somewhere under the sky

los indocumentados

a quick break from the Ghandi series to discuss the issue of the Wall. the House of Reps. aproved the construction of the Wall between mexico and the u.s. which will now go to the senate and then the white house. the senate has differed from the house on this issue so it's hard to say what will happen.
now, from what i read, the rebulicans insist that migration reform can wait, while security and protection of the border can not. first the wall, then total migration reform.
ok, here is an old proverb that is an analogy on why i see something wrong with this and on what i think the solution is: give a man a fish and he eats for a day; teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime.
we are going to build a wall, and THEN reform the problem. so that after we have reformed the problem, what happens? the wall is useless, it will be useless, people!!! do you see? because if we actually solved the heart of the problem, we would not need a wall. therefore, just like some other projects this government has undertaken, it wil bel a large amount of money absolutely wasted. where are we putting our money??????? have we not read history? why do we not learn from our mistakes? i also wonder why, if the u.s. considers arab men, or "extreme islamists" to be the enemy, they even bother about the mexicans. the migrants are people doing desperate things and endangering their lives to WORK here, not to bomb here. in fact, many migrants from ecuador (and maybe all latin america but i can only speak for ecuador) do not want to live here, they want to work for several years to make money to take back to their country.
now then, the republicans want to put up this Wall. i ask, what the hell is a wall going to do? it will, maybe, discourage people from coming in that way. but, fact is people are desperate to come here and do desperate things to get here. i have heard nightmareish stories of people ( i mean real people, people with names and people like "rosa's brother," "carlito's mom") trying to cross the border. what this wall will do is encourage other routes, more dangerous and more desperate. and therefore, adding fuel to the fire and absolutely doing nothing to help no one.
the democrats want migration reform. so make the laws tougher, or put more police on guard or give them more dogs or what have you. it could even be positive, like offering free english classes for a couple months in migrant areas or having social workers help them with housing, and so on.
this doesn't solve anything either. let's work this out. problem: actually, what IS the problem? ok, seriously, the problem seems to be that...ok well, fact: there are many people migrating to the u.s. and the u.s. sees this as a problem. ok, how do you solve this? by not having people migrate to the u.s. and how do we solve that? by taking away the motivations people have for coming here in the first place. duh.
why do people want to come here? to make money. because the economic situation here (regardless of whether you think it's good or bad) is better than in their country. people want to eat and people want shelter and clothes. so that you don't confuse these people with upper class north americans, i should put it in the negatives: people do not want to starve and do not want to be homeless and/or crowded and do not want to wear rags. this is obviously the extreme situation. the entire population of ecuador is not starving and wearing rags. but the point is, for many people it is difficult to feed their family because the wages do not match living expenses (correct, it's the same way in the u.s.) but wages here are higher than in ecuador by such an amount that people risk their lives and sometimes lose them to come here just to make money. in other words, people want a higher standard of living.
the point is, the solution is not a wall, but to fix the economic situation in these countries, which is the reason people cross the border in the first place. now we could point fingers and place all the blame on 15th century Spain who messed everything up when they colonized america. or we could think of solutions. i know nothing about economics, therefore i don't have the solution and have no idea how to improve the economy. but i'm pretty sure some other people with Ph.D's could think of SOMEthing. and if we have billions of dollars to fight a war and to build a wall (again, before we solve the problem) and since OU keeps raising my college tuition, there is plenty of money floating around the u.s. that could be poured into economic development programs in latin america. believe me, once people can make enough money in their own country, they will not want to come here (recreational travelers exempt from discussion). and if they don't want to come here, they won't come. as i see the logic. and therefore, we won't need a Wall. i'm repeating myself to get my point across and to emphasize how ridiculous this Wall is.
and this, not even mentioning how we could better our own situation if we turned our dollars internal. but the government seems bent on saving the world. so if we must do that, my own humble suggestion is that we do it in a peaceful, meaningful, and uplifting way. and not through a destructive path of blood and weapons and disgusting power trips.

i have more to say such as how improving the economic situation, and taking away the motivation to risk one's life to come to the u.s. would solve myriad other social problems in latin america (ecuador). but i've gone on enough. i've made several generalizations based on my experience in ecuador and on my perspective of this issue. and have perhaps allowed my passion for this situation to run wild and perhaps instead of being reasonable, i've been emotional, as i tend to do. so i'd love to start a discussion, and/or to hear what you think. if you actually read all that, thanks for reading, courage to you. the floor is open.
maybe there's just something in me "that doesn't love a wall, That wants it down." or maybe good fences really do make neighbors.

posted by leah v @ 9:04 PM