America's Economic Refugees

In an overregulated economy, the best preparation for survival may be a Third World education

Glenn Garvin from the November 1993 issue

(Page 8 of 8)

So Marcelina went, leaving her six children with her father. She got the job trimming pants–10 cents a pair, 20 pairs an hour, 160 a day, 800 a week, giving her an annual income of $4,160. Most Americans would say that’s not a living wage, but Marcelina lived and even saved. After three years she was able to send enough money home to bring four of her children to Los Angeles; the other two followed a year later. Three of them are adults now, living on their own, and Marcelina and the remaining children three share a one-bedroom apartment with two other couples.

Earlier this year, Marcelina got word that her father was ill. She took her $600 savings and returned to Guerrero to see him. But she didn’t take the children. "I knew I was coming back," she says. "There’s still no work in Mexico. Maybe in a few years, when the children are grown, I might go back. I might."

When her father’s health improved, Marcelina got a ride to Tijuana with one of the car services that shuttle

Mexicans between the interior and the border. She climbed into the rocky hills on the outskirts of the city and began the all-night hike toward the lights of San Ysidro, the ramshackle little town on the American side of the border. But Marcelina is not as nimble as she was the first time she crossed the border seven years ago. This time the Border Patrol caught her. They jailed her for five hours, then dumped her back in Tijuana.

Marcelina waited patiently until night fell again. She climbed back into the hills. And this time she made it across.

A stolid peasant woman, naturally suspicious of strangers Marcelina rarely speaks and almost never lets her expression be tray her real thoughts. But, told that the governor of California wants to increase patrols to keep immigrants out, she cackles out loud.

"Keep us out? How is he going to do that?" she asks. "And why would he want to? Who is going to do our work?"