In Squaring Off, Zócalo invites authors into the public square to answer five probing questions about the essence of their books. For this round, we pose questions to Peter Laufer, author of Calexico: True Lives of the Borderlands.
In discussions about the U.S.-Mexican border, the sleepy town of Calexico is often left out. Laufer, reporter and author of several books, makes the case for looking at Calexico as a way of understanding the current border crisis and argues that the solution is simply to open up the border.
1) How does Calexico fit into the context of our border crisis?
Tijuana-San Diego and Juarez-El Paso are not the only examples of the Mexican border. The lawlessness of those border flashpoints dominates border news. The bulk of Americans, those of us living far from the 2,000 miles of border, conjure up drugs into San Diego and illegal immigration into El Paso when considering that frontier, or murders in Juarez and slums in Tijuana.
On my last trip to the border I headquartered myself far from the urban crossroads. I chose sleepy Calexico. I hung out with the locals, Calexicans who live a bi-lingual, bi-cultural life. Their day-to-day existences and their futures depend on their relationships across the artificial line in the sand with Mexicali.
Most Americans agree the border is broken. By studying the unique Borderlands culture through the lens of Calexico we may well find fixes that elude the policymakers in Washington and México.
2) Can you highlight some of those fixes?
After September 11, 2001, Washington decided that one of the answers to threats of terrorism was to detain travelers driving north at the Mexican border and relentlessly question them. What the lawmakers and bureaucrats back east did not take into account was that extended communities straddle the border at places like the twin cities of Calexico and Mexicali. The new rules slowed traffic, increased smog, burned up expensive gasoline and-according to Calexicans like Chamber of Commerce president Earl Roberts-created the absurd scenario of border guards who know travelers intimately and have known them all their lives asking questions such as “What’s you name?” and “Where do you live?”
Earl Roberts and the Chamber responded with their “Efficiency is Security” campaign. They’re trying to teach Washington that citizens who live in the borderlands know best how to manage traffic from Mexico and should be consulted before policies are changed, especially policies that can adversely affect the borderlands. The longer waits at the border dissuade Mexican shoppers from traveling north, a disaster for Calexico retailers who rely on consumers from south of the border. And there is little evidence that the detailed questioning results in protecting the homeland from terrorist attacks.
3) You argue that the solution to the immediate crisis on our southern border is to open it to Mexicans who wish to come north–a “simple and logical policy change,” you call it. If it is so simple and logical, why hasn’t it been done?
Especially in this post-September-11th environment, fear overtakes reality. But even before the attacks of ten years ago, the tendency of too many Americans was to succumb to xenophobia and try to pull up the drawbridge. We’ve always suffered from an immigration hierarchy in this country. My father came here from Europe during the Great Migration era when the Hungarians were the Mexicans of the times. His sister married a man from Shanghai. In the 1950s, when their son, my cousin, was growing up, teasing him was easy: if his classmates weren’t calling him a Hunky they were calling him a Chink. The prejudice against Mexicans is exacerbated by geography. The border between Mexico and the States is the only place on the globe where the First World and Third World meet. Americans can look south-can easily travel south-see the economic disparities and say to themselves, “I don’t want my backyard to look like that.” But I think the sad major reason why there is no serious policy consideration to open the border to Mexicans is because of the jingoistic fearmongers, well personified by Lou Dobbs, who successfully (and for their self-aggrandizement) generate and perpetuate a climate of anxiety, paranoia, and panic regarding migration from Mexico.
4) You also say that all we should demand from immigrants is that they obey the laws of our land. Again, is it really that simple? How do you plan on enforcing that agreement, and what will you do when someone doesn’t keep their end of the bargain?
Did you speed on the freeway on your trip into the office today? Did you drink at college before you were 21? Of course, we are a nation of laws. But all 350 million of us do not always obey all of them. I’m ready to wager that were America to welcome Mexicans to come north to visit, to study, or to work if they wish, and that all that was required of them was that they register in some manner at the border (and of course there would be a list of persona non grata for officials to check before one would be allowed entry) and not violate American law, the vast majority of those who would come north would embrace and honor those terms just as the vast majority of Americans who go to Mexico do not violate Mexico’s laws. The beauty of this policy change is that the Border Patrol would be free to use its resources to keep out of the country those we really want kept out. The bittersweet reality is that most of the Mexicans who come north we want here.
5) Besides upholding our reputation as a “welcoming neighbor,” what will opening up the border produce in the way of gains?
The most important economic gain of opening the border is the neutralizing of illegal border crossings by otherwise law-abiding Mexicans and hence freeing up the overworked Border Patrol to stop those we do not want entering America. Immigration fuels our economy. We are an aging society with a low birth rate. If we welcome workers from Mexico who need not fear persecution and prosecution in their daily lives, they will engage our economy on multiple levels that they fear to do while undocumented. They will buy more goods and services. They will not feel forced to hide in jobs that offer minimal employment opportunities but will feel free to improve their working conditions. This will result in more disposable income and provide the opportunity for the culture to reap greater good from their talents and efforts. More border dwellers will spend their pesos in Gringolandia and tourist traffic from south to north will increase. Political gains? Just putting the Mexicans-Go-Home nativist U.S. politicians out of business is enough!
Buy the book: Skylight Books, Powell’s, Amazon
*Photo courtesy of dmealiffe.