The linked article has its greatest value in bringing the matter of borderlands into a sharper focus. This very critical aspect of the "immigration debate" has not been given the consideration it deserves even in the American states which constitute the "borderland."
There are four borderlands states: Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. The situation in these borderland states is qualitatively different from that existing in other states with respect to Hispanic, primarily Mexican, origin residents.
While there are large pockets of Hispanic descent people including citizens, legal immigrants, and illegals in many other states, these constitute pockets surrounded by the domestic majority. As such they are analogous to the relation between previous immigrant communities and the preexisting majority population. Immigrants may introduce social, political, and economic change but do so in a way which can be accepted and integrated into the previous matrices.
In the borderland states the immigrants, both legal and otherwise, are directly and often intimately connected with their ancestral land. As such the migrants find no compelling need to assimilate with the majority society, polity, and culture. And, here is the more important consideration, because the immigrants can be viewed as having primary allegiances to their ancestral country, they can be perceived quite easily as agents of unwanted change, even agents of a foreign power.
This dark but very real subtext is a new dynamic in the American borderland. When the Geek was young, there were neither suspicion nor fear of the Hispanics who came, lived, and, often but not always, left. Those of us who lived in the borderland, in what was once dubbed, "Rio Grandia" were pleased and proud of our unique cultural and linguistic context. This was not limited to New Mexico but, as the Geek found time after time, extended both east into the southern wilds of Texas and westward into today's battlegrounds of Arizona's Cochise and Pinal counties.
Forty years ago, even thirty, the movement back and forth across the border was continual, slow motion, and, by and large unnoticed or at least uncommented upon. Even the border patrol wallahs of the Geek's acquaintance were not of the view that they were manning a frontline in a war zone.
Over the intervening years there have been some critical shifts in the national context which have not only destroyed the halcyon days of "Rio Grandia," but have set the stage for an increased fear of covert invasion by Mexico. Typically, pundits and politicos point at drug trafficking and the vast increase in the number of economically motivated illegal aliens as the most important, indeed, the only factors behind the upsurge in anxiety over immigration. Or, the more socially liberal trot out the presumed racism and xenophobia of the American hoi polloi.
The factor which has been overlooked all too often but is critical in the development of the new nativist subtext is simply that the federal government has not viewed the ever more porous nature of our southern border as a matter of importance. Twenty years ago as the drug trafficking routes shifted from their traditional corridors to the Mexican alternative, the federal government seemed not to have noticed. Then, during the Nineties as the flow of illegals reached flood stage, once again the federal government appeared indifferent.
The stance of the federal government can be explained to be sure, but any and all explanations have and will fall short in the ears of those living in the borderland. The reality on the ground throughout the borderland, particularly close to the border, was an ever growing number of smugglers and illegal aliens.
There were demands that the federal government take action to limit the flow of people across the line in the sand. The demands of a decade and more ago were much the same as today: Secure the border now and reform immigration later. The demands were unheard, or, if heard, not heeded.
Even if the Denizens Inside the Beltway were unaware of the role played by the Mexican government and its associated elite in the growth of illegal immigration, there were many living in the borderland who knew perfectly well that the Mexican government and its rico supporters were not only doing nothing to reduce the immigrant flow, they were actively encouraging its growth. Borderlanders were quite aware that the Mexican government needed the border as its social and political safety valve. They also knew because many read Mexican media that there existed a pervasive belief in Mexico that the results of the Mexican War could be reversed by sufficient immigration.
These considerations were not and are not the creations of fevered imaginations feeding on conspiracy theories of history. The Mexican government with the full support of its domestic elite has encouraged illegal immigration as doing such relieves the government and elite from developing Mexican resources to provide Mexican jobs. It has relieved both government and elite from taking necessary but painful measures to address a century or longer legacy of neglecting the needs of Mexicans and of having exploited for personal gain or political advantage the long suffering Mexicans.
At the same time the hyper-patriotic strain of revisionist history has and continues to loudly proclaim that los gringos stole most of Mexico's patrimony. There is a powerful myth, a defining myth in Mexico, which focuses all that has gone wrong in that country's long, bloody, and often disastrous history on the US. A companion to that myth, a twin connected shoulder and hip, is the belief in Mexico Redeemed.
Irredentism is a powerful force. It is alive and well in Mexico. It propels much if not all of the current torrent of vitriol poured on Arizona and the US. It also motivates the support of illegal immigration. It is why the Mexicans reserve the word "illegal" for those who enter Mexico without papers but use the neutral term "migration" or "migratory affairs" to refer to Mexicans who cross the line to the US.
Unless and until the federal government takes the border with not only a convincing degree of seriousness of purpose but an obvious effectiveness, the borderlands will grow ever darker with suspicion and fear. In this case, as in so much of politics, perception is king. The perception through most of the borderland is one of being invaded by Armies of the Night. It does not matter if that perception is absolutely true or not, it governs the attitudes and eventually the behavior of residents of the borderlands.
There may not be a real war here in the borderland, but it sure can feel like one. And, that, Worthies of Washington, is where the rubber hits the road.
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