The Mexican Culture
It is Monday morning in El Paso, Texas and the weather is beautiful here in the high West Texas desert. My three bedroom brick house lies in a modern suburb just 6 miles (10 km) north of the international border with the country of Mexico. The climate is so nice here at the Pass Of The North that people have been living here for many thousands of years. It is fairly common when I am out walking my doggie in the nearby desert to see bits and pieces of pottery left behind by the people who were living off the land here 1,000 or 1,500 years ago, well prior to the arrival of the Europeans.
In the twenty-first century beheadings have become so routine in our neighboring city of Juarez, Mexico that many times they are no longer even reported by our local newspaper or on TV. Juarez is now by far the most dangerous city on the planet. Much more deadly than Baghdad, Iraq or South Africa. The Mayor of Juarez, Mexico is so afraid to sleep in his own country that he owns a large house in one of the most prosperous parts of El Paso. Each night he comes north to America to see his family and sleep.
Saturday night there was a birthday party held in a middle class neighborhood of Juarez for a Mexican high school kid. Adult supervision was present at the party. Around midnight approximately seven or eight SUVs containing 15 to 18 men drove up and began shooting. Some of the cars blocked off streets. Survivors describe the gunmen as looking like “cholos.” These men then went inside and separated the girls from the boys, took the boys out to the patio and shot them all. Some of the guys tried to escape by jumping over walls and running, but most got shot and killed anyway. The gunmen moved next door and continued shooting. Bodies were found in at least three different nearby homes. Several hundred rounds were shot. Most of the injured ended up being transported to hospitals in private vehicles, because the police and ambulances were reportedly quite slow in responding to this latest mass murder. According to the most recent reports I have seen, at least 16 people were killed. This will change no doubt. The police claim to have no idea at all who the "bad guys" were, and none of them have been caught.
While being interviewed by a newspaper reporter, one witness asked the reporter not to pay so much attention to the guy selling crack on the corner. He told the reporter that a hit can now be bought in Juarez for eighty US dollars. The report claims that one can see kids too young to drive riding bicycles with pistols stuck in their waistbands. Life is cheap in Juarez. Violent death is so common that it has lost much of its stigma.
Even with the insanity of the obstructionist right-wing Republicans, America remains a much safer place to live than Mexico. Our commitment to honesty, the rule-of-law, and rooting out corruption is in stark contrast to what one sees under the Mexican culture. Bribery of government officials, which is know locally as mordida, or applying a little grease, is overwhelmingly the norm in Mexico.
I am still in favor of allowing immigration from Mexico. But primarily from the highly motivated, the well educated, and the professional classes; not from fruit pickers, criminals, and drug dealers who haven't been caught committing a crime recently. Certainly any person who wishes to come to America and then achieve permanent residency status or American citizenship must be able to read and speak English proficiently. Anyone who wishes to keep speaking Spanish and continue living by the corrupt cultural standards of Mexico is free to remain living in Mexico.
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