Moving Millions

Jeffrey Kaye

Description

On the same day that reporter Jeffrey Kaye visited the Tondo hospital in northwest Manila, members of an employees association wearing hospital uniforms rallied in the outside courtyard demanding pay raises. The nurses at the hospital took home about $261 a month, while in the United States, nurses earn, on average, more than fifteen times that rate of pay. No wonder so many of them leave the Philippines.

Between 2000 and 2007, nearly 78,000 qualified nurses left the Philippines to work abroad, but there's more to it than the pull of better wages: each year the Philippine president hands out Bagong Bayani ("modern-day heroes") awards to the country's "outstanding and exemplary" migrant workers. Migrant labor accounts for the Philippines' second largest source of export revenue—after electronics—and they ship out nurses like another country might export textiles. In 2008, the Philippines was one of the top ranking destination countries for remittances, alongside India ($45 billion), China ($34.5 billion), and Mexico ($26.2 billion).

Nurses in the Philippines, farmers in Senegal, Dominican factory workers in rural Pennsylvania, even Indian software engineers working in California—all are pieces of a larger system Kaye calls "coyote capitalism."

Coyote capitalism is the idea—practiced by many businesses and governments—that people, like other natural resources, are supplies to be shifted around to meet demand.  Workers are pushed out, pulled in, and put on the line without consideration of the consequences for economies, communities, or individuals.

With a fresh take on a controversial topic, Moving Millions:

• Knocks down myth after myth about why immigrants come to America and what role they play in the economy
• Challenges the view that immigrants themselves motivate immigration, rather than the policies of businesses and governments in both rich and poor nations
• Finds surprising connections between globalization, economic growth and the convoluted immigration debates taking place in America and other industrialized countries
• Jeffrey Kaye is a freelance journalist and special correspondent for the PBS NewsHour for whom he has reported since 1984, covering immigration, housing, health care, urban politics, and other issues

What does it all add up to? America's approach to importing workers looks from the outside like a patchwork of unnecessary laws and regulations, but the machinery of immigration is actually part of a larger, global system that satisfies the needs of businesses and governments, often at the expense of workers in every nation.

Drawing on Jeffrey Kaye's travels to places including Mexico, the U.K., the United Arab Emirates, the Philippines, Poland, and Senegal, this book, a healthy alternative to the obsession with migrants' legal status, exposes the dark side of globalization and the complicity of businesses and governments to benefit from the migration of millions of workers.
Acknowledgments.

Introduction.

1 Lures and Blinders.

2 Growing People for Export.

3 Migrants in the Global Marketplace.

4 Switching Course: Reversals of Fortune.

5 Recruitment Agencies and Body Shops.

6 Smugglers as Migration Service Providers.

7 "We Rely Heavily on Immigrant Labor".

8 Servitude and Cash Flows.

9 "Help Wanted" or "No Trespassing".

10 Politics, Infl uence, and Alliances.

11 Southwest Showdowns.

12 Fresh Blood and National Selection.

13 "Torn Apart for the Need to Survive".

Notes.

Index.

Sujets

• Political Science
• Manila
• Globalization
• Manille

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 01 avril 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780470588314
• Langue: English

Extrait

Table of Contents
 
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Introduction
 
CHAPTER 1 - Lures and Blinders
CHAPTER 2 - Growing People for Export
CHAPTER 3 - Migrants in the Global Marketplace
CHAPTER 4 - Switching Course: Reversals of Fortune
CHAPTER 5 - Recruitment Agencies and Body Shops
CHAPTER 6 - Smugglers as Migration Service Providers
CHAPTER 7 - “We Rely Heavily on Immigrant Labor”
CHAPTER 8 - Servitude and Cash Flows
CHAPTER 9 - “Help Wanted” or “No Trespassing”
CHAPTER 10 - Politics, Influence, and Alliances
CHAPTER 11 - Southwest Showdowns
CHAPTER 12 - Fresh Blood and National Selection
CHAPTER 13 - “Torn Apart for the Need to Survive”
 
NOTES
INDEX

Copyright © 2010 by Jeffrey Kaye. All rights reserved
 
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada
 
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
 
Kaye, Jeffrey.
Moving millions : how coyote capitalism fuels global immigration / Jeffrey Kaye.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
eISBN : 978-0-470-58831-4
1. Emigration and immigration—Economic aspects. 2. Emigration and immigration—Social aspects. 3. Emigration and immigration—Government policy. 4. Foreign workers. I. Title.
JV6217.K39 2010
325-dc22
2009034173
 
 
 

 
 
To the memory of my parents, Harry and Rebecca. To my sister, Judith. To my wife and best friend, Deborah. And to my children, Sara and Sophie: May your own life voyages be ones of fulfillment, compassion, love, and joy.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As an immigrant, a journalist, and a longtime resident of Los Angeles, I have found the subject of immigration to be an abiding and recurring theme. So this book is a product of not only my personal history, but also of a career in which I’ve tried to understand and explain the forces that spur people to uproot themselves, leave families, and cross borders.
I spent the first thirteen years of my life in London. My mother and father were born in England right after World War I to parents who had been part of the great westward-moving wave of Eastern Europeans. As a result, my family life was imbued with a hybrid culture—that spanned two worlds—an older, Yiddish-speaking generation, and that of my parents, a bridge between the Old World and the New.
As a thirteen-year-old, I had only a vague understanding of why my parents, Harry and Rebecca, decided to leave England with my sister Judith and me to journey to a quintessential destination for immigrants, Southern California. Living in El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciúncula, I have often felt as if the world were arriving on my doorstep.
As I came to learn why people move, I realized that beyond the obvious personal calculations were factors beyond the control of migrants themselves. In that sense, some of the influences on my parents’ immigration decision undoubtedly had parallels with those of my grandparents, Avram and Yetta Richtiger and Jakob and Sarah Krakovsky (later Kosky, then Kaye).
So, in a book that examines some of the mega-issues involved in migration, I need to acknowledge not only migrant ancestors and contemporary influences, but Alexander III Alexandrovich and Maurice Harold Macmillan, respectively the tsar of Russia (1881-1894) and the prime minister of the United Kingdom (1957-1963). If it were not for them, I would not be where I am today. Their policies and actions propelled my family to cross continents and oceans. In the case of the Russian emperor, anti-Jewish pogroms combined with economic hardships pushed my great-grandparents to England. In the early 1960s, high taxes imposed by the Macmillan government on jewelry, which my father—an artist and craftsman—made by hand, prompted my parents’ decision to immigrate to the United States.
More directly, I thank my colleagues at the PBS NewsHour for providing twenty-five years’ worth of rewarding assignments and opportunities that allowed me to expand my horizons and knowledge. In particular, Jim Lehrer, Les Crystal, Linda Winslow, Mike Mosettig, and Gregg Ramshaw supported reporting ventures that took me around the world. I am especially grateful for the wisdom and kindness of Patti Parson of the NewsHour, not only for her guidance and insights but for a wonderful friendship. Moving Millions also drew on reporting for HDNet’s World Report, where I have been fortunate to work with the late Dave Green and, more recently, with Dennis O’Brien and Kathy Gettings.
My agent, Heather Schroder at ICM, guided and championed this project from the beginning. The team at John Wiley & Sons was enthusiastic and supportive. Thanks to Senior Editor Eric Nelson and Associate Editor Connie Santisteban, who asked tough questions, pushing me in the direction of clarity and focus; to Senior Production Editor John Simko and Copy Editor William D. Drennan for their smarts and attention to detail; to Editorial Assistant Ellen Wright for helping to keep things on track; and to cover designer Wendy Mount.
This book could not have been written without the assistance of collaborators who helped me find my way in travels around the world. Special thanks to Saul Gonzalez, my friend and former colleague at the NewsHour. The dirty little secret of traveling journalists is the extent to which we rely on “fixers” for local expertise, translation, and crosscultural guidance. In that respect, I am indebted to Hicham Houdaïfa in Morocco; Magdalena Sánchez and Liliana Lemus in Lindsay, California; Diego Reyes in Monterrey, Mexico; Jezmín Fuentes for her assistance in Tijuana, Mexico; Girlie Linao in the Philippines; Mamadou Bodian and Mahmoud Diallo in Senegal; Marynia Kruk in Poland; Ulrika Engström in Sweden; Bernard Goldbach in Ireland; Younus Mohamed in the United Arab Emirates; and Nguyen Huy Quang and Dang Nguyen Anh in Vietnam. Thanks also to Jeremy Green and Ruth Schamroth for their hospitality in London; and to Los Angeles immigration lawyer Rajkrishna S. Iyer.
In addition to those who have helped me directly, I have benefitted greatly from scholars and experts on immigration whose work I have followed and admired. These include Jorge Bustamante, Stephen Castles, Wayne Cornelius, Jorge Durand, Philip Martin, Douglas S. Massey, and Peter Stalker. I am also grateful for the wealth of resources available on the Web sites maintained by the Migration Policy Institute ( www.migrationpolicy.org ) and by attorney Daniel M. Kowalski ( www.bibdaily.com ).
I owe special thanks to a network of friends and to my family for their encouragement and support. I am particularly indebted to Hershl Hartman for imparting intellectual rigor and historical insights; to my cousin Lawrence Collin for his good humor and knowledge of family lore; to my sister Judith for her encouragement and feedback; and to my darling daughters, Sophie and Sara, who patiently listened to me and put up with my occasional absences over the years. Finally, to Deborah—my in-house editor-in-chief, reviewer, touchstone, and wife—thank you for your patience, inspiration, and enduring love.
Introduction
When I walk to the supermarket close to my house, my attention is often drawn to what is usually an unremarkable dot on the urban landscape: a manhole cover. What distinguishes the fairly ordinary-looking, brownish cast-iron covering is not so much its overall appearance. It is just a sewer lid. But what I find almost captivating is the noteworthy juxtaposition of twin phrases cast into its design. On one side, a semicircle of capital letters says: CITY OF L.A. Opposite, three words in the shape of a happy-face smile complete the circle, offering a perspective probably not intended by the designers or the makers of the sewer lid: MADE IN MEXICO.
I love it. Not just for the discovery of meaning, intended or otherwise, in a mundane, public utility fitting, but also for the unadorned stateme