U.S. errs in its denial of tourist visas to Mexicans
Linda Valdez
The Arizona Republic
Dec. 30, 2007 12:00 AM

We chatted in the living room of his mother's house, which was comfortable and completely unlike it had been 17 years ago when I first visited.

In those days, Toñita's house didn't have a living room. The walls were made of mud and cactus ribs then, and it was dark and damp inside. The tiny kitchen had only enough room for a table and a treadle sewing machine. Every evening, cots would be opened and lined up in two back rooms where the family of seven slept. During the day, the cots were folded up so people had space to move around and get dressed.

The floors were hard-packed dirt. The toilet was an outhouse. To shower, you had to pump water, heat it on a butane stove, pour it into a 5-gallon plastic tub and carry it to an outdoor enclosure. advertisement




Like many of the homes in the villages surrounding Los Mochis, Sinaloa in western Mexico, Toñita's house has undergone a huge transformation. It was rebuilt over the years room by room with brick and concrete. Big windows now let in the light.

There's a bathroom with running water. The kitchen has a sink and cabinets. The whole place was expanded to include a dining and living room. The floors are tiled. The walls are painted and dotted with family pictures, including an 11-by-17 framed photo of my daughter emerging from the doorway in a cloud of pink netting that was her Quinceañera dress.

Many people would attribute the improvements in my husband's sister's house to remittances from illegal immigrants in the United States. Americans are conditioned to make such assumptions about Mexico.

But Toñita's house was not rebuilt that way. Her children paid for her upgrades without ever leaving Mexico.

Her husband's hard work in agriculture cost him an eye, but it never paid enough to lift them above subsistence. The kids learned from his experience. They studied. They got good jobs. Their mother says their prosperity was a result of la ayuda de Dios, or the help of God.

God gets credit for every good thing that happens to this family. This, too, runs contrary to the unflattering image of Mexicans that Americans have allowed themselves to accept.

Two of Toñita's boys work as electricians for the government, the third is involved in computers and computer training, also for the Mexican government. The two daughters married well, and they help, too.

It's a matter of pride in Mexico to assist your parents and your in-laws. This is something else you don't hear on AM talk radio or the other U.S. media outlets that specialize in whipping up fears about "invaders" from south of the border.

The fearmongers talk about Mexicans as shadowy villains who cross the border illegally because they refuse to "wait in line" and "come the right way."

Of course, these commentators don't tell you there is no real line or any realistic expectation that waiting will result in permission to cross the border to find work. Even average Mexicans who just want to visit face ridiculous obstacles.

That brings us back to my recent conversation with one of my nephews in Toñita's tidy living room.

He showed me a folder of carefully prepared papers. One was a letter from his employer, notarized and on an official letterhead, saying he had been working for 2½ years and would have a job for the foreseeable future. These were papers he had been told to take with him to the American Consulate in Hermosillo, Sonora to apply for a non-immigrant tourist visa.

He followed the process. He paid $100. He stood in line. He waited his turn. He said his appointment lasted less than a minute.

The interviewer asked why he wanted to go to the United States. "Just to look around and see what it is like," he replied. That's what tourists do, isn't it?

Apparently not. They kept his money and gave him a form letter of refusal. It said the interviewer was not convinced he would return to Mexico after entering the United States. He can bring another $100 and try again in six months. Outside, he met a number of others who had been in line with him. They all had the same form letter. They were all $100 poorer and no wiser about why they had been turned down.

He asked if I could explain it, but I couldn't.

There is no good reason why an earnest young man who has a steady job in Mexico should be denied a tourist visa. There are only bad reasons.

A bunch of opportunists spouting anti-Mexican rhetoric have turned this nation's legitimate frustration over illegal immigration into something mean. The utter failure of politicians to face this problem has left many Americans too angry to remember how much they have in common with their Mexican neighbors.

I didn't want to tell him that Mexicans who honor their parents and their God and cover their walls with family pictures are viewed with such suspicion that my country resists providing a dignified, legal mechanism for them to cross the border.

So I told him the next time he goes to the consulate, he should say he wants to go to the United States so he can shop and spend money.

It might work.

We may not love our neighbors, but America still loves commerce.



Reach the author at linda.valdez@arizonarepublic.com or join her blog at http://www.azcentral.com/members/ Blog/Valdez.

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