Thread: Illegal Immigration As Therapy For Mexican Delinquents

LA Times's Sam Quinones On Illegal Immigration As Therapy For Mexican Delinquents
By Brenda Walker
http://vdare.com/walker/070827_delinquents.htm

The reader understands early in journalist Sam Quinones' new work of non-fiction, Antonio’s Gun and Delfino’s Dream, a loving portrait of Mexican "immigrants," that Mexico is a country of losers. The country surrendered a third of its territory to the United States, has been saddled with a revolution that instituted a low-rent Stalinism which remains to this day, and Even worse, it has been failing in all-important soccer.

As a result, Quinones [send him mail]asserts, wanderings of Mexicans northward are as much about redemptive self-actualization to escape the mental oppression of Mexico as the money.

Of course the money is very important, But Quinones likes to explain things in terms a middle-class American can grasp.

To that end, Quinones made the comparison in a radio interview that the Mexicans' desire for visible success is similar to what Americans experience when they go to their high school reunions. Having a shiny new ride and the latest expensive Nikes is important for swaggering young fellows anxious to strut their stuff with evidence of prosperity.

The ultimate status symbol is a new house, the bigger the better, even if it is never inhabited except as an annual vacation home. One man built a huge house with a swimming pool, even though he couldn't swim and nearly drowned the only time he used it. The most important thing is to show the homies how successful you have been in El Norte.

America, Quinones implies, isn't just a convenient full-service refrigerator crammed with goodies, it's also the proving ground for Mexican males in need of an ego infusion.

Furthermore, the need for personal fulfillment trumps any concern with legality and immigration status. But Quinones is too concerned with the human stories to stoop to such trivialities that might disturb the dramatic flow.

Despite his American birth, Quinones clearly adores his subjects, and can hardly say anything unkind about them. The cover portrait of four young migrators is a black velvet painting done with a sympathetic golden aura suitable for the book's message. Title character Delfino (in the red ball cap) and his pals are filled with "gumption" and "energy." But these admirable qualities without an education to back them up can only go so far in a 21st century techno-economy. Yes, immigrants and illegal aliens are hard-working. But you would be too if you were an illiterate peasant trying to earn a living in a first-world society.

Even though Quinoner has some odd predilections, it would be wrong to think of him as a complete fool. He understands that the remittance culture is bad for Mexico and fosters an unhealthy dependence on easy money arriving in the mail. He further grasps that when uneducated villagers return from America with jean pockets full of cash, it doesn't encourage local kids to stay in school.

Quinones also wrote one of the most memorable articles ever in the LA Times about dysfunctional Mexicans in California. It was featured in a VDARE.com article by Steve Sailer: LA Times' Quinones Prints The Truth About Immigration!

"With two teenage daughters at home and triplets still in diapers, Angela Magdaleno's family overflowed from a one-bedroom apartment in South Los Angeles that they strained to afford… Diapers had to be changed 15 times a day, feedings held every three hours. One triplet, 3-year-old Alfredo Jr., needed special attention because he was born with liquid on his brain and partially paralyzed.

"And that was before the quadruplets arrived." [6 + 4 = 1 Tenuous Existence: An illegal immigrant couple with six children were already living in poverty. Then the quadruplets arrived..., Los Angeles Times, July 28, 2006]

Author Quinones imagines himself on the side of the oppressed and is therefore something of a slum-trawler, a tendency that was more pronounced in his previous book True Tales from Another Mexico which included Mexican drag queens, gangsters and (my favorite) Jesus Malverde the Narco-Saint, much revered by drug smugglers.

(Sinaloa saint Jesus Malverde, aka the Angel of the Poor, has his own hometown shrine. Mr. Malverde is believed to look down from heaven on drug haulers and aid the successful pursuit of their nefarious business dealings. The spiritually-aware dope smuggler will ask for the blessing of the Narco-Saint before sending his product north and will respond to success with some sincere expression of thanks, such as a special serenade by Jesus' in-house band or perhaps a memorial plaque reading "From Sinaloa to California.")

Quinones’ main story, carried through three chapters at the beginning, middle and end of the book, concerns Delfino Juarez, the perfect example of a Mexican in need of self-esteem. He begins as a son of a bad drunk in a backwater town, and goes off to Mexico City as a teenager to get some cash. He came back with money and a mohawk, rapidly becoming the village's own Pied Piper of punk and breakdancing to other young people.

Success in Mexico City (and the requirements of an expanding family) induced him to try his hand in El Norte. He spent time working construction in Maywood, a town famous for its extreme Mexifornication.

Juarez was so successful that he inspired others to follow his example, including his father who quit drinking. Talk about redemption.

At the end, we see Delfino in a recent photo in front of his depressing cinder-block house in Xocotla, which is in the process of being expanded. In his village, he is an important man, and respected for his success.

Sam Quinones is not an obscure scribbler whose opinions don't matter. He is recognized as an expert on the subjects of Mexico and immigration, as evidenced by his interview on PBS' Newshour in July.

“You go away, you go to a place where the economy is massive and opportunities are prevalent everywhere, and all kinds of people are living in this—in the area where you live, and it shows you the world, really.

“And that's—and that's why I really think immigration for lots of Mexican immigrants, particularly the ones who come from these little villages you're referring to, is a little bit like a kind of a self-help, self-realization experience, where they understand—the blinders have come off, and they understand what they're capable of achieving, what they're capable of doing, and they can see that they were not capable of doing that back where they come from. [ Author Puts Faces on the Immigration Debate, PBS Newshour July 25, 2007]

See? Illegal immigration is better than psychotherapy.

“One night, driving a group of illegals into Birmingham, Alabama, his car broke down; [Diez] calmly walked them all night along the highway into town. This kind of accomplishment was liberating and left him trusting his own abilities.â€

Despite his American birth, Quinones clearly adores his subjects, and can hardly say anything unkind about them.

If there is any deleterious effect on the people of the United States, Quinones simply does not consider it. His world has Mexico as its center. Anyone outside is a shadow.

But what about all this talk we constantly hear on how Mexican-Americans are loyal to America first and foremost?