(Un)employed In Mexico

It looks like the unemployment rate in Mexico has fallen to just under 5%. Back in July when the numbers started to show the number of Mexicans returning to Mexico was hitting agriculture and construction, the U.S. news media began to take notice. Now the numbers look like they've dipped below 5% - something that could have consequences for both the U.S. and Mexico. Not only might the U.S. begin to see an even sharper rise in food prices due to weather patterns, but that problem might be made worse by labor costs as the cheap labor of undocumented pickers is hard to replace.

For Mexico, it might mean a slow-down in productivity if there aren't enough workers to contribute. It might also mean a hike in prices: Businesses like to see unemployment at around 5% to help keep labor costs down. Mexico has already wrestled with higher food prices over the last few years, can it handle another hike? On the up side (well, maybe), this from the Mexican consul in sacramento:

"It's now easier to buy homes on credit, find a job and access higher education in Mexico," Sacramento's Mexican consul general, Carlos González Gutiérrez, said Wednesday. "We have become a middle-class country." (see more here)

On a down note, sales of port-a-border will fall:

Secret Race, Hidden Demographic

David Emmons, professor emeritus of history at the University of Montana has argued for decades that the United States made "Irish" and made "Italians." You come to the United States and instead of being from Cork or Milan, you're Irish and Italian. Myself and others have made that observation about Mexico, as well - that traveling to the United States for work in the 1940s contributed to the hardening of a national identity in Mexicans in competition with the regional identity: in Mexico you may be Tapatio or Chilango, but in the US you are Mexican. Again, I only say contributed to the process of a hardening national identity that I think we can trace back to the US invasion and other incursions of Mexican sovereignty by European powers.

At any rate, the folks in the popular media are wrapping their head around ethnicity and race as constructed ideas, and National Public Radio just ran a piece about the growth of Hispanics in the United States. What may have changed is not the number of Hispanics but the number of people self-identifying as Hispanic. In on example from the piece, NPR mentions that first generation Hispanics may self-identify as white while their children will identify as Hispanic because of the construct of race they have received in the US. Read (or listen) to more, here.

The New Argentina

It turns out that Manitoba is angry about immigrants - mostly that they aren't getting enough. Taking a page (probably not consciously) from their hemispheric steppe-neighbor, Argentina, they have gone out of their way to craft policy that allows migrants to find a home on the pampas, er, prairie. It's not as sexy as Vancouver or Toronto... and certainly it is no Montreal, but for those willing to endure the prairie snow, Winnipeg is a new migrant labor destination. And then, of course, there is the nature of Canadian politics:

Another force is in play: immigrant voting strength. About 20 percent of Canadians are foreign born (compared with 12.5 percent in the United States), and they are quicker to acquire citizenship and voting rights. “It’s political suicide to be against immigration,” said Leslie Seidle of the Institute for Research on Public Policy, a Montreal group. READ THE FULL STORY HERE

But there are some down sides I would mention.
1) Consider the visa restrictions that were placed on Mexicans and their entry into Canada. I think we might go too far if we see this story and start applying the stereotype of Canada as the "nice" country compared to the US. As one former Canadian official told the Times:

“The big difference between Canada and the U.S is that we don’t border Mexico,” said Naomi Alboim, a former immigration official who teaches at Queens University in Ontario.

It is an interesting concept. It sounds like British Canada is using the US as a buffer state with Spanish Mexico - essentially the purpose that the American mid-west, and Texas served as for centuries. Ahhh... borderlands history (or at least playing fast and loose with it).

2) Canada's points system often makes it harder for the poorest of immigrants to seek employment and refuge - exactly the population that might most need it.

Final note: Kudos to Jason DeParle and John Woods for this conversation starting piece of writing and photography. Good job.

Like it is Market Driven...

An extra dose of snark today.

So, Mexicans immigrate to the United States because Mexico stinks and they want to come to the US and simultaneously take jobs / live on unemployment while not having to live in Mexico while turning the US into Mexico. *sigh* Living in Texas I get to hear all sorts of perceptions about immigration.

Meanwhile, back in Montana, the Center for the Rocky Mountain West appeared in an article in the Missoulian and, shock of shocks, they point out that immigration is a product of supply and demand in the labor market. I am sure all Latin America specialists, business people, and workers are completely baffled by this concept. At any rate, it is a nice article from the Missoulian.

Back From the Great Northern Frontier

Secret History fell silent for a few weeks while I attended to some family business and recreation in the north. Issues of Latin America were never far, however.

I spent some time chatting with a cousin who works with Latino students in the heart of spud country about the ridiculousness of Idaho's English only position as well as the excellent performance of her Mexican-American students. As Idaho children increasingly take their two week "spud picking" break from school to go on trips to Disney Land and (yes) Cabo, Mexicans have filled in the gaps - and have kept rural Idaho from depopulating as its children flee for more cosmopolitan climes.

I see that West Yellowstone has increasingly become a seasonal place of work for African American and Latino workers and less and less High School and College Students of the Montana / Idaho white middle class. Given ten years I think we will see Montana following the pattern of Colorado and South Dakota and teen farm labor will be replaced by Latino farm labor. A short visit to the Blackfoot rez will bear that out, where hip-hop Pikuni teens with names like Garcia and Gomez participate in drum circles and other cultural celebrations.

As it has always been, the hope of the population of the US west relies on cheap labor. From the time the hydraulic drill was introduced into hard-rock mining to today, the US West is a colonial endeavor in need of labor to fuel the extractive profit of its existence - be it the extraction of minerals and ag products or the inexpensive service of tourist industries.