mexico – Worlding

May 6, 2013

Central American immigration to U.S. doubles

William Ordonez and his wife, Carolia, thought that starting a new business in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, was a great idea, reports NPR

“But just two weeks after they started selling chips, candy and soda, gang members showed up and ordered them to pay about $25 a week.”We tried explaining to them that we just opened, we aren’t making that much, we can’t pay you,” Ordonez says.

“The men didn’t care, so Ordonez went to the police. He says instead of helping, the police told the gang that Ordonez and his wife had complained. The next day, there was a note on the small store door that said: “We are going to kill you.” “The first thing we thought to do was to save our lives … we took off,” he says. Ordonez, his father, his wife and their 7-year-old-son all headed north. After a month of traveling hidden in the back of pickup trucks, in small boats and on the top of trains, the family made it to a small refugee center in a poor neighborhood in Mexico City. Continue reading “Central American immigration to U.S. doubles”

February 11, 2013February 11, 2013

Two beers are not enough

Not unlike Coke and Pepsi, two beer companies control most of America’s beer.

Who cares, you say? Apparently the federal government is mildly concerned, as reflected in its response to Budweiser’s plan to buy Corona, as discussed in a piece in today’s New York Times, as follows:

“Consumers will benefit from the Justice Department’s antitrust suit to block Anheuser-Busch InBev, the country’s largest brewing company, from acquiring one of its competitors. This kind of action was seen less frequently in the Bush administration.

“Anheuser-Busch InBev announced in June that it would pay $20.1 billion to buy the 50 percent stake in Grupo Modelo of Mexico — maker of Corona beer — that it did not already own. Continue reading “Two beers are not enough”

February 3, 2013

The question of the border fence

As immigration has moved to the center of political debate, the fate of possible citizenship for millions of people hinges on a bolstered southern border.

“We put more boots on the ground on the southern border than at any time in our history,” President Obama exclaimed this week, adding that illegal crossings are down 80% since their peak in 2000.

The president committed a small army to the southwestern states–over 21,000 border patrol agents–racking up an almost $11.7 billion price tag in 2012, up $362 million allotted for the year before, reports MCNBC. “According to the Migration Policy Institute, the federal government spent a total of $18 billion on immigration enforcement agencies, which accounted for an astounding 24% more in federal spending than what was given for the FBI, DEA, Secret Service, U.S. Marshals Service, and ATF–combined.

“And as the number of agents and resources allocated to the border rose, the number of arrests and apprehensions along the country lines plummeted. Continue reading “The question of the border fence”

January 19, 2013January 20, 2013

More Asians than Latinos coming to California

Over the past decade a dramatic shift has occurred in California’s immigration demographics, as Asian immigrants have begun to come to California faster than Latinos.

In 2001, 42 percent of immigrants coming to California were from Latin America, primarily Mexico, while 37 percent were from Asia. In 2011, 57 percent of new immigrants were from Asia, and just

22 percent were from Latin America, reports Huffington Post.

“’This is a pretty astounding change over a short period of time,’ Hans Johnson, co-director of the Public Policy Institute of California, told the Sacremento Bee, citing census data. The demographic breakdown of California’s swearing-in of new citizens Wednesday was as follows: 450 from Asia (100 from India, 94 from the Philippines, 63 from Vietnam, 33 from China, 29 from Laos) 160 from Latin America (119 people from Mexico)35 from Ukraine to see which countries immigrants to California came from in 2011. Continue reading “More Asians than Latinos coming to California”

November 30, 2012November 30, 2012

Mexico struggles with chewing gum

Forget about the drug cartels for a minute, a new war is bewing in Mexico––against chewing gum. According to the Mexican newspaper, El Universal, PRI deputy, Juan Manuel Diez Francos, has finally moved forward and proposed a federal tax of 50 percent on chewing gum, or chicle as it is known in Mexico. HuffPost LatinoVoices reports that the deputy says ”the chewing gum tax would help pay for the cleaning of chewing gum that people spit out in public places like sidewalks, plazas and parks. As it stands now, he says, the government spends an average of 2 pesos and 50 cents on every piece of gum it un-sticks from these public areas. The cheapest pack of chicle costs only 50 cents.

“It might sound like a trivial issue, but Mexican’s love their gum. It is the second largest consumer of gum after the U.S. according to Kraft Foods. There are 92 thousand tons of chicle produced each year in Mexico, and on average Mexicans consume 2.5 pieces of gum per day. The average cleanup in Mexico City is 70 chicles per square meter. And in a single day, the cost of cleanup of the Zocalo amounts to approximately 2,800 pesos according to Diez Francos.

“The cleaning of chewed gum is not a problem isolated to Mexico. Diez Francos points out that England spends 7 million euros each year cleaning up gum. And the fact is, chewed gum can be a health hazard since it can contain over 50 thousand germs and transmittable diseases. England’s chewing gum problem is so bad, it inspired artist Ben Wilson to take his talents to the tiny blobs spread all over the sidewalks. Concerned about the environment and how advertisements rule the urban environment, Wilson began painting on the gum. He doesn’t just dab them with color, he uses the gum as a canvas for his miniature paintings which he does just about everywhere and on most any subject.”

For more see, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/28/mexico-chewing-gum-tax_n_2205512.html