TRANSNATIONAL URBAN LATINIZATION

BY STUDENT

One of the most marginalized people in all history is the immigrant. For hundreds of years, immigrants have been categorized as “outsiders” in their new countries and face discrimination and stereotyping on a large scale. Here in the United States, the stereotypes that surround Mexican immigrant workers that originated due to the Bracero Program and the Mexican Revolution in the early 1900’s still have strong effects today. But, as seen through recent research, the dynamic and goals of modern immigrant workers are changing rapidly, especially with the pressure added by the recent presidential election. One question I’ve had is: How will the promise of Trump’s wall affect the Mexican immigrant worker and the Mexican economy?  

In reading an interview of Alex Rivera, the director of The Sixth Section, and watching the film, I’ve learned about how modern Mexican workers are working harder to improve their hometowns in Mexico while still trying to achieve “The American Dream”.  Not all of these workers are trying to immigrate to the US permanently; many have plans to return to their homeland once work become readily available again.    They are referred to as transnational workers because they have roots in both the US and Mexico. But in leaving Mexico for the US, they lose a lot of their rights. For example, transnational workers don’t have the right to vote in the US and are forced to participate in the US system that exploits them while living in constant fear of deportation Because of these concerns, organizations like the Grupo Union and MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund) work to protect the rights of transnational workers. The difference between these groups though is that MALDEF works to protect the rights of all Mexican transnational workers for decades while smaller groups like Grupo Union help their specific pueblo in Mexico. As a counter argument, Rivera stated that it can be said that these workers are exploiting the US by using the money they make here to improve Mexico instead of the US. But as the documentary showed, the funds Transnational workers sent back home weren’t always used with the Mexican community’s best interest in mind. This is because it was hard for them to gauge what the community back home needed when they were hundreds of miles away. One example Rivera used was a town that received its first ambulance, which wouldn’t be useful because of the damaged roads the community needed fixed more urgently and because the town couldn’t afford to hire an ambulance driver. Because of the increased tension caused by the most recent presidential election, I wondered how Transnational workers from Mexican would be effected.

Because of the election, it’ll now be even harder for transnational workers like the ones in the Grupo Union to reenter Mexico if they choose to visit home. It might also cause a decrease in Mexican workers that will be willing to come to the US to work which will eventually cause a decrease in money being sent from the US to Mexico. This will hurt the small Mexican pueblos that depend on remittances to develop their community. MALDEF was flooded with the questions and concerns of hundreds of Mexican American that were scared for both themselves and their undocumented family. For the time being, there isn’t any way for MALDEF to give these people the answers they look for because there’s no telling how the next for years will affect the Mexican community.

Sources:

Decena, C. U., and M. Gray. "Putting Transnationalism to Work: AN INTERVIEW WITH FILMMAKER ALEX RIVERA." Social Text 24, no. 3 88 (2006): 131-38.

"Immigrants’ Rights Under a Trump Presidency - maldef.org." Accessed March 12, 2017. http://www.bing.com/cr?

“The Sixth Section.” (n.d.). Retrieved March 24, 2017, from http://www.pbs.org/pov/thesixthsection/