The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez: A Border Story

The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez: A Border Story by Aaron Bobrow-Strain

The communities along the Mexico-USA border are caught in the crosshairs of immigration policy created far away. The borders were once quite porous, with families spanning both sides. People would freely cross the borders. There were no quotas on Mexican immigrants, and various iterations of guest worker programs. However, changes to increase "fairness" of immigration policy opened up immigration from other countries, but ended up reducing Mexican quotas. Then the country clamped down on the border. Soon organized crime became involved in getting people (and drugs) illegally across the border. This lead to more border security. The US has now spent a huge amount on securing the border, yet there are still huge numbers of illegal immigrants. There are also many industries that rely on the immigrants. 

This book focuses on one of those immigrants, Aida Hernandez. She was born in Mexico and had family on both sides of the border. There was a history of domestic violence in her family. (Undocumented immigrants are reluctant to report violence for fear of being reported - especially if he perpetrator is a citizen.) She had a boyfriend she met at school in Douglas, Arizona. As a teenager, she had a son in the US, however, she still liked to party and went with friends to Mexico. She got caught on the border trying to return and was stuck in Mexico. Since she grew up mostly in the US, she did not have a Mexican ID and had difficulty getting a job. She worked a bar job that would get her some money. However, after work, somebody tried to rape her and ended up stabbing her. She was treated in a Mexican hospital, then rushed to a US hospital under a special treatment program. She was given special time to stay in the US to get better. She overstayed it and then was caught by immigration after trying to steal a lego set at Walmart. She was then in detention for about a year before finally getting resident status under an "abused spouse" provision. She was not an "upstanding citizen". However, she does have some positive attributes.

The book is not sure what it want to be. At times it is a history of the Douglas, Arizona and Agua Prieta, Mexico. At other times it is a Mexican immigration history. While the "title track" is the history of Aida Hernandez and her family. It also has a digression to the life of a woman that Aida would meet in the detention center and with whom she would enter and leave a relationship. The book could be more concisely written to bring out its main points.

American Dirt (Oprah's Book Club): A Novel

American Dirt received a great deal of pre-publication praise and scorn. The scorn was mostly due to the fact that a white woman had spent 5 years researching and writing a story about Mexican immigrants. Alas, it is not a memoir, it is a work of fiction. There may be some faults in the details. However, the emphasis is on the challenges and the humanity of the characters involved not the details of Mexican culture. Having it told by somebody that has not experienced it personally could be a benefit. The goal is to bridge the gap to portray the illegal immigrants as people rather than mindless hoards.

American Dirt centers on Lydia (mom) and Lucha's (young boy) voyage to the United States. They come from a middle class family in Acapulco, she runs a bookstore, while her husband is a journalist. Their entire family is murdered by a drug lord. (We later learn that a newspaper article about him caused his beloved daughter to commit suicide.) They want to get as far away from Acapulco as possible. Alas, Lucha doesn't have a photo ID, so they are not able to buy an airplane ticket. They are afraid to drive or take a bus (because they might be found by the crime boss), so they opt to join the migrant route. They jump trains with other (mostly Central American) migrants. They learn about the challenges that led the others to escape their homeland. In the process they have a number of scary encounters and close calls, but manage to make it through, eventually being guided by a coyote across the Arizona desert to finally make it to reach a relative in the US. It is hard to read the book and not have sympathy for everything that these migrants have had to go through. 

Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration

Open Borders uses comics to make a compelling case for unrestricted or even "partially restricted" immigration. The authors counteract many of the anti-immigration arguments as either using bad math or scapegoating. They also provide alternatives for those concerned with too rapidly opening the doors. If we are concerned with immigrants consuming too many government benefits, why not charge immigrants for the privilege of coming? (Illegal immigrants pay huge fees to third parties to help smuggle them in. What if these immigrants were made legal and those charges went to the government instead?)
Negative arguments that low-wage workers depress per-capita income are countered with a basketball player example. A group of young children entering a room with NBA basketball players will lower the average height, but no NBA player becomes shorter. Similarly, allowing low-skilled immigrants may lower per-capita income of the new country, even while every individual sees an increase in their income.
Crime and lack of assimilation? Well, immigrants tend to have lower crime rates. (We just hear more about the "unusual"). However, they do assimilate to higher native-born crime rates. They also tend to assimilate into the language and culture, though it will often take a generation or two. The will also tend to come in waves. Puerto Rico has had "free" immigration to the US for decades. At first there were only a small trickle of immigrants. Gradually the numbers increased, before leveling off. Most went to areas where there was already a community.
The focus on the book is immigration to rich countries from poor countries. However, immigration of all types should be supported. People should be able to pick the different structure and services they desire. This has shown to be successful within countries. The United States has had many different waves of immigration. Even the abandonment of small towns provides benefit as it reduces them to a population that can be economically supported. China and India have experienced rapid economic growth coupled with a heavy migration from rural areas to cities. If this provides benefits within countries, why not without? Europe has done much of that with the European Union. I'm still amazed that the US and Canada do not have open borders. (I've got much more grief taking business trips from the US to Canada than to European or Asian companies.) Even the US once had very open borders.
The authors present compelling ethical arguments in favor of free migration. If it is unethical to discriminate against a potential employee on the basis of gender or skin color, why is it ok to discriminate based on where they happen to be born.
Open Borders make just too much sense. Alas, immigrants (especially illegal ones) are such an easy group to scapegoat. Rather than fix the problem with more free immigration, politicians of the left and right keep trying bandaids. They may regret it one day the US becomes like Japan and needs immigrants to prop up the economy, yet is not a desirable destination.

Do androids dream of electric sheep?

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick

This novel is more commonly known by the name of the movie based on it, "Bladerunner". It centers around a "bounty hunter" who kills androids that are living among humans in a dystopian world.

A bounty hunter kills 6 androids in a day, but feels bad because he liked one of the android girls. However, with the money he gets, he hopes to be able to buy an animal. The world has suffered an environmental catastrophe. Thus, even ordinary farm animals are highly sought after. Electric animals are used in some sense to fill the gab. But, they are viewed as inferior.

The world that could create "electric" animals, also created "electric humans." These androids were initially supposed to focus primarily on areas of hard labor on remote colonies. However, some of them sneak back to earth to attempt to make a life there.

The novel can be confusing at times, and can be hard to tell what he is after (environment? Capital punishment? Morals? Consumerism?) You can even see a parallel to the United States immigration situation. The country loves to be able to reap the benefits of cheap labor from 3rd world countries, but doesn't want those people to dare take up residence in the US.

1838 Mormon War in Missouri

Stephen C. LeSueur. The 1838 Mormon War in Missouri. University of Missouri Press. 1987.

This book attempts to present a balanced analysis of a conflict that has been heavily influenced by one-sided partisanship. To the Missourians at the time, all evil originated from the Mormons. At times multiple Mormons were "sentenced" to the death penalty, while no non-Mormons were even tried in courts. (This in spite of non-Mormons having killed many more people.) The Mormons, on the other hand, viewed themselves as peace-loving victims of mob violence. The truth, however, lies somewhere in between.

At the core, the problem seemed to be people taking sides, unable to respect the other sides point of view. Many non-Mormons would claim to not be upset with the Mormon religion and to respect many individual Mormons. However, they distrusted Mormons as a group. The Mormons saw the non-Mormons as thugs intent on driving them out of their land.

In a way, both sides were right and both sides were wrong.

The Mormons started an internal "police" group, the Danites to help police their own membership as well as protect others. The non-Mormons created vigilante groups and called on the army to help their cause.

It only took a few small sparks to get things out of hand. A drunken brawl on election day, where Mormons were attacked set the Mormons off. The Danite group then encouraged the destruction and looting of the town. This led to the army getting called in and finally the "Crooked River" battle. The battle was only a minor skirmish, with one non-Mormon and a few Mormons being killed. However, the non-Mormons were freaked out, and there were reports of many non-Mormons being killed. This led to a great overreaction, an extermination order from the Governor, a massacre of Mormons at Haun's Mill, and the eventual eviction of all Mormons.

The battle is a story of how the "media" can assert a powerful influence on outcomes. Seemingly small events were magnified out of proportion, leading to more violence and bloodshed. Even the 'peacemakers' found themselves forced to one side. To victors also went the spoils. Massive looting (sometimes under the guise of the law) took place. Could the sides have resolved the conflict peaceably? The author of the book thinks the conflict would have happened regardless. However, if the sides had been able to communicate better with each other, there may have been a chance. (After all, everyone looked so much alike that face painting or handkerchiefs were sometimes used to tell the sides apart.) Good leadership from the Governor could have probably help avert the crisis. However, it was not forthcoming.

Could this be similar to some of the conflicts we see today, such as the war on terrorism or illegal aliens. Immigrants are often attacked because they are seen as "different". Long term residents want the land to themselves. When immigrants are Muslim or Arab, terrorism is used as an excuse. I guess 170 years has not been enough for the country to really learn how to live with people that are different.