Student Publications
University of Houston
151C Communications Bldg
Houston, TX 77204-4015
713.743.5350

©1991-2007
Student Publications,
All rights reserved.

Last modified:

Contact:
ktruitt@uh.edu

Opinion

Jalapeño cornbread: recipe for pride

Denise Hewitt
Opinion Columnist 

One of the most exclusive social organizations in the United States is the Mayflower Society, open only to those descended from the original 29 settlers who came across on the Mayflower. 

By the time these settlers landed, the Spanish were already populating what would become the southern United States, including a major city in St. Augustine, Fla. We willfully forget the country's Spanish and even French roots, preferring to pretend that we arose from an English monoculture. 

We forget that we have deep ties to the countries south of us that go back hundreds of years. We forget that the treaties that annexed Texas, California, New Mexico and Arizona into the United States also sundered families.

We forget these roots at our peril. Even now, as thousands of demonstrators are marching in the streets to remind us that the United States has deeper ties to Mexico and Mexico's problems than we care to admit, we still ignore the reality. "Remember the Alamo!" we cry, and then we conveniently forget to talk about what came afterwards: the loss of land, the disenfranchisement and the failure of the United States to live up to its treaty obligations with Mexico, all of which led to massive poverty among those who had been comfortable, if not well off.

The Mexican flags at the protests are a reminder of a relationship that the United States has with its southern neighbor that goes back at least as far as the Mayflower. Our relationship is at times symbiotic, at times exploitative of Mexico and Mexicans by Americans, but it is not parasitism on the part of Mexico. We are dependent on Mexican oil; we have allowed our companies to find newer, less expensive homes in Mexico so that we can have cheaper goods and services in the United States. Companies here actively recruit immigrants, legal or not, in Mexico to come here. It is the height of intemperance to blame poor people sneaking into this country for broad economic trends.

Yet illegal immigration is costing Americans. We only have a finite amount of money to spend on social services, and what we have is wholly inadequate as it is. Illegal immigrants do pay into the system, but not enough to cover the costs they bring. They have displaced Americans from jobs, not through their own actions but because of the pressures of globalization that are pushing down wages for non- and low-skilled jobs to the point where no American can subsist on them. These social costs are often used to justify rounding all of the illegal immigrants up and sending them home. The better alternative is to bring them fully into the system, which would give them regular health care and help them integrate faster into society. No longer feeling they have to hide, they would, instead, seek to become fully a part of our country instead of existing as our newest "peculiar institution."

Peculiar it is, too. They cannot vote, and raising their voices to represent themselves brings the risk of deportation and loss of all they have fought to achieve. Those achievements are based in an illegality, but one to which we are party to. We want the low cost labor so that our chicken at Wal-Mart is cheap and plentiful; Tyson is a major employer of immigrants from Mexico in its chicken processing plants. Our booming, affordable building industry in Houston is possible because of immigrants accepting lower wages for construction work. We want the benefits created for us without allowing those who work a voice or a place. We want clean houses and mowed yards.

Suppose we do decide to "round em' up." Twelve million illegal immigrants live in the United States right now -- a considerable proportion of our population. Locating them all and deporting them would cripple our economy and squander even more resources. Our borders need to be tightened, and we need to know who is entering the country, but criminalization will just increase costs, violence and strain relations across the border. Instead, we have to create safe, sensible immigration opportunities that do not currently exist. Our current system of immigration is horribly broken. 

Most of all, we need to remember that we are dealing with human beings just like ourselves, who want the same things we do. They have created a community here as rich and beautiful as any other immigrant community. Texas, especially, has always been both Mexican and American, a heritage in which we can take considerable pride. We face a period of cultural change and challenges, just as those coming here face in becoming American. 

It's a two-way process: as people become Americanized, we become a little more like them, picking up bits and pieces of their culture and values and incorporating them into what it means to be American. It's a process to be proud of; one that has added to the richness of Americans as a people. The Mayflower pilgrims may have brought us Thanksgiving, but Mexico gave us jalapeño cornbread for stuffing; I couldn't imagine life here without it.

Hewitt, an opinion columnist for The Daily Cougar, 
can be reached at denise.smith@usa.net.