Sending $$ Back Hom
Edward Sifuentes reports that Latino workers in the US send over $30 billion back each year to their home countries. I talked to hundreds of people in Guadalajara that received their support from spouses, fathers, etc. who went north to work for an extended period of time. It does not surprise me that this constitutes one percent of Mexico's gross product or even fifteen percent in the case of El Salvador. We had large numbers of Salvadoran workers in the Salinas/Monterey area when I lived there. Almost a third of the financial transmittals come from California, home to about 8 million immigrants. I think that our trade policy needs to recognize the market for labor as much as it does the market for other products.
Data is from a report by the Inter-American Development Bank.
Endless Possibilities
Amy Langfield wonders about the practicality of addressing all of the possible disasters that might possibly happen to people in the context of 9-11. This is the dilemma that faces emergency managers everywhere - how to deal with the endless possibilities of bad things that might one day happen. Some people live their lives in constant fear of a dreaded future while the majority share the sunlight each day knowing that it could be their last, but also understanding that it is definitely the first of the rest of their life and while taking adequate precautions is prudent, living in fear is not.
Guadalajara in the Eighties
In the eighties, when I lived in Guadalajara, it was regularly refered to as a drug capital - a midway point between Colombia and the US where deals were made and money flowed. DEQ agent Enrique Camarena was killed there in 1985. His son now works for the San Diego District Attorney's Office. I spent months working in the poorest areas of the metropolis, irregular settlements that had grown out into the traditional ejido areas surrounding the city. Professors from the University of Guadalajara would warn me about going into these areas alone, at night, or whenever I could to survey these areas. What I found were wonderful people seeking a livelihood. Hundreds or thousands of them had lived in the US and returned. Typically, the goal of the younger generation was to go north for a number of years and work in the US until they could save enough money to establish a business and a home back in Guadalajara. Frequently, that was not the way it worked out.
In Seattle, in Los Angeles, and elsewhere, I would run across young mexican males, alone or in groups that seemed alienated. They had not realized the American dream, even the one that the had sought and found themselves despised, distrusted, and looked down upon. They would turn at times to alternative means of income which only worsened the stereotype. On the other hand, many who came north, especially if they had any kind of support group became hard-working laborers, often doing jobs that others were becoming more loathe to do. I made a friend, who working as a janitor was living in fear of a former drug lord boss. He had been an informant for DEA and was living in fear of reprisal. Anyway, what I meant to say was that I did not find Guadalajara to be such a place, but rather a city with a beautiful culture, wonderful architecture, and special people.
