Posted on May 17, 2005

Greenbacks and ‘Wetbacks’: Mexico’s Northern Strategy

Robert Klein Engler, ChronWatch, May 16

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One look at the skirt of snakes and neckless of human hearts worn by the statue of the Aztec goddess Coatlicue at the Museo Nacional de Antropologial in Mexico City and you realize the history of Mexico is very different from that of the U. S. Marvin Harris argues that in Mexico the Aztecs became the world’s only state-sponsored cannibal kingdom. When a sensitive tourist from the north gazes upon this sleeping idol, he may realize, too, this is not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Does he also sense there is a substratum of cruelty and violence in Mexican culture that is best left outside the United States?

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Personal economic reasons and not a desire for citizenship are the universal motive these days for coming to the U. S. illegally. U. S. Department of State documents about illegal immigrants from China could apply as well to illegal immigrants from Mexico. “Immigrants believe they can become wealthy in the United States, known as the ‘Golden Mountain,’ because wages in the United States are high relative to wages in China.”

Some may think that illegal immigrants are so poor they put thoughts of Mexico out of their mind once they cross the border to live in the shadows. In their poverty they are unable to afford even nostalgia. This is hardly the case. Ask an illegal immigrant from Mexico about their motives and this is what they will tell you: “I go north for money, not to become a gringo.” The popular music of Mexico says this, too.

One of the most popular Norte groups, Los Tigres del Norte (The Tigers of the North), sing about the Mexican immigrant experience. You can hear the clash of cultures in their song “Vivan los Mojados” (Long Live the Wetbacks) — recorded in 1976. This same theme returns later in their popular song, “La Jaula de Oro” (The Gold Cage).

“El Mojado Acaudalado” (The Wealthy Wetback), and “Mis Dos Patrias” (My Two Countries) echo the plight of the illegal immigrant, as well. Perhaps the song most truthful to the experience and dilemma of the illegal immigrant is the song, “La Tumba del Mojado” (The Tomb of the Wetback). This song, written by Paulino Vargas and performed by Los Tigres del Norte, distills the shadowy world of the illegal immigrant in a few words: “los dolares son bonitos, pero yo soy mexicano” (Dollars are beautiful, but I am a Mexican).

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“The Mexican government has a plan,” writes Howard Sutherland, “the ongoing Mexicanization of the United States, paid for by Americans. The spectacle of a superpower being colonized by its impotent neighbor is without precedent in modern history.” What Sutherland calls the Mexican government’s “Northern Strategy” is nothing more than aggression against the U. S. from the shadows.

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By carrying out its Northern Strategy unopposed, the Mexican government commits an act of slow and dispersed terrorism against the U. S. Besides the personal cost of this terrorism to our citizens, Columbia University economists David Weinstein and Donald Davis estimate the net economic losses to the nation from illegal immigration is $68 billion a year. If the immediate short term cost of the September 11th attacks on the WTC are estimated to be $27.2 billion, then the losses from illegal immigration are more that twice that much.

George Washington never promised the United States would last forever. If we have 11 million illegal immigrants in our midst, and more than half of them are unwitting Mexican agents with no desire to assimilate, then we do not have to wait for a sudden 9/11 terror attack to happen again. Coatlicue awakens. The cultural divide widens. Another catastrophe is already upon us.