The Grapes of Wrath — Mexican immigrants — history repeating

“Play for your Wait” by Kinsee Morlan

I just watched The Grapes of Wrath movie for the first time a few nights ago (yep, read the book in high school like the rest of you), and I’m sure I’m not the first person to notice the similarities between the migration of the “Okies” and the rest of the Dust Bowl migrants of the 1930s and the current wave of Mexican farm workers immigrating to the U.S. today. The Okies were treated like shit, given unfair wages and sent to government-backed migrant work camps (which the Mexicans would begin to populate just a few years later). It took some time before the Okies were accepted into the California culture and treated like statesmen instead of strangers.

Problem is, whereas the light-skinned migrants. whose only noticeable difference at the time was the strange or “dumb” way they talked (which eventually went away with assimilation), the Mexican immigrants have noticeable physical differences that won’t go away anytime in the near future.

I hate to be the one to say it, but racism and bigotry will always exist as long as physical differences are apparent.  Most people are just too stupid to look past the color of someone’s skin or the shape of their face.  And you know what’s ironic and kind of funny about all of this — it’s the Okie-like people (read: The San Diego Minutemen) who now hate the influx of the Mexicans and treat them the same way their poor hillbilly ancestors were treated just a few decades ago.

Deported in Tijuana

Tijuana border deportees

Lately, I’ve been parking my car in San Ysidro and walking through the Port of Entry. Every night, no fail, at around 7 p.m. I walk through right as Border Patrol agents are deporting their latest batch of undocumented workers. The group of deportees are made up mostly of young men, but there have been times when I’ve seen women, small children and old men barely able to walk.

It’s sad, to say the least. The people are taken off a bus, forced to stand against the border fence with their arms up like criminals, then they’re given a brown paper bag with the letters “MX” scribbled across the bottom corner and squeezed through a little side door right next to the turnstile gate where people walk through.

Most of them look bewildered and scared. They group together near the border fence and go through the contents of the bag — so far, what I’ve seen are shoelaces, belts and bottled water — then they eventually wander off into the wild that is Tijuana.

A few of the deportees ask passersby for money so they can call their families on the nearby public phones. Others likely have no way of contacting their family members. I can’t even imagine being in that situation. No wonder Tijuana has so many problems. The deportees have no food, no shelter –they have nothing but the clothes on their backs. If I were in that situation, I’d do whatever it took to get food and shelter. Steeling and panhandling comes to mind.

There has simply got to be a better way. Aside from humanitarian organizations like La Casa Del Migrante, which has representatives waiting at the fence for deportees from time to time, and a new program that gives immigrants a ride back to their hometown (which most left for good reason and have no interest in returning to), the people have little to no resources. It’s just not fair.  The United States should take more ownership in what happens to the people we deport.  Dropping them off in Tijuana with nothing but a paper bag filled with crap is just not enough.

Do it the right way: Lisa Sanchez and Marsha Gonzalez

Lisa Sanchez and Marsha Gonzalez by Kinsee Morlan

Eric Wolff, David Rolland and I just completed CityBeat’s next cover story. It’s called “Crossings” and the concept is simple. How/why/when did people from Mexico get here? Yes, there are stories of crossing illegally by foot, but there are a lot of other stories, some of people who crossed the legal way, which are just as complicated and trying as the famed desert tales. The issue comes out on Wednesday, but below is a story that I wrote then ended up cutting. It didn’t really fit, but it’s interesting in it’s own right:

ICE is gettin’ a little deportation-happy

A heartbreaking story about a mom searching for her mentally disabled son who she says was illegally deported from California last month came out on the AP wire today. In the story, the mom says she wants the help of U.S. authorities, which has yet to be offered. I agree. We should offer every type of assistance possible.

And even if this guy wasn’t a legal U.S. citizen, I think there should be some sort of law against deporting people with disabilities. Back when I used to park my car on the U.S. side and walk across to my home in Tijuana, just about every other day I would see ICE officials dropping off van-loads of Mexicans who had been snagged trying to cross illegally. Some were just kids as young as 15, others were old women, and they were all basically shuffled through the gate and left to fend for themselves in Tijuana, one of the most dangerous border cities in the world. Sometimes, there were human-rights groups greeting the recent deportees, handing out informational fliers and offering bottled water, but more often than not, there’s no one. Just what, exactly, is a person with disabilities supposed to do?

Have we no heart?

Cross-border relations

I opened my eyes to the sound of my man, Enrique, whispering into my ear, “I’m going to Home Depot to get grass.”

I still don’t have running water in my casita, so I’ve been staying with Enrique and his boss from time to time. Enrique stays with his boss during the week because he’s kind of in between houses and a steady job. He owned a bar in Rosarito, but was beaten, badly beaten, by a man and his security guards. The man, according to Enrique, is the husband of the women who gave him a business loan. After the beating, Enrique feared for his life and was forced to close his bar — to give up his dream, in more ways than one. So it goes in Mexico.

Anyway, it occurred to me this morning, as Enrique left at 7:30 a.m., that I am dating an illegal immigrant. He does anything and everything just to make a buck (yard work, electrical work and even laundry and taking care of the dogs), and it’s all under the table. I know there are millions of people in his situation, but it’s sad to see someone you know scrambling the way he has to.

Enrique has a son to support. Pay in Mexico, even for a decent job, is still way below normal living standards, so people have to get creative just to survive.

The hardest thing for Enrique, I think, is the pride thing. He’s got so many amazing qualities but they’re all trumped by the fact that he was born in the wrong country.