Latin American Migrations to the U.S. Heartland: Changing Social Landscapes in Middle America

Conclusion: Latin American Migrations to the U.S. Heartland: Reshaping Communities, Redrawing Boundaries

Conclusion Latin American Migrations to the U.S. Heartland: Reshaping Communities, Redrawing Boundaries Linda Allegro and Andrew Grant Wood I don’t need a passport to walk on this earth Anywhere I go ’cause I was made of this earth I’m born of this earth, I breathe of this earth And even with the pain I believe in this earth. —Michael Franti, “Hello Bonjour” Why, in this era of free trade, digital revolution, and globalization, is the movement of people so regulated? Money, goods, and services are encouraged to circulate freely in the world economy, but workers—those who by and large produce wealth—are not. Instead, they face strict limitations, especially when considering transnational possibilities. The discrepancies of the neoliberal ideology that profess free markets, democracy, and freedom but simultaneously erect barriers and police the movement of people through detention and deportation strategies have resulted in a stark paradox of our time. Global migrations everywhere, including to the U.S. heartland, are witnessing similar processes of exclusion as new incursions of capitalist development make their way to still more remote and distant places. Our collective endeavor here means to encourage the reshaping of communities and the redrawing of boundaries as we rethink the study of the Americas. Moving beyond nation-state constructs—those containers of citizenship and fixed borders—this volume offers new meanings of place and belonging. It aims to challenge powerful hegemonic discourses that separate 308 . Conclusion the peoples of the Americas where distinctions are drawn out and lives appear in seemingly unconnected ways. The rhetorical construct of the “clash of civilizations” frames that difference where commonalities between peoples are incongruous and diversity insurmountable. Even academics are complicit as we have inherited a way to operationalize social study that often reinforces difference. Perhaps not surprisingly, anti-immigrant sentiment today is directed at Latin Americans living in the United States (both undocumented and legal residents alike) in a misguided effort to assign blame for a host of economic and political troubles. Influential contemporary pundits presently lead a calculated xenophobic campaign that turns the poorest, most desperate laborers into criminalized scapegoats. Hunted now by an assortment of local and state vigilante lawmen casually deputized as federal immigration-enforcement agents, all people of apparently “Hispanic” descent are today generally determined to be guilty of unauthorized human traffic until otherwise proved innocent. This is the pervasive racist and ethnic profiling of our time. Yet contrary to the diatribes of so many ill-informed “experts” and those who invite millions of television, Internet, and archconservative Sundaymorning audiences to buy into their ideology of hate, it is not “foreigners” and people of color who are depressing wages and costing jobs but corporate decision makers themselves who exploit the laboring classes in their zeal to maximize profits. As has so often been the case in the past, politicians who self-righteously claim that immigration is “out of control” in public forums hypocritically also work hand in glove with corporate interests to ensure that a ready supply of undocumented workers is always available at a moment ’s notice. Consciously creating a climate of social anxiety, suspicion, and fear, elites clearly play both sides of the immigration debate to their own advantage. They rail about the Mexican poor who—yes, often in economic desperation—violate immigration law. Yet these influence peddlers say little against their hidebound brethren, the unscrupulous corporations, businesses, and related interests that hire the undocumented with impunity. How infrequently we hear in the corporate media of entire industries (such as agribusiness, meatpacking, construction, certain service and manufacturing operations) that consistently avail themselves to the cheapest available labor. Yet it is not just the modern-day white-collar criminals who are to blame; in fact, it is all of us who, residing in the United States, have long been complicit in a quid pro quo agreement between lawmakers and corporate giants. They arrange for and manage underpaid and overworked labor, and we enjoy the smiley face “cheap stuff,” whether it be food, clothing, or other mass-produced goods. Reshaping Communities, Redrawing Boundaries . 309 This is not to say that Latin Americans are unwilling to work for low (by U.S. standards) wages. Having talked with and read about dozens of Mexican taxi drivers, restaurant employees, construction workers, landscapers , nannies, musicians, and others over the years who have lived for a time in the United States before returning to their home country...