u.s. - mexico border relations.

i just finished reading a bazillion articles for my chicano studies class, but the last one left me feeling so uneasy. it was about militarized border rape - yes, this is a depressing subject matter for a blog entry, however i want to somehow educate others about it because hey, every bit counts right?

so, essentially as the u.s. can be considered a "first world" country, the inhabitants of its bordering neighbor mexico, a third world country, seek better opportunities in our dear homeland, the u.s.a. doing so, however, requires crossing the border between mexico and the u.s. we all are generally aware that we have border and immigration issues concerning this border specifically, and we as americans, wish to keep our sovereignty and rep as a power nation by keeping these "aliens" out. we do not want illegal immigrants to take our jobs, lower the wage rate, etc. thus, we have border patrol and other such anti-immigration programs to keep people from mexico out. however, they still find a way to reach the border, but sometimes they are caught. this is bad, specifically for women. the reason being is because many of the border patrol are CORRUPT and abuse their power as officials of the great u.s.a to falsely lead these women, who are already scared, to believe that they will be let go and will not be deported back to mexico if they have sex with these border patrol men. they use their status as officers and their possession of firearms to threaten the women, then proceed to rape them because these women do not know what else to do and/or are too scared to do anything. it has become such a norm that many women believe that this is a right of passage, that being raped by border patrol is their payment into our country.

women heading north started using birth control pills because they anticipated possible sexual assaults, which suggests that border rapes are not random or isolated

they start using birth control?! people, this is not RIGHT. furthermore, even those women who have reported rape by border patrol are not taken seriously and the men convicted of these felonies are lightly sentenced, but only after months of trials. basically, these men are let off easily because it's hard to prove rape.

this is wrong on so many levels, but it's rarely documented or researched about. everyday women are getting raped, but nothing is being done about it! we, as a country, have this superiority complex and we believe that just because we do hold better opportunities for many, that we can abuse our power and take advantage of those less fortunate. this makes me sad that many dream to come to the u.s. to live the "american dream", but this situation IS part of the american dream. yeah, i know there are other countries that are worse off than us and women/children don't have any human rights, but if we're the "land of opportunity", we don't need to succumb to such horrible acts. we put ourselves on this pedistal, but do we really deserve it??

p.s. the "we want the mexicans out" mentality written in this entry is meant to reflect the u.s. as a whole, not my personal opinions of the subject!