Thread: Mexican “Wave�

http://www.laraza.com/news.php?nid=23729

Publicado el 06-24-2005
Mexican “Wave�

A study reports that one of eleven Mexicans lives in the US, where they constitute the most numerous of all US immigrant communities from the whole world.




Within just three months after her arrival, Dalia has developed a self-employment system selling gorditas at several worksites in Chicago. Photo: Vicente De La Cruz
Vicente De La Cruz – La Raza


Mexicans represent 57% of the undocumented population in the US. In Illinois alone live some 228,000 people without legal status from the neighboring country to the south.

According to the report “Estimates of the Size and Characteristics of the Undocumented Population� released by the Pew Hispanic Center, at the close of 2004 there were almost six million undocumented Mexican in the US.

The study estimates that in this country’s Hispanic community, the number of immigrants of Mexican origin “without papers� could surpass six and a half million by year’s end.

Another of the report’s findings is that the states which have traditionally received the most immigrants – like California, Texas, Florida and Illinois – are being displaced in this sense, as illegal immigrants now tend to settle elsewhere of the US.


They come to Illinois and other places...

In the report, the Pew Hispanic Center notes that in 2004 Illinois had 400 thousand undocumented immigrants, of whom 228 thousand were Mexican, or 4% of the country’s total, meaning that the state holds sixth place among the states where these residents settle.

In this regard, California holds first place with 2.4 million undocumented immigrants from around the world, with approximately 1.368 million being Mexican.

Second place goes to Texas, with 1.4 million “illegal� residents, of whom 798 thousand are of Mexican origin. Florida is in third place with 850 thousand undocumented immigrants, 484 thousand coming from the land of the Aztecs.

New York occupies the fourth position with 650 thousand residents “without papers,� 370 thousand being Mexican; Arizona, where 500 thousand undocumented immigrants live, is in fifth place.

While Illinois in sixth place as destination for “illegals,� New Jersey takes the seventh place with 350 thousand undocumented, of whom 199 thousand came from Mexico.

North Carolina holds the ninth position with 300 thousand immigrants “without papers,� having attracted 171 thousand undocumented Mexicans.

What is surprising is that, of the 10 million undocumented residents in the US at the close of 2004, a total of 3.10 million live in the remaining 42 states of the country.

And so we se that 32% of the immigrants without legal status are scattered among 42 states, against 68% who live in only eight of the nation’s states.

The Mexican “wave�

The report shows that between 1980 and 1984, 180,000 Mexican immigrants entered the US legally each year, with the undocumented comprising 40,000, 18% of all immigrants.

Between 1985 and 1989 the number of legal Mexican immigrants increased to 205,000 per year, with 80,000 coming illegally, 28% of the total.

This trend accelerated at the start of the past decade, with the number of the undocumented clearly surpassing legal immigrants, so that between 1990 and 1994, only 110,000 Mexicans were entering with papers while 260,000 did so illegally.

The rate picked up between 1995 and 1999, when 105,000 Mexicans entered legally per year, while the yearly number of undocumented immigrants from that country was 400,000.

From 2000 to 2004 the number of Mexicans entering each year was 90,000, while 485,000 entered the country without permits.

This results in over half of all undocumented immigrants in the US being Mexican. The total number of immigrants from that country – legal or otherwise – surpasses 11 million, according to the report.

The Pew Hispanic Center points out that these immigrants are not just young men without families. There are 146 men for every 100 women between the ages of 18 and 39 years, to which must be added 1.7 million undocumented minors and over three million children born in the US to undocumented parents.

56% of undocumented Mexican women in the United States work, in comparison to 73% of American women.

Jeffrey S. Passel, the Pew Center demographer and researcher, attributes this to the women being young and with children.

Mexican immigration grew at a rate of over 8% annually for more than three decades, to the extent that there is one Mexican in this country for every eleven in Mexico. “We can expect this population to keep on growing,� he predicted. (With data from EFE.)



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“You have to work to get ahead�

She arrived with her family only three and a half months ago. The point of entry was Miami, but because of a breach of the labor agreement reached with the first employer, she decided to move to Chicago where she has a brother.

“There is work for people who want to achieve, who want to get ahead,� assured Dalia, a wife and the mother of three children. She is irrefutable proof of the constant immigration by hundreds of thousands of Mexicans to this country.

In the interview she remembered what brought her family to undertake the trip to the US. “My husband lost his job two years ago; it was abolished. He then started a business, which failed because customers didn’t pay. And so it was…� she explained.

She was interrupted by one of her many customers. “Yes, there are gorditas... with chicken, or crackling, or potato with sausage, but there aren’t any tamales,� she told a young fellow at one of the businesses where she distributes food she herself prepares.

She continued: “I came in March... I’m from Monterrey in Nuevo León, but I lived ten years in Guadalajara, Jalisco. That’s where my husband, three kids and I left from.�

She added that when the job in Miami didn’t pan out, her husband proposed going back to Guadalajara. “But I told him, ‘I’m not going back. There’s opportunity and we have to take advantage of it. We’re here already. We’re going to keep on.’�

Another customer came to the blue icebox on wheels where Dalia carries the gorditas she sells at workplaces and at homes. Once she was free, she continued, “When I came here, I got to thinking about what I could do, and saw that the best option was cooking, what we mothers do when there’s no money.�

The immigrant related how she started making cookies, tamales, gorditas, whatever her customers requested for lunch and dinner. “So in this job I can keep an eye on my kids,� she commented.

With a glance that bespoke her pride, the young woman from northern Mexico asserted, “Many people are surprised at what I have managed to do in so little time, including my husband. It’s because if you want something, you have to work.�

Dalia assured that in her case the effort was harder “Because I hadn’t worked since getting married.� However, faced with her husband’s unemployment, she had to put forth the effort to get ahead of the situation.

This recent immigrant is now already thinking of starting a business, definitely setting up shop where she could sell the gorditas her dozens of customers like so much and the prepared food they are increasingly asking for.

Asked about other plans, this Mexican confides that in the near future “We might buy a car and then a house... I’m not gong back (to Mexico). I’m here already, and I’m going to take advantage of it so my kids can get ahead.� © La Raza
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She arrived with her family only three and a half months ago.

No mention of her legal status. Legal or illegal?

The point of entry was Miami, but because of a breach of the labor agreement reached with the first employer, she decided to move to Chicago where she has a brother.

HMMM

Within just three months after her arrival, Dalia has developed a self-employment system selling gorditas at several worksites in Chicago

http://cbs2chicago.com/eatatyourownrisk ... 10342.html

Chicagoans who believe that a restaurant or other food establishment is operating in an unsafe manner are encouraged to dial 311 and report it

http://www.openair.org/alerts/corn/viva.html

On April 14, an ordinance crept out of the City Council's transportation committee authorizing four departments--Health, Police, Revenue, and Streets and Sanitation--to impound any food-vending "vehicle" in violation of the city's health code. These included "any cart, handcart, pushcart, wagon, automobile, truck or any other wheeled vehicle, platform, or container, whether powered by motor, human means or otherwise." The owner of the vehicle would have to pay a $300 fine to get it back, in addition to "moving and storage" fees, which would be set by Streets and Sanitation. According to the city's municipal code, it's already illegal for vendors to sell "unprepared" food, meaning anything that they cook or cut themselves, but the law has rarely been enforced. This new ordinance was meant to be the final blow. The aldermen who drafted it said street vending represented a serious public- health risk, claiming that vendors don't wash their hands or their fruit and if they weren't stopped people were going to die.

http://egov.cityofchicago.org

Food - Mobile

License Information

A Mobile Food License is required to sell food items directly from a vehicle, such as a catering or ice cream truck. All food must be pre-prepared and pre-packaged. Mobile food vehicles are prohibited in some wards of the City. Check with the Chicago Department of Revenue for the rules in your area.


Fee: $137.50
Municipal Code Reference: 4-8 and 7-40
Inspections: Health (Food Protection)

I am not against any legal immigrant making a living, but I doubt if pushing around a cooler is considered a sanitary way of selling food. Also the kitchen the food is prepared in must be inspected and approved in order to be used.

Good Post JP!!

An example of the dominoe effect of immigrants on the loose. She entered through Cuba, had some "labor agreement" the "employer or she breached" took off for Chicago and went into an apparently illegal unlicensed "food business".

It's funny isn't it....Homeland Security is spending billions on "behind the scenes" security of some type and threats to health, life, and security are roaming the streets, highways and biways of every city and town in America.

You JP, we are already Third World, because our officials think like Third World Countries.

Clean out the officials, get rid of the "thinking", and BINGO....back on track to the greatest free nation on earth.

Sound like a plan?