Illegal immigration to this country is a problem. US constituents will claim that the issues lie in the fact that they are bleeding the system. Working under the table evading taxes, using medical care that should go to Americans, and infiltrating the school system holding back the kids of this nation. In the documentary “The Otherside of Immigration” a group of emigrants of Mexico were interviewed on their perspectives as to why they would leave their lands to head toward this capitalistic nation far from their family, loved ones, and comforts of home.
Interestingly enough, the reasons for leaving are far from the reasons for staying. Economies in the agricultural market are forced to conform to the demands of the US. Many of the arriving immigrants are previous land laborers that could no longer find work and decent pay enough to support starving families. Prior to the new immigration laws, laborers were able to travel much more easily between the US and Mexico. Since the strict ban on immigration many people who are here working do not leave, they fear that leaving would jeopardize the ability to provide resources to take care of their families back home. Sojourners would work and save substantially to live off for some time. When funds dwindled they would return to the US and work again.
Bans on immigration forced many to stay here working indeterminately. What has happed in their hometowns varies but specific trends are developing. Some extreme cases document towns that have not remaining residents below the age sixty five. Many towns and cities have overwhelming populations of women and young children. Husbands, fathers, and older children have all gone seeking employment to help those who struggle and are left behind. The social dynamic is in flux. Children, especially young boys, resort to violence and abnormal behavior without father figures to set examples. Children surveyed in an elementary school all have family members living in the states. They all anticipate the day when they too can move here. The lure is more money, fancy clothes, and fast cars.
Tales of the struggle are left out of the memoirs brought back. The long hours of work, close living quarters, and individual struggles are kept out of the victorious tales shared with eager ears of homelands. Crossing the border is no simple feat, life is a gamble and the stakes are high. Fortunate ones fight to achieve their dues.
Enlightening are the tales shared with an audience that seldom has opportunity to listen from a source that rarely has the translation available for eager ears. Through lack of communication and faulty interpretation we have been missing pieces for years. Finally light is shed on the truth revealing the connection between the sacrifice of loving fathers, mothers, sons & daughters; the unfamiliar faces of strangers, not so strange, that clean our homes, landscape our yards, and build our houses.
It’s funny, we are the United States of America, not the United States of the Lower Portion of North America. Somehow we “Americans” seem to forget the other “Americans” of Central and South America. We couldn’t be here if they weren’t here either.
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