Mexico has a long history with walls. When Cortez first arrived at the Aztec metropolis of Tenochtitlán, now Mexico City, it was a series of interconnected islands in the middle of a larger lake with a 3 causeways connecting it to the shore. Cortez tried to invade, he lost. When he returned two years later with more troops the Aztecs had built a wall to resist his attack, a surprisingly European move. However this time it was the Aztecs who lost and on August 13th 1521 Tenochtitlán fell, so too did the Aztec pyramids, becoming giant stone churches. What didn’t fall were the walls.

When Mexico heard about the U.S. plan to build a wall along the border to keep the illegal immigrants out, it wasn’t much of a surprise. The first thing that a luxurious Mexican house needs when completed is a wall surrounding its property. The rot-iron bars and spires are so commonplace as to have an aesthetic appeal that almost conceals their purpose. It is common sense: the only way to keep wealth when surrounded by poverty is to wall it in.

Walls have become so commonplace that there is a common expression here used when you have to choose between two bad options: entre la espada y la pared, between the sword and the wall.

Migration is something that is hard to see in Mexico. I have lived in the state of Oaxaca for 8 months now. Oaxaca is a migration hot spot. It is estimated that in some areas of the state 6-10% of the population migrates to the U.S. per year, and that figure constitutes mainly young men. But as I said it is almost invisible here. In Oaxaca you don’t see young men clandestinely creeping northward; what you can see are agricultural towns run by senior citizens. You don’t see the dregs of society plotting their next border run; you do see children who have never known their fathers but who in compensation receive 500 dollars a month. You don’t see greedy Mexicans looking for an easy buck and an adventure; you do see farms abandoned because U.S. subsidized agricultural imports, secured by NAFTA, have made traditional farming an impossible choice.

One of the big ironies of the economic situation is that under NAFTA goods are free to flow with the push and pull of open markets while people are not; this is why the U.S. government needs walls. American businesses can come across the border and open textiles plants that pay 5 dollars a day to their workers, a joke even in Mexico, but the same worker risks his or her life to cross the border where the same job pays 80. Ironic that as a result of NAFTA the price of corn has dropped by 50% since 1994, coffee 4 times, beans 7. However the farmers who products are no longer worth harvesting have no choice but to stay and do whatever they can to survive or make the dangerous trip north; they are between the wall and the sword.

Migration has not always been so high. During the years of the Revolutionary Independence Party (PRI) rule, it was relatively small. The PRI was a strong central government that controlled the majority of business in Mexico. There were widespread cases of human rights abuses and electoral fraud was the norm during the PRI years, but the people stayed. At its highest point during the PRI years the population of illegal immigrants in the U.S. reached 0.5 million; paltry when compared to the estimated 12 million currently residing in the U.S. Since the early 90’s the government began privatizing its industries, selling them as intact monopolies to various Mexican billionaires and in 1994 signed the NAFTA. Since then minimum wages have dropped, so has quality of life, employment and with these rose migration as the best of the bad options.

It’s not easy for a young father to leave his wife and child to risk his life for 300 dollars a week. It’s not difficult to imagine why he would if you realize that infant mortality reaches 25% in some of the municipalities labeled as ‘migration hotspots’; the sword of poverty and undignified work or the wall of the American border.

June 3, 2006.