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The myth of the American Dream luring undocumented workers into American society is slowing melting. Scant reports indicate that Mexicanos are leaving the United States, returning back home where the economy is twice as bad as the economic recession in American society; but somehow offers cultural security. Mexicanos came to America work to feed their families, not to destroy. They did not practice seditious behavior while they were here; they came to till the soil their ancestors have tilled for centuries.
Immigrants have become a Diaspora paradoxically in their own ancestral homelands. They did not sound reveille from a tin horn; they listened to faint sounds of taps played by bugles for the spirits of their forefathers fighting for freedom for their mother country as they trekked down a lonely path to América. Now their voices will fade off into the dusk, as the sun sets. Purchasing broken down caruchas and pickup trucks to transport their belongings back to Mexico, the sojourn tells a story of another epoch in history; shared by nuestros antepasados about the resiliency of La Raza.
Immigrants indirectly and directly participated in the last election only to be rebuffed as the slow wheels of bureaucracy churn away. They were called to arms in nonviolent revolution to amass the vote. They did not participate in an insurrection or radical insurgency; they simply practiced an old oral tradition by encouraging their vecinos to vote for a Black president.
Lack of comprehensive immigration policy coupled with rampant racism in American society following Barack Obama’s election as 44th President of the Unites States were not main contributors to immigrant’s mass exodus. They were elated at Obama’s triumph. He represented a future for them, a place where their hard work, suffering and participation in the American way of life would be rewarded.
Historically, politicians tell people what they want to hear. They can be notorious for speaking out of both sides of their mouth. When the day is over and victory stands near by, they turn a deaf ear to those who gave of their precious time to get them elected. They listen for the faint sounds of the squeaky wheel. The problem is that the squeaky wheel has run out of oil and no one has bothered to purchase a can of 3-D. Immigrants are wondering if they have been duped and whether or not they will continue to be hoodwinked. Until the wheels of justice are oiled, voices are resurrected and activists are willing come forward, immigrants will hang onto a small thread of hope, wondering how long it can resist the heavy weight of oppression
President elect Obama has to salvage the middle class that has historically been the buffer between the rich and poor in society. Mexicanos have been relegated to the poor in society; therefore, their fate is sealed. Is there good reason to place comprehensive, fair and humane immigration policy on the table, especially one that is encapsulated in humanity and love of neighbor? Or will exploitative guest worker programs and other creative means of keeping a supply of cheap labor prevail? This is the daunting question that haunts activists.
As Javier Rodríguez, lifetime activist and protégé of Bert Corona stated in his analysis of current immigration policy. “Under both proposals, the legalization offer is a torturous expensive process of 10 to 15 years wait for the coveted ‘Green Card’. Combined with a guest worker program, a destruction of the family unity concept for a point system and of course the so called national security frame work which endangers civil and human rights standards, making mass persecution and the criminalization of immigrants palatable. There is really no trade off. And liberals as well as some progressives in our ranks have been singing the tune that every country has a right to protect its borders, surrealistically forgetting that it is the people of the poverty stricken sending countries of the world who are in need of protection from the criminal appetite of the transnational corporations and the American empire.”
Mexicanos have been victims of relative economics. Exploitation in one society can be perceived as wealth in another. Immigrants cannot continue to adhere to the rule of law that once again has placed them in social historical categories of “wetback, greaser and illegal alien.”
Worldwide, honest and compassionate people weep for the indentured servants, obreros of modern day capitalism, tied to slave labor by ruthless capitalists. Merchants of vice who have lived ravenously off the fat of the land are not weeping because of the human capital loss, they weep because they will have to create another class of exploitable people to fill the void.
Brown people should not have their shrill voices of freedom played in tune with white trumpets; they should be set free, given citizenship and be allowed to play their own music. The Mexicano immigrant’s destiny no longer has to be tied to chain gangs supporting the prison industrial complex that destroys the soul and where spirits yearn for freedom. Will the law and the marketplace remain bed fellows?
Immigrants live in dire fear of governmental retaliation. The doors for harassment, intimidation and outright racism have been reopened because this powerless group does not have the skills to negotiate their human rights in an environment where silence about oppression has become the 11th commandment. The time for Chicano communities to crawl out of the cocoon and take a stand has arrived.
Just as the snow is destined to melt, the myth of the American dream is slowly melting for nuestros compañeros del sur.
Dr. Ramón Del Castillo is an Independent Journalist.
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