Scapegoating Immigrants
* Thank you, Kevin Starr, for placing the current wave of immigrant-bashing into historical context (“California Reverts to Its Scapegoating Ways,” Opinion, Sept. 26). Even if few learn from California’s history of xenophobia--and clearly Gov. Pete Wilson and Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer haven’t--those of us who came to this country “only for a better life” take reassurance that the fear and hatred likely will pass, as it has before.
DENNIS VILLACORTE
Pomona
* Starr was right on target about California’s scapegoating of Mexican immigrants until he got to the issue of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
People are coming here from Mexico because they cannot earn enough wages in Mexico to provide a decent standard of living. The increased wave of immigration will continue regardless of whether we beef up border patrols, deny health care and education, build “Berlin Walls” or whip the citizenry into a frenzy of hate.
The answer to Mexico’s economic mess is to lift Mexican wages to the point where they provide a decent standard of living.
NAFTA does not equip the Mexican people with the tools to organize independent and “free” unions, engage in collective bargaining or the right to strike independent of the dictatorship of the one-party-rule government.
NAFTA does not provide the same protection for workers that it provides for multinational corporations, their money, their patents and their intellectual property rights.
If the trade agreement passes, it will “freeze” this current situation in a downward tilt toward Mexico’s lowest common denominator.
DAVID SICKLER
Director, AFL-CIO Region VI
Los Angeles
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