In Immigration Fight, The Rio Grande Valley Should Side With Mexicans...They Clothe And Feed You...State Noise Is Just Noise...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor

AUSTIN, Texas - Republicans in the State Legislature are doing their damndest to push onward with a series of anti-immigrant bills, an effort led by the likes of Rep. Debbie Riddle of Tomball. She would like to see Texas rid itself of a host of what she labels largely-Hispanic "problems," such as those terrorist anchor babies and schoolkids of undocumented immigrants. This comes after angst-filled discourse on the tried-and-true hot button issues of welfare, medical care and food stamps.

Oddsmaker are downplaying the possibility that any of it will gain acceptance, even as the Legislature counts a Republican majority. HB 22 is on the floor, as they like to say in the buzzing Capitol chambers.

But what does it mean to the various sectors of the Lone Star State? If it plays in Dallas, where the Republicans are strong, would it play in South Texas, where they are not?

The quick answer is "No."

South Texas, and we speak of the Rio Grande Valley, is so tied into Mexico that to accept the rising noise in Austin is to cut its economic throat. Like it or not, the Valley's residents live and die by the Mexican pocketbook. If it isn't outright purchases of homes in cash, it's spectacular weekend shopping in McAllen that would floor a Houston mall manager. You want proof: look at the local sales tax revenues to do with the purchase of gasoline, clothing, restaurant meals, vehicles, etc., etc.

It's not long before every Valleyite gets it clear in his head that to distance himself from the Mexican trade is to plunge headfirst into poverty. Harlingen is a prime example of a South Texas town not drawing on the Mexican trade. It is, at best, a town frozen in time, a community feeling the ceaseless movement of shoppers in the outlying communities, but never seeing it.

Still, residents bitch when moving up and down McAllen's ever-busier 10th Street behind a line of vehicles bearing Mexican license tags. It is a cry for death, because that is what would happen to the RGV if the Mexican shopper stayed home. In the world of Republicans, the scene is not American enough. They huff & puff and cry foul and scream for action. What action? The border is a land onto its ownself, with its own language, music, laws and economy. Someone like State Rep. Riddle would never understand. Tomball, where she resides, may as well be Peoria, Illinois - another whole damned world, in other words.

So, when she rises to speak against undocumented immigrants, she is rising against something she does not know well. It is a popular song in Tomball, but a stupid one in Brownsville. That's the way of the world on this issue. Immigrants are movers. They come and they go. It has been happening for centuries; it is how this country began and how it will end. As The Eagles sang, there are no more new frontiers.

Across the land, it has become fashionable to look at politics as the New Wrestling. Politicians find a button and, dammit, they will push it if it will roust a few winning votes. Damn the mission of a country in need of better ideas, leadership and workers. Our current politics is all for now, for the moment.

Nevermind that in the context of this great nation's journey, little if anything has changed.

We are still in great need of new blood and new ideas, of newcomers willing to do the dirty work, of an influx of what will bring us tomorrow. Political parties live and die on the noise of the day. We have two meaningful parties and a few fringe efforts. Republicans are not going anywhere, and neither are the Democrats.

No one disputes that America still needs a labor force and it still hungers for money of the sort that flows steadily from pocket-to-pocket, cause that is our capitalistic system. It really doesn't matter who's is working or spending, so long as enough of us are doing it. Immigration? We need it.

Anti-immigration? Obscenity...

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