Borderlinks
Elizabeth Martinez
ASB 340
Professor Koptiuch
The Migration and Culture class field trip to
The trip to one of
the maquiladoras was informative. It was clean and
well organized. In appearance it was no different than many of the assembly
line production companies in the US. What was markedly different was the wage.
Our tour guide hesitantly told us the wage was approximately eight US dollars a
day. When comparing eight dollars a day to the eight dollars an hour paid by
assembly lines in the US it is easy to see why people would be inclined to
immigrate to the US in search of a higher wage.
The maquiladoras are a strip of foreign owned factories that
provide employment for the Mexican population. Maquiladores
came about in 1965 as an attempt to combat Mexico’s unemployment problem. In
exchange for providing jobs, these industries are given tax exemptions and very
little regulations are placed on them (Falcoff 9).
The impact maquiladoras have
on immigration are both direct and indirect. The direct impact is that it
created an immigration problem in Nogales. People from the interior of Mexico
flooded Nogales in search of employment (Trujillo). These new immigrants
needing a place to live, haphazardly built houses and
communities on property that was not theirs and became squatters. These
communities have developed into what is referred to as colonias
or colonies in Spanish.
In questioning one
of the colonia residents, it became apparent that
property ownership and systematic records had become a problem. She indicated
that she had previously been making payments on the property but had ceased to
do so. She went on to say that the person she was paying had not been the
rightful owner of the property and that she was told to stop paying. When asked
who had told her to stop paying she indicated that it was an attorney who was
going around trying to help the people of the colonias.
This is just one
example of the kinds of problems that are associated with immigration. The
onslaught of migration has created to much strain on the cities infrastructure
and has created difficult living conditions, lack of city services, like
adequate record keeping, sewage systems and planned housing communities are just
a few of the problems. This, along with ecological damage, caused by
industrialization and the upheaval of subsistence farming are some of the
indirect causes of, not only Mexico’s immigration problem, but ours as well.
During our visit
at the Borderlinks Community Center, Cecilia Guzman
spoke to us about her experiences. She described a Nogales that was very
different from today. She said it was a clean and close knit community. She
told us that it was called
Cecilia told us of
a bi-national conference in Chiapas she was involved in. The purpose of the
conference was to understand what was causing migration from these southern
states. She said that what had most left its impression on her was that there
were no young men; all of them were in the US trying to earn money to feed
their families. The reason for lack of subsistence in their native land is a
complicated one. This subject was discussed in, Why Can’t People Feed
Themselves?, an article that analyzes the sociological effects of replacing
subsistence farming with cash crops and describes it as “the weight of centuries of effort by the few to undermine
the capacity of the majority to feed themselves.” The author discusses the
“colonial mind” and describes “how to the colonizers of
Spanish news
stations like Channel 33, Univision and channel 48, Telemundo cover this struggle on a regular basis. There
have been a number of protests by the Campesinos, as
they are called by the media. They have been demanding the reinstatement of
government subsidies. The governments position is that
these agricultural people can not compete with countries like the
Works Cited
Falcoff, Mark. “A New Era
in
(Borderlinks package).
Guzman, Cecilia. Class question and answer session. 8 April
2003.
Lapp’, Frances Moore. & Joseph Collins.
“Food First: Beyond the Myth of Scarcity: Why
Can’t People Feed
Themselves” Institute for Food & Development
Ballatine Books
(1977).
Trujillo, Kiko. Class question and
answer session. 8 April 2003.