REVISING WILKIE'S CONCEPT OF THE

GREATER MEXICAN LOS ANGELES-TIJUANA CORRIDOR

By

Dr. Olga M. Lazin

UCLA Post-Doctoral Fellow

Los Angeles is the “second largest city” of Mexico and involves the
greater cross-border metropolitan area ranging from Ventura in the
North to Ensenada in the South, and from Riverside in the East to the
Pacific Ocean in the East, according to James Wilkie.1 San Diego is
excluded from this area linked by the Los Angeles-Tijuana Corridor,
according to Wilkie, because the main road link bypasses that port,
which has a history of being hostile to Mexican immigration.

Many problems cannot be resolved for the U.S.-Mexico border

until Gran Los Angeles-Tijuana is treated as a case study and pilot
project for change.

I organize my analyis here to:2

1. Redefine the Gran Ciudad de Los Angeles as

a region that includes San Diego and suggest
that this Region be called the

"Gran Los Angeles-Tijuana Latino

Metropolitian Region"

I use the term "Latino" rather than Mexican

to stress how Central Amerians face
"Mexicanization" in order to protect
themselves.

1 James W. Wilkie, “On Studying Cities and Regions: Real and Virtual,” Afterword,
in James W. Wilkie y Clint E. Smith, eds., Integrating Cities and Regions: North
America Faces Globalization (Guadalajara y Los Angeles: University of
Guadalajara, CILACE, UCLA Program on México, 1998), pp. 545-566, also available
in México and the World, <profmex.com>, Volume 2, Number 4 (1997).
2 This article draws upon my article originally presented in Spanish at the
the 2001 Forum in Los Angeles held by Mexico's National Institute of Migration,
UCLA Faculty Center, July 13, 2001 (For the Spanish-language proceedings, see
Mexico and the World, Volume 6, Number 2.)

1
 2. Analyze methods to reduce the need for so
many border crossing that are not necessary.

3. Examine ways to resolve legal issues affecting

U.S.-Mexican relations, taking up the case of
Ex-Braceros, whose forced savings while
working in the USA have not yet been paid
amounts that are now overdue by a half-
century in time.

I.

Definition of Gran Ciudad Los Angeles-Tijuana Latino

Metropolitan Region

My analyis here is based upon and goes beyond the research of James
W. Wilkie, who in his path-breaking study linked Los Angeles to Tijuana
as two parts of a "Mexican" Greater Los Angeles (GLA), which each day
sees many Mexicans cross the border to work in
Los Angeles and vice versa.

According to Wilkie:3

The important interactions that link Greater Los Angeles

and Tijuana have led some scholars to see GLA as the
border city to Tijuana, not San Diego. Because this region is
not a geographic one in that it omits San Diego, we can call
it a virtual region.4 This North American “region” that has
yet to be fully identified and analyzed is important because
it is a virtual one where in land, air, and sea bridges link
Mexican Los Angeles to Tijuana. This region can be seen
from the air at night as a brilliant ribbon of car lights that
bridges the two cities.

The unbroken 75-mile ribbon is U.S. Interstate

Highway 5 which at Los Angeles links by land also to the
U.S. Interstate Highway 405 connecting toward West L.A.
Outside San Diego, this land bridge links also to U.S.
Interstate 805 that directly connects Tijuana and Los
Angeles, thus bypassing San Diego. . . .

U.S. 805 bypass of San Diego shows us that for much

of the population in Tijuana the real border city is Los

3 Pp. 534-538 cited in source to Table 1, below.

4 Includes the following counties: Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino,
and Ventura. Excludes Mexicans and Latinos in San Diego County, which may number
up to 1 million. Data are taken from Los Angeles Economic Development
Corporation--see: <http://www.laedc.org/stat_popul.html>.
2
Angeles. Hence the development of a virtual region that
ignores San Diego and the border, both of which are seen
as impediments to fast travel.

The 130-mile freeway between Greater Los Angeles and

Tijuana is more than a U.S. Interstate Highway, it is the
corridor of international transportation for

(1) Mexican legal and “undocumented” laborers

who work in Los Angeles and live in Tijuana;

(2) Mexican family members seeking to be with their

loved ones who reside in one city or the other;

(3) exporters and importers who shuttle (alongside

trucks loaded with goods) between Los Angeles
and Tijuana, especially to and from Maquila
plants;

(4) investors, consultants, and business and

industrial managers who commute between the
two cities;

(5) U.S. tourists who seek a one-day visit to “Old

Mexico”;

(6) U.S. citizens who seek alternative medicine,

usually not yet approved for use in the USA;

(7) U.S. teenagers who can legally drink alcohol in

Tijuana before they reach age 21 and thrill-
seekers looking for the “TJ” that is more myth
than reality;

(8) international smugglers;

(9) criminals who conduct their nefarious activities

in Los Angeles and then cross the border to seek
refuge in Tijuana (or vice versa).

Tijuana is important to Mexican Los Angeles for two

major reasons that go well beyond the above eight
examples: First, Tijuana has become a major air
transportation hub for Mexicans in Los Angeles who cannot
afford to pay international air fares as they go and come
from their homes throughout all Mexico. Flights from
Mexico City to Tijuana often include free or inexpensive bus
travel on to Los Angeles as part of the airfare.

3
 Second, Mexican families divided between Los Angeles
and Tijuana tend to jointly hold their fiestas in Tijuana,
which they see as their cultural refuge. It is at these
gatherings that information is passed on that creates social
networks for jobs and opportunities. Tijuana may be a
“border city” but also it is a city of Mexico, its Mexican
culture constantly being replenished by persons arriving
from all over Mexico either enroute to crossing the border
or to seek work in Tijuana’s “Klondike” atmosphere.

Mexican Los Angeles is not so much a geographic area

as much as it is a spirit that penetrates all aspects of life. It
is the Mexican chef in every ethnic restaurant (be it
Korean, French, Polish, “American,” or South African, as a
somewhat exaggerated joke goes). It is the three Mexican
television channels, the many dozens of video-rental stores
and cinemas, the nearly two dozen radio stations, and the
circulation of Mexican newspapers. It is the Mexican
landscapers and gardeners who tend every section of the
city. It is the Mexican nannies and maids who staff the
hotels and hospitals as well as the houses of the middle
and upper classes throughout Los Angeles. It is the
Mexican day-workers who wait for construction work on
certain street corners every morning to be contracted by
the day and then carried to every corner of Greater Los
Angeles to do the physical work for low pay that few
“Anglos” are willing to do. It is the Mexican extended family
getting ahead by pooling the earnings of all. It is the
Mexican mothers and grandmothers who keep alive the big
chain stores in downtown Los Angeles as they buy clothes
for their many children (each woman averaging 3.5
children), who are often in arms or in tow.

With about 2 million Mexicans in Tijuana and perhaps 6

million Mexicans in Greater Los Angeles (depending both
on the season and the economic situation in Mexico and
the USA), I estimate that the population in the Mexican Los
Angeles-Tijuana Virtual Region totals about 8 million…

That the Mexican Los Angeles-Tijuana Virtual Region

will gain increasing importance is due to the fact that the
growing Central and South American population that
makes up the region looks to the Mexican Consulate
General’s Office in Los Angeles to provide a place of
cultural meeting. While it may seem odd to watch Mexican
Independence being celebrated by non-Mexican Latin
Americans, I have observed how groups from each country
of Latin America sing the Mexican songs at the Mexican
Consulate, but also they place the flag, art, and food of
4
 their own country in the midst of Mexicanidad. All the non-
Mexicans present are pleased to recognize the importance
of the Mexican community in protecting the interests of all
Latin Americans, many of whom use Tijuana as their entry
and exit port to their own countries.

It is convenient for Latinos to identify with Mexicans

because many Anglos do not themselves make a
distinction between Mexican Latinos and non-Mexican
Latinos. Where in
1980 Latinos constituted 28 percent of Los Angeles County
proper, by 1990 the share had increased to 38 percent. By
1997 that share reached 44 percent.

The 1997 total number of Latinos (including White

and non-White Latinos) in Greater Los Angeles changed
between 1990 and 1997 as follows: 16 percent increase in
Los Angeles Country, 35 per cent in Orange County (to 761
thousand or the fifth highest number in the USA), 36 per
cent increase in San Diego County, 53 percent increase in
Riverside Country, 33 percent increase in Ventura County,
41 percent increase in Ventura County.

According to Wilkie:

In the meantime, the White population (excluding

Latino Whites) fell from 71 percent in 1970 to 54 percent in
1980, 41 percent in 1990, to 34 percent in 1997.

If we take into account the fact the Tijuana is

booming as it attracts ever larger investment for export of
goods to the USA, the Mexican population will, within a
few short years, constitute more than half of the people
living in the Greater Los Angeles-Tijuana Virtual Region.
The second largest city of Mexico is indeed what we
matter-of-factly call “Los Angeles.”

Revising Wilkie's Vision of Greater Mexican Los Angeles

Although I do agree with much of what Professor Wilkie says

about Greater Los Angeles-Tijuana, I do not agree with him on two
grounds.

First, his view does not take into account the role of Central
Americans, whose names are included in the many the Spanish
surnames found in the U.S. census data. Central Americans see
themselves as involved in becoming Chicanos as well as involved in

5
the "homogenization of Latino/a communities in the U.S."5

Quote from La Gente

Second, I see the need to include San Diego County, which I do
not see as bypassed by the Tijuana-Greater Los Angeles Corridor as
defined by Wilkie.

I here revise his data in Table 1.

5 Karen Salazar, "Chicana by Definitin, Not Identification," La Gente, DATE???

6
 Table 1
Revised View of Wilkie's Concept of
Greater Los Angeles (GLA) - Tijuana (T)
To Include San Diego

Total Population in the Year 2000

and
the Sub-Total for Mexican Population in the Virtual Region
Mexican Los Angeles - Tijuana (MLA+T)

Category Population Millions Percent

Method

A. Total Greater Los Angeles (GLA)1 19.2 90.6%

B. Total Tijuana (T) 2 2.0 9.4%
C. Total GLA+T 21.2 100.0%
(C=A+B)

D. Mexican-Born Mexicans in GLA3 3.7 52.1%

E. U.S.-Born Mexicans in GLA3 3.4 47.9%
F. Total Mexican Los Angeles4 7.1 100.0%
(F=D+E)

G. Mexicans in Tijuana 2.0 (B)

H. Sub-Total in MLA+T 9.1
(H=F+G)
(Mexican Los Angeles-Tijuana)
I. Mexican Share of GLA+T 42.9%
(I=H/C)
_____
1. Includes the following counties: Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino,
and
Ventura. Although wilkie excludes San Diego County, I include it her.
Data are taken from Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation--see:
<http://www.laedc.org/stat_popul.html>.
2, Includes Tijuana, Mexicali, and Ensenada. Figure may vary by 25% or more,
depending upon the season and economic conditions in Mexico and the USA.
3. See Methodology in Wilkie.
4. The term "Mexican" includes persons whose mother language is Spanish (such
as
Mexican Americans), Chicanos, Latinos, Hispanics) who identify with
Mexican culture, without regard to lingusitic ability, and it also includes
here Central Amerricans who have come to idenfify themselves as “Mexican”
in order to gain protection of the larger populaltion, all of whom use the
Mexican Consulate to celebrate events. See text.
Source: Revising James W. Wilkie, “On Studying Cities and Regions: Real and
Virtual,” Afterword, p. 557, en James W. Wilkie y Clint E. Smith, eds., Integrating
Cities and Regions: North America Faces Globalization (Guadalajara y Los Angeles:
University of Guadalajara, CILACE, UCLA Program on México, 1998), pp. 545-566,
also available in México and the World, <profmex.com>, Volume 2, Number 4
7
(1997).

------------------------------------------------------

In my view depicted in Table 1, Mexican Los Angeles consists

of about 9.1 million perons, including San Diego County and his 1.0
million Mexican population. This data can vary by seasons and
economic opportunities.

Mexican Los Angeles, then, makes up 42.9% of Greater Los

Angeles and Tijuana, and not the 44.0% given in Wilkie's article in
Mexico and the World.
Both of these estimates differ from the 49.3 (a typographical mistake)
give
in Wilkie's "Afterword" in Interating Cities and Regions, .pp. 536 and
557. These articles are cited here in Table 1.)

Even if Wilkie justifies well the usage of his concept

“Mexicano Los Angeles-Tijuana”

we can better define the area by using the term

“Latino Los Angeles-Tijuana.”

This latter term gives the sense of a great variety of citizens coming
from each country in Centro and South America, without doubt using
the term “Mexican” which encapsulates the:

1. The city of Tijuana as an axis of cultural diversity

that includes Los Angeles;

2. The Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles as main

center of the Latinos in Los Angeles.

In 1980 Latinos constituted 28 percent of Los Angeles County proper,

by 1990 the share had increased to 38 percent. By 1997 that share
reached 44 percent.

The 1997 total number of Latinos (including White

and non-White Latinos) in Greater Los Angeles changed
between 1990 and 1997 as follows: 16 percent increase in
Los Angeles Country, 35 per cent in Orange County (to 761
thousand or the fifth highest number in the USA), 36 per
cent increase in San Diego County, 53 percent increase in
Riverside Country, 33 percent increase in Ventura County,
41 percent increase in Ventura County.

According to Wilkie:
8
 In the meantime, the White population (excluding
Latino Whites) fell from 71 percent in 1970 to 54 percent in
1980, 41 percent in 1990, to 34 percent in 1997.

If we take into account the fact the Tijuana is

booming as it attracts ever larger investment for export of
goods to the USA, the Mexican population will, within a
few short years, constitute more than half of the people
living in the Greater Los Angeles-Tijuana Virtual Region.
The second largest city of Mexico is indeed what we
matter-of-factly call “Los Angeles.”

I here revised Wilkie's view to include San Diego, thus vision

suggesting that the Mexican population of Los Angeles-Tijuana is
around 9 million. This data can vary by seasons and economic
opportunities.

II.

Making Border Crossing Less Necessary

Let us take up the cases of “avoidable” border crossing by many

Mexicans who only seek immediate access to ease the need for such
great amount of cross-border traffic. What are needed are U.S. and
private parcel services to build structures that are open to citizens of
each side without the physical need to cross the border.

Thus, it is imperative to build services such as coordinated

i. el Servico Postal de los Estados Unidos'

ii. los servicios de Federal Express y United Parcel Service.

Such facilities would have a highly controlled “internal frontier”, with

mail and parcels undergoing inspection inside the facilities. This
proposal was originally made by PROFMEX as part of its Ford
Foundation grant to study the cross-border management of the El
Paso-Ciudad Juárez Greater Metropolitan Area. (Ver, por ejemplo,
Samuel Schmidt y David Lorey, Recomendación de Cursos de Acción
para la Administración de El Paso/Ciudad Juárez (El Paso: Centro de
Estudios Inter Americanos y Fronterizos, Universidad de Texas-El Paso,
El Paso Community Foundation, 1994).

In 2001 Ken Ellingwood highlighted the slow Mexico-U.S. mail

service in his article “U.S. Mail Delivers—for Tijuana Residents:
Correspondece: Saying the Postal System in Mexico is Slow and
Inefficient, Many Rent Boxes Across the Border,” Los Angeles Times,
December 10, 2001. Ellingwood notes that mail box rentals in San
9
Ysidro alone total 26,000—almost all rented by Mexican citizens who
cross the border daily to check their mail and use U.S. postal facilities.

Clearly the common post office would be easier to operate only

for letters, but customs officials could arrange to monitor the transfer
of packages as well, thus avoiding the need for thousands of vehicles
to cross the border after long waits and much waste of gasoline by
idling engines.

III

U.S.-MEXICO LEGAL ISSUES

Second, there is a need for coordination of Mexican-U.S. agencies

to avoid the need for legal action against the U.S. and Mexican
Governments. Two pending legal cases are illustrative with regard to
Mexican citizens who seek, through U.S. lawyers and the U.S. Court
System, the return of their “forced saving funds” deducted from
Bracero salaries paid to them during the period from 1942 to 1964.

In the first legal case, the document speaks for itself:

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Case No.: 1 :OlCV00942(TFH)

Judge: Thomas F. Hogan

ISIDRO JIMENEZ DE LA TORRE, et al.,

Plaintiffs,

vs.

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, [Government of Mexico],

et al.,

Defendants.

PLAINTIFFS' MEMORANDUM AND POINTS AND AUTHORITIES

IN SUPPORT OF THEIR MOTION FOR CLASS CERTIFICATION

[on behalf of themselves and a class consisting of all
persons, and the heirs of all persons, who, pursuant to the
Agreements, worked in the United States in the agricultural
and railroad industries between 1942 and 1964, and had
portions of their wages withheld pursuant to the savings
fund provisions of the Agreements].
10
Plaintiffs respectfully submit this memorandum and points
and authorities in support of their Motion . . . against The
United States, John Ashcroft as Attorney General of the
United States, Elaine Chao as Secretary of Labor of the
United States, Paul O'Neill as Secretary of the Treasury of
the United States, Colin Powell as Secretary of State of the
United States, Kevin D. Rooney as acting Commissioner of
the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service,
Donald H. Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense of the United
States, Ann M. Veneman as Secretary of Agriculture of the
United States, [and against]

The Republic of Mexico, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs [of

the] United Mexican States, [as well as against]

Wells Fargo Bank, Banco de Mexico, S.A., Banco de Credito

Rural, S.A. y Patronato del Ahorro Nacional, S.A.
(collectively referred to as "Defendants").

PRELIMINARY STATEMENT

This action arises from a series of Executive

Agreements ("Agreements") entered into between the
United States and Mexico between 1942 and 1964.
Pursuant to the Agreements, over 300,000 Mexican
nationals entered into contracts with the Defendants that
enabled them to come into the United States and work for
American employers in both the agricultural and railroad
industries. These Agreements were . . . adopted by the
Federal Defendants located in the District of Columbia. The
Agreements contained numerous provisions designed to
protect the rights of the Mexican laborers.

One such provision was the savings fund provision,

which was included in all of the Agreements between 1942
and 1948, and which required ten percent of the
wages earned by the Mexican nationals to be
temporarily withheld by the Defendants. [Bold letters
added here.] These sums were to be returned to the
Mexican nationals upon the termination of their
employment in the United States, and their subsequent
return to Mexico. All of the Agreements, aside from the
Agreement of February 20, 1948, required that all
withholdings pursuant to the savings fund provisions would
be directly transferred from the farmer-employers to the
Federal Defendants.

[The Agreement of February 20, 1948 differed in that it

11
required the farmer employers to issue checks directly to
the braceros upon completion of their contracts, thus
paying to them directly their savings funds that had been
withheld.]

It was the responsibility of the Federal Defendants,

located in the District of Columbia, to transfer these sums
to either Defendant Wells Fargo Bank or the Foreign Bank
Defendants. Similarly, the Agreements consistently
required the Foreign Defendant Mexican Government,
through its Consuls located in the District of Columbia, to
take all possible measures of protection in the interest of
the Mexican workers.

Despite these numerous protective measures, the

Mexican nationals who worked pursuant to the Agreements
have not received the sums withheld from their wages. As
alleged in the Amended Complaint, dated June 4, 2001
("Complaint") . . . Defendants have breached their
contractual, fiduciary and trust duties arising out of these
Agreements in that they have failed to return the sums
withheld from the Mexican nationals pursuant to the
savings fund provisions. Accordingly, this action seeks an
accounting in order to ascertain from the Federal and
Foreign Defendants the location(s) of such sums and the
amount owed to each Mexican national. . . .

Pursuant to the Agreement of August 4, 1942, the

United States was responsible for the safekeeping of the
Savings Fund of the agricultural braceros and for the
transfer of those sums to the Mexican Agricultural Credit
Bank, also known as the Banco de Credito Agricola, S.A. In
addition, the Agreement of August 4, 1942 also provided
that the Mexican government through the Banco de Credito
Agricola would assume responsibility of the security of the
monies withheld pursuant to the Savings Fund provision. .
. .

The Agreement of August 4, 1942 was amended in

April 26, 1943 . . . [to provide] that the United States
would be responsible for the safekeeping of the Savings
Fund of the agricultural braceros and for the transfer of
those sums to the Wells Fargo Bank and Union Trust
Company for deposit into an account maintained by the
Bank of Mexico, S.A. Pursuant to the 1943 Agreement, the
Bank of Mexico, S.A. was directed to transfer the
withholdings to the Mexican Agricultural Credit Bank, also
known as the Banco de Credito Agricola, S.A., . . . the
Mexican government through the Banco de Credito
12
Agricola would assume[ing] responsibility of the security of
the monies withheld pursuant to the Savings Fund
provision. . . .

The Savings Fund provision of the Agreement of

April 26, 1943 remained in effect until February 20, 1948,
when a new agreement . . .between the United States and
Mexico . . . altered the process in which the Savings Fund
money was to be transferred by providing that employers
were to withhold ten percent of the agricultural braceros'
wages and provide each bracero with a signed
acknowledgment of the amount withheld. Upon termination
of the employment contract, the employer was to provide
each bracero with a certified or cashier's bank check
bearing the stamp of the Defendant United States
Immigration and Naturalization Service, for the amounts
withheld. Pursuant to the Agreement of February 20, 1948,
the Mexican government, through its Consuls, was to take
all possible measures of protection in the interest of the
Mexican workers participating in the bracero program.
Additionally, the [same] Agreement, provided that the
United States government, through the United States
Employment Service of the United States Department of
Labor, was to render aid to the Mexican braceros in
obtaining full compliance with the terms of the agreement
between the United States and Mexico. . . .

A subsequent agreement between the United States

and Mexico entered into on August 1, 1949, . . . called for
an end to the Savings Fund deductions for Mexican
agricultural workers. However, on information and belief,
Mexican laborers who worked in the agricultural industry in
the United States between 1949 and 1964 continued to
have a portion of their wages withheld by their employers
despite the Agreement of August 1, 1949. . . .

Deductions for the Savings Fund were also taken

from the wages of Mexican nationals working in
non-agricultural industries, such as the railroad industry.
The first agreement between the United States and Mexico
dealing exclusively with the non-agricultural braceros was
entered into on April 29, 1943. . . . This Agreement
contained the same protections for the non-agricultural
worker as the Agreement of August 4, 1942 provided tor
the agricultural worker. . . .

Under the auspices of the Agreements, hundreds of

thousands of Mexican nationals labored in the agricultural
and railroad industries in the United States between 1942
13
 and 1964.

These workers had millions of dollars withheld from

their wages pursuant to the Savings Fund provisions of the
Agreements.

The bracero program was based upon a course of

conduct that can be fairly characterized as peonage and
indentured servitude. [Bold letters added here]

Class members were typically provided with

inadequate, subsistence housing or alternatively, were
denied any form of housing. Class members were typically
required to endure unsanitary conditions, including but not
limited to, the absence of showers and bathroom facilities.
Additionally, Class members were frequently provided with
inadequate nutrition and when provided with meals, were
often given food that had spoiled. . . .

Plaintiffs, a former bracero and an heir of a former

bracero, and the Class members have not received monies
withheld from their wages pursuant to the Agreements.
Further, Plaintiffs and the Class members have not
received an accounting stating how much money was
withheld and the whereabouts of said sums

U.S. District Court Judge Thomas F. Hogan accepted the above

motion to file the case as a class action as requested, and service was
made on September 4, 2001. Plaintiffs attorneys Patricia D. Ryan,
Landon Gerald Dowdey, and Milberg, Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach
LLP are now taking testimony in Mexico from braceros and their
families.

In the second case, on April 5, 2001, Lieff Cabraser Heimann &

Bernstein, LLP, filed a class action case in U.S. Federal Court on behalf
of former Mexican workers contracted to work in United States from
1942 to 1949. Lieff Cabraser seeks

to recover wages withheld for placement in savings funds

that were not returned to the workers. . . .(called
"Braceros," a Spanish reference to those who work with
brazos or "arms"), [who] were hired beginning in 1942 to
assist the United States in response to the depleted
national workforce caused by World War II. . . .

Under a bilateral agreement between the United

States and the Government of Mexico, forced savings
accounts were created for the Braceros. Into each account,
a portion of the Braceros' wages were deposited. The
14
 purpose of these accounts was to ensure that the Braceros
would return home to Mexico upon termination of their
contracts. <www.lieffcabraser.com/braceros.htm>.

Beyond these legal steps being taken in the USA, the Mexican
Congress has launched an investigation into the funds.
Therefore, a think tank should be established, to unite the efforts of the
Mexican and U.S. sides in order to resolve the issue.
Según La Opinión de Los Angeles (19 de abril de 2001):

La Cámara de Diputados nombró por unanimidad una

comisión especial que se encargará de buscar decenas de
millones de dólares correspondientes a miles de mexicanos
que laboraron en Estados Unidos entre 1942 y 1964, bajo
el llamado Programa Bracero y que inexplicablemente
desaparecieron por entre los resquicios de las cuentas del
gobierno.

La instancia legislativa deberá llevar a cabo una

investigación sobre el misterioso destino de los recursos
del denominado Fondo de Ahorro Campesino, creado por el
gobierno de México mediante la retención del 10% de los
salarios recibidos por los braceros que durante aquel lapso
trabajaron en territorio estadounidense.

El dinero debía haber sido devuelto a los interesados

cuando regresaran a sus comunidades al vencimiento de
su contratación en campos agrícolas y tendidos ferroviarios
de Estados Unidos. . . .

Los bancos de México involucrados en la recolección

de este fondo han dicho no tener la multimillonaria suma
de dólares y sostienen que tampoco saben nada del
destino que este jugoso monto tomó.

Con la aprobación del punto de acuerdo por parte de

las distintas fracciones parlamentarias, la denominada
Comisión Especial para Seguimiento a los Fondos
Aportados por los Trabajadores Braceros estará en
condición legal de extender y profundizar sus indagaciones
tanto como sea necesario. . . . [incluyendo llamar] a
comparecer a todos los funcionarios que estuvieron
involucrados en el manejo directo e indirecto de estos
valiosos flujos monetarios, en un proceso que comprenderá
los últimos 30 años. . . .

[Serán] interrogados principalmente los burócratas

de mediano y alto nivel que se desempeñan en las
distintas entidades del Poder Ejecutivo, desde luego de las
15
 Secretarías de Relaciones Exteriores, Hacienda y la
Procuraduría General de la República.

Conclusion

Taking into account all of the above issues that involve many
governmental agencies (but fall outside the the purview of any one
agency), it is clear that there is need to establish a base to provide a
coordinated analysis and response to complex matters facing the
Mexicans who live in such places as Gran Los Angeles-Tijuana as well
as Mexicans who have lived in the USA but returned to Mexico.

Let us suggest here, then, that INAMI takes this opportunity of

developing new legislation about its role to expand its sphere of action,
thus enabling it not only

1. to negotiate directly with its counterpart agency in the

USA;

but also

2. to serve as the coordinator for binational issues facing

Mexicans who live under the laws of both the Mexico
and the USA;

3. to establish an independent INAMI "Think Tank" that can

offer the necessary analysis to suggest response to
new problems that continually are being identified in U.S.-
Mexican relations.

Clearly there is need to prevent the accumulation of long-

term problems such as the Fondo Bracerco and to find a more efficient
system than that of involving the court systems of both countries in
protracted and costly litigation. Further, there is a need to reduce
pressure on border crossing for "simple" matters such as using the U.S.
Postal Service.

Hopefully, INAMI can fill the vacuum now facing both countries
wherein no single agency attempts to coordinate issues not only
crossing many ministires but across a border that is increasingly an
arbitrary line daminaging society and economy in two interlinked
countries--the USA and Mexico.

Conclusion

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 Tomando en cuenta todos los problemas arriba expuestos que
involucran a muchas agencias gubernamentales (pero que están fuera
del control de una sola agencia gubernamental), es evidente que hay
necesidad de crear una base para llevar a cabo un análisis coordinado
y una respuesta eficaz a los asuntos complejos que enfrentan los
mexicanos que viven en lugares como la Gran Los Angeles-Tijuana, y
mexicanos que después de vivir en los Estados Unidos regresan a
México.

Sugerimos aquí, entonces, que INAMI aproveche esta

oportunidad para crear nueva legislación que pueda expandir su esfera
de acción, para permitirle no sólo:

1. negociar directamente con su contrapare en los

Estados Unidos, sino también:

2. servir de coordinador de soluciones a problemas

binacionales
a que se enfrentan los mexicanos que viven regidos
tanto por las leyes de México como de los Estados Unidos;

3. establecer un"Think Tank" de INAMI independiente, que

pueda realizar el análisis necesario para poder
sugerir la respuesta a nuevos problemas que se
identifican
continuamente en las relaciones Estados Unidos-
México

Es evidente que existe la necesidad de evitar la acumulación

de problemas a plazo largo, tales como los del Fondo de Ahorros de
Braceros y encontrar un sistema más eficiente que el que tiene que ver
con sistemas judiciales de los dos países en litigaciones prolongadas y
costosas. Además, hay necesidad de reducir la presión que ejerce el
cruce de la frontera a personas que la cruzan constantemente para
asuntos "sencillos" tales como el uso del Servicio de Correos.

Esperemos que INAMI pueda llenar el vacío que experimentan

los dos países por la falta de una sola agencia que intente coordinar la
solución de problemas que no sólo atañen a muchas secretarías
gubernamentales, sino que se extienden a través de una frontera que
se convierte cada día más en una línea arbitraria que causa daños y
perjuicios a la sociedad y la economía de dos países que están
eternamente entrelazados: México y los Estados Unidos.

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