between Mexico and El Norte, “The
North,” at least in the borderlands. On
both sides, in cities close to the border,
Spanish was widely spoken and customs
were a blend of Mexican and American.
Said one Mexican commuter in the
Tijuana, Mexico, area: “There is no real
difference in living on this side. I can
watch the Chargers and Padres on televi-
sion just as easily from over here, so I’m
not really losing any of the convenience or
benefits I had.”
In some cases, Mexican women
would commute into the United States
to give birth. Shortly before her baby was
due to be born, a pregnant woman would
cross into the United States with a tem-
porary visa or no visa, give birth in the
United States so that the child was born
a U.S. citizen, then return to Mexico.
That way, the child could choose to live
in the United States in later years with-
out legal difficulty, and, upon reaching
adulthood, could even sponsor his or her
parents and other family members. The
practice continued to blur the lines
between who was a Mexican and who was
a Mexican American.While Mexican workers flowed
northward looking for employment,
American employers during this period
increasingly flowed southward looking for
workers. This trend ballooned because of
Mexico’s establishment in the 1960s of
the Border Industrialization program, or
maquiladora program. This program used
the incentive of reduced or eliminated
duties on international shipping to encour-
age the establishment of maquiladoras,
foreign-owned factories on Mexican soil
near the border, with products assembled
in Mexico from imported parts, then
exported back to the United States. The
program allowed employers both to pay
workers lower wages than American work-
ers enjoyed and to avoid the United
States’s more stringent environmental pro-
tection laws. The employment opportuni-
ties brought a rush of Mexicans into such
border towns as Tijuana, Nuevo Laredo,
and Matamoros. By 1993 maquiladoras
employed about 600,000 workers. In 1994
NAFTA increased the influence of the
border region by creating a North
American free trade zone. The agreement
imposed some antipollution restraints on
maquiladoras, but enforcement has been
lax, and pollution on both sides of the bor-
der has continued.Language and Education
Some Anglo-Americans living in the bor-
der region during the late 20th century
were unhappy about the increasing Mex-
ican influence. Much of the anger on the
part of conservative Anglos and others
has crystalized around the issue of bi-
lingual education. Ever since the U.S.
Supreme Court ruled in the 1974 case
ofLau v. Nicholsthat public schools
should be in effect required to provide
bilingual education programs for students
who needed them, some have argued that
bilingual education programs are a
subversive force undermining national
unity. In the late 1970s, an English Only
movement emerged, calling for the
“defense” of the English language, with
Spanish treated as the enemy. The move-
ment spawned a Washington, D.C.–based
organization called U.S. English, which
prodded many states to approve legi-
slation making English the official lan-
guage. Under the presidency of Ronald
Reagan (1981–1989), federal spending200 ATLAS OF HISPANIC-AMERICAN HISTORY
To increase economic growth, the governments of Mexico, the United States, and
Canada signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in December 1992.
NAFTA’s purpose is to erase economic boundaries by creating a regional free-trade
zone that will benefit all three nations. Since 1994, when the program went into effect,
many trade tarriffs have been lowered and others have been eliminated. NAFTA, like
the maquiladoras, is not without controversy, however. Some of the arguments in favor
of and against NAFTA are listed below:Pro:- The treaty helps North America compete against European and Asian nations that
have also eliminated regional trade barriers. - NAFTA helps increase cultural ties to Mexico, the ancestral home of millions of
Americans. - NAFTA will boost the Mexican economy, which will slow down illegal immigration to
the United States.
Con:- Although the negotiations reached side agreements that impose some antipollution
restraints on maquiladoras, many of those laws are not enforced, and the rapidly grow-
ing population in Mexico’s border region has only increased pollution on both sides
of the border. - NAFTA allows U.S. corporations to exploit low-wage Mexican workers.
- Although NAFTA has created some jobs on the U.S. side of the border, many prof-
itable corporations have closed factories in the United States in order to open fac-
tories in Mexico.
NAFTA: PRO AND CON
“There have been 23 studies
of the impact of NAFTA on
jobs in the United States.
Twenty-two of them have
shown that it will cause an
increase in jobs in the
United States.”
—Vice-President Al Gore, 1993