Mexicans want Americans to stay away. And, if they’re already in Mexico, well, they’d like them to just, like, get out.
This according to a recent article in the Epoch Times, an American-based newspaper with an admittedly conservative bent.
“New to the city?” one crude sign in Mexico City reportedly reads. “Working remotely? You’re a [expletive] plague, and the LOCALS [expletive] HATE YOU. LEAVE.”
The obvious irony is that thousands of Mexican migrants—as well as those from other countries—cross illegally into the US every day with nary a peep from these same complainants. And yet, for gringos settling south of the border, their common refrain is “gringo, get gone.”
Growing up in Southern California, I was often aware of this tension. According to immigration officials, though, it has increased exponentially: just in fiscal 2022, more than 2.76 million migrants entered the US illegally from the south, nearly a million more than last year and more than ever before.
For me, the issue hits home both geographically and emotionally because I come from a family of immigrants. My mother escaped to America from Nazi Germany after World War II; my wife (and, with our help, her parents) emigrated from the Philippines; and now I’m an immigrant myself in the land of my wife’s birth. Here’s the thing, though: we all stood in line and did it legally.
It always astounds me that so many people elsewhere feel America is their birthright, while residency in their own countries is a privilege that must be earned. That was brought home to me in dramatic fashion last year after writing a column about a Filipino journalist living illegally in California.
“The more I know about him, the less I like him,” I wrote. “His name is Jose Antonio Vargas; a Filipino by birth, but American by choice. For most of his life, the 40-year-old immigrant has lived illegally in the United States. Others, in similar circumstances, do their best to keep their status secret. But Vargas has made a career of openly flouting US immigration law. And, instead of enforcing it, his adopted country has rewarded this migrant scofflaw with money, fame, and professional acclaim. Meet the man frequently referred to as America’s ‘public face of undocumented immigrants.’ “
What sparked my outrage was an opinion piece Vargas wrote for the Los Angeles Times demanding that he and other illegals be allowed to vote. “I couldn’t help but compare his illegal status in America to my quite-legal permanent residency in the land of his birth,” I fumed. “Not only am I unable to vote in Philippine elections but could get deported just for expressing a political opinion.”
What I wasn’t prepared for, though, was the feedback from other Filipinos outraged by my outrage. Their consensus: Vargas should be left alone and afforded all the privileges of US citizenship because, well, colonialism.
Ok, I get it; America has done bad things in the past that some aren’t willing to forgive. They believe they are still owed amends for what happened to their ancestors. And America has certainly fanned that expectation by historically portraying itself as a sanctum for the world’s “huddled masses.”
But at some point that’s got to be refined. America isn’t the only nation formerly steeped in colonialism. It does, however, seem to be the only one to which free entry is routinely demanded.
Disgruntled Mexicans, meanwhile, argue that American immigrants in their country negatively affect its culture. To which I reply, yes, cultures certainly can rub up against each other; is that always bad?
I grew up eating tacos, but you’ll never hear me complaining about it. Neither should they complain about eating crow.
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David Haldane’s latest book, “A Tooth in My Popsicle and Other Ebullient Essays on Becoming Filipino,” is due out in January. A former staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, where he helped write two Pulitzer Prize-winning stories, Haldane is an award-winning journalist, author, and radio broadcaster with homes in Joshua Tree, California, and Northern Mindanao, Philippines. This column appears weekly in the Mindanao Gold Star Daily.
