Theory about Immigration

To see this in full one must take into consideration that the complex issue isn’t just the concept of people wanting to leave for a better life. These people are genuinely affected more than what is accounted for in this article. Please direct email comments to the contact page email.

1 Joshua Hammer Before North America was known as North America, there were displaced people south of what we would call the southern border. We can see that from when the Aztecs were displaced by their conquering class of the Spanish. These overtakes or genocides caused people to run as seen here in the book of The Broken Spears, “Flight from the city began, and with this, the war came to an end. The people cried. We have suffered enough. Let us leave the city. Let us go live on weeds. Some fled across the lake, others along the castaways. Even then, there were many killings.” (Miguel Leon-Portilla, 2011, Ch 13) The book is a historical explanation of documentation during the time these people were misplaced. Due to this being our past, we think that we would have moved forward as a people. But as recent as the past decade, we have seen a high displacement from the events the world witnessed with the caravans of people coming from Central and Southern America as we know them today. Is there a cause that created the crisis for these migrants to immigrate north and leave their homes like before? The demand the caravans created for any country had come across unexpectedly. The large migration must have been due to some greater cause. With families traveling as units and many people leaving all they’ve known for a better place; the hazard of the journey was worth the risk to so many. The reward was so great, and the fear was so large that leaving was the only option. The conclusion of a peer-reviewed research article on this very topic explains this situation like this, “Our work corroborates the findings of previous literature related to structural problems in the country of origin, including obtaining employment, better wages, and safeguarding life from the threat of crime. In addition to giving the complex displacement in the region, migrants came together to take advantage of the reduction in economic and legal barriers afforded by the Caravan.”( De Lourdes Rosas-Lopez, 2 Guilamo‐Ramos, and Mora‐Rivera, “Joining a Migrant Caravan: Herd Behavior and Structural Factors.”, 1149). The idea of so many people leaving caused different reasons for why people would say they left. For this research, we will focus on the main or root cause for this geographical, economic travesty that has affected these people for hundreds of years. Especially now in more recent years. Migration from Central America relies directly on the political and economic structure of the country of origin. I believe that income inequality is the cause of the migration from the Northern Triangle of Latin America. With the focus on the political and economic structure concerning the status of the country’s GDP, it shows how the government traded the people's work for profit. GDP as described by the IMF is “The income approach sums the incomes generated by production—for example, the compensation employees receive and the operating surplus of companies” (“Gross Domestic Product: An Economy’s All,” 1.) This includes how the day in life could be measured since the employees need employment to create more GDP. Since this time in our history has happened, we can look clearly at the nation's past reported GDPs. For this reason, people leaving for a better GPD nation makes sense. What makes sense sometimes isn’t as clear as this. As for Latin America, the issue of how the GDP is made up can show why there’s a lack of care for the people. “For many decades, the face of the Latin American economy was determined by enterprises (in many cases stateowned) engaged in the extractive industries and infrastructure.” (Yakovlev, “The Trends Changing the Economies of Latin America,1.) With the government making all the profits from their self-owned companies, they take the profits that hardly compensate the workers. This caused horrible working conditions and a lack of good employment. A lack of structure can also be the reason that the Latin community feared staying in poverty. This is a solid indicator of the performance of the nation. Since we are looking at a certain time, the GPD in Oct of 2020, the 3 World Bank forecast for Latin America was also dismal. ” The World Bank has again worsened forecasts for Latin American and Caribbean economies for the second time, from the June estimated 7.2% contraction to the current 7.9%.” (Latin America- The World Bank Worsens Forecasts - ProQuest, 1.). For some this writing has been on the wall for a while. One can only imagine what a crashing economy looks like in real life. When the government owns the means of production and the profits are not properly distributed to the people, they feel oppressed. They also feel the poverty that it creates in their daily lives. The fact that Latin America has money issues contributes to the long-term welfare of the social performance of the country. You would think that the politicians would take the proper steps to ensure the future of the people. Or you could expect that the government would know that the people would want to migrate away. During this time of the caravans and just a few weeks after the article in the last section. On Oct 27 2020 in an article from Madrid. “The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Cepal) has noted that the region's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) must grow at a year-on-year rate of 4% and redistribute up to 3% of annual GDP to eliminate poverty in the region by 2030.” (“Latin America.- Latin America’s GDP Must Grow at - ProQuest,” 1.), Knowing they had an uphill battle the governments of Latin America could see that their performance could shape the national narrative. One that shows people forgotten by their governments. This shows that there was a known lack and that the lack could be fixed only by fixing the underlying issue. The fact that this can be cross-sectionally examined now gives us the scope to see if the governments of Latin America acted on behalf of their people for the best. In June of 2023, we can see that the GDP did not make the cut and the people need to be free from such oppression. An article about the World Bank's description of the updated 4 evaluation can give you a good grasp of the current GDP of Latin America. This article even hints at what we are researching about the ties between the GDP and social life. From the International Bank for Reconstruction & Development--World Bank “Latin America will have to grow twice as much as estimated to reduce the increase in poverty, said William Maloney, the World Bank's chief economist for the region. According to the WB, Latin America's GDP will close this year with a variation of 1.4% and by 2024, 2.4%, figures that are not enough to alleviate poverty or dissipate social tensions.”( World Bank: Latin America's GDP Growth is Insufficient to Reduce Poverty, 1) This article shows that it is not just the press that knows about the tension from the economic condition that is causing the pain felt by the people of Latin America. This feeling that’s felt by the lack of equality looks different when we put it into actual numbers. These past few pages have described the GDP expectation from 2020 and the failures of the Latin nation to grow their people out of poverty. So what was the difference in the GDP indicator of 2022? The United States had 25,462,700.00 (in millions), El Salvador had 32,488.72 (in millions), and Honduras had only 31,717.70(in millions) as seen from the (“World Bank Open Data,” 1). These numbers across the Latin country community are very similar to each other in that they show the country needs growth to stop the spread of poverty. People flee to other countries with the idea of a better place with more opportunities. The idea that we were able to cover the icing on the cake for immigration when it comes to the issues of the regions, and the concept of GPD is interesting. The link between people suffering and the amount of wealth a country produces is staggering. This is a single-scope dynamic of this topic as well. Since this topic is so diverse, it is impossible to capture all the information needed to explain this completely in the project. The focus on migration is tied closely to the equality or 5 inequality of the nation of origin. We know these places face huge challenges, cartels, and violence from these gangs. This again comes into the area of the political spectrum since the government is supposed to be controlling these gangs and recapturing the actual wealth of the people. Also, the government could release some of the private enterprises and socially share the wealth gathered from the government organization which drives the GDP. Since the Latin American countries could feel the lack of equality and knew that other places were not so poor, they decided to migrate north to find better opportunities and less poverty. The people are leaving their homes again because of oppression. Maybe it was not in the form of conquering Spaniards but perhaps another ruling class controlling the means of production.

6 Bibliography

De Lourdes Rosas-Lopez, Maria, Vincent Guilamo‐Ramos, and Jorge Mora‐Rivera. “Joining a Migrant Caravan: Herd Behaviour and Structural Factors.” Third World Quarterly 44, no. 6 (February 22, 2023): 1137–54. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2023.2176299.

IMF. “Gross Domestic Product: An Economy’s All,” June 15, 2019. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/Series/Back-to-Basics/gross-domesticproductGDP#:~:text=GDP%20measures%20the%20monetary%20value,the%20borders%20of% 20a%20country.

“Latin America.- Latin America’s GDP Must Grow at - ProQuest,” n.d. https://www.proquest.com/docview/2455533713?parentSessionId=uV7bNGkmT6Nrq47 K%2FVjXOmSfO3tlTKs1gFaJx0kGodM%3D&pq-origsite=primo&accountid=10357.

“Latin America.- The World Bank Worsens Forecasts - ProQuest,” n.d. https://www.proquest.com/docview/2449717777?accountid=10357&parentSessionId=p7 CAkttnpU7rqRWBttzCZhiaxIVwXUDoSG8ITucxR00%3D&pq-origsite=primo.

Leon-Portilla, Miguel. The Broken Spears 2007 Revised Edition: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico.

Beacon Press, 2011. World Bank Open Data. “World Bank Open Data,” n.d. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD.

Wurtz, Heather. “A Movement in Motion: Collective Mobility and Embodied Practice in the Central American Migrant Caravan.” Mobilities 15, no. 6 (September 11, 2020): 930–44. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2020.1806511. 7 Yakovlev, Petr. “The Trends Changing the Economies of Latin America.” Herald of the Russian Academy of Sciences 92, no. S9 (December 1, 2022): S865–77. https://doi.org/10.1134/s1019331622150114.