Preaching in/and the Borderlands. Группа авторов
festering scar caused by the First World rubbing against the Third, becomes a life-threatening venture. The U.S. has a Latin American immigration problem because for the past two hundred years, its wealth was based on stealing the cheap labor and natural resources of its neighboring countries.
As Rome benefited by pax romana20 brought about by territorial expansion, North Americans benefitted by pax americana, known throughout the ninetieth century by its jingoist religious ideological term “Manifest Destiny,”21 which justified Anglo territorial expansion. Acquiring land had more to do than with simply divine inspiration. With the new possessions came all the gold deposits in California, copper deposits in Arizona and New Mexico, silver deposits in Nevada, oil in Texas, and all of the natural harbors (except Veracruz) necessary for commerce along the California coast. By ignoring the provisions of the peace treaty signed with Mexico; the U.S. government was able to dismiss the historic land titles Mexicans held, allowing white U.S. citizens to obtain the natural resources embedded in the land. These natural resources, along with cheap Mexican labor fueled the U.S. industrial revolution allowing overall U.S. economy to develop and function, while economically dooming Mexico by preventing the nation from capitalizing on its stolen natural resources.
We must consider the nineteenth century policy of Manifest Destiny. This pseudo-religious ideology believed God gave whites a new promised land encompassing the entire Western Hemisphere. Perhaps the staunchest supporter was James K. Polk, eleventh president, who while on the campaign trail promised to annex Texas and engage Mexico in war if elected. Once taking office, he deployed troops into Mexican territory to solicit the desired response of having the Mexican army first fire upon the invading U.S. army. The Mexican–American War ended with Mexico’s capitulation, ceding half her territory. A surveyor line was drawn across the sand upon an area which, according to the archeological evidence, has historically experienced fluid migration. This expansionist war against Mexico was minimized by the false creation of the U.S.’s historical mega-narrative designed to mask the fact it was the empire who crossed the borders—not the other way around.
We must also consider how the twentieth century policy of “gunboat diplomacy”22 unleashed a colonial venture depriving Central American countries of their natural resources while providing the U.S. with an unlimited supply of cheap labor. President Theodore Roosevelt laid the foundation for the enrichment of today’s multinational corporations. Roosevelt’s foreign policy placed the full force of the U.S. military, specifically the marines, at the disposal of U.S. corporations, specifically the United Fruit Company, to protect their business interest. Nicknamed “El Pulpo”—the Octopus—because its tentacles extended into every power structure within Central America, the United Fruit Company was able to set prices, taxes, and employee treatment free from local government intervention. By 1930, the company had a sixty-three percent share of the banana market. Any nation in “our” Hemisphere which attempted to claim their sovereignty to the detriment of U.S. business interests could expect the U.S. to invade and set up a new government (hence the term “banana republic”—coined in 1935 to describe servile dictatorships). It is no coincidence the rise of U.S. banana consumption coincided with the rise of U.S. imperialist actions throughout the Caribbean Basin. During the twentieth century, the U.S. invaded at least twenty-one countries and participated in at least twenty-six CIA led covert operations throughout the Caribbean basin to institute regime change, even when some of those countries, like Guatemala had democratically elected governments.
More important than territorial expansion during the nineteenth century, was the U.S. hegemonic attempt to control economies of other nations during the twentieth century. While empires of old, like Rome, relied on brute force, the U.S. Empire instead relies on economic force—not to disregard the fact it also has the largest military apparatus ever known to humanity. Through its economic might, the United States dictates terms of trade with other nations, guaranteeing benefits continue to flow northward toward the center and the elites from the countries who signed the trade agreements. Consider the consequences of implementing the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which destroyed the Mexican agricultural sector. Dumping U.S. surplus corn on Mexico (about $4 billion a year during the first decade of NAFTA)23 meant a 70% drop in Mexican maize prices, while housing, food, and other living essentials increased by 247%.24 In the first ten years of NAFTA, at least 1.3 million Mexican maize farmers lost their small plots of land unable to compete with cheaper U.S. subsidized corn.25 When Mexican farmers were squeezed out due to their inability to compete with U.S. subsidized corn, U.S.-owned transnational traders, like Cargill and Maseca, were able to step in and monopolize the corn sector through speculating on trading trends. They used their power within the market to manipulate movements on biofuel demand and thus artificially inflate the price of corn many times over.26 Worsening the plight of the maize campesino were the structural adjustments imposed on Mexico by the World Bank in 1991, eliminating all government price supports and subsidies for corn.27
These sufferers of neoliberalism are Jesús in the here and now. God chooses the oppressed of history—the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the alien, the sick, the prisoner—and makes them the cornerstone, the principal means for salvation for the world. In fact, whatsoever we do to these, the very least among us—we do it unto Jesús. And because the undocumented crossing the borders are usually the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, and of course the alien; because they are often the sick due to the hazards of their journey, and when caught by the Border Patrol become the prisoner; if we want to see the face of Jesús, we just need to gaze into the face of the undocumented. God does not appear to the Pharaohs or Caesars or Prime Ministers or Presidents of history; for leaders of empires whose policies cause death and migration are more aligned with the satanic than with the divine. God appears as and to their slaves, their vassals, and those alienated by their empires.
The undocumented attempt the hazardous crossing because our foreign and trade policies from the nineteenth through the twentieth-first century have created an economic situation in their countries where they are unable to feed their families. When one country build roads into another country to extract, by brute force if necessary, their natural resources; why should we be surprised when the inhabitants of those same countries, myself included, take those same roads following all that has been stolen. I am in the United States because I am following my stolen resources: my sugar, my tobacco, and my rum. To ignore the consequences of colonialism leads to the virtue of hospitality. For many from the dominant culture with more liberal understanding of the biblical text, hospitality undergirds how they approach and treat the undocumented. While it may always be desirable for all to participate in this virtue, caution is required least the practice of hospitality masks deep-rooted injustices. This virtue of hospitality, I argue, is not the best way to approach our current immigration crises.
The U.S. has an immigration crisis, yet a failure exists in recognizing the reason we come is because we are following what has been stolen from us. We come to escape the violence and terror the U.S. historically unleashed upon us in an effort to protect pax americana, a needed status quo if American foreign business interests are to flourish. An immigration problem exists because, for over a century and a half, the U.S. has exploited—and continues to exploit via NAFTA—their neighbors to the south.
To read the Jesús narrative through white eyes is to respond to the immigration moral crises by advocating hospitality. But hospitality assumes ownership of the house where Christian charity compels sharing one’s possession. To read the biblical narrative of Jesús from the perspective of the undocumented alien is to argue Latin American cheap labor and natural resources are responsible for building the house. My sugar, my rum, and my tobacco built it, and I want my damn house back. Due to U.S. sponsored “banana republics” throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century; Latin Americans holds a lien on this U.S. house’s title. Rather than speaking about the virtue of hospitality, it would historically be more accurate to speak about the responsibility of restitution.28 Maybe the ethical question we should therefore be asking is not “why” are they coming, why I am here; but, how does U.S. begin to make reparations for all that has been stolen to create the present economic empire? The Jesús biblical narrative forces us to ask: What does the U.S. colonial Empire owe Latin America for all it has stolen?
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