http://www.pressconnects.com/apps/pbcs. ... 10313/1005

Sunday June 11, 2006 OPINION
Crossing to the 'promised land'
Myriad of complex reasons draw Latinos to America

By MARUJA LANDER
We all know that there has always been Latino immigration into the United States. But in recent decades, the immigration has intensified, much of it illegal. Why? The problem is complex, but I will explore some of its causes.

One is the intrusion of the U.S. government into the Latin-American countries, controlling their governments, strangling their economies and imposing the elimination of their subsidies for basic commodities that enabled the poor in those countries to survive. The small middle class became poor and the workers and small farmers went from being poor to living in misery.

Another cause is NAFTA, i.e., the imposition of the Free Trade Agreement in Latino America. It triggered the closing of locally owned industries and the abandonment of the agricultural fields in Latin America because they could not compete with the prices of imported goods. Large percentages of people became jobless and poorer.

A scenario of lack of resources and desperation has developed where there are huge masses of young men unable to find work and fathers and single mothers unable to feed their families. Moving to "the north" -- the U.S., in search of work has become the only hope. Working to feed your children is not a crime. It is a human right that surpasses any law.

Besides a history of U.S. manipulation of the economies and politics of Latin-American nations, U.S. citizens are unaware that by 1848, the country had actually seized almost half of Mexican territory (Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah -- Texas had already left Mexico to join the U.S.). Education in Mexico does not have such blind spots. No Mexican has forgotten that the U.S. Southwest was taken from them by force. When Mexicans immigrate, they feel they are on their own territory!

We always address our problems with patches instead of going to the causes: Drug problems? We burn the coca fields that belong to poor Latino farmers. Sept. 11 terrorist attack? We bomb Afghanistan and Iraq. Illegal immigrants? We build walls and deploy guards along the border.

The lasting solution for the massive Latino immigration is to change the policies of the U.S. administration and the International Monetary Fund toward Latin-American countries, to change imperialistic domination by the U.S., to stop supporting corporations that exploit the natural resources of Latin America without proper compensation and to stop supporting multinational companies that profit from the labor force in Latin America while paying subsistence wages.

People will stay at home if there is hope and prospects of a successful life there. The U.S. needs to support the growth of strong economies. It needs to help protect the nations from greedy multinational corporations. It needs to support governments that seek to enforce livable minimum wages and expand the middle class rather than those that suppress the poor and only protect the tiny percentage of rich families. It needs to support and encourage companies that invest in infrastructure in Latin America which benefits the general population.

In other, words, the U.S. has to reverse the policies it has pursued for the last two centuries.

Maruja Lander of Vestal is an instructor at Broome Community College.