Thread: Abandoned: the Mexican orphans of the rush to cross US bord

Abandoned: the Mexican orphans of the rush to cross US border
By James Hider in San Andreas Nicolas Bravo
(Filed: 21/05/2006)

When Alexis Silva Carreno was nine years old, his father left Mexico to find work 800 miles away across the US border in Houston, Texas. Alexis was devastated and begged his father not to go. It was not until his mother also headed north that the boy's entire world collapsed.

"She didn't even leave any kitchen utensils, she took everything, everything. She left us to be street kids. She forgot her children," he said, sitting dejected in his classroom at the end of a day at school in the village of San Andreas Nicolas Bravo.

Alexis Silva Carreno plans to head north: 'Sometimes I want to die'

As long as migrants can earn in an hour in America what they earn in a day back home, few observers expect President George W Bush's plan to use troops to patrol the Mexican border seriously to stem the flow into the US.

Meanwhile, Alexis's grandmother has struggled to control the lonely teenager and his two brothers as they fell in with others dabbling in drugs and alcohol. Then, a year after disappearing, his father returned with a new wife.

Alexis's family is one of hundreds of thousands torn apart by migration as more and more Mexican women follow their husbands to the United States, desperate to earn enough to give their children a better life as Mexico's rural communities struggle to compete in the global market.

Now even their abandoned children are heading north in increasing numbers. "Migrants used to start leaving at the age of 30, now they are starting at 14 or 15," said Adriana Cortez Jimenez, who runs a number of aid projects to try to slow the migration.

The effect on Mexico's future is potentially devastating. "What's the future for our communities? It's difficult to see. We are losing our people, we are losing our culture," said Mrs Cortez Jimenez.

Since the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on America, tighter border restrictions have made it too risky for parents to return regularly to visit their children. In most cases, a telephone call, perhaps once a month, is the only contact.

At 14, Alexis has concluded that his best option, too, is to risk the deadly journey north, illegally crossing the border in search of a better life. He plans to go next month.

"I want to go to school up there or work. To make money so my father will be proud of me," he said, knowing that 400 migrants die attempting the crossing every year.

"In the desert I've heard it is really bad. I've heard there are people who will even steal your water." But, he added: "Sometimes I just want to die anyway."

If Alexis were to stay in his home village, he would probably spend his life doing back-breaking work in the rice paddy fields, where a field that takes two months' work from planting to harvest earns just $50 (£26). So far, there has been no viable government plan to create alternatives that allow the peasant population to earn a decent living.

Every year, about 400,000 poor Mexicans leave. And together those working en el otro lado (on the other side) pump about $20 billion back into the country, providing its second largest source of revenue after oil.

In San Andreas and other villages like it, children are living on moneygrams sent by their absentee parents - and becoming accustomed to a quality of life they could never achieve from the rice paddies. But as contact with parents fades over the years, their only hope of maintaining their standard of living is to head north themselves.

Margarita Sanchez Ramirez is the last remaining shred of her family in La Cantera Uno, a remote village in north-central Mexico. Standing in front of her breeze-block outhouse, the sad-eyed, grey-haired matriarch points at a row of nine US car registration plates nailed to the wall which chart the travels of her seven children, now scattered between Minnesota, Wisconsin, Colorado and Oklahoma.

"It's hard, very sad," said the 55-year-old, wiping tears from her eyes. Mrs Ramirez's 14-year-old grandson is already talking about leaving school and heading north, dreaming of the life he watches on the cable television that has reached his village - thanks to cash sent by distant parents.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... xnews.html

Abandoning your children to the streets while you vamoose.

Just another example of those wonderful family values that don't stop at the Rio Grande that impresses el Presidente so much.

These people are lower than any human scum imaginable and to think our US Government, corporatons, "advocacies" operating as 501 C 3 "public charities" are condoning and supporting this and "welcoming" this scum into our country is just beyond my belief.

IMPEACH BUSH AND CHENEY and make Dennis Hastert President to complete the term of these Wackos so we can stop this madness now.

Thing is, if we get them going South, they will do the same thing to us. We wll have a bunch of children to adopt.

Dixie

I'd like to see Hastert in the oval office - or Tancredo.

Did anyone hear McCain discuss how illegals bring their children to cross the desert and the children die - and shouldn't we all feel terrible? If an American did such a thing we'd be prosecuted for child endangerment and murder.

Then, a year after disappearing, his father returned with a new wife.

YUP! Good, church going, family oriented people!

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE DIVORCE? Catholic? Give me a freakin break!

I've seen this for 20 years with these people. A wife in one state, another in another state AND yet another back in their home country!

What a sham

But I thought "family values don't stop at the Rio Grande"?

They had to abandon the kids so they could come to the US and have more kids and "create strong bonds" with all of the Americans who they respect and appreciate so much.

They are not just abandoning their children, they are abandoning their country.

The one thing they refuse to abandon is their "heritage" and "culture" which for many has been passed down from the Aztecs. Their history is often refered to, but few people are aware of the rituals that took place:

As the sacrifices became more numerous and more frequent, there was an ever-growing need for war. And reports of the blood-drenched ceremonies struck terror into the enemy hearts required for sacrifice.
A temple at the top of a great pyramid at Tenochtitlan (now an archaeological site in Mexico City) was one of the locations for the sacrifices. When the pyramid was enlarged in 1487, the ceremony of re-dedication involved so much bloodshed that the line of victims stretched far out of the city and the slaughter lasted for four days. The god favors the hearts, which are torn from the bodies as his offering.

Festivals and sacrifice were almost continuous in the Aztec ceremonial year. Many other gods, in addition to Huitzilopochtli, required their share of victims.

Each February children were sacrificed to maize gods on the mountain tops. In March prisoners fought to the death in gladiatorial contests, after which priests dressed up in their skins. In April a maize goddess received her share of children. In June there where sacrifices to the salt goddess. And so it goes on. It has been calculated that the annual harvest of victims, mainly to Huitzilopochtli, rose from about 10,000 a year to a figure closer to 50,000 shortly before the arrival of the Spaniards.

http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/Pla ... oryid=aa12

After the Spanish missionary's arrived, sacrifices actually increased once the Aztecs were shown images of Jesus being crucified. It took missionary's years to end the practice of sacrifice. But many of their ancestors beliefs and values are still held. (- the sacrifice stuff)

As shocking as this may be, it explains why some of their values are very different from our own.

- BTW: All of our ancestors apparently practiced the same types of rituals at one time or another. The only difference is that Aztec rituals were documented.

Just another example of those wonderful family values

These same family values can be seen in the people in this country who profit from and or aid and abet illegals. They are selling this country out from under their children for nothing more than a short term monetary gain. These sell outs are just too greedy to see what they are doing to the future of their own children let alone Americans in general.

This is not to mention the risk they are taking with the infectious diseases that a growing number of illegals are bringing with them.

They will not abandon their children in this country as they are citizens and possibly their only link to get here if not now in the future.