Exodus
I mean, they speak the same language, and from what I’m being told, there is far less crime in Mexico, their education and healthcare are better. And, by the way, they are far more virtuous than we.
They being the would-be immigrants from Central America? Yah, if they're from the cities or have some years of formal education, they likely speak Spanish. From what I understand, a lot of the hopeful immigrants are from rural C. America, & are as likely to speak a native language, rather than Spanish. This marks them as Native Peoples, & further marks them as potential victims for assault, robbery, kidnapping (for ransom), rape & murder on the way.
Mexico is very nationalistic - before Mexico's War of Independence, they might have made common cause with C. America. But history took some odd turns. The Native Peoples (even the Mexican ones) are still @ the bottom of many social rungs in Mexico - & so the C. American's ethnicity doesn't help them. Attempts to clean up the gangs that prey on immigrants on the road have driven them mostly into southern Mexico. Until recently, immunization coverage was better in Mexico & C. America than in the US - so that part is true. But Mexico's schools & healthcare are reserved for Mexican nationals & people who can pay.
For details on the immigration stream through Mexico, see
Enrique's journey / Sonia Nazario, c2006, Random House, 305.23 Naza.
Subjects
• Hondurans -- United States -- Biography.
• Immigrant children -- United States -- Biography.
• Illegal aliens -- United States -- Biography.
• Hondurans -- United States -- Social conditions -- Case studies.
• Immigrant children -- United States -- Social conditions -- Case studies.
• Illegal aliens -- United States -- Social conditions -- Case studies.
• Honduras -- Emigration and immigration -- Case studies.
• United States -- Emigration and immigration -- Case studies.
Summary
• Based on the Los Angeles Times series that won two Pulitzer Prizes, this is a timeless story of families torn apart. When Enrique was five, his mother, too poor to feed her children, left Honduras to work in the United States. The move allowed her to send money back home so Enrique could eat better and go to school past the third grade. She promised she would return quickly, but she struggled in America. Without her, he became lonely and troubled. After eleven years, he decided he would go find her. He set off alone, with little more than a slip of paper bearing his mother's North Carolina telephone number. Without money, he made the dangerous trek up the length of Mexico, clinging to the sides and tops of freight trains. He and other migrants, many of them children, are hunted like animals. To evade bandits and authorities, they must jump onto and off the moving boxcars they call the Train of Death. It is an epic journey, one thousands of children make each year to find their mothers in the United States.--From publisher description.
Length
• xxv, 291 pages, [16] pages of plates : no index
An excellent account of the Hondurans risking crossing Mexico. & why they do it.