What, to the Mexican, is the Fourth of July? (work by Matilde and Simão G.)

This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the 4th of July. It is the birthday of the United States of America’s National Independence and of her political freedom. This celebration also marks the beginning of another year of her national life and for everyone to be reminded that the Republic of America is now 240 years old. She is now significantly older than she was back in 1852, when Frederick Douglass addressed the citizens with a speech similar to this one. At the time, he noted that, as America was so young, she still had a lot to learn. Right now, 184 years later, has America learned anything and is there still more to learn?

Nowadays, what shall we say? Surely, slavery and racial discrimination have both been legally abolished. What happens nowadays is not a problem of legal protection of racism, which would require political intervention, like Douglass did. Today, this is a societal problem. Some people are racist and discriminatory against minorities. Right now, we are actually going to focus on the Mexican minority, the lives that were impacted by creation of the Mexican Border. How the laws and acts for immigration influenced not just those that migrated but the native population as well. With that, we’ll show the importance of government decisions that shaped today’s thinking.

Being a developing country bordering the United States, Mexico has, over the past few decades, been a great source of immigrants to the US, both legally and illegally. We are not going to discuss whether illegal immigrants should be deported or not, whether immigration laws should be lighter or tighter, whether a wall should be built along the border to bar illegal immigrants, or any such thing. We are going to discuss social racism against Mexicans, which will include stereotyping and generalizations, for instance.

The history of the Border started in the early 19th century. With new territorial claims that were either bought or fought over, the border grew. Several billion dollars were poured into this project and it still continues to receive funding until this day. With the influence of the border, illegal immigration and smuggling increased. And because of that, the US government approved legislation to deport those immigrants back to Mexico.

Besides forcing back to whence they had come from, the treatment of the Mexican immigrants while living in America (and with any luck, staying there) could be considered unjust, even though the conditions in which they live through have gotten better over time. To paraphrase Douglass, what to the Mexican is the Fourth of July? Perhaps “(...) a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.”