Mexicans who want Mexicans to stay home

The cash and stories of a better life that many Mexican migrant workers send back home often entice many of their relatives and friends to join the northward migration. But, Centelia Maldonado, an activist from the Mexican state of Oaxaca, wants to explore the other side of that story: the one about the dangerous border crossings, back -breaking work and, recently, the shrinking number of jobs.

That is why earlier this week she and a group of other activists arrived in San Diego  to speak to Oaxacan laborers about their day-to-day struggle north of the border, said the North County Times. The goal is to spread the other side of the migrant story as part of an effort to expand jobs and businesses in culturally-rich but impoverished Oaxaca.

"We want to let people know the suffering people go through and to look for alternatives" to migration, Maldonado said.

That might be difficult given the low wages, scarce jobs and the political instability in Oaxaca in recent years. Maldonado's father left Oaxaca when she was 2 when he became a migrant farmworker in California. The job generated an income but the back-breaking tasks led to health problems later in his life, she said.

After talking to a group of about 30 laborers who had waited for several hours in the hot sun without finding work, Socorro Zurita Vazquez, one of the activists, wondered if it was worth it.

"Their sons are left behind and they come here to suffer," she said.

-- Jesus Sanchez

Photo: Los Angeles Times

Comments

[MG]

Some of these Mexican guys do not want to go back to Mexico because they are wanted for crimes they've allegedly committed in their respective towns.

In the past ten years I've lived on both sides of the border (Mexicali & NB). Mexico has free medical care and public schools, something you never hear much about here in the US. The Mexicans we spoke to were glad about the migrants going to the US: it meant less competition for jobs - at California's expense, but it works for them.

[Eguzki]

The experience the migrant workers go through is so incredibly painful, I wish their story of suffering was widely told by the mainstream media, maybe that will help a lot of Americans put into prespective what the migrant population really go through. I agree with Maldonado, the life of a migrant worker in the US is not a life.

[Ed]

While she's at it, Centelia Maldonado should try to convince the rest of the illegal Mexicans in California to go back too.

[simon A]

It's pathetic to see these dirty people on street corners. They all need to be rounded up and sent home. If a Mexican wants to live here he/she should do it the right way. There also should be a stop to illegal children being given citizenship status.
The lie that is being used that they are all 'poor migrant farm workers' is an insult to hard working tax paying americans. I say go home all of you.

[John]

Nordic democracies do not have this kind of migrant suffering because they do not allow illegal immigration. Their local police co-operate in turning all illegal aliens over to immigration for deportation. Crime rates are low, too.

[Bob Border]

STOP HAVING SO MANY DAMN KIDS! Is the mantra that needs to be heard over and over from the beach to the desert to the mountains to the Yucatan in Mexico. This is exactly why there is so much poverty and not enough jobs. I make $100,000 per year and have a hard time affording 2 kids in America. I have a very modest lifestyle too where both my cars are 5 -10 years old. It's a very simple concept that even the uneducated should be able to grasp! No?

[Rick Petitfils]

What the elite press does not talk about is the jobs that illegals take from poor and working class citizens. These people should stay in their own country and overthrow the government. It should be a felony for entering the U.S. illegally and they bring all their filthy diseases and trash with them.

[Jack]

I agree Ed, then YOU can do and take over THEIR jobs! Living the life!

[tucanofulano]

We're sick and tired of sob stories about criminals. The Illegal Aliens are criminals. Maybe Maldonaldo would get a more receptive readership by moving to Mexico City permanently.

[Gus...]

Here we go again a small article about HUMAN life and the bigots come out to bash everyone in sight...

[zeezil]

After careful review, anyone with a even a modicum of logic can come to no other conclusion: illegal immigration must be halted, illegal immigrants here now must be deported and legal immigration needs decreased from the approx. 2 million allowed in per year currently.

Please review the following report on the FISCAL COST OF IMMIGRATION by economist Edwin Rubenstein just released this past week:
http://www.esrresearch.com/Rubensteinreport.pdf

A partial summary of the report:

The Fiscal Impact on 15 Federal Departments surveyed was: $346 billion in fiscal related costs in FY 2007.

Each immigrant cost taxpayers more than $9,000 per year.

An immigrant household (2 adults, 2 children) cost taxpayers $36,000 per year.

Legal immigrants were not separated out from illegal immigrants for the fiscal impact study, but if they had been, the fiscal cost per ILLEGAL immigrant would be even more shocking than the figures quoted above.

The most extensive and authoritative study, prior to economist Edwin Rubenstein's "The Fiscal Impact of Immigration" (April 2008) , is the National Research Council (NRC)’s The New Americans: Economic, Demographic and Fiscal Effects of Immigration (1997).

The NRC staff analyzed federal, state, and local government expenditures on programs such as Medicaid, AFDC (now TANF), and SSI, as well as the cost of educating immigrants’ foreign- and native-born children.

NRC found that the average immigrant household receives $13,326 in federal annual expenditures and pays $10,664 in federal taxes—that is, they generate a fiscal deficit of $2,682 (1996 dollars)per household.

In 2007 dollars this is a deficit of $3,408 per immigrant household.

With 9 million households currently headed by immigrants, more than $30 billion ($3,408 x 9 million) of the federal deficit represents money transferred from native taxpayers to immigrants.

Our national immigration policies have to work for the United States. While improving the plight of the world’s poor is a laudable goal, the finite resources we have available to fulfill that goal would be swamped if there wasn’t some orderly and manageable system in place to limit entry into the United States to what this nation can actually support. The more illegal aliens that are permitted to subvert the immigration system, the fewer immigrants we can accommodate who might actually produce a positive benefit for our country.

The more we become a nation of illegal immigrants, the deeper we fall into anarchy.

[zeezil]

Truth be told Mexico is not a poor country, it's a corrupt country! There's a difference. Mexicans do not live in horrible poverty. People in Nigeria, Bangladesh and Vietnam live in horrible poverty. If our goal were to offer an opportunity for a better life to people living in abject poverty, Mexico would not even be on the list of countries we would look at. IF after providing all available American workers with a job that pays a decent, living wage we still need workers for agriculture or such, why not bring in people from other countries who truly do need a helping hand? People who could not possibly pay a coyote thousands of dollars to smuggle them into the US? People who would appreciate an opportunity to work in the US on a temporary work visa and go home with a tidy nest egg? People from countries who have not fleeced the taxpayers of the US. Countries whose leaders have not meddled in our immigration affairs with the intention of subverting our legal immigration system. Slam the door shut on Mexico and lock it. The world is awash in unskilled labor. We can get any workers we need from other countries. We don't need the people from south of the border. Let's lend a hand to people who will respect our laws and not burn our flag in the streets.

There are plenty of jobs in Mexico. Unfortunately, we just happen to share a border with Mexico so Mexican leaders backed by their rich elitists ship their uneducated and poor to us to employ and take care of. Truth is, Mexicans realize that the jobs in Mexico pay significantly less with little benefits (thanks to their corrupt and oppressive government) than in the U.S. Why labor in Mexico at the wages being offered because they can make 10 times as much in this country. Why sweep a floor in Mexico for $7 dollars a day when you can come here illegally and make $7 an hour sweeping the same floor. Further, our generous social systems will actually pay you to have babies and give those babies citizenship, thereby providing an anchor to your presence. So on top of your $7 under the table wage, you can get an anchor baby, food stamps, housing subsidies, access to no cost medical care, education, and a bevy of activist support groups and immigration lawyers that will help you stay here.

It's as if they have hit the lottery and you can bet these people will never go back to Mexico so long as they have the economic incentive and a host of facilitators and advocates that aid and abet their presence to remain here in this country.

[wgberger]

As 100 million Mexicans "migrate" here the U.S. is becoming like Mexico itself replete with corruption, crime, poverty and a plummeting educational level. Those clamoring for "cheap" labor are the handmaidens of the meltdown of the U.S.

We are importing our own destruction.

[Susy]

I am the daughter of an immigrant Mexican. I have also been fortunate enough to have lived on both sides of the border. This experience has marked me as I have seen and experienced the hatred that people on both sides of the border express regarding immigration. I grew up witnessing how one after another young Mexican and Mexican American men were frisked with their hands up for simply being who they are. I am the eldest in a family of 5 children, 3 of which are now young men. I have continued to witness how my own flesh and blood are stopped taken out of their cars and asked to put their hands up to be frisked for who they are while on their way to do things like take girlfriends to the movies.

My anger and desire to turn that anger into something more productive than baseless ignorant and racist banter as expressed on this blog has led me most of my life. I am now a doctoral student with the same objectives as I had when I was a child, to render a better understanding between those that live on each side of the border. To challenge the ill-based fear of people like your readers who continue to eat the tomatoes, the lettuce, strawberries, strawberries, etc. picked by immigrants. The fear of being displaced by immigrant labor has worked nicely to set up a dichotomy between those at the bottom of the ladder while those at the top continue to reap the benefits of the fear they have sown into this society.

I have heard the hatred and sadness in the voices of mothers who have lost their children to migration. Do you actually think people want to be separated from their families? I have heard story after story of the terrible living conditions people have had to endure as migrants including living in holes dug next to tomato fields to shield their bodies from the cold. You talk about people being dirty and diseased and I wonder how in this day and age people in California continue to harbor so much racism and fear of the other.

It is quite disheartening to read the responses to this short and out of context article regarding Centolia Maldonado's visit to San Diego, (by the way its CENTOLIA not CENTELIA, she is an activist and one of the hardest working women I have ever met from the state of Oaxaca). I am saddened and discouraged but as the daughter of a man who crossed the border illegally, who has broken his back with little reward for the last 40 years, who has inherited a pair of damaged callous hands that for many years wreaked of vinegar that seemed to almost penetrate his skin, I still hold the hope that people on both sides of the border will learn to identify their fears about each other coming to an understanding to together bring about change. If not those at the top will continue to reap the benefits while those at the bottom continue to fight for the crumbs off the table.

[Reality Check]

Susy, your whole premise is the common myth that white/ anglo Americans "will continue to reap the benefits while those at the bottom continue to fight for the crumbs off the table." That is a MYTH -- zeezil above quotes one study about costs of immigration, and a huge percent of that is illegal. A hugely disproportionate part of the costs hit California, especially L A.

While much of the country is barely touched by illegal immigration yet, in L A Hispanics make up over 1/2 the population, but 2/3 the youth and population of the schools, and of all births -- most of them on MediCal or uninsured. Same with usage of the county healthcare facilities, hospitals and ER's. 2% of Hispanic immigrants pick the crops you talk about, but 1/3 are on welfare, and the vast majority of Hispanic kids in the schools are well below the poverty line, entitling them to vast social benefits, including free meals (that many toss out, as I see from visiting the schools), food stamps, too many things to enumerate. The crops could and should be picked by seasonal workers who would come in for limited durations, without bringing their huge families who absorb far more in costs than they contribute.

This city now has the smallest middle class of any in the whole country -- the Mayor even said that in his speech Monday -- because they've left in droves. As zeezil said, an average home is about $500,000 (and that's very modest for a house, and limits one to the outlying areas) pays some $6,000/year in taxes, with additional fees for trash and utilities, etc., yet gets too little back.

The situaiton is worse as you get into the $1.5 million and up range for "the westside," where you would expect to get decent schools at least. But they don't exist. The schools are full of kids bused in, kids like you apparently were, kids of immigrants who work hard but without educations, are mired in low-paying jobs and use up far, far more in social benefits than they put into the tax system.

The people who subsidize families like yours must go to private schools if they want to be in an "anglo" culture which reflects the neighborhoods they're paying a fortune to live in. Virtually every elementary schools (except some very few) are NOT local, and force residents into private schools or to move. All the middle schools are NOT local, and the kids bused in bring with them the culture and problems of where they come from: the gang-influenced culture of the barrios and 'hoods, the language and culture of Hispanics or lower- class blacks, and where white, local kids actually feel like "outsiders" and are uncomfortable to the point of wanting escape. It's crazy for parents to spend what they do to live where they do, and have their kids go to schools that are unsafe, and have corresponding low test scores.

You need to understand that these people are not "racist,' far from it, and it's very offensive to call them that. If they weren't so liberal, they'd have rebelled against this situation a long time ago. But even they have had enough now. My Homeowners Association and neighbors are furious that our "local" Middle School in Westwood, where we pay a fortune to live, and put in a lot of time making our homes and community safer and well-maintained, is a place which local kids have avoided for a long time. We must pay for private schools, and it's really, really hard to get into even a poor one that costs 20,000 because of the supply- demand situation. Our community is meeting to see if there;s anything we can do to reclaim this school (high school problem is even worse), because it's a sign of how we've been utterly neglected for at least 2 decades -- we're used as a piggy bank and scapegoated by the likes of you.

The negatives to the legal community extend on and on. Because illegals without insurance have collapsed the County healthcare systems, there's no safety net for legal residents who fall on hard times, yet the collapse of these facilities has contributed to a lot of our county and state fiscal crisis. Lord forbid, we have a major healthcare crisis, SARS or terrorist attack: major disaster. There's NO way to serve the whole population with the closed facilities.

STOP FANTASIZING THAT THE LEGAL PUBLIC BENEFITS FROM ILLEGAL IMMIgRATION WHILE YOU PAY THE COST. The only ones who benefit are the few businesses which employ illegals on a regular basis, like sweatshops and fast-food joints -- while poor black kids are unemployed, and in my day, those jobs were done by middle class white kids, too. Working your way up to store manager is a fine outlet for the kid who isn't college-oriented, p/t moms, etc. Our society managed before mass illegal immigration and would again -- by using seasonal workers in regulated conditions, benefiting workers and society.

The pro-illegal argument that the country needs population at a time it's shrinking is based on denial of these facts: many of us don't have more kids because we can't afford private schools for more than 1-2, can't afford bigger homes, etc. So the last thing we "need" is to subsidize huge numbers of immigrants who have too many kids for their means, and then blame us for not paying"enough" of our taxes to pull them up, and now their leaders want to put them in low-income subsidized projects into the suburbs and quieter communities that are very hard for even the middle class to achieve anymore

Your family may have been hard-working and you've turned out well, but many don't, too many cases are of struggling parents whose too nunerous kids end up on the streets. And even where they do their best, looking at how they affect the ENTITLEMENTS of middle class citizens like schools, healthcare safety net, mass transit, social benefits -- they have taken away these "entitlements" from those who are entitled to them.

Making policy must be done in terms of the big picture and the greater good, with the rights of citizens protected first, not based on anecdotal stories. (Which the Times has started to run, in Spanish, to appeal to the sympathies of immigrants,) It's one thing for the Pope to come to American and preach to us about how to treat illegals with a focus on keeping families united, etc. -- and to grow the Catholic Church -- it's another, for the citizens and politicians who must make it work financially and socially. These are sadly opposite priorities.

Ultimately, it's the oligarchs of Mexico who benefit most: they keep the vast oil and tourism wealth, while the poor, illiterate masses who have too many kids head north to impose their problems here. YOUR beef should be with YOUR governments in Mexico, Salvador, etc. FIX YOUR GOVERNMENT, as shoiuld those from other dysfunctional, lopsided societies like India, Egypt, and African and Southeast Asian societies. Many of these people ARE making a difference i their home countries, look at India's growth, even the Philippines, etc. Meanwhile these nationals can't just come here by the millions and impose their cultures and demands on us willy-nilly. We have laws and they must be enforced again -- which would force would-be immigrants to "fix" their homelands instead.

[Gilberto]

Reality Check and other xenophobes,
Study after study has shown the benefit of undocumented immigration to the United States, including a large tax-paying labor pool that ultimately does not acquire their benefits. Again, "immigrants" are not criminals but hard workers who take the low paying job that most of white America refuse, or cannot afford. But they nevertheless overwhelmingly benefit from cheap labor. Enjoying your tomatoes? Meanwhile, many of those who lack citizenship are displaced by US global economic policies that render their home countries intolerable.

But come now. That is not is what is bothering you. Susy and many other "hispanics" are US citizens and thus deserve to be in the United States, notably a country founded on the conquest and colonization of over half of Mexico in nineteenth century.

Your collapsing of Latino US citizens and the undocumented is quite telling. Your animus is transparent. As is your racial prejudice. Stop spouting talk radio jingoism and think critically about YOUR position in the world.

[Reality Check]

Gilberto, like Suzy, you are spewing myths about the "benefits of illegal immigration" you've been brainwashed with by your La Raza leaders. There are no "studies after studies" showing the benefits of this breaking of the law: they're all showing the billions in costs. Only issue is, how many billions, in which study. The only area where illegals may not be taking out as much as they put in is Social Security, because they're afraid of getting "caught" getting benefits, and because many use false ID's or someone else's numbers, creating more problems than they're worth for a few.

But the vast costs are detailed over and over, and you just refuse to see: the collapsed schools and healthcare systems, social services and infrastructure, all this AND the vast costs of criminals, gangs... These are the facts.

You and Suzy claiming that some "tomatoes" or "lettuce" is worth the total collapse of everything else, is absurd. Some 2% of immigrants actually pick the vegetables while 2/3 are on welfare, make up 1/3 the jail population and infiltrate the schools with gang culture, etc. For this seasonal work, we could easily get by with seasonal guest workers who come and go without their families and huge attendant social costs. Such proposals have often been made, but Mexican politicians want us to be the welfare provide for all of "Latinismo," which includes their families and future generations.

As for the kids of illegals becoming instant citizens: Many, many people feel that should be changed. Even mainstream news like Katie Couric's CBS evening report, highlighted how many illegally come to this country pregnant just to have "anchor babies" at our expense, figuring that ensures their futures and that of dozens of extended and future relatives. Many illegals bring babies and children here for expensive surgery, since we cover all kids under 18, illegal or not. Our system is too taken advantage of.

Other illegals like the infamous Maria "Chata" Leon of Drew Street have 13 kids while living the gang life of selling drugs and other felonies, and her kids all grow up to become gangbangers, too. Then our "prevention and intervention" programs are supposed to rescue them. Meaning we don't have money for law-abiding legal citizens: the city is now going to charge to have books transferred between public library branches, and for Little League and Boy Scouts to use parks and schools. The priorities on every level are upside down.

Meanwhile, many educated would-be immigrants and genuinely persecuted people who deserve asylum, have to jump through very difficult hoops to get in. Your screams of "racism" don't intimidate anyone anymore: from the community to the rank and file of the cops, we need to regain society. Starting with the criminals, of course. And that's where the current discussion is in L A. But the world "illegal immigrant" has "illegal" in it for a reason: now there's too much of a critical mass of poor underclass for the small, too-tolerant citizens to pull up.

Pitiful that you ape that moron Communist Richard Alarcon, accusing anyone who speaks sanity and in favor of the law "spouting radio jingoism," and you ape the lies of La Raza "leaders" to mis-argue your "claim" to the land.

IF you wan to go there, ask what Mexicans accomplished in the west before the "gringos" came. Nothing at all, just forced some Indians -- the only real native Americans -- to build showy Catholic Missions, killing many in the process with new diseases. Only a handful of rich oligarchs, light-skinned people of Spanish descent, benefited from any of this, the vast majority of Mexicans were peons and considered of inferior race -- pretty much like Mexico is now. Why you're all coming HERE, and why your rich oligarchy is only too happy to get rid of their poor, illiterate underclass. Like they've always been.

If you really had the national pride you claim, you'd stay and try to "fix" it -- use the hostility you have for Americans who have given your people hospitality against your own leaders, where it belongs. Mexico has plenty of oil wealth and historical resources, and many companies have tried to set up factories there for the cheap labor. Only reason the country is still poor is because of the greed of the oligarchs, criminals ruling the streets (like they're trying to do here).

As for "think critically about YOUR position in the world," what does that mean? Is that the jumbled anti-American rhetoric you learn at places like Semillas del Pueblo -- financed by our tax dollars? Save it for Mexico, Salvador, etc.

[Gilberto]

You did it again. . .you presume that I'm not a US citizen. America actually is a continent. Keep watching Lou Dobbs and spouting your venom. Perhap read Malthus too.

[Brian]

The Mexican government is just a puppet government ran by America. America needs the Mexican government to be poor so we can produce our cheap toys and drugs. I say we owe it to the Mexican People to provide a way out of that crap hole we helped produce.

[Mark Rocha]

Why does the Mexican community want to bring SO MANY children into a life of poverty and squalor?

Here's a good rule of thumb. If you have to ride the city bus, you have no business having kids, because youre simply not financially equipped to raise children properly.

[Letty]

I was reading the comments and it really saddens me because people sure love to feel empowered by hatred words towards Mexicans. People that post comments such as “It's pathetic to see these dirty people on street corners and they all need to be rounded up and sent home” “It's pathetic to see these dirty people on street corners. They all need to be rounded up and sent home.” It is crazy how one article can bring out the worse of people. I would think that people that are making $100,000.00 a year are educated people and would reply to the article in educated manner.