LASA: The way to manage immigration is not by building a giant wall. The United States should support more equitable economic development in Mexico and Central America. The U.S. must reconsider drug control policies that have not worked and have been part of the problem of political violence. And the U.S. must renew its active support for human rights throughout the region. Unfortunately, in the eyes of many Latin Americans, the USA has come to stand for the support of inequitable regimes.
A LETTER FROM THE LEADERS of the Latin American Studies Association to Barack Obama with the assumption that he will become our President. I think this is a great statement, and highlights so many important points about the USA’s relationship with Latin America and the realities that need to be addressed. Sadly, our national idea and discussion of Mexico, Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia and the Central American region is too often sparse, oversimplified, and reduced to imperialist, xenophobic or outright racist frames.
We better understand the vulnerabilities that our economy and our very lives have that when we’re dependent on Iranian mullahs, and wackos in Venezuela.
- John McCain, US Senator
Worse yet, those frames too often neglect to show the interconnected nature of so many of the day’s ongoing crimes, wars, oppressions, and profits—ties that bind us inextricably together.
We can no longer afford to pretend our neighbors are distant, or that they are vast mindless drums of fuel to be acquired, or gardening help to be kept behind a sandblown apartheid wall. There is much work to be done here. After all, we are all Americans, qué sí?
Dear Senator Obama:
We write to offer our congratulations on your campaign and to express our hope that as the next president of the United States you will take
advantage of an historic opportunity to improve relations with Latin America. As scholars of the region, we also wish to convey our analysis regarding the process of change now underway in Latin America.Just as the people of the United States have begun to debate basic questions regarding the sort of society they want– thanks in part to your own candidacy but also owing to the magnitude of the current financial crisis– so too have the people of Latin America. In fact, a recent round of intense debate about a just and fair society has been going on in Latin America for more than a decade, and the majority are opting, like you and so many of us in the United States, for hope and change. As academics personally and professionally committed to development and democracy in Latin America, we are hopeful that during your presidency the United States can become a partner rather than an adversary to the positive changes already under way in the hemisphere.
The current impetus for change in Latin America is a rejection of the model of economic growth that has been imposed in most countries since the early 1980s, a model that has concentrated wealth, relied unsuccessfully on unrestricted market forces to solve deep social problems and undermined human welfare. The current rejection of this model is broad-based and democratic. In fact, contemporary movements for change in Latin America reveal significantly increased participation by workers and peasants, women, Afro-descendants and indigenous peoples–in a word, the grassroots. Such movements are coming to power in country after country. They are neither puppets, nor blinded by fanaticism and ideology, as caricatured by some mainstream pundits. To the contrary, these movements deserve our respect, friendship and support.
Latin Americans have often viewed the United States not as a friend but as an oppressor, the guarantor of an international economic system that
works against them, rather than for them– the very antithesis of hope and change. The Bush Administration has made matters much worse, and
U.S. prestige in the region is now at a historic low. Washington’s tendency to fight against hope and change has been especially prominent in recent U.S. responses to the democratically elected governments of Venezuela and Bolivia. While anti-American feelings run deep, history demonstrates that these feelings can change. In the 1930s, after two decades of conflict with the region, the United States swore off intervention and adopted a Good Neighbor Policy. Not coincidentally, it was the most harmonious time in the history of U.S.-Latin American relations. In the 1940s, every country in the region became our ally in World War Two. It can happen again.There are many other challenges, too. Colombia, the main focus of the Bush Administration’s policy, is currently the scene of the second largest humanitarian crisis in the world, with four million internally displaced people. Its government, which criminalizes even peaceful protest, seeks an extension of the free trade policies that much of the hemisphere is already reacting against. Cuba has begun a process of transition that should be supported in positive ways, such as through the dialogue you advocate. Mexicans and Central Americans migrate by the tens of thousands to seek work in the United States, where their labor power is much needed but their presence is denigrated by a public that has, since the development of opinion polling in the 1930s, always opposed immigration from anywhere. The way to manage immigration is not by building a giant wall, but rather, the United States should support more equitable economic development in Mexico and Central America and, indeed, throughout the region. In addition, the U.S. must reconsider drug control policies that have simply not worked and have been part of the problem of political violence, especially in Mexico, Colombia and Peru. And the U.S. must renew its active support for human rights throughout the region. Unfortunately, in the eyes of many Latin Americans, the United States has come to stand for the support of inequitable regimes.
Finally, we implore you to commit your administration to the firm support of constitutional rights, including academic and intellectual freedom. Most of us are members of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), the largest professional association of experts on the region, and we have experienced first-hand how the Bush administration’s attempt to restrict academic exchange with Cuba is counter-productive and self-defeating. We hope for an early opportunity to discuss this and other issues regarding Latin America with your administration.
Our hope is that you will embrace the opportunity to inaugurate a new period of hemispheric understanding and collaboration for the common welfare. We ask for change and not only in the United States.
Sincerely,
SIGNED:
Eric Hershberg, LASA President 2007-09, Professor of Politics and
Director of Latin American Studies, Simon Fraser UniversitySonia E. Alvarez, LASA Past President (2004-2006), Leonard J. Horwitz
Professor of Politics, University of Massachusetts-AmherstCharles R. Hale, LASA Past President (2003-2004), Professor of
Anthropology, University of Texas at AustinMarysa Navarro-Aranguren, LASA Past President (2003-2004), Charles
Collis Professor of History, Dartmouth CollegeArturo Arias, LASA Past President, (2001-2003), Professor of Spanish
and Portuguese University of Texas, Austin.Susan Eckstein, LASA Past President (1997-98), Professor of Sociology &
International Relations, Boston University, Cynthia McClintock, LASA
Past President (1994-95), Professor of Political Science and
International Affairs, George Washington UniversityCarmen Diana Deere, LASA Past President (1992-94), Professor of Food
and Resource Economics and Director, Center for Latin American Studies,
University of FloridaLars Schoultz, LASA Past President (1991-92), William Rand Kenan, Jr.,
Professor of Political Science, UNC, Chapel HillJean Franco, LASA Past President (1990-91), Emeritus Professor,
Columbia UniversityHelen I. Safa, LASA Past President (1983-85), Emeritus Professor of
Anthropology and Latin American Studies, University of Florida.Paul L. Doughty, LASA Past President (1974-75), Distinguished Service
Professor, Emeritus of Anthropology and Latin American Studies,
University of FloridaCristina Rojas, School of International Affairs, Carleton University, Ottawa
Marisol de la Cadena, Associate Professor of Anthropology, UC Davis
John C. Chasteen, Distinguished Professor of History, UNC Chapel Hill
Mario Blaser, Assistant Professor of International Development, York
University, Toronto.Arturo Escobar, Kenan Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, UNC,
Chapel Hill.
gracias to reader JoannaO
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Mexico and Latin America are democratic states. The people in those countries CHOSE their leaders. It is not OUR responsibility to force these democratically elected Hispanic governments to care for their people. It is the responsibility of the PEOPLE to elect those who will look out for their interests, including providing access to educationa and healthcare, economic development, and refusal of trade agreements that do not benefit their citizens. If they instead choose the petty, the corrupt, and the militant, it’s not our job to gainsay them. Nor is it our responsibility to provide an economic safety valve for your excess population.
It isn’t imperialism, racism, nor xenophobic to demand that the American government enforce our laws and control our borders. It’s our right as a sovereign nation and our right as an independant people to choose to welcome into our home.
Nor is it your right to fund right-wing paramilitaries, feed of the drug trade like crack whores and launch assassination campaigns and rebellions every time a half decent leader shows up and fails to follow Washington’s orders.
i’m glad you added that rafa. because that droplet of propagandized patriotik revisionist history was polluting the page. as IF the USA lets nations run their own governments. if only. then maybe we would have half a leg to stand on when refusing to own up to our part of the equation when shit hits the fan, which it always does when the USA meddles abroad.
PS who the hell uses the word “gainsay” in regular speech? really? just curious. and Mara, i am a US citizen. it is not “my” excess population that the USA is dealing with. the USA is dealing with migrating populations on land that even its own agencies admit were not legally gained. (what’s the figure? 33% was never ceded?) the USA is dealing with unstoppable and age-old migration patterns, not to mention the economic karma it has worked so hard for.
peace.
also I’ve spoken to Mexicans who think growing a deomcracy is a slow and delicate process. They preferred Obrador, weren’t sure how fair the elections were, but they also all agreed that challenging the election and being violent about it when the deomcracy itself was so fragile was a bad idea. Basically they want better, but prefer what they have to total chaos. I have a lot of respect for their point of view, people who work for change and what they want while acknowledgeing the dangers of ruining what little they do have and helping Mexico as it’s democracy is growing up. I don’t agree with a lot of what Bush has done, I didn’t vote for him, why should any other democracy be any different.
And while Mexicos’ gvmt can be compared to ours, Colombia and Venezuela are very different economically, culutrally, historically to the US experience. May explain why Venezuela chose a different type of gvmt and why Colombia is dealing with what it is dealing with. Americans are even more woefully ignorant about what’s going on there. We shouldn’t be. We are very connected to Colombia, and yet most Americans have no idea what is going on. We can’t control their government or the drug gangs but we can control how we react to the situations. I just saw a documentary on Chiquita banana, a Colombian Chiquita higher up payed off some drug gangs that ran the area where the plantation was so that his workers could work in safety. Now this guy may be fined here in the US for supporting terrorism? I need to educate myself more about the situation but it seems he was keeping his people safe and employed - and the gvmt wasn’t protecting them, he tried that first. I saw his point that is isn’t black and white. And how much of the $ the US gives to Colombia is helping - if it was the gvmt would be protecting the plantation and this guy wouldn’t have to pay off the drug gangs. And how is it helping get rid of drug gangs to fine people who give safe and gainful employment in areas where there are the drug gangs? If people lose their jobs wouldn’t that be one more person likely to join such a gang? It doesn’t seem to me like the Colombian gvmt is going into these areas, developing jobs, and giving other alternatives. They are staying away. Like I said we are connected but know so little - I think one step is the US gvmt to be more open and honest because there are obviously people who want to know more.
We are interconnected and our actions have consequences. I also think, when you talked of “excess population” how we treat our immigrants has consequences, too.
I see Nez’s post as full of information - information we don’t hear enough of. Before reacting defensively, I wish more people would just read, learn, and let it sink in and let it inform their decisions.
Nez, who uses words like “gainsay”? Literate people with extensive vocabularies. I take it for granted that most people are smart/educated enough that I needn’t “dumb down” my sentances. Also, I don’t know where you got your stat on what land was ceded and what wasn’t…but I know that between the Mexican Cession and the Gadsen Purchase, we paid the government of Mexico more for our southwest territories than we paid France for the entire Louisiana Purchase. And now is a bit late for them to start whining about it and pretending that they have some kind of claim to it.
Rafael - Yeah, it’s all our fault that there ARE paramilitary organizations and drug cartels operating in those countries. And it’s all our fault that the citizens of those nations are open to fomenting rebellion and civil strife. Yeah…it’s all our fault that so many people are willing to help overthrow their elected leaders. Uh-huh. Go ahead and blame us for all your problems.
Malicia - we treat our “immigrants” just fine. It’s the illegal aliens pushing in where they have no business and demanding special treatment that gets most of us in a snit. An American citizen who stole someones identity, forged documents, and committed fraud for personal gain would, at the least, go to jail. Illegal aliens and their (non)apologists won’t even admit that crimes are being committed, let alone accept the legally mandated punishment.
I sure hope one day I can be literate and vocabulicious. To my uneducated ears it just sounded pretentious.
Next time I stop by one of the detention camps and see the lonely and scared children being held I will make sure to pass on your sentiments about whining and such.
ah yes, the poor, scared little lambs in the “detention camps”. Consider, please, that their situation is nobody but the parents fault.
Had so many parents NOT failed to appear at their deportation hearings, we would still be letting them out on “promise to appear”. Had the parents NOT chosen a life of crime, neither they nor their children would be detained today.
Parents make choices that affect their children, and when they not only break the law, but dispute the State’s right for remedy (i.e. deportation), well, the kids get caught in the middle.
Instead of blaming those who only strive for civil order and equality under the law, you should think about scolding those who are responsible for their childrens situation…the illegal alien parent who would rather have their kid sit with them in confinement HERE than be free to run and play in their OWN country.
oh the beauty of your big big heart overwhelms me. you are a true american.
mara, when you say blanket statements like “…The people in those countries CHOSE their leaders…” you may want to do a little more research into the role the US plays in other countries’ supposedly “free” elections. the US government has played major roles in keeping the agreeable ruling parties in power in Latin American, so you may want to go back to the drawing board on that one.
thanks for underlining that, aighmeigh. though it’s already been made clear that Fact doesn’t work well with this particular end user. their mind is decided.
Yes, my mind IS decided. Those who choose to break the law should expect to pay the consequences…regardless of WHY they made that choice. All of you can argue about the reasons and base cause, but that changes nothing. Illegal immigrants ARE stealing identities, forging documents, defrauding businesses and the government, lying on contracts/credit applications and profiting from those crimes.
Were they American citizens, they’d go to prison. As illegal aliens, they are given a free trip back to their home, back to the families that they deserted. The only reason they are being detained is because they contest our right to enforce our laws.
And I will not apologize for not feeling pity for them. I do NOT feel sorry for illegal aliens any more than I feel sorry for the mugger, the drug dealer, the car thief, or the con man. And I have noticed that not a one of you can bring yourself to admit that they ARE responsible for their choices and American citizens DO have a right to expect our laws to be enforced.
we’ve heard your point of view. you can go away now. nobody is engaging you because you have a closed mind seething with ugliness and there is no benefit to parrying negativity with you.
peace.
I know Nez just said it was over but I feel like saying this
“American citizens DO have a right to expect our laws to be enforced”
well we also have a right to speak out against laws we don’t agree with. That’s how Civil Rights for African-Americans happened, by speaking out against laws they thought were unfair and getting them changed. Besides a American right, it’s also to me an American tradition and responsibility.
i’m not shutting it down for everyone. i just dont waste my time with people who have taken in too much hostility and fear and have spiritual indigestion and now want to burp and bleed bile all over me.
anyone is free to bat down that nonsense mara is offering. i’ll save my energy for people who have open minds.
Let us ask Pinochet…Hey Mon General, who gave you all that money to build up your military and torture chambers?
(Voice from Beyond the Grave): Dolares…DOLARES!
Ok, Mr. Uribe, could you tell me where all those drugs that you try to burn in the end up anyway:
Mr. Uribe looking down at the floor: “Wall Street, maybe Main Street, I don’t know. I need to invade my neighbors, be right back.”
Scene Change- Camera pans over the remains of a burned out hulks of Guatemalans peasants huts. Narrator speaks: “And in here we can see the rifle rounds casings…5.56×45 NATO standard rounds, M-16 rounds.”
I could go on, but for someone who has no pity for her fellow human beings, well what can I say….
I’m sorry. I hope you find your soul someday.
Mara lives in a fictitious world where the destinies and responsibilities of one country are entirely divorced from another.
I was born and raised in Guatemala, and I can say with utmost certainty that Guatemala certainly didn’t ask for the U.S. to overthrow a democratically elected President and support decades of brutal right wing dictatorships.
The nativist arguments of people like Mara are completely illegitimate. How can you be anti-migrant and pro-war, when it is war that push’s migrants into countries like the U.S? How can you be anti-migrant and small government, when ICE spends billions of dollars in their war on migrants? How can you be in favor a free market of goods and services and against a free market of labor?
Mara needs to go back to school and learn history without the Euro-Centric, White-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant bent.
Actually, Mara forget about school, just stick to your racist and intolerant ways. Soon your world will be upside down, as you find yourself on the wrong side of history. Right about now you are confused and don’t that side of history is, so let me help you out a bit. Consider that every month 40,000 children of immigrants turn 18 and become eligible to vote. Once again Mara these are US citizens, but children of immigrants.
Mara, you fail to recognize how US foreign policy has contributed to economic and political to countless nations south of it’s border.
Mara, correct me if I’m wrong in assuming you are a McCain or Ron Paul supporter, but your reality is about to be jolted by an Obama administration and the rise of a New America.
The New America will be less white, more Asian, Latino and multi-racial, so you might as well get used to it.
Actually I’m a card-carrying liberal Democrat. I am anti-Iraq war, I’m not particularly “small government” and I think the markets SHOULD be regulated…so stick that in your stereo-typing pipe and smoke it.
I do not begrudge LEGAL immigrants and LEGAL resident aliens their place in America, I DO resent illegals shoving their way in without permission. But obviously you people prefer those who lie, cheat, and commit crimes. And you’re all in denial that these illegals are anything except cheaters. Not that I’ll get any of you to admit it.
So good-bye and enjoy your delusions of righteousness.
Bye bye!
Mara, The mugger, the drug dealer, the car thief, the con man, the undocumented migrant, you, and me - all human, all in need of grace. Once you’ve been shown compassion, you become more likely to show compassion. I hope someday you find yourself alone and wanting forgiveness. And I hope you get it. Then maybe you’ll see things differently.
Well put Janna.
Mara, it’s not that we prefer those who lie, cheat and commit crimes or that we are in denial about the fact that undocumented immigrants did not commit a crime (a misdemeanor) by illegally entering the United States. It’s that we don’t believe that the punishment you and many others seek to impose on undocumented workers is just or fair. Most readers of this blog choose to be compassionate and will defend these “illegals” against what many now perceive as government persecution.
Somehow, I think that if these were different times and this discussion centered on slavery rather than “illegal aliens”, you’d be passionately arguing about how slavery is actually both ethically and economically good.
An impenetrable mind does not always correlate with impenetrable logic. Thank you Mara for reminding me of this and keeping me humble. I prefer to live in the grey areas. Areas where I can believe that god’s (pick your favorite) laws supercede any pathetic man made imitations. I was a you once, a “Mara”, rigid of thought and opinion, righteous, comfortable with absolutes. Oh yeah!…I was ALWAYS right too! Now I am just sometimes right, but hey, it’s a start! With this little start maybe I can finally accept that “this I know, I know nothing.”
Mara, in case you are still there:
Fully literate English speakers both proofread their comments, and abstain from SHOUTING at people. I defend your right to say “gainsay.” I do not think that you spell particularly well.
Our friends have made many good points. I have only one thing to add: The United States does not, as you claim “treat our immigrants just fine.”
I grew up in a Rust Belt town where there were lots of Eastern European immigrants. Most of these people were refugees from Communist regimes, and were fully legal. I am not proud to remember the ways that my school friends and I talked about them. They dressed funny, they spoke with accents, they listened to weird music, they played games we thought were dumb, their politics didn’t suit us. We said very much the same things that are being said today about undocmented Latinos, except that we were complaining about people who danced polkas, went bowling, and had religious statues in their front yards. Prejudice is prejudice, and it’s not good.
As for how the government treats legal immigrants, you’re wrong again. The law is a tangled mess, the bureaucracy is inefficient (except when it comes to losing records!), and the process takes a ridiculous amount of time. Once here, people of certain nationalities are widely assumed to be undocumented, and are routinely harassed, profiled, and arrested without cause. That’s not my idea of treating people “just fine.”
oh i hope its clear that i dont mind the word gainsay in and of itself. just that the tone of “mara”s comment clearly indicated a lot of bullshitty attitude. so that was my indirect and hopefully somewhat humorous way of pointing that out. 
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[...] Leaders of LASA Write Obama (The Unapologetic Mexican) “…The current impetus for change in Latin America is a rejection of the model of economic growth that has been imposed in most countries since the early 1980s, a model that has concentrated wealth, relied unsuccessfully on unrestricted market forces to solve deep social problems and undermined human welfare. The current rejection of this model is broad-based and democratic. In fact, contemporary movements for change in Latin America reveal significantly increased participation by workers and peasants, women, Afro-descendants and indigenous peoples–in a word, the grassroots. Such movements are coming to power in country after country. They are neither puppets, nor blinded by fanaticism and ideology, as caricatured by some mainstream pundits. To the contrary, these movements deserve our respect, friendship and support…” [...]