20 years of NAFTA

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(Contenido publicado originalmente por SINEMBARGO.MX)

La dependencia de México a la economía de Estados Unidos ha vulnerado al país, en 20 años del TLCAN

Por Andrea Sosa Cabrios

Ciudad de México, 28 de diciembre (SinEmbargo/dpa).– Hace 20 años y después de sortear fuertes resistencias, Estados Unidos, México y Canadá se lanzaron juntos a la aventura del libre comercio con un acuerdo pionero que, por primera vez, unió a dos economías industrializadas con una en desarrollo.El 1 de enero de 1994 entró en vigor el Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte (TLCAN o NAFTA por sus siglas en inglés), que creaba la mayor área de libre comercio del mundo de ese momento e introducía aspectos novedosos como la protección de inversiones y mecanismos de resolución de controversias.Dos décadas más tarde, el éxito en materia comercial es evidente, aunque hubo ganadores y perdedores y los socios ahora tienen el interés puesto en otras partes del mundo como Asia-Pacífico y la Unión Europea (UE). 

LEER ARTÍCULO: http://www.sinembargo.mx/28-12-2013/856160

What We’ve Learned From NAFTA

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As the 20th anniversary of the North American Free Trade Agreement approaches, U.S. representatives are negotiating a trans-Pacific trade arrangement that could have even greater impact. Can our experience with Nafta provide lessons on what we should emulate or avoid in the latest trade agreement? Has Nafta proved to be a success that the United States should try to replicate more widely or the type of trade agreement that should be avoided in the future?

Deportados: el regreso a la tierra que ya no se reconoce

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“El retorno no se lo deseo a nadie”, dice Eduardo Arenas con una sonrisa amarga. Hace lo posible por hablar del tema con humor, pero al recordar la forma en que fue “aventado” -literalmente- de Estados Unidos, en la voz se le mezclan de pronto el enojo, la tristeza y la nostalgia.

Del otro lado del río Bravo, don Eduardo dejó todo lo que nunca pudo crear en esta orilla: trabajo digno, familia, una casa propia. Por eso, a sus 50 años de edad no se resigna a quedarse en el país donde nació, pero que hoy lo enferma y lo rechaza.

Como él, decenas de miles de mexicanos indocumentados han sufrido la expulsión de un territorio donde ya habían hecho toda su vida. Sin contactos, sin amigos, sin dinero, de repente se ven en una tierra que ya no reconocen y a donde no tenían pensado volver.

“Aquí ya no puedo vivir”

LEER MÁS...

All Over the World, Migrants Demand the Right to Stay at Home

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Immigrants, workers, union members and community activists
marched on May Day in San Jose. Marchers protested attacks
on immigrants, unions and the rights of workers, and called on
Congress to pass a just immigration reform. (David Bacon)

A global consensus is emerging on immigration policy–and the U.S. isn’t heeding it.
BY DAVID BACON

Such voices here in the U.S. and abroad deserve a greater audience. If there is no effort to examine the impact of trade agreements, or to look at the danger of the growth of new international guest worker programs, a decade from now, the world we live in will be one we will hardly recognize.

The United States has become home to a large number of people born outside its borders—there were some 40 million as of 2010, according to various estimates. That was up from approximately 20 million in 1990.

The immigration debate in the United States usually treats the migration of people into this country as something unique. But it is not. The United Nations estimates that 232 million people worldwide live outside the countries where they were born—3.2 percent of the world's population. In 2000 it was 175 million, and in 1990, 154 million. The number of cross-border migrants has grown by 78 million people in just over 20 years—enough to fill 20 cities the size of Los Angeles.

U.S. exceptionalism—the idea that this country is somehow unique and different—has no basis in fact when it comes to migration, which is a global phenomenon. And the big questions are why are the number of migrants increasing so rapidly and what should be done about it.

READ FULL ARTICLE

'All Immigrants Are Artists'

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Edwidge Danticat, author of Claire of the Sea Light, believes that "re-creating your entire life is a form of reinvention on par with the greatest works of literature."

In the early 1970s, Edwidge Danticat’s parents sold everything they owned to purchase passports. They fled the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince and the chaotic rule of Francois and Jean-Claude Duvalier to find a better life in New York City. Danticat, then a small child, and was meant to follow shortly with her infant brother, but things didn’t work out that way: “Because of United States immigration red tape, our family separation lasted eight years,” Danticat wrote in The New York Times in 2004. Danticat was 12 when she finally traveled to the States in 1981 to see who her parents had become—and meet two U.S.-born brothers for the first time.

When I asked Danticat to talk about a favorite literary passage for this series, she chose a section from a new book—Patricia Engel’s It’s Not Love, It’s Just Paris—that distills the essence of the immigrant experience. The book says something that the author had long felt but had never articulated: that trying to start a life in a strange land is an artistic feat of the highest order, one that ranks with (or perhaps above) our greatest cultural achievements. We discussed the ways immigrant parents model artistry for their children in their struggle to survive, and how the decision to choose a creative discipline can be fraught for the subsequent generation.

Read more...

Europe is good?

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"They told me Europe is good"... How different or alike are things for migrants in North America?

 

About the immigration reform 2013

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Two views on the Immigration Reform, currently debated in the USA (2013)

ANTONIO GONZALEZ ON IMMIGRATION REFORM


SENATOR JOHN McCAIN ON IMMIGRATION REFORM

Wealth inequality in America

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It would be good to know what is the share of specific 'minorities' in this chart...

 

Bilingual Colloquim

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First encounter of the 20 Years Later project research team.
University of Texas San Antonio (UTSA)
February 21-22, 2013