalism. I
helped make Mexico aid especially Tampico safe for American
oil in-
I
terests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for
the
National City Bank bots ro collect revenues in. I helped in the
raping
of half a dozen Centrhl American republics for the benefit of
Wall
Street. I helped purify 1icaragua for the International Banking
House

of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the
Dominican Re-
public for the Americah sugar interests in 1916. I helped make
Hon-
duras right for the AmJrican fruit companies in 1903. In China
in 1927
I helped see to it that Stbdard Oil went on its way unmolested.
Look-
I
ing back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The
best he
could do was ro operat~ his racket in three districts. I operated
on three
continents."
Migrant Labor: An Indispensable Part of a Global System
Although displaced pe6ple are an indispensable and growing
part of
the workforce in this +w world order, not all cross borders. The
ex-
plosive growth of export processing zones (EP2s), where
maquiladora
factories produce for ciport, depends on migrant labor.
The creation of the priginal maquiladora program, the Border
In-
dustrial Program, on the U.S.-Mexico border in I964, was
conceived
Displacement and Migration 71

as a way to absorb thousands of unemployed contract laborers,
who
had been working in the United States during the twenty-two-
year
run of the bracero program. To avoid social unrest, the Mexican
gov-
ernment needed to find jobs for those workers. T~ atrract
employers,
it changed laws that had prohibited direct U.S. ownership of
factories
in Mexico, allowing invesrors ro build plants taking advantage
of lower
Mexican wages, producing goods for the U.S. market. A new
labor
regime was put in place to atrract foreign investment, including
the
brutal repression of independent unions or challenges to the
low-wage
model.
Measures to pull workers north to the border were just as neces-
sary Over the nexT four decades the maquiladora workforce was
drawn from the south. Migrants were displaced by the same
economic
changes-privatization, rural poverty, job elimination-that
permit-
ted construction of the maquiladoras themselves. Cities like
Tijuana,
Mexicali, Juarez, and Matamoros, which were not much bigger
than
large towns in the 1950S, mushroomed into cities with millions
of in-

habitants.
Prior to the economic reforms, the U.S. -Mexico border was a
re-
mote area, with a very low population, far from Mexico's
industrial
base and workforce. Without the simultaneous dislocation of
workers
from privatized or bankrupt state-owned factOries, or farmers
from
southern Mexico's impOVerished countrySide, there would have
been
no workers available to make maquiladora development
possible.
This development model has since been reproduced in
developing
countries all over the world. In the early 1990S the U.S. Agency
for
International Development (USAID) financed the construction
of in-
dustrial parks, or export processing zones, in rural Honduras. It
then
contracted with the accounting firm of Price Waterhouse to
study
ways of producing workers for their new factOries. In I993 the
com-
pany prepared a report for USAID that concluded, "EP2's labor
de-
mands could not be met by natural population growth."
Satisfying
labor needs, it said, required "an increase in the labor

participation
rates of young women." Many of those young women are at the
point
in their lives where they want to begin their own families. Price
Wa-
~
72 illegal People
terhouse noted wiJ disapproval that "the pregnancy rate among
women of childbe+g age was 4% in June I992, up from 2.5% six
months earlier. This lis regarded as too high (3% would be the
maxi-
mum acceptable)." It recommended mandatory distribution of
con-
I
traceptives, and said a similar program in Mexican
maquiladoras
"claims spectacular r~sults in higher productivity; lower staff
turnover
and training costs, reauced absenteeism and reduced costs for
mater-
nity leave ... and meducal care." .
Its mOst startling ~ecommendation noted that the percentage of
women under twenty-one had risen from a third to half the
work-
1

force. One table showed the employment rates of workers age
ten and
over. Another showea that children between the ages of ten and
four-
teen made up I6 perhent of the women either employed or
seeking
jobs. A footnote claJned "the legal minimum working age in
Hon-
duras is IS, but in th~ rural economy it is normal to work from
ten
,
onwards."
The poverty that I drove these young women into the plants in
Honduras and Mexico is the same poverty that drives them to
cross
borders. Poverty caJses displacement and migration.
Maquiladora
workers often become migrants traveling far beyond the nearest
EPZ.
I
And when the maquiladoras are located a stone's throw from the
bor-
der, crossing it is almost inevitable.
Migrant labor is e..J..en more important in developed countries.
US.
industrial agricultur~ has always depended on immigrants. The
farm
I

labor workforce in the US. Southwest was formed from waves
of
I
Chinese, Japanese, FfPinOS, Mexicans, and, more recently,
Central
Americans. During the years before world War II it also
included
native-born workersl from Texas and Oklahoma, economically
dis-
placed in the Great gepression. Today a growing percentage of
farm-
workers are indigenous people from Mexico and Central
America,
speaking languages 6ther than Spanish, an indication that
economic
dislocation has reacHed far into the most remote parts of the
coun-
I
tryside. On the U.S. East Coast, migrants come from the
Caribbean,
and join large numbbs of African Americans displaced from
rural, or
b
I.. .
even ur an, commumtles.
Displacement and Migration 73
In other industrial countries a rising percentage of the rural
work-

force is also made up of migrants. Industrial agriculture, based
on mi-
grant labor, has expanded to developing countries, where
plantations
owned Or controlled by large corporations like Dole and Del
Monte
draw a workforce from displaced rural cOlllnJlmities. In
Colombia up-
rooted AfrO-Colombians are drawn into nurseries growing
flowers for
U.S. supermarkets, or plantations growing palms for biodiesel
fuel. In
northern Mexico, vast industrial farms grow winter tomatoes
and
strawberries for US. consumers, drawing on families migrating
north
from Oaxaca.
Migrants are now a vital part of the service industry workforce
in
most developed countries. As the most recent job seekers, they
begin
in the most marginal and contingent jobs. Day laborers on Los
Ange-
les or Long Island street corners arrive from Mexico and
Central
America. In Britain they come from Romania and Africa.
But migrant labor doesn't remain at the fringe of the economy.
The
world's oil industry is completely dependent on it. The oil
kingdoms
of the Gulf states-Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi-have
many