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| Public policies as enganchadores |
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This is the third article in a series of articles offering alternative perspectives to the question of immigration policy in American society.
Public policies specific to immigration have become enganchadores since the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo; hooking undocumented workers into the labor force and magically making them disappear at will. Barerra characterizes these tactics as “push and pull” factors, invitations for undocumented workers to participate in the American way of life, followed by the whip, that is, pushing them out of American society once they become perceived as useless commodities. The hook and the whip have become exploitative tools.
Cockcroft metaphorically describes it as the “revolving door, immigration policy of alternating periods of large scale immigration and massive deportation.”
Historically, offensive public policy makers in conjunction with the media have worked to create colossal sensationalism; thus, causing trepidation in the minds and hearts of the majority population. They generally work mano-a-mano even if it might be out of a collective unconscious to exacerbate the human fear associated with immigration.
In contemporary America an added benefit, fear of terrorism, has been manipulated to create an atmosphere of panic, placing the Mexican immigrants in the role of the “bad guy.”
Seldom does anyone talk about the Canadian border as immigrants of the majority culture color come and go as they please without retribution. Seldom does anyone present data about “illegal aliens” with broken visas and undocumented workers from members of different ilks. A double standard of justice has always been present in barrios and colonias where Mexicanos settle to make an honest living.
At times, operations become smoke and mirrors as political magicians carve out public policies that quell nativist fears while simultaneously keeping los patrones happy by maintaining a steady workforce in the fields and in other undesirable work places. It is hypocrisy at best. Massey argues that “throughout the 20th Century the United States has arranged to import Mexican workers while pretending not to.”
The creation of the U.S. Border Patrol in 1924 was instrumental in controlling the flow of undocumented workers. According to Timothy Dunn in The Militarization of the U.S.-Mexico Border 1978-1992: Low Intensity Conflict Doctrine Comes Home, its mission was to simply exclude “illegal aliens” from entering into American territory.
The 1942 Bracero Program coined after the word abrazo or helping hand was shaped and reshaped according to the labor needs of the American economy. As an international agreement, it became a bargaining tool between the Mexican and American governments to insure a pool of cheap labor for agricultural and other unwanted jobs. The program was well orchestrated by government officials, utilizing elastic public policy mechanisms. Once the immigrants had been exploited; they became victims of “the whip.”
Juan Ramón García in Operation Wetback: The Mass Deportation of Mexican Undocumented Workers states that the Bracero Program caused tension at the border. In one instance he shares, “U.S. officials undermining the Mexican government’s bargaining position by unilaterally offering legal status to Mexican agricultural workers crossing the border while Mexican military troops were deployed to prevent their crossing.” The result was the development of Operation Wetback, a condescending policy that aggravated and intensified antagonistic attitudes between the two groups.
The centerpiece modus operandi of Operation Wetback was the “mobile task force concept” according to which a special mobile force of some 400 Border Patrol agents aided by 75 auxiliary personnel was to be concentrated in designated sectors containing high concentration of “illegal aliens.” Mop up operations with support from aircraft sought out undocumented workers in order to deport them.
Dunn reports that the number of deportations rose from 182,000 in 1947 to 850,000 in 1953, depending on the economy and the need to provide psychological security for Americans.
The term wetback or mojado has been used to refer to Mexicans illegally crossing the Rio Grande River. I remember the hostile “wetback” jokes in Kansas as this derogatory term was used. They were fighting words that could get you into fisticuffs with unsympathetic neighbors. It also reinforced the stereotypes that the majority population had about Mexicanos.
My Tio Julio and Tia María Mendoza survived the difficult times in Kansas during the early 1900’s. Many immigrants, once they arrived in this country, gravitated to packing houses. They were resilient people who taught their sons and daughters the value of hard work. My tia and tio both worked at the Cudahy Packing Company. Tio Julio spent 51 years of his life at el pacador. I remember him telling me stories when hamburger meat sold for five cents a pound. He was a stone macho, un hombre noble who was known for defending el honor de la gente.
Julian Samora referred to those undocumented workers who crossed the border where there was no water as alambristas, perhaps with a connotation that workers have to jump over wires.
Dunn presents data during the Reagan Administration wherein under the guise of drug control and protecting the borders from terrorists, the government spent huge amounts of money on purchasing high tech equipment, infra red cameras, dogs and surveillance gadgets. It was masked as an attempt to stop the flow of cartel drug operations and terrorism; but in reality they were undercover operations to stop the brown horde from coming in the United States.
In 1991, under the Bush administration, a 10 foot wall was constructed along seven miles of the border “from the ocean inland, between San Diego and Tijuana in the Chula Vista Border Patrol sector. Referred to as Operation Gatekeeper, it resulted in the “installation of high intensity floodlights to illuminate the border day and night, as well as an eight foot steel fence along fourteen miles of border from the Pacific Ocean to the foothills of the Coast Ranges.”
History has repeated itself as we shall see later. A curtain of illusion needs to be fashioned that Americans are safe and that the villains are being apprehended. The bad guys are wearing the black hats and the good guys are wearing the white hats. What has emerged is a surrealistic reenactment of the Old Wild West in the twentieth century as the good guys and the bad guys square off.
Finding the common ground to engage in true dialogue has been difficult during this contentious period in history. It doesn’t end here. It may never end, especially as brown human beings are viewed with suspicious eyes as “illegal aliens.”
Ramón Del Castillo, Ph.D. is an Independent Journalist.
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