Border Controls

[aabdo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (Tony Abdo)]

I want to reemphasize that my previous comments were not meant to focus
criticism on either the WWP or DSP.     In the case of the DSP,
especally, since they are a political party in Australia, not the US.
Lou Paulsen was correct in sensing my frustration, rather than taking
what I was saying as an attack.

My frustration is based on many factors....
foremost amongst these has got to be the  Left general unawareness of
some very important issues.      One, is just a lack of physical
presence in the regions concerned most with immigration issues.    And
especially the seemingly unawareness of the Left, that it has no
presence  in these regions.     Out of sight, out of mind.

Nestor wanted some more info regarding the Border regions.     So let me
go back to San Diego/ Tijuana.      I really underestimated the figure
of 5.5 million by a million or so.     Simply because I did not include
Mexicali, Ensenada, and Tecate.      So we really have 7 million people
on the Southern California/ Mexican border.      Mexicali has a million
by itself.

Another way to look at this, is to add this figure in with the Los
Angeles area.       Then LA becomes as big as Mexico City, or the New
York City/ N.J./ Conneticut area.

It is hard to convey exactly how unique this area is in the world.
It is kind of like if Istanbul and Berlin were scattered alongside each
other, separated by customs, La Migra, and ignorance.    People living
on top of each other, yet sometimes almost unaware that they inhabit a
bicultural region of collision.

Or maybe another analogy would be ..... Paris and Algiers together..
without a body of water to separate the two.     But still as culturally
and mentally separated.

When we talk drugs and gangs in LA, the picture really goes like
this....    LA to Tijuana to Ciudad Juarez to El Distrito Federal to
Acapulco, Guatamala City, San Salvador, and South.......

One can say that the Left has a presence in Los Angeles proper.    There
are unions, Black and Hispanic groups, and Maoist and Trotskyist
branches all functioning.      But the picture begins to change, as we
move towards the Border where the 7 million live.

As we cross the desert east from Mexicali, we eventually hit the second
portion of the Border.       This is the Arizona/ Sonora community.
Anchored by the 3 million that live in Phoenix on the north end, down to
Hermosillo in the south.      The 2 cities of Nogales on the border and
Tucson and Douglas/ Agua Prieta. Add this region up,  and we total out
at another 6.5- 7 milion or so.

I don't think I do this region an injustice, by just saying that the
Left has no presence at all here.      End of review.

Travel east again through more desert and we come to the Bermuda
Triangle region of the Border.     We have 3 to 3.5 milion inhabitants
in El Paso/ Ciudad Juarez alone.     The triangle being Chihuahua,
Texas, and New Mexico.

This sector has Albuquerque to the North. and Chihuahua City and Torreon
to the south.      Total up another 6.5 million with zero Left presence.

El Paso/ Juarez is truly the lost international city of the world.
No, it's not the moon, it's Chihuahua!      We are talking a big city
here.     One divided by a Wall.     In fact, it was once, officially a
single city.      Bob Avakian was the only US Leftist that once tried to
do 'commie' work here.      But he liked Peru, more than Chihuahua.

Travel east through more desert, and eventually one arrives to the
fourth sector of the Border.     This is Tex-Mex land.    This is the
part of the Border, that is probably most difficult to define.     So
let's start off strict and narrow.

There are 3 twin cities directly on the Tex-Mex Border,  that are the
Border region proper.    Total of 3 million people.     Laredo/Nuevo
Laredo... McAllen/ Reynosa.... and Brownsville/ Matamoros.

So where does this part of the Border extend to?     South, one would
have to historically anchor it at the industrial heartland of Mexico
that is Monterrey.    Include Saltillo (40 miles away) for a total of
4.5 million living in this key Mexican metropolitan area.

North is historically anchored in San Antonio.     Include Austin for 3
million in South Central Texas.      San Antonio, by itself,  has a
population of 600,000 Tex-Mex Hispanics.

But so does Houston.     Do we include Houston and Dallas/ Fort Worth?
And do we include Tampico, Zacatecas, and San Luis Potosi?     Maybe
not.

But San Antonio and Monterrey really are Border cities to an extent.
Despite their 350 mile separation from each other.    Everybody wants to
speak Spanish in San Antonio.    And everybody wants to speak English in
Monterrey.      And they make the effort.

So to sum up.     We have about 17 million people living directly on the
Border.     But when we add in the extensions both south and north, the
total sky rockets to the figure of around 45 million people.      I have
left Los Angeles, Chihuahua and Phoenix in, along with Monterrey and San
Antonio.

This is an arbitrary Border with an arbitrary estimate.      So let's
continue to be arbitrary and calculate some more.      Many have heard
that California has the world's fifth largest economy.     I would like
to posit that the Border has the world's fifth largest economy, not
California.      This is not a region without resources.

So let's travel some more, and explore the Left and NAFTA.     The US
trade unions, and liberal oriented Left, responded to NAFTA with a
campaign focused on the fear of American workers losing jobs.     The
arguement went, (and still goes), that US jobs would flow south,
throwing US citizens out of work.

Well, the work has drifted south, but much of this 'south' remains north
of the Border.    One can see an unprecedented boom along the entire US/
Mexican Border... on the US side, especially.     Essentially,
neo-liberalism has taken 2 very separate countries (one very poor, and
another very rich) and fabricated a third  and separate country, in
between them.     But one, that itself is divided by a very big Wall.

A politics that wants this wall to continue to separate the former 2
countries of Mexico and the US, is not something that the Border region
is supportive of.     It is important that the Left doesn't get boxed
into cheering for more barriers to be placed, while the Right poses
itself as being against them.

The Border Hispanic community has prospered under NAFTA, not the
opposite.    When Clinton/ Fox come along propsing more of the same, the
Hispanic community here, is going to be supportive.     Anglo trade
union opposition from the Rust belt mentality, is not going to be seen
in a good light.

Further, there is nothing progressive in socialists and unionists
advocating more immigration barriers.      The Hispanic community is
against this on both sides of the Border.     This is the part of the
Clinton/ Fox proposals that the union and SD Left will whole-heartedy
support, but will be considered a much more mixed bag by the Border
community.

American  socialists should understand that this region has moved
recently in a conservatized direction.     American activists think of
American Hispanics of Mexican origen as an oppressed minority, and
expect rebelliouness and resistance.    But this is not the '70s.

What do I mean here?     Let's think about how  the US installed Fox
into power.      It did it, all via a $50 billion dollar bailout of the
Mexican economy.      This is not an insignificant amount.       And it
had a calming and conservatizing effect.     It put people in the North
of Mexico back to work again.    And gave Zedillo  and Clinton the space
to operate in.

Combined with the benefits that NAFTA provided to the border regions on
the US side, the Border on both sides now considers itself better off
than in previous historical moments.      It is not now in an economic
slump.      The Mexican side is not a marginalized region of Mexico at
all.    Those ares lose population, but the region is growing.

One can generalize, that while neo-liberalism has been generally
destructive in the North of the US and the South of Mexico, that in the
Border areas there have been seen benefits, of a sort.    There is a
sort of hope, that is lacking in many other parts of both countries.

So while Gore might be losing popularity contests elsehere, on the
Border the community will stick with him and Fox, as both being
progressives.     The whole key to making these new proposals, is to
make everybody feel that despite the parts they don't like, that overall
there is going to be positive change being made.

Unfortunately, the US liberals are going to feel that tightening border
controls is the positive change they like.     Because it is going to be
put forward as a reform that will be said to be 'helpful' to the Mexican
oppressed, at the same time that it wiil be a change that keeps them
from actually being able to arrive.

This has been a ramble.     But I hope it has at least given some
dimension to the Left's dilemma in doing politics in the world's fifth
largest economy, the US/ Mexican Border region.

Tony