Mexico exploits Central American migrants
Mexicans facilitate the passage of Central Americans planning to illegally cross the US border, and make a tidy profit doing so.One time I’d been in Guatemala and was returning to Mexico. I crossed the border near Tapachula, the largest Mexican city in the region, and purchased bus fare to go to Mexico City. The sold-out bus departed about 5 PM and we moved without stopping for several hours. During the night the bus stopped in an unpopulated area and the driver opened the door but did not turn on the interior lights.
A man boarded the darkened bus, ordered us to show our documents, and then proceeded to use his flashlight to inspect them. After taking each passport he ordered the passengers, one by one, off the bus and into a nearby shack. He never shined the light in our faces but only on our passports. All of us, except my seatmate, who showed his Mexican national identification card, were ordered off the bus.
We entered a small shack near the road, where we saw another man standing near an old steel office desk. The one from the bus entered with our passports and stood behind the desk. Under the bright light I saw they wore green uniforms similar to that of the army but with insignia of the Immigration Service.
The officer began sorting the passports as if they were a deck of cards, with one stack for Salvadorans, another for Hondurans, etc. He came upon an American passport, mine, and paused a bit, glanced up but didn’t see me since I was in the middle of the crowd. He shrugged and put it down near the other stacks and continued sorting.
When he finished that task he announced that there is a twenty dollar immigration fee for each of us. Central Americans are mostly of an Indian culture and are usually very submissive and unassuming. One however was bold enough to say “Hey, we all have visas to be in Mexico; our passports were checked at the border. We don’t have to pay you anything!” Both officers stood erect and the leader opened his coat to remind us he was armed. He said “You’ll pay it or you don’t get on the bus!”
He then picked up the top passport from the first pile and read out the name. After a short pause the passport’s owner appeared from the crowd with a twenty dollar bill. The officer handed him his passport and told him to get on the bus.
As this was going on I was thinking “No, no no. . . I’m not going to let this guy get away with this. If I’m forced into this extortion I’m going to make a lot of noise when I get to Mexico City, calling newspapers and television stations and just generally make a real pest of myself.”
The officer continued working from that one stack of passports, collecting the money and ordering the passenger back on the bus. He finished that stack and moved to the next, then appeared to recall that lone American passport off to the side. He picked up my passport, looked around until he saw me, read out my name and simply handed it to me and said to get on the bus. He must have picked up the negative energy I was sending out because he didn’t ask me for money, but also wanted me on the bus so I could not witness what he was doing. Well, he was a bit late for that!
I got on the bus and began talking to the other passengers. They were all angry but felt trapped into complying. My Mexican seatmate said that every bus on that route is stopped like that. Our bus alone yielded a net profit of $900 for those two officers, quite a nice income for just 15 minutes of work.
When we got to Mexico City, all the Central Americans got off the bus about two blocks from the terminal, fearing another shakedown from officials there. Mexico City was my final stop, as it was for my Mexican seatmate. All the others were going to the US border hoping to cross illegally.
US visas are very hard to get but Mexico gladly “sells” its visas to Central Americans, knowing that those people have no plans to tour Mexico. Mexico earns a lot of money by facilitating the movement of Central American illegals to the United States, not just from the legal fees for visas, and the illegal collection of other “fees”, but also revenue that bus companies, hotels, and coyotes generate.
Culture clash
There was a great story in one of the local newspapers about a Frenchman who came here to marry a Filipina. She told him the reception cost 100,000 pesos and he willingly gave her the money, only to later discover that the real cost was just 37,000. Refusing to marry a liar he called off the wedding and returned to Paris with his parents. But that was only after a nasty scene in which he had the help of the National Police to retrieve his passport from her house.
Are Filipinos deceitful? Of course they are, from our point of view. But not from their’s; it’s just part of the culture. To them it’s normal and expected; to us it’s a violation of the rules of basic human interaction.
When Filipinos speak of “my family” it does not include us as their mates and husbands. Their birth family has and always will have a Filipina’s primary loyalty. We foreigners exist only to aid her to help “her” family. Jane, the woman in the above story, saw an opportunity to spread around her good fortune in having snared a foreigner.
She may not have done this willingly, however. Even if she had felt some loyalty to her fiance she would not have been able to defy the wishes of her own family. Elders have a lot of power in this clan culture. A Filipina has no option but to obey the expectations of anyone older than her, not only her parents, but also her own elder brother, kuya, and elder sister, ate. Disobedience is not an option; if one of her elders suggested she inflate the price of the reception, then it was so. Period.
Another aspect of the local culture that we foreigners struggle with comprehending is the interior debt, utang na loob. Once a favor is accepted, the borrower assumes the role of inferior. It’s more than just lending money or an object; it’s about social status as well. Calling in the debt is then at the whim of the lender, and no matter how inconvenient the situation, saying no is not an option. Every kid in this country knows of cases where a student fails a test because a classmate, to whom utang na loob was owed, asked to borrow a textbook the night before the test.
The independent character which we westerners pride in ourselves, is not seen as worthy of emulation here. It’s in fact a pretty scary idea because it means being cut off from their extended family/clan/debt networks. Dependence is instead encouraged; it is a form of social security to Filipinos.
Filipinas are probably the sweetest and most beautiful women on the planet. That’s why we foreigners love ‘em. But they don’t, and indeed can’t because of cultural restraints, approach relationships with us on the terms we would expect. One time a girlfriend asked me for something and I suggested she ask her granddad; she replied she didn’t want to do that because she’d then have utang na loob with him. What this really meant was that we foreigners are not part of their culture and therefore repayment and, indeed gratitude, to us is neither expected nor given.
I have a foreign friend here who owns a business. He passed on to me a hilarious series of text messages he’d gotten from a Filipina he didn’t even know. She got his phone number from an ad for his business and began texting him repeatedly asking for 6000 pesos to pay her rent. This was not a request for a loan, nor was she offering anything in return; she was simply asking for money with the expectation that he’d give it. He received dozens of text messages over a two-day period, ending with one saying she’d been locked out of her apartment by the owner and begging my friend to send her money by Western Union.
One time I met a girl here who seemed nice so we exchanged phone numbers. A few days later I got a text message from her saying simply “Give me load”. Assuming that she forgot to add the word “please” to her message, I did send a modest amount, 30 pesos I think, to her cell phone account to test her. I waited patiently for a half hour without getting a thank you but I finally sent a nasty message about basic courtesy when requesting and receiving gifts.
I thought that my angry diatribe would put an end to further requests but over the next few days she sent a few more messages. I ignored them until, confused and exasperated, I sent her a message asking what she really wants from me: friendship, marriage, or just money. She didn’t even have the intelligence to lie to me; she simply said “money”.
We foreigners are merely the well from which Filipinos draw money. . . errr. . .water. We are not part of their clans nor do they want us to be part of them. We who live here have learned to enjoy relationships with them while recognizing that’s just how they are. That poor Frenchman, however, learned his lesson in an all too accelerated and expensive manner.
Earthquake
I used to live in Texas and traveled a lot to Central America, especially to Guatemala. I’d always stay in the same modest hotel in Guatemala City but one time they didn’t have any rooms available. I started to leave and the clerk told me that they do have some very small rooms up on the top floor. I checked one and it seemed adequate so I took it.
It looked like this floor, the fourth, had been the roof of the building but these rooms had been added after the original construction, possibly as employee’s quarters.
So one afternoon I’d gone back to my room and was resting. The building began to shake, the bare bulb hanging from its wire was moving in rhythm to the picture swaying back and forth on the wall,the water glass and pitcher jiggling across the night stand.
GOODGAWDAWMIGHTY! It’s the big one I’m telling myself, this is the day I might meet my maker. My mind races with silly thoughts: Hey, they’re going to find my body nude. Even if I survive the collapse of the building, I’ll be embarrassed by not being dressed. Should I get up and put something on? No, better to stay prone on the bed because at least that way I’ll have some cushion under me if it collapses. But maybe I should at least run across the room and grab my passport and money. No, better stay put. I’m on top floor so if it does collapse there’s some chance of survival since there’s just one layer of concrete above me. Glad I’m not on the lower floors. Then after a few seconds of this it stops. I sigh with relief.
That evening I met some friends and I asked them about their experiences with the quake. What quake? They didn’t know what I was talking about.
Now I’m really confused. Was I in the Twilight Zone or what? I’m beginning to doubt my own sense of reality. When I got back to the hotel I just had to try to validate my experience and hesitantly asked the desk clerk, “you felt the tremors this afternoon, didn’t you?”
He laughed and said that wasn’t an earthquake. The hotel’s laundry room is on the top floor too, and sometimes the load in the big industrial size washing machine gets out of balance, causing the building to shake like that.
Spending some time in the world of illegal immigration.
Let me return to the theme of illegal immigration, since it seems George Bush is determined not to let it go away. He and his cabal are apparently willing to defy the will of the citizens and ram this amnesty bill into law by any means they can.
As I wrote in my previous entry about immigration, those who will benefit from amnesty are not the kind of people we need as fellow citizens. They are not community builders but are rather net takers from the community.
I lived several years on the US border with Mexico as well as in Mexico itself. I’ve had a lot of contact with illegal immigrants in various ways: as a volunteer English teacher for them at my church, as their co-worker and supervisor, as their neighbor, and as a frequent traveler in that region.
Let me tell you about Jorge and Enrique.
But first my credentials, okay? I’m an admirer of Spanish culture, have read as many books in Spanish as I’ve read in English, and speak both languages equally well. I have a BA from a Texas university in history with a concentration on Latin America and the Spanish Empire. I also did graduate studies in Latin American Studies in Mexico. But let’s be clear on what’s Hispanic okay? The word origin denotes something or someone from Spain, Hispanic coming from the word España. I will, however, use it here in the way Americans use it, albeit incorrectly.
I’d be willing to accept any Spaniard to the US as an immigrant. But those who come from Mexico and other nations in the Americas are not really Hispanic, but are in fact predominantly of a tribal and Indian culture. They may speak Spanish but that’s clearly the only link to Spain that they carry. You can bet that few, if any, of them have ever read (or heard of?) Cervantes, even if they can read. Most read at a very limited level; comic books are very popular in Mexico and Central America.
Okay, back to Jorge and Enrique. When I was studying in Mexico I returned to the US one time on a semester break. I’d left my car at my sister’s house in northern Minnesota and was going there to get it. I traveled by bus from Mexico City to the border at Laredo, Texas, about a 20 hour ride. Then continued by bus with Greyhound going north. At our stop in Dallas two young Mexican men boarded the bus and it was quite obvious they were illegals. We conversed a lot during the long bus ride as well as at the many stops along the way.
They were from the Mexican state of Chihuahua , the one that borders west Texas, and crossed the border near El Paso . Their plan was to go to Minnesota because they’d heard from others that jobs might be available there. They knew nothing about Minnesota but just had some vague idea that’s where they wanted to go. So near El Paso they hopped a freight train carrying automobiles, telling me they rode in air-conditioned comfort because the keys were in the cars. The train stopped in Dallas and they then found their way to the Greyhound station where I met them.
They had just enough money for bus fare to Minneapolis and spent almost nothing on food at the rest stops. It took a couple of days to reach that destination so I got to know them very well. They were not the kind of people I’d seek out as friends (they had about as much intellect as a box of rocks) but under the circumstances they were entertaining. And I was getting some really interesting insight into the world of illegal immigration.
We arrived in Minneapolis at about 5:00 AM. and I immediately asked about my connections to continue to my sister’s house. I learned that she lived on a one-bus-a-day minor route that leaves Minneapolis at 3:00 AM., making for a fun-filled 23 hour layover for me.
So I stayed with my illegal friends for a while longer. As soon as we got off the bus they asked me where Minnesota was. I said Minnesota is the state and they’re IN it. The name Minneapolis meant nothing to them and they were visibly distraught at not finding themselves in a place called Minnesota. The concepts of city and state were meaningless to them, although their country has the same political structure as mine.
One of them had heard that a used car lot on Broadway hires illegals. This was ALL they had to go on, the only reason for traveling across a continent without money for food or to return home if things didn’t work out. I imagine this snippet of information came out while drinking beer with some folks back in their home village. They had nothing written down, had no names of cities, streets, or people to work with.
I’d lived in Minneapolis before and knew my way around so I offered to take them to Broadway but warned them it’s far away and that it’s also a cross-town street, meaning it would be hard to find which used-car lot is the right one. They didn’t want to spend money for a city bus so we walked to one end of that avenue, then began trekking across town.
I was getting pretty impatient with these cretins and their disorderly and unfocused minds but gritted my teeth and persevered. . . for my own learning experience. I also began thinking that there’s potential for writing a novel about goofy characters like these.
So we spent most of the morning walking from one end of the city to the other, stopping at each used car lot on Broadway. At each Jorge would study the sign to see if it brought up some recognition for him, to try to recall if THAT was the name his fellow beer drinker had said.
These guys were really out of their element not having any other Spanish speakers to talk to. They asked me several times where Minnesota was, perhaps suspicious that I might be tricking them. One time we met a Latino-looking man on the sidewalk and they tried to ask him where Minnesota was. But the guy just shrugged his shoulders and moved on, apparently not being a Spanish speaker.
I’d made up my mind earlier in the day that I was not going to rescue these guys from their own stupidity. If they are so stupid to travel thousands of miles on wisps of rumored information and do it without funds, well then they deserve their fate. But by noon I was hot, tired, thirsty, and footsore. They were ready to admit defeat and wanted to go back to the downtown area. I broke my own rule that one time and paid our fares for the city bus.
We had an inexpensive snack by buying a couple of rolls in a bakery, each of us paying for our own food. Jorge and Enrique began to show irritation with each other and that soon turned into a loud argument, ending with Enrique reproaching Jorge for suggesting this fruitless journey.
The men knew my plan was to pick up my car at my sister’s house and then drive it back to Texas so they asked if they could ride with me back south. I said no for two reasons: one, my sister is a law-and-order kind of woman and would not appreciate my taking outlaws to her house, and two, I was just getting pretty tired of these guys by this time.
I figured I now had to get them connected with the Hispanic (sic) community so they could use the resources it offered. I checked the yellow pages and found a non-governmental organization that seemed to fit their needs. I called and after explaining the situation was told to bring them over.
After another long walk we arrived at that agency only to find that the counselor, although of Mexican descent, did not speak Spanish well enough to deal effectively with these guys. She was eager to help them, however, and asked me to stay and translate for her.
Minnesota is about as socialist as any American state can be, and this girl really knew her stuff about tapping into all of that state’s public and private sources of help. First thing she did was get us a free meal at a nearby community center. While we were eating she interviewed Jorge and Enrique and filled out some forms.
Then she drove us over to the state’s welfare office to get the men on the dole. While driving she tried to converse with the guys and asked them what they did in Mexico. Enrique had worked on a ranch. Jorge stated that he “helped” people cross the border, saying it in a tone that suggested he was a man of compassion. The woman followed that up by asking “And did you charge them for that help, Jorge?” SILENCE. . . Jorge knew he was caught and I burst out laughing at both their naivety. I don’t think she intended to entrap him like that; I really think she was just trying to converse, to be friendly.
So that friggin Jorge had been a coyote, eh? Those guys charge not hundreds of dollars, but thousands, for “helping” people cross the border. And where did he invest his earnings? Probably on women and wine and entertaining friends; he surely didn’t invest it wisely because here he was stranded more than 1500 miles from home with about two dollars in his pocket.
Well my esteem for these guys had been hanging around the zero point all day anyway but at this point it dipped really low, far, very far into the negative range.
The counselor got them enrolled in Minnesota’s welfare system, enabling (how appropriate is THAT word in this case, eh?) them to have a few days in the state’s welfare hotel with meals. The idea was to get them off of the streets. . and maybe jail. . and time to link up with sources of employment. It gave them breathing space.
She was kind enough to get me a room at the welfare hotel too so that I’d have place to hang out until my bus left at 3:00 in the morning. And since I was on the welfare rolls for those few hours, I also got a free meal that evening, thanks to all you kind taxpayers.
That evening I walked around the hotel a bit and ran into Jorge and Enrique chatting with other Hispanics in a recreation room. They were still asking where Minnesota was. Cripes!
So I got to spend some time in the world of illegal immigration. George Bush and Teddy Kennedy, folks who should know better but insist that we legalize 12 or 15 or 20 million of these types. What are they thinking?
This is a population unlike our own, one that cannot plan their lives beyond getting the beans for the next meal, one that has no sense of propriety or legality or truthfulness, and apparently one of very limited intellect.
Language skills
I spent the weekend in Cebu City , taking advantage of Cebu Pacific Airline’s new direct Clark-Cebu flights, paying just P1600 each way, including taxes. How about that? Much better than the old way of losing four hours just to go from home to the Manila airport, and then have to hang around for a flight out of that decrepit old terminal. Clark’s airport is just 30 minutes from my apartment.
My reason for going, other than just to get out of town for a while, was to meet up with a girl I’d met on a previous trip. That didn’t work out however because she’d moved back to Leyte and I was not really keen on taking a ferry boat to her town. But I’m not disappointed at all; I met some really nice folks.
Besides, Cebu city is a pleasant place to hang out. Unlike Manila, the taxi drivers are courteous and honest, jeepney routes are sensible, traffic flows fairly smoothly, and the locals are friendly.
While walking a downtown street and passing three girls our eyes met in that look that says “hey, might be fun to know you.” We winked and flirted a bit but I refused to stop near them because of the presence of a hooker and some rough-looking guys. Instead I said “let’s move on down a bit” and I walked about 20 paces then stopped. They didn’t seem to be aware of those people at first but eventually realized what I was doing and we got together, later ending up in a Jollibee to talk. . . and talk.
They are really three of the nicest and sweetest girls I’ve met in this country. And I had an important learning experience with them. I’d gotten kind of jaded here, uncomfortable and even a bit bitchy at times about the level of communication here, making friendships and even commerce difficult in the worst case, merely amusing otherwise. But not all Filipinos lack these basic communication skills. These three girls, at 19, 20, and 21 speak English like you and I do. We were able to all talk as fast as we wanted as well as instantly catch each others’ jokes. Damn! Where have they been all this time?
At one point one of the girls was telling about eating balut , fermented chicks right from the eggshells. Filipinos really seem to love ‘em. She was very animated and exaggerating all the slurps and nibbling on the semi-formed beak and saying they eat them at night so they don’t have to see them. I was also exaggerating my disgust and interjected with “Well don’t think I’m going to be kissing you now!” Then the second one laughed and immediately jumped in to say SHE doesn’t eat balut so I told her okay I WOULD kiss her. Then the third one made sure I knew she didn’t eat them either. When you can laugh and joke and play with language like that you KNOW you’re communicating the way folks should.
We agreed to meet the next day, having another long and fun gab-session. Living in the Philippines would not be so isolating if there were more people like these around. I hate it when I have to slow down my speech, repeat myself, and dumb it down for local comprehension. I’d gotten to the point of believing that Filipinos must communicate well among themselves and the problem was my foreign accent. But meeting these three girls totally disproves that. Besides, I have a very neutral accent and it’s probably one of the easiest to understand of all native English-speakers. If I have trouble communicating here imagine how the Aussies or Germans do it!
Sad to say I could only stay two days in Cebu. Monday was Independence Day and hotels were full up. I almost didn’t get a room as it was. Also the big city was jammed with shoppers getting things for the new school year, probably lots of provincial folks in town for that. But even the foreign zone was packed so I bought a ticket to come back after just two days there. That’s okay though. Next time I’ll make sure I have hotel reservations and plan it all a lot better. Gonna go back soon I hope. Don’t want those girls to slip away from me.
Oh, the learning experience I spoke of? Shiela, the girl I was going to meet, the one the trip was originally all about, well the reason I was attracted to her was for the same language skills. She was just so articulate and intelligent and fun to talk to when I met her. But Shiela and the new girls I met have something in common. . . they are all from the eastern side of South Leyte province. Now that’s a really remote region of the country, has no cities or towns to speak of. But yet the small communities there seem to produce some great communicators.
I wonder how and why that happens. The Ifugao people in Ifugao province have better than average language skills in English also, noticeably better than most lowlanders. A hundred years ago they were running around in loincloths and killing each other in tribal warfare. . . for good reason they were called “headhunters”. While the Ifugao are good, the people of South Leyte’s eastern side, those who live east of Sogod town, on the peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and the eastern shore of Sogod Bay, are without doubt the best I’ve seen yet.
Airport Security
When I went to Clark to check in for my flight last weekend I first had to go through a security check near the entrance. Then at the check-in counter of my airline the clerk said I couldn’t take gels and liquids on board. I just had a small bag that weighed about two kilograms but checked it in just to avoid having my lotions confiscated. Then I paid the airport terminal fee and went to the gate area for the second inspection. As my little shoulder bag went through the x-ray machine the guy who’s scanning alerts somebody. That guy then takes it and asks if I have medicine. I say “Yeah, I think I have some pain killers.” He roots around in the bag and comes up with my nail clipper and with a smile of triumph says I can’t take any sharp objects on board, that I’ll have to leave the nail clipper unless I agree to have him break off the little nail file. I say “Sure, break it off”. He does so and totally ignores the folding scissors that are hanging by a beaded chain from the nail clipper.
In the same pocket he found that nail clipper I also had my house key with two attached folding knives, one of which is a cheapie but the other is a real weapon of minor destruction, that will cut an artery in a flash. He ignored it, although it not only is prohibited on aircraft it’s probably illegal to carry on the streets. Uftah!
Then he spots my extra batteries for the digital camera, says I can’t have that. Says nothing however about the batteries inside my camera. Says I can’t have my umbrella either. Cripe! He allows me to go back to the check in counter and put the umbrella, alcohol hand wash, and the batteries inside my checked bag. The baggage folks didn’t seem to mind going back and find it for me so it must be a common event for them. I didn’t want to risk losing my nice knife however by allowing the baggage people to see me put it in the bag so I kept it.
Then I went right back through security one more time. . . with the knives and was not challenged.
Hmmmmph! So much for airport security.
