Labor, Wealth, and Democracy: Mexican Immigration Migration

1
Labor, Wealth, and DemocracyMexican Immigration
/ Migration
2
(No Transcript)
3
(No Transcript)
4
(No Transcript)
5
(No Transcript)
6
(No Transcript)
7
(No Transcript)
8
(No Transcript)
9
(No Transcript)
10
Caption ReadsIn the tense, hybrid world of the
US-Mexican border, Mexicos problems are becoming
Americas problems
11
Caption Reads Baiting Immigrants
12
The Tortilla Curtain
13
(No Transcript)
14
Discourses on Mexican Immigration

• Represented through alarmist imagery
• Imagery constructs a narrative
• Delivery of this narrative through
  media- distorts problem and demonizes
  immigrants- avoids the complexity of border
  problems
• - fails to address issues of the relationship
  between capital and labor- co-opts real public
  discourse

15
Lets pause for a moment to consider the
following questions

• How might a politics of the right interpret the
  previous slides?
• How might a politics of the left interpret the
  same?
• Why we need to find another interpretive path
  that eliminates this polarization.

16
Another Way of Thinking About This

• Seek to understand the way in which the meanings
  behind narratives are not only constructed but
  lived
• Identify economic forces that drive events
• Consider how public discourse is co-opted by
  left-wing vs. right-wing politics

17
Lets try this by asking a simple question

• What is the history that precedes these
  narratives?
• As I explain past events- avoid seeing these
  through the left wing vs. right wing glasses
• Instead, try to absorb and understand the
  complexity of the narratives as lived experience.

18
How Different Beginnings Lead to Different
Outcomes

• Both US and Mexico begin as European colonies
• US shaped by England- advanced industrial /
  commercial power
• Mexico shaped by Spain- in economic decline by
  18th century

19
2. When the border conflict begins

• Mexico wins independence from Spaina
  half-century after United States
• - high human cost 1/10 of population
• After independence- Mexico fights off many
  military invasions- US most costly of these

20
3. How the border conflict begins

• US government supports secession of Texas from
  Mexico (1836)
• President Polk - a minor border incident (with
  conflicting interpretations) leads to a decision
  to engage in full scale war (1846)
• - war ends with Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

21
3. Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo 1848

• Mexican historians refer to it as the
  amputation
• Mexico loses half of national territory
  including- Arizona, California, New Mexico,
  large parts of Colorado, Nevada and Utah
• Treaty guarantees protection of civil, cultural,
  language, and property rights of- Approximately
  100,000 Mexicans living in these areas
• - Protections not enforced- High levels of
  violence occur

22
1848 to Present Phases of Open/Closed
DoorPolices and the Movement of Labor
23
Phase I (1848-1916) Causes

• California Gold Rush
• Land policies implemented by Diaz
  dictatorship- allows foreign interests to
  acquire vast amounts of Mexican land- dissolves
  communal peasant holdings
• Mexican population grows
• Companies with mines developing in US border
  towns need labor- Actively solicit Mexicans to
  provide this labor force

24
Phase I Open Door Policy Closes

• US employers recruit Chinese immigrants
• - employers exploit Chinese (virtually enslaving
  them)
• As this cheap labor source drives down
  wages- indigenous US labor force blames all
  immigrants and seeks remedy from US government
• US government responds by restricting immigration
  of Chinese

25
Fear of White/Chinese Miscegenation
26
Phase II (1917-1929) Causes

• Border between Mexico and US begins a new more
  open phase
• Rapid economic development in Southwest- requires
  farm laborers
• WWI and Mexican labor force- drawn into military
  service
• - skilled jobs in defense plants

27
Phase II Open Door Policy Closes

• Great Depression- record unemployment
  levels- immigrants viewed as threats to
  indigenous labor force
• Visa standards are tightened- legal vs. illegal
  status heightened
• US government encourages legal immigrants to
  repatriate to Mexico- increases deportation of
  illegals

28
Phase III (1942-1964) Causes

• WWII creates labor shortage
• - intensified by internment of Japanese
  Americans
• President Franklin Roosevelt implements bracero
  program

29
(No Transcript)
30
Bracero Working Hand Program

• Recruited over 50,000 Mexican workers in the
  first year- harvesting of crops - maintaining
  railways
• Stipulated workers to be given same wages and
  granted employment protections as Americans in
  comparable jobs
• - this stipulation is not enforced- wages are
  driven down- backlash against immigrants

31
Phase III Open Door Policy Closes

• US labor market tightens after WWII ends
• US employers want to maintain bracero program
  - successfully seek provisions to make temporary
  bracero workers permanent
• - structural effects

32
Phase IV Modern Period Causes

• Mexican Labor and US Market- service
  sectors- agricultural workers- skilled labor
• World Bank, IMF, and Mexicos La Crisis
• Weak power of labor unions

33
What is the World Bank and IMF?

• Created after WWII
• World Bank makes loans or guarantees credits to
  member countries
• IMF supplies money to help members overcome any
  short-term balance of payment problems

34
From the World Bank website

• The World Bank Group is one of the world's
  largest sources of development assistance. In
  fiscal year 2002, the institution provided more
  than US19.5 billion in loans to its client
  countries. It works in more than 100 developing
  economies with the primary focus of helping the
  poorest people and the poorest countries. . .

35
Origins Post WWIIBretton Woods Conference

• Leading allied countries meet
• Stated purpose to reorganize world economy and
  solve global economic problems- aimed at
  preventing depression of 1930s and fascism
• Establish
• - World Bank
• - International Monetary Fund (IMF)
• - General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)

36
What the Conference Does

• Bases IMF currency system on- free market
  movement of capital and goods and sets US
  dollars as international currency
• Conditions imposed by IMF threaten domestic
  sovereignty- powerful Northern European
  countries given Marshall Plan as alternative
• - allows financing as grants not
  loans- European countries maintain domestic
  sovereignty

37
Less Powerful Southern Countries

• Third World countries pressured to- keep markets
  open to foreign goods and capital in exchange
  for loans etc.
• Debt Crisis occurs during 1970s- OPEC oil
  producing companies place profits in Northern
  Banks
• - money is loaned to non-oil producing countries

38
Loans and Rising Third World Debt

• Example Mexico
• Debts for Third World Countries rise- Effects
• Northern politicians / bankers turn to World Bank
  and IMF for help- World Bank and IMF respond by
  restructuring Third World economies to meet
  debt obligations

39
Criticisms of these Structural Adjustments of
Third World

• Controlled by wealthy countries
• -- US is most dominant of these
• Economic vision is neoclassical
• -- seeks to eliminate governmental regulation
• -- free market orthodoxy unproven in terms of
  original aims-- free market orthodoxy serves
  Corporate nation state interests over Workers

40
Current Structural Adjustment Effects

• World Bank and IMF take more out than they put
  into Third World countries
• Increased poverty, loss of natural resources,
  indigenous cultures, right of economic
  self-determination
• Protests against all things Western on the
  rise
• Fundamentalism and politics of exclusion feed on
  problems created by structural adjustment

41
Effects United States

• Three out of Four US workers- income/wealth down
  since 1980
• Annual salary of Fortune 500 CEO- 500 times the
  lowest paid worker
• 1 percent of Americans hold more wealth than
  other 92 combined

42
World Trade Organization Protest