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Panama: The Big Ditch

The Panama Canal is, to my mind, an afterthought today. The last great controversy involving it was when President Carter decided (1977) to deed it back to Panama on January 1st, 2000, which resulted in none of the catastrophic consequences imagined at the time. Yes, it connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and greatly facilitates trade, but really it seems to be just a piece of infrastructure, and a really old one at that. Which is precisely why it is a marvel.

The first canal between those oceans was attempted by the French in 1881. They had completed the Suez canal, a sea-level enterprise which cut the sailing time from Europe to the Far East to ten days. Suez was said to be impossible, but Ferdinand de Lesseps and his French engineers pulled it off, and it was the marvel of its age (1869). Then they decided to do the same in the Colombian province of Panama. To understand the difference in terms of difficulty, imagine that immediately following the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon, NASA announced that Apollo 12 was going to Mars. Yes, there was French arrogance involved, but they had already done the impossible, were the best at what they did, and their plans were sound, with two exceptions. First, they shrugged off the disease implications of the Panamanian jungle (mainly Malaria and Yellow Fever), and second, they insisted on another sea-level canal. Sea-level canals are much easier endeavors than lock canals: any child who has dug two pools in the beach sand, then connected them with a scooped line between has basically mastered the design of a sea-level canal.

De Lesseps was a force of nature (he was called “Le Grand Français” or The Great Frenchman), and his renown as the conqueror of Suez made his opinion unassailable. Despite his talent and expertise, despite the quality of the engineers the French sent and the money they spent, the effort failed. Too much graft and corruption, too little respect for the size of the task and the challenge of the jungle, spelled defeat.

The Americans literally rough-rode in to pick up the pieces. President Teddy Roosevelt settled on completing the task as a declaration of America’s rise as a world power. Instead of negotiating with the Colombian government (a notably difficult proposition), he fomented rebellion in Panama, recognized the rebels, and signed an incredibly advantageous treaty for a US-built and operated canal. All of which just left the canal-building to be done.

The American effort very nearly failed. The fact of mosquito-borne illness had just been established, yet the canal leadership thought it just “a theory” and very nearly suffered the same catastrophic losses the French had endured. The American engineers finally came around to the impossibility of building a sea-level canal that had to cross a mountain range (!) and ran parallel to a raging tropical river (the Chagres) which flooded up to 33 feet during the rainy season. Eventually the Americans settled on damming the Chagres, creating a giant lake in the middle of the isthmus, then building locks on either side to connect to the oceans. The final canal greatly dwarfed the original estimates by orders of magnitude in terms of how much digging, blasting, and construction was required, yet it was completed ahead of schedule and under budget.

From Wikipedia; the Gatun lake was once all swampy jungle

The Isthmian Canal Commission (ICC) went through several organizational structures and leadership teams before falling under the (eventually) legendary George Washington Goethals, a West Point-trained Army engineer who turned the entire operation into a model of efficiency. Some called the canal zone administration a “socialist paradise” as it was so well-run and so accommodating to its work force. There were stark inequalities between the black Caribbean islanders who did the manual labor and the white Americans who oversaw the work or did the skilled jobs, yet all experienced better pay, free medical care and food, paid leave and other benefits unheard of back home. The administration was not strictly a government: it was more of a giant company-town, where every body and every thing was focused on a single task: digging the canal.

The ICC needed healthy workers, so mosquitoes were practically eradicated from the canal zone, despite it being carved out of the jungle. Skilled doctors and engineers weren’t going to come alone to Panama for years on end, so homes and schools and community centers were built. The losers in all this were the Panamanians themselves, who anticipated a windfall in sales and services but instead found themselves shut out of the manual and skilled labor, and competing with a massive organization designed to bring the comforts of home to the tropical jungles.

The grassy areas are the large earthen dam, completed with the small traditional concrete structure

The canal construction redefined social, technological and material limits. It created the largest dig, the largest earthen dam (at Gatun, above), which resulted in the biggest man-made lake, using the largest heavy equipment (95 ton steam shovels) and largest steel products (gates). Electric motors, just coming into their own, became a chief power source, and the canal used hydroelectric power to be largely self-sufficient. A fledgling American company named General Electric designed a control system whereby engineers could sit in a single room and see a scale-model with a series of live-controls that managed the whole system. The controls were connected in a way it was impossible to “skip a step” or open the wrong lock/dam/gate (aka “idiot-proof”). The final cost was $500 million USD (at the time), the largest single expenditure in US history, and more than five times the cost of all land acquisitions (Louisiana Purchase, Alaska, etc) of the US government till that point.

Container ship in the lock ahead of our cruise ship; notice the elevation gain

Close-up of a “mule,” a small locomotive which pulls a ship through the locks

It opened in August, 1914, but to little fanfare, as the impending Great War in Europe quickly blotted out what had been an object of intense international attention. Still, the canal functions to this day–108 years on– much as it was originally designed and built. Additional, larger locks permit larger New PanaMax vessels to cross, but the locks, the dams, the mules (trains which pull the ships through the locks) are either the originals or rebuilds to original specifications. It is hard to imagine another working infrastructure project which has held up nearly as well: perhaps the Roman roads/aqueducts?

The Culebra cut, where the mountain repeatedly slid back into the canal excavation, requiring constant re-digging

The value of any infrastructure project is simple: does it work? The marvel of this one is not that it works, but that it was ever completed. The beauty of it (if one can call infrastructure beautiful) is how well it works, so long after it was done.

Surprising Panamá

Preparing for our Panamá Canal Cruise from Colón (Panamá) to San Diego.

We took a Copa (Panamanian national airline) red-eye flight out of Guadalajara to Tocumen International Airport (PTY) outside of Panamá City. Even the name is a reminder of American influences: it’s not Cuidad de Panamá, but just Panamá City. Most of the passengers on our flight were connecting to onward travel in South America; PTY is a common transfer point for such flights. First surprise? Watching the sun rise over the Pacific Ocean . . . in the Western Hemisphere? I looked once, admiring how beautiful it was. Then I looked again and thought, “wait, that’s the Gulf of Panama, which is part of the Pacific Ocean, but the Sun is rising, so that is . . . east?” For the geographically challenged, Panamá is an isthmus shaped like the letter “S” lying on its side. Panamá City lies along the bend, so it looks to the southeast across its bay, where the Sun rises (near the equator).

Arriving at 6:oo am meant a speedy taxi ride of a mere twenty-five minutes to the heart of the business district. Pro-tip for frequent tourists: hotels in a city’s financial or business district tend to be nicer: they cater to a wealthier business crowd which expects better service and amenities, often with fares to match. However, they are more likely to be full during the week, so they often have reduced rates on weekends. Sure, sometimes the business district isn’t the most “happening” place to be, but it’s worth it in my opinion.

Our first impression is how tropical (expected) and vertical (unexpected) the city is. It hit 80° F by the time we entered the hotel lobby, with that sticky, hard-to-breathe sensation common to the tropics. Everything was air-conditioned, and running on high, so walking around meant a constant reversal of dripping sweat and freezing cold. As I said, that was expected. But Panamá City has some serious chops when it comes to skyscrapers.They are dense, frequent, and frequently beautiful.

Panamá uses the Balboa for currency, but the Balboa only exists as coins for change. Good old-fashioned greenbacks trade at 1:1 with the Balboa, and dollars are what you get from ATMs. Prices are what you’d expect in a medium-sized America city: not a bargain, but not sticker-shock, either.

We came here with few (if any) must-see’s or -do’s. Mostly we were looking for an easy transfer and a quiet chance to settle in, time- and climate-wise, before our cruise. Our third surprise was language. Yes, it’s Spanish, but due to the long American control of the Canal Zone, plenty of people speak English. But the Panamanians speak Spanish more slowly and with more distinct pronunciation than we’ve heard in Puerto Rico, Mexico, or even Spain. Our Gringo accent was no problem here, and we were able to understand virtually everybody, even the Priest’s Homily!

Of course we made it to Sunday Mass at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, which also had a tribute to Our Lady of Guadalupe next to the altar. I mentioned to Judy that we will have spent the five Sundays in Advent this year in a different country for each Sunday (Italy, Mexico, Panama, Guatemala, the United States). Phew!

Our final surprise was mildly distasteful (literally). Since we had so little trouble communicating, we easily told our waiters “todos sin cilantro” since Judy and I both have the gene which leave cilantro tasting like soap and smelling like dirty socks (really). I kept getting dishes with that distinct and disgusting flavor; what gives? The food was clearly cooked with the spice, not just sprinkled on, as the flavor was baked in, so to speak. Judy figured out this was not cilantro but culantro, a cousin with even stronger flavor that is often used for cooking, not just garnishing. Guess we’ll have to add that to our list!

We barely touched the surface of Panamá city, let alone the rest of Panamá. Our tour driver, Marvin, told me the government does a lousy job of publicizing tourism, which is a shame, because there are miles of beaches, dense jungles, a big city, a canal, plenty of English, and an interesting mix of cultures/cuisines (Afro-Caribbean and Colombian). We didn’t make it to the old city or the market, nor the seaside promenade. We did visit the only tropical rain forest within a city limits, as well as the remains of Fort San Lorenzo, where the Spanish galleons laden with gold made a run past pirates.

Much to see and do here, and if you love tropical heat and humidity, this may be just the place for you!

Herculaneum

It was a typical, beautiful day in the shadow of the mountain. Fall in Campania is spectacular, and life was good in the seaside village of Herculaneum. It was especially good for Marcus Nonius Dama, as he was a freedman, made so by his former master Marcus Nonius Balbus, one of the town’s leading men. Dama’s family had been brought to Rome as slaves from Syria (Dama, as from Damascus). Roman slavery took many forms, often more like indentured servitude for a period rather than chattel slavery. Dama had grown up serving in the rich man’s spacious villa. Some seventeen years earlier, when Dama was a teenager, there had been a terrible earthquake which damaged much of the town. Dama had led his master’s wife and children to safety in the arched porticos which protected boats along the beach. Marcus Nonius Balbus never forgot that act, and he was a gracious man in addition to being rich. He gave Dama more and more responsibility, and eventually his freedom.

Dama had made a trade in repairing the town for the past two decades, and although much of his work was done, his reputation was still growing. Now Dama’s wife was eight months pregnant with their first child, and he felt practically on top of the world. Around noon, he stopped at the thermopolium, where Romans grabbed some fast food for the lunch meal. Herculaneum stood along a beach a short distance from Neapolis, the Roman port city. It was both a small fishing village and a rich man’s retreat, lying between the large mountain called Vesuvio and the Tyrrhenian Sea. As Dama was eating, he heard a large “crack,” like the loudest thunder he ever heard. But this thunder was followed by a long, low roar. “It sounds like the earth itself is giving birth,” he thought. People were milling about in the street, so he walked out and looked up at Vesuvio.

Where the mountain stood, there now was a towering blackness, like a giant dark tree reaching up into the sky. The darkness was rising and spreading, south with the wind and reaching down to the ground. It was both beautiful and terrible, frightening but seemingly far away.

The Vesuvio caldron today, once again calm

What Dama did not know, what no one in Herculaneum knew, was that Vesuvio was no mountain, but rather a volcano. It had not erupted in the recorded memory of Rome, so the danger posed by the sleeping giant was completely unrealized by the people living alongside it. What Dama watched was the vaporization of millions of tons of rock, turned into a mix of ash and fire, and blown high into the sky. That deadly mix was cooling and condensing and falling toward the larger town of Pompeii, due south, where it would collapse like a giant concrete blanket. And this was only the beginning.

Dama hurried home and told is wife to head over to Marcus Nonius Balbus’ place, to warn them to head to the beach again, lest another earthquake hit. He decided to stop by the shrine to Augustus, the former Caesar and still god; perhaps a little prayer was in order. While he was lighting some incense, he heard another loud explosion above the rumbling roar. Looking up at Vesuvio, he could see another cloud, red and black and roiling, working its way down the mountainside. Dama did not need to know this was a pyroclastic flow: superheated gas and rock moving at more than fifty miles per hour. All he needed to know was what he immediately felt: mortal fear.

Dama began running down the street toward the beach and the porticos. When he reached the beach front, he could see his wife and some of his former master’s family huddled under one of the aches. Other people were also taking shelter there, although the boats were all gone, having departed with a load of people fleeing earlier. Dama walked out into the shallow water to get a better view toward the mountain. The dark red line was sweeping down toward the village at an incredible speed, and there was nowhere to go. He ran toward the portico where his wife was, but he never made it.

The pyroclastic flow hit the town like a firey tidal wave, searing any organic material and killing everyone and everything instantly. Behind it was a wall of hot mud, actually liquid rock, which buried the town under meters of solid stone as it cooled. Vesuvio erased Roman Herculaneum so completely that no one knew where it had been for almost two millenia, when a local farmer digging a well uncovered some gold jewelry.

While Pompeii was smothered by ash, collapsing most structures and leaving the ghostly body-casts of victims, Herculaneum was flash-fried, then dipped in a protective coating of stone. The buildings still stand, two or three stories tall. Wooden objects (screens, doors, lintels, beds) were found charred but intact, giving an invaluable look at Roman life. The same goes for pottery, glass, and even papyri, Roman legal documents which also survived. Herculaneum provided actual skeletons, revealing diets, diseases, heights, weights, lifestyles and even DNA.

House shrine, note the metal roof support

Most people visit Pompeii: it’s larger, more famous, and it’s where cruise and other tours want to take you. And it’s certainly worth a visit. But it is larger, and can be a little intimidating, if not overwhelming. I suggest considering Herculaneum, which is just as well preserved, smaller, and very walkable.

This shows one portico at what was the beach/shore. The “wall” in the background is an unexcavated area, showing how deep the town was buried. The house is part of Marcus Nonius Balbus’ seaside villa

Napoli (Italia, not Florida)

If I did a word association and said “Italy” I bet many would say “pizza.” It’s natural to any American: the food we love best is actually an import. And many Americans know that pizza originated in Napoli (Naples) in the 19th Century, when a local restaurateur developed the classic thin crust, fresh mozzarella, tomato sauce and basil (yes, it mirrors the Italian flag) for Queen Margherita, and a legend was born. But note the date: 1889. Like Italy, pizza is not an ancient dish, and therein lies a story of the nation, and the city of Napoli.

Wait, what are we doing in Italy? Well, our family decided to do the traditional American Thanksgiving, all gathering on the appropriate Turkey Thursday, but we decided to gather at our daughter’s house in Vicenza, Italy. Nothing says Thanksgiving like Turkey, pasta, Italian wine and gelato! Afterwards, my dear wife and I decided to head south for a side trip to Naples on the way home to Mexico.

Now if I did a second word association with “Naples” you might respond with “pizza,” “crime,” or “camorra” (the local version of the mafia). The city has a bad rap,some of which is deserved, but let me make a case for it anyway. To begin with, Naples is really old: as in Greek! It was founded by the Greeks (Neapolis, or New City) over 2500 years ago as a trading station because it has a great harbor and an ideal location on the the Italian “boot” peninsula. Milan was the great city-state in northern Italy (after Venice declined) and Napoli was the great one in the south. Napoli became the seat of a large Spanish kingdom that included Sicily and other Hapsburg lands. It remained cultured, rich, and important, while “Italy” remained only a geographic concept until unification in 1861 (yes, the nation we call Italy is younger than the USA; same goes for Germany!). The rivalry between the more industrial (read German), richer north and the more corrupt, pastoral south ended in a compromise with the Italian Capitol in Roma. Naples went from a proud, distinct seat of power to a provincial backwater, starting a long slide into insignificance.

But Naples is what we see in our minds when we think “Italian.” Napoletanos were the largest bloc of Italian immigrants to America (there being little opportunity back home), and from them we get pizza, spaghetti, tenements with laundry hanging down, and “Santa Lucia.”

Because Napoli had an independent history, it had long come to terms with accommodating foreign rulers while imposing its own rules. To this day Napoli barely tolerates Roman rule, and even the organized crime system there is a version of “how things really get done” as opposed to “what they tell us to do.” After World War II, Naples continued to ignore and be ignored by the central government, exacerbating its decline. By the 1970s, petty crime, graffiti, and general lawlessness reigned, giving many tourists the impression it was too dangerous to visit. The graffiti remains, as does some crime in a city of more than one million people. But Naples had greatly recovered, and deserves a visit. Capiche?

First off, there is the unique culture, which reminds me of New York in many ways. Locals are extremely proud and like-able, just don’t get in their way (especially the scooters which run riot across the small roads). The food is authentic, the neighborhoods a sight to behold. Locals call it basa living, and its an urban but not urbane, gritty life where people refuse to move out of the block, let alone the neighborhood. Jobs are scarce, people just get by, and that’s good enough. They are very Catholic, and claim to have more churches per capita than any other city. I didn’t count them, but we did see an amazing Gothic church across the street from another amazing Baroque one. Napoletanos have their many superstitions, many friends, and Gli Azzurri, the soccer club known as “the blues.”

As to food, how can you go wrong with the place that invented pizza? Yes, they’ll fry anything, including pasta which didn’t sell earlier in the day, and cones full of fried seafood (cuopo) as Napoli is a port after all. There are amazing pastries like s’fogliatella (go ahead, try and pronounce it, I dare you) and baba, another soaked in rum.

You want culture? Well Napoli is the home of National Museum of Archeology, which just happens to have all the original treasures which were discovered in Pompeii and Herculaneum (yes, the originals are preserved in the museum; on-site you’ll see very well done re-creations. So if you plan on visiting any of the scavi (excavations) buried by Mount Versuvio, you need to schedule a stop in Napoli.

Was there a lot of graffiti? Yes. Some seedy areas? That too. A somewhat rushed city atmosphere? Yup. But no moreso that many other cities, and well worth it to try the food and see the culture. And we only visited long enough for a literal taste: we skipped the castles, the modern art scene, plaza del plebicito and other “must-do” sites, not to mention the Amalfi coast, which is not our cup of tea, but is selfie heaven.

We did go to the scavi, but that’s a post for another day! Bottom line? Don’t avoid Naples, it’s safe, fun, and delicious.

Immigration: A Solution

In my last post, I covered the various aspects that make immigration a problem for the United States. It shouldn’t be a problem, it should be an opportunity. We have a great historical record with immigration, and still have the largest number (over fifty million) of immigrants of any country in the world. Almost one-fourth of all immigrants on the planet are in America. America accepts about one million legal immigrants every year, and somewhere around one- to two-million illegal immigrants, too (the second number is difficult to pin down for obvious reasons). None of these numbers are overwhelming to a land as vast and populated (>330 million) as America. And America remains the top desired location among global immigrants, even those who have no chance of going there. To borrow a sports analogy, the US could conduct an expansion draft of the world’s people, choosing just who we want and need, every year. Instead, US immigration policies are a twisted mix of hysteria, lunacy, and laissez-faire. What might work better? Well, almost anything, but I would like to propose a series of compromises emphasizing a combination of tightening illegal entry and loosening legal immigration.

Even Bonasera believes in America!

Why a compromise? Because while immigration is overall a net positive for the US, it has complications in real life. It upends families, it changes neighborhoods and towns, it challenges local schools and governments. It makes people uncomfortable. That doesn’t mean we refuse all these people who want to partake of the American dream; it just means we control how it happens. Which, you’ll recall from my last post, is the first duty of a national government. For starters, the US should:

Adopt an immigration point system favoring skills and education, with each applicant getting a score. Allow businesses, charities, and family members to sponsor applicants, giving them extra points. Set and enforce strict time limits for disaster refugees, letting them know they’re expected to return home, and only allowing them to apply (with a point bonus if they did well while here) after they return to home countries.
Set a target of three million legal immigrants per year in the near term. Clear the family list in two years, which currently has almost four million people already approved, but kept out, because of quotas. Then scrap the family list altogether: having family in the US gets you extra points, not a special status list.
Allow states to compete for immigrants and receive extra federal funding for establishing programs to accept and integrate them. If a state doesn’t want to participate, it doesn’t have to. Of course no state can refuse to accept immigrants, since immigrants would have the same right to live where they want as all Americans. But no state would be forced to welcome them; they would be insane not to, but that’s a position each state will have to determine.
Aggressively negotiate “safe third country” agreements with Mexico and all Central America. These agreements (under international law) make asylees stop in the first safe country they arrive in, rather than continuing along to the final destination of their choice. Transit countries don’t want to be stuck with refugees, but the goal here is not to stick them with anyone, but rather to decrease the dangerous, unregulated mass movement of people. Why would Mexico or anyone else agree to this change? The US must tie development and trade assistance to national acceptance, as well as quotas for a renewed guest worker program. The US had a successful guest worker agreement (the Bracero program) with Mexico, which enabled tens of thousands of Mexican workers to come north to do seasonal farm work and other manual labor. These workers neither wanted nor sought to be American citizens; they just wanted to work and send money home. It ended back in the Kennedy administration; we should re-create the program. Finally, the US should propose an amendment to international law favoring asylum resettlement in nearby and culturally-appropriate nations. Mass migration is an international phenomenon, and the US should exercise leadership in resolving it.
On a more controversial note, end birthright citizenship. Birthright citizenship (if you’re born here, you’re a citizen regardless of why you’re here) is a legacy of colonialism in the Western Hemisphere. It exists because the newly independent nations of the New World wanted to encourage immigration, so they made it easy to have children who were citizens. It makes little difference in most countries, but it does complicate things in the US. So-called “anchor babies” (pregnant women travelling to the US just to have “instant-American citizens”) are rarely a thing, but why do we allow it to be a thing at all? Meanwhile, end all the unnecessary drama and legalize all the “Dreamers,” children who know nothing of their original home country and were brought to America illegally by their parents. Again, this should never have required more than a minute of discussion to fix.
Finish the border with a combination of high-tech/virtual and real barriers, and beef up enforcement. The US- Mexican border is never going to be the DMZ, nor should it be, but we can make it much more likely you’ll get caught if you try to cross illegally. And that is where the next point becomes essential:
Enforce biometric verification on all illegal border crossers along with a new “three-strikes-and-your-out” policy. Everybody apprehended will have biometric data taken. The first time you are caught, we say “shame on you!” and deport them. The second time we use harsh language (see the movie clip) and a severe warning of what is to come. The third time, they get a mandatory prison sentence followed by deportation and a lifetime ban on ever being allowed to enter the US under any circumstances. We don’t even need a name; we can tell who’s who by the biometric data.

In conjunction with that, we must address the main source of illegal entry, which are visa-overstays. Right now, more people are coming to the US on legal visitor visas (and then simply staying after the visa expires) than crossing the border illegally. Extend the biometric verification concept to this crowd; when they apply for a visa, they must provide the data. But make it a two-strike rule; why? Most border-crossers are poor and desperate; most visa-overstays are wealthier and by-choice. First strike, you get a huge fine and a waiting period before you can re-enter; second strike, a massive fine and a ban. When people visit, it is their responsibility to check out (at the departure point) with US immigration (this happens all over the world, except the US). Yes, we’ll need some new commercial-friendly policies which enable the easy travel of business people; so be it.
Speaking of visas, tie the visa application by nation to cooperation with US immigration policy and identification of challenges (terrorists, criminals, spies, etc). If a nation cooperates, make it easier for that nation’s people to travel to the US; if they resist, make it hard. If they simply fail, prohibit them from coming. Of course we can make exceptions for people fleeing political persecution.
And just to be especially controversial, target the open-borders crowd. These are the pro-immigration advocates who go abroad to encourage illegal migration to the US. They are promoting the violation of US law, and they do so with impunity today; end that. Charge them, try them, convict them. If they operate as groups, go after them with the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statutes to seize everything they have. Expect our foreign partners to support our efforts.

Finally, just to clear the possibility of courts overturning all these delicate compromises, Congress and the President can enact a change which limits Supreme Court review of immigration and border policies. This is very edgy, I admit, but the courts have participated in the unraveling of our border and immigration policies, and a grand political compromise requires both sides agreeing not to use the courts to undermine it.

What do I foresee from this compromise? Greatly reduced border crossing. Increased legal immigration. A more welcoming atmosphere. Fewer bizarre cases like anchor babies, Dreamers, or repeat border-crossing offenders. What we have now is ridiculous: cities and states declaring themselves “sanctuaries;” politicians bussing people around; border towns overwhelmed; and while some of these measure have an increased cost, we’re spending plenty now for no tangible results. Money well spent in my mind!

Is all this hard? No, it isn’t. There’s a way forward and its pretty obvious. You may not agree with everything (anything?) I wrote, but you can’t deny it would change the dynamic at the border for the better! As for me, like Hyman Roth, “I’m just a retired investor living on a pension.” What do I know?

Problem: Immigration?

Yet another occasional series to inform, provoke, and perhaps even illuminate. In this edition, I’ll spend an initial post describing an issue in terms of what the problem is, and then in a subsequent post posit a solution. Why? Because the one lesson I learned in all the engineering courses West Point foisted on me was: First, Define the Problem. If you get the problem wrong, you’ll get the solution wrong, too. So often, people skip problem definition and jump to solutions. Or they assume everybody agrees with what they think the problem is, then they are amazed when others question their preferred solution.

Our first challenge? Immigration, specifically the unapproved movement of large numbers of people across the southwest US-Mexican border. Why is it a problem? According to international law, the first prerequisite for being a state–that is, to be recognized by other states as an equal–is to control one’s territory. This in turn requires demarcating a border and controlling it. If you can’t control some defined territory, you’re not a state. There are various ways to control territory and demarcate a border, from putting up barbed wire and laying mines to just drawing a virtual line: it all depends upon whether someone is contesting the boundary. No one doubts where North Korea is; you’ll get shot if you try to cross in either direction. If you’ve visited Rome, you doubtlessly crossed the line between Italy and the Vatican City (a different, sovereign state under international law) many times without knowing it. No one contests that line (certainly not the Pope nor the Italian government) so it’s not even drawn on the ground, but it still works. On the other hand, many thousands of people contest the southern US border every day by crossing it without permission. So that is a problem.

But how big a problem is it? By historical standards, you might think it’s not much of a problem.

From the US Census Bureau data, as processed by the Migration Policy Institute

Looking at the blue line, we currently have a 15% immigrant share of the population, much as we did in the distant past, when the country’s population was much smaller. After all, we are “a nation of immigrants” as some are fond of saying. But look closely: no American alive today has experienced this level of immigration. You have to go back to 1910 to find equal data. So everyone is experiencing a steadily growing immigrant share of the population. But is that a problem? Depends upon where the trends are headed.

American Community Service data processed by the Center for Immigration Studies

It is always dangerous to simply draw out existing trends, but note that the immigrant population even grew during the Trump administration. Right now, it is soaring, and there is no policy in place to change that. But don’t we need immigrants to keep our population growing, since Americans are having so few children?

It’s true that many US entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare are predicated on the notion of an ever-growing population. This was the case when the programs were created (Social Security in 1935, Medicare in 1965), and it was a reasonable assumption. Some critics call these programs “ponzi schemes,” which is incorrect: a ponzi scheme makes the creator rich at the expense of everyone else. Social Security and Medicare transfer money from working-age adults to assist the elderly and infirm. The problem is, the math requires a high population growth rate, which isn’t the case any more. And the immigration numbers are nowhere near large enough to offset the aging of the baby-boomer generation. Demographers agree the US would need to double or triple its immigration numbers to make a dent in the funding problem; those are numbers beyond the ken of even the most fervent open-borders advocate.

Finally, in all immigration discussions, one must consider the “who” of immigration: what is the profile of the people entering the country? Many countries use a point system to evaluate immigrants as more or less beneficial as prospective citizens. Most countries accept some number of refugees or asylum seekers; the idea here is to mitigate natural disasters or political upheaval for some period of time as a humanitarian response. And all countries accept some (usually small) level of desired immigration: people permitted to enter simply because they want to.

Except the United States of America. Due to haphazard legislation, judicial rulings, and a general lack of consensus on whether there is a problem and what it might be, the US has no effective policy on who crosses our southern border, how long they stay, or what to do when they arrive here. How incoherent is it?

Under the Trump administration, border agents were forcible separating families at the border, in an (publicly-admitted, immoral, yet effective) attempt to dissuade migrants from arriving. Now, in the Biden administration, border agents are directed to admit unaccompanied children (also publicly admitted, just as immoral, more ineffective), so of course, families are sending their children to the border in hopes it all turns out well on the other side.
Until the end of the Obama administration, Cubans who arrived on dry land in the US were automatically admitted, but those who attempted to land via boat were returned to Cuba. This policy (in effect for decades) was known as the “wet foot/dry foot” policy to keep Cubans from piling into rickety boats and attempting to cross the dangerous Florida Straits. Now, Venezuelans who arrive at a land border are told to stay in Mexico, but those that apply online and fly into the US are admitted.
Migration proponents sponsor educational programs throughout Latin America, explaining how to exploit one interpretation of international law in order to gain asylum status in the United States. Worse still, the numbers of such asylum requests have sky-rocketed, swamping the courts which have a multi-year backlog of cases. Nearly all asylum refugees show up for the hearing; almost 80% are disapproved, but almost none show up for the subsequent deportation hearing. The end result is an elaborate judicial charade with no effect on who enters the country.
Refugees are often admitted to the US as a result of natural disaster or political upheaval. Unlike other countries, the refugees are usually grandfathered into some sort of permanent status, and the children they have in the US automatically become US citizens, further complicating the problem. While these numbers are small, the UN estimates the number of climate emergencies will greatly increase in the coming years, increasing the demands for developed states to accept greater numbers of such refugees.

Finally, there are some aspects of the immigration problem that are not, in fact, relevant to the problem at all. These need to be summarily discussed and dismissed, if only to clear the table for the real challenges:

The link between drug-smugglers and refugees. This is a wild tangent that should be ignored. Drug smuggling is a multi-billion dollar operation that handles large volumes and evades the government. Refugees carry the clothes on their backs and, due to the ridiculous nature of existing US policies, try to find a border officer to whom to surrender. Sure, somewhere there is a refugee carrying a brick of cocaine, but that’s not the problem. Drug smugglers sometimes use their capabilities to smuggle people, either for human-trafficking or just for refugees who can pay. But it’s a side business at best, and does not affect the overall flow of drugs or people across the border.
Terrorists crossing the border. You’ll see some news outlets stating “100 people on the terror watch list were caught crossing the border.” Stop and ask yourself: if we caught 100 terrorists at the border, where are the prosecutions? Certainly DHS or the FBI would be trumpeting this success! There are no prosecutions, because there are no apprehensions of terrorists at the border, because there are no terrorists at the border. There are over two million names in the Terrorist Screening Data Base (TSDB), the master list the US government uses to screen people. The list includes aliases, fictional characters, dead people, any name which has been associated with someone who was a terrorist. Osama Bin Laden is still in the TSDB, because some new terrorist might decide to claim his name in his honor. So what those news reports are really saying is “one hundred people who have names like ones in the TSDB were caught at the border.” And since none of them were prosecuted, we know that the appropriate government agents looked at the individual, and the list, and said “nope, not the guy or gal we’re looking for.” End of story.
Refugees are the result of US meddling in other countries. There are a small number of cases where you can tie US involvement directly to refugee status: Vietnamese and Cambodians after the war in Southeast Asia, and Afghanistanis today, for example. But the overwhelming number of refugees have absolutely no (or a tenuous at best) connection to “US meddling.” We’re dealing with Venezuelans and Nigerians and Mexicans, Cubans, Brazilians, Ecuadorans and Romanians. Even the people from the “golden triangle” (Guatemalans and Hondurans and Salvadorans) are refugees from violent, crime-riddled societies that America last politically cared about forty years ago. This argument doesn’t hold up.
The US has a moral obligation to accept the world’s refugees, regardless of why they might be refugees. You might see this as an outlandish exaggeration (a straw-man argument, if you will), but I include it since there are very real pro-immigration groups who believe it and profess it. It would seem irresponsible (if not immoral) to me to encourage desperate people to begin the perilous journey to our southern border, to send their children alone across that border, or to place themselves in the hands of coyotes to do so. Yet it happens, all the time. People making this argument do so primarily not to the American public, who would decisively reject it, but they make it to the most vulnerable people in the world. Shame on them.
“Chain migration,” the sponsoring of relatives by existing green card/naturalized citizens, is a major problem. This policy, which has been around for over fifty years, was once considered a no-brainer. New would-be immigrants who already had family in the US were considered to be stronger candidates for successful integration, so they were favored. Unfounded stories of distant “cousins” given green-card status caused some to question it, but the statistics say otherwise. The list of relatives is limited, as is the overall number for any year (or from any country). In some cases, the list of potential applicants is decades-long! The policy has a sound basis, and it isn’t a major source of immigration.

After all that, I conclude there is an immigration problem. It is not the relative size of the immigration flow, but its uncontrolled nature. The US does not encourage immigrants that it should, nor discourage others in a coherent way. Our policies make a mockery of the rule of law (always a bad thing), are expensive, and have little effect. External factors (like the pandemic, or the health of the Mexican economy) are far more important determinants of US immigration than US immigration policies.

Next post? Immigration solutions based on this problem definition.

The Elephant in the House?

As I sit here the morning after the mid-term election, I can’t help but comment on politics in the States. I found the results of the election oddly comforting, for they proved several things of which I sensed but was unsure. To whit:

“Democracy” is not dying. The Democratic party refrain was always overwrought in my opinion. Supposedly the Republicans had gerrymandered themselves from a minority party into a permanent majority who would suppress all other votes and question all unfavorable results. Turns out that voting turn-out was up, if not record-breaking in States which had adopted what President Biden called “Jim Crow 2.0”. And most losers of both parties are accepting the results. More on those deniers later. People were involved, informed, and voted. The Republic remains secure.
The US electorate remains deeply divided, both politically and geographically. Politically, issues appear to break down almost exactly 50-50, if one tries to get to the heart of any matter. You can assemble a majority on almost any issue by clever poll wording, or by staking out an extreme position for people to respond to (see the GOP on abortion). People started moving from politically diverse areas into areas more consistent with their beliefs, and now there are densely- packed cities flush full of Democrats, surrounded by vast swaths of small towns filled with Republicans. Suburbs remain the battleground. While gerrymandering is an unfortunate feature (not a bug) of our system, some of what is called gerrymandering is just a result of the very real demographic distribution. All this bodes ill for future elections, as they will likely remain close, which breeds needless suspicion (for the GOP that the elections are rigged, for the Democrats that they are gerrymandered).
At the moment, we don’t know who controls the US House and Senate. Here’s a hot take you won’t see anywhere else: it doesn’t matter. The last two years have demonstrated that when the margins are small, as they will be this time, neither party has the discipline to do much. Sure, if the GOP takes the House, life for Hunter Biden, Anthony Faucci, Chris Wray, Alejandro Mayorkas and Merrick Garland gets immeasurably worse. But there’s not much the GOP can do with just the House, or even with both the House and Senate. Gridlock remains the prescription, although I retain hope having the GOP in both the House and Senate would bring out the bipartisan side of Joe Biden, since having the opposite definitely pulled him left. But that doesn’t look likely.
The US voting public knows exactly what it does not want. It does not want a second Biden Administration, nor a Harris presidential campaign. Neither does it want a Donald Trump revenge tour. Nobody is passionate about either of the ticket-mates for the Democrats; even most Democrats in exit polls don’t want the President to stand for re-election. That said, Democrats will enthusiastically vote for anyone to forestall any more of “the Donald.” Most Republican politicians remain deeply afraid of Trump and willing to appease him at almost any cost. MAGA true-believers remain so, but even with some lukewarm support from others, they won’t get much above 40% of the electorate anywhere in the States. He’s a loser, to borrow some of his language.
Demography is destiny, but only for demographic issues. What? The phrase “demography (the study of population characteristics) is destiny” is popular and true. For example, the number of native-born, twenty year-old white females in California was determined twenty years ago. Yes, the total can get smaller if more people die, but not larger. When adding in immigrants, you can change the macro-dynamics, but generally only at the margins. Democratic strategists started citing “demography is destiny” about twenty years ago, suggesting that since Latino immigrants voted overwhelmingly Democratic, the growing numbers of such immigrants would make the Democratic party an inevitable and unchallenged majority. Except voting is not a demographic issue, and the term Latino (not, for God’s sake, Latinx) is a theoretical grouping, not an identity. People change. When I was young, one political adage went something like “if you’re twenty and a Republican, you don’t have a heart; if you’re forty and a Democrat, you don’t have a brain,” which suggested people get more conservative over time. Maybe so, maybe not, but people do change. Immigrants change as they join the “melting pot” (yes, I still use and believe in that metaphor). It’s not that the GOP is going to start winning the Latino vote, but that even a slightly larger share of the vote for the GOP completely undermines the “Democratic demography destiny” argument. This election cycle gave further evidence for this trend.
Here’s a bold prediction: victory in the 2024 Presidential election will go to whichever party breaks free first from its current leadership. Any Republican not named Trump will beat Biden in 2024. Any Democrat not named Biden or Harris will defeat Trump in 2024. If Biden and Trump go head-to-head, it will be a nail-biter, with Biden probably winning as long as he doesn’t give the electorate some irrefutable evidence of advancing senility. Anyone want to take that bet for the next two years? Me neither. The more likely a Trump candidacy becomes (and it’s bordering on inevitable), the harder it will be for Biden to back away, as being the man who slayed the Bad Orange Hair Man is Biden’s best bet for a legacy. When Trump announces his candidacy, Republicans face a moment of truth for which they have so far proven unworthy. But I contend that the first party to make the break will win, probably in a landslide.
The red-wave/MAGA revolution was not televised, because it did not happen. Trump’s support to candidates was mostly branding (so much of what he does is only branding) and he was mild with financial support. He successfully pushed through MAGA-friendly candidates in the Republican primaries, who then failed to win in the mid-term election. How bad was it? The party out of power in the White House generally gains twenty House seats in the midterms. The last twenty years it’s been more like fifty or more seats. The GOP may not get ten, or even five. MAGA candidates who denied the legitimacy of the 2020 election got shot down all over the country in State and local contests. Much like Trump was the reason the GOP lost the twin runoffs in Georgia (and thus the Senate) back in 2020, Trump single-handedly dispersed the red wave in 2022. That’s powerful, but not in the way Trump thought.
We won’t know for a while whether the political re-sorting which began in 2016 continued or abated. Democrats were increasingly becoming the party of blacks and college-educated whites, while Republicans were locking on to the not college-educated crowd and making in-roads with South Asians, some Latinos and blacks. That sort of detail is not readily available yet, but if you’re interested in where the parties are going, look for it in the next few months. It will be telling.
It seems to me that the subtext in this election–like all since 2016–was Trump. Trump wasn’t on the ballot, but Biden was wise to call out “ultra-MAGA Republicans” as fears of this group appear to have energized moderate and independent voters to vote Democratic in the midterm despite serious concerns about his leadership. I still believe this was simply a good tactic rather than a real concern, but in the end that doesn’t matter: it worked. Both parties face a tough choice. For the GOP, it’s cling to Trump and go down to disastrous-but-boisterous defeat, or shut him out and risk losing the MAGA wing. For the Democrats, it’s sideline a sitting President or roll the dice and hope Trump is the opponent and Joe’s brain holds up. Rarely does “primary-ing” a sitting President go well (see Jimmy Carter and Teddy Kennedy), but the alternative presents the possibility of a second Trump administration. Seeing as how the Democrats were willing to fund MAGA Republican candidates in the GOP primaries this go round (despite the “danger to Democracy”), perhaps they’ll risk it again in 2024 by staying with President Biden. And here I started off this post with such a positive vibe!

Domestic changes

One of the surprising aspects of expat life is the reality of having a maid, gardener, or both. North of the Border (NOB), such attendants are part of the Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous. Some others may have an occasional cleaning service, or somebody who mows the yard or cleans the pool. But full-time domestic service? No, that’s out of most people’s reach.

Down here, it’s as common as huevos con gusto. There have always been domestic services available here, as the movie Roma (2018) highlighted. Like so much else in Mexico, there was a huge, unregulated market in such work (I used the past tense purposefully there, as it’s changing, slowly). Why so many maids and gardeners? Labor is cheap in Mexico; the Mexican federal minimum wage* this year was 173 pesos per day. Yes, that’s less than $9.00 US dollars a day. Which means it is very affordable to pay someone to clean your house or tend your garden. And most expats can afford to pay much more than that minimum wage, making domestic work very lucrative for people who’s other work opportunities may be quite limited. Which in turn affects the local economy: there are maids (mainly women) who make more money than their bread-winning husbands. And gardeners (mostly men) who make as much as professional employees.

The work varies greatly. I know expats who have workers visiting two (or more) times a week, cleaning, cooking meals, doing laundry and ironing. Others simply have basic cleaning chores done. Some have live-in help, which also extends to home care for older/infirm expats (care which is much more humane and affordable than NOB). Gardeners’ work varies between seasonal plantings and topiary sculpting down to just cutting back the vines and pulling the weeds.

The relationship between the expats and their domestic workers also varies. I know of expats who become more like abuelos (grandparents) to their workers, giving them gifts and integrating into their families. I know of others who don’t make inflation adjustments or skip some mandatory payments because they know there isn’t an enforcement system. There can be trouble brewing both ways: treating employees like family or not even as fellow human beings. It’s a delicate balance and one which most expats have never faced before.

While there are management services which can do all the work of hiring and coordinating workers for expats who so desire, most manage the workers themselves. Until recently, this sector was totally neglected by the government, but now laws are pending which make it a recognized economic component and require certain workers’ rights and owners’ obligations. Such as? Workers are guaranteed vacation time/pay, a Christmas bonus, pregnancy leave of twelve weeks with full pay, and separation payment reflecting years of service. The law will require a signed contract specifying the nature, hours, and type of work, and the worker/employer will need to register with the government. The owner will submit payments to the Institute Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS) to cover eventual social security for the worker.

All of this new regulation is part of Mexico’s continuing effort to become a civil society of laws which are actually followed. Some of the rules I cited have been technically on the books, but unenforced, leaving workers no option but the largesse of their bosses. One reason why so many Mexicans work “off the books” or run small, unlicensed tiendas (shops) is that they cannot afford to pay taxes and social security and health insurance on such meager income. Of course, that also leaves the worker/owner very vulnerable to market changes, illness, old age, or even quarantine. And the Mexican government idea of a social safety net is called “la familia.”

Even if the pending changes take root and are enforced, many expats will still have maids and gardeners. They may continue to work off books, or go with those intermediate managing services which take care of all the bureaucracy. The latter will cost more, if only to keep wages the same while paying for social security and management. I would call it a classic “First World Problem,” except we’re in a developing economy. I think it’s all for the best, for the workers, for the expats, and for Mexico.

*The Mexican federal minimum wage changes annually, and there is a slightly higher wage rate for those Mexican states adjacent to the US.

The Expat as a Minority

One unique aspect of being an expat, regardless of where you come from or go to, is you’ll be reclassifying yourself as a minority. I recently read a Washington Post article about African-Americans who have moved back to ancestral lands in Africa, to feel included and not judged anymore. I wish them luck, although I fear they will learn that even if you look like “us,” you may still be “them.”

I’m a white, Irish-German (maybe Polish, too) American man. Apparently I benefited from much privilege as a result of being white and male and American. I never noticed it, but that (they tell me) is the clue it existed. I also came from blue-collar Catholic stock, and I almost never noticed the victimhood that provided me, so it too must have been real. I do recall a family car trip (our only one) through the South in the 1960s, and when I insisted we just stop on Sunday and ask where the Catholic church was, my Dad told me that was not possible. It was decades before I figured that one out.

I grew up in a Catholic enclave, next to a Catholic school, and all my friends (save one) were Catholic. I first noticed everybody wasn’t Catholic at my public high schools. Of course then I went to West Point, where all races and creeds were treated equally poorly: as “bean-heads,” “crots” and several other vulgarities (see the Ronald Lee Ermey soliloquy in Full Metal Jacket). So I never distinctly felt like a minority . . . until I became an expat.

As a fellow of pasty heritage, I’ll never be mistaken for a Latino in general or a Mexican in particular. A proud moment in my life was when a Spaniard told me I spoke Spanish like a Mexican, but that’s as good as it is going to get. I’m too tall, too white, too bossy-acting to ever fit in. So that makes me a minority. Even lakeside, where occasionally (like what you know as Winter) there are as many expats as locals in and around Ajijic (my village), expats are a minority. One only need drive five kilometers east (to the town of Chapala) or west (to the town of San Juan Cosalá) to realize you’re not in Kansas anymore.

I have lots of company. Watching expats, especially Americans, deal with being a minority is interesting. Some never catch on. I hear expats saying things about Mexican culture or politics within earshot of locals and not realizing everything they say is being understood and translated for the people at the next table. Middle class (back home) expats can live like the rich here, and sometimes they adopt rich people’s views that “money makes all the difference.” This is true everywhere, and nowhere more so than in Mexico. Here there is a sliding scale for justice and rule-of-law. Rich expats, like rich Mexicans, can find ways to get whatever they want. Need a driver’s license? You can pay someone to take the driver’s test for you. Need a quick visa? A “fixer” can find the right official to move your paperwork through the system immediately, at a price. The same applies to wealthy Mexicans, who have been known to ignore rules they don’t like. But even wealthy expats should never confuse the ease they have of negotiating life in Mexico with being anything other than an accepted minority.

Expats have been around here for decades, sometimes being people fleeing some aspect of life NOB (north of the border) which they just couldn’t endure. People can live a decent life in Mexico on income that would make them poor in the States or Canada. Some expats fit in better, learning the language, eating at the local stands, buying the Mexican products at the corner tienda. Sometimes they try too hard to be more Mexican than the Mexicans. You’ll see this variety on social media, posting in Spanish about how awful “the Gringos” are. The dead give-away is when they reference NOB politics or culture; few Mexicans care a whit about the politics in el Norte, and they don’t relish social media drama.

Being in a minority status can challenge your established views. NOB conservatives who decried immigrants there who didn’t speak any English are known to scream at locals in English for not understanding them here. Progressives NOB who insisted all must welcome immigrants there and embrace their diversity of culture, food and customs tell expats here they must adopt the local culture and fit in. Goose & gander, what?

Expats sometimes overestimate their influence and importance here in Mexico, mostly as a result of Jalisco having the largest concentration of NOB expats in the world. You may hear some expat say “what if we all left?” or “they need to address our concerns since we bring such economic vitality to the area.” Granted, expats do bring advantages to the region, but they also pose challenges. Expats expect responsive government in a way most Mexicans never would. They demand efficiency and punctuality, two traits distant from local culture. If all the expats left tomorrow, the homes would be filled with Tapatios and Chilangos looking to live the Mexican dream. The hours on the restaurants would change, the translation services would dry up, and little else would change.

All that being said, Mexico has an incredibly welcoming culture. The pluses and minuses of expats for Mexico are generally embraced by the people, just as they embrace whatever situation in which they find themselves. As expats and a minority, my wife and I try to speak some Spanish, try to adjust our eating schedule, try to engage with local culture. The repetition there is intentional, as the key phrase is “try to.” We have happily taken on board a more relaxed attitude to timeliness, been more accepting of inefficiency, and enjoying the pleasures of the moment, whether it’s a good tequila, a beautiful sunset, or a friendly conversación. I’ll never be a Mexican, but there is something about being an American who appreciates Mexico that is special to Mexicans, too.

Being a minority is first about recognizing where you stand in a hierarchy. Then it is all about how you respond to the fact of that standing, which is all up to you, dontcha know?

Everything You Know is Wrong (X): Cristóbal Colón

Or Christopher Columbus, if you prefer. Either way, it is hard to think of an historical figure about whom more wrong things have been said. And not just wrong, but truly perfidious, bordering on calumny. Or in more modern ways, he’s been dissed.

So as we come upon another celebration of Columbus Day–or Indigenous People’s Day if you prefer–let’s set the record straight.

Starting with the silly complaints, no, Columbus did not discover North America. He landed in the Caribbean and eventually on the South American coast, but never the North America mainland. And various others had come from Europe to the Western Hemisphere before him: none of them documented the travel in a verifiable way, nor left an explanation which could permit their trail to be followed. All of which makes this complaint entirely irrelevant. Before Columbus, explorers were unsure what lay west of Europe; after, they knew what was there, and how to get there and back. That was a tremendous achievement. Look, we knew what the moon was, where it was, and what we would find there long before Apollo 11 landed, but no one thought that “one small step for (a) man” was anything other than a “giant leap for mankind.”

Next, there is the question of motivation. Modern revisionist historians claim Columbus went west for money and glory. This is partly true. Constantinople had fallen just forty years earlier, so all trade with what Europe called the Orient had to pass though Muslim lands. Columbus believed he could detour by going west, and bring the riches home free of interference. But why? He wished to (1) spread the Catholic faith (he was third order Franciscan), and (2) he wanted to fund a crusade to recover Jerusalem. He already had a comfortable existence as a sea captain, but he did crave more fame, and he wanted to do something he thought would merit him Heaven. This is hard for moderns to believe, as I have pointed out before. He left money in his will for such a crusade.

Which leads us to his behavior. Columbus was a sea captain, with the power of life and death. He was not used to being a land Governor, but that was the deal he made with the Spanish Crown. He expected to be conducting trade negotiations with the Indians or Chinese, not supervising naked natives or suppressing human sacrifices. But that was what he had to do. He was alternately too lax and too cruel, and this was a real failing on his part. Many of the abuses cited against him happened under his watch, but not under his direct supervision, as he sailed around the Carib Sea or back and forth four times to Spain. He did direct an atrocity when one tribe revolted (and eliminated a Spanish garrison), killing many and enslaving the rest, but this was the standard of his time. The losing side in any battle or war was taken in slavery.

The idea Columbus went west looking for slaves to get rich is utterly ridiculous. There were tens of thousands of slaves available for sale in Africa. Anyone seeking to make a fortune in slave trading need only follow the well-worn sea lanes south to the African slave ports, where African tribes were quite ready to sell other (defeated) tribes into slavery. Remember, Columbus thought he was discovering a shortcut to China, so slavery was not his motivation. He did say that the native Taino people were easy to control and would “make great servants/slaves” (Note that you’ll only see that last quote rendered as “slaves” by many, but it translates correctly either way). Why were the Taino that way? The Taino Columbus met were pacific, and were preyed upon by the neighboring Carib tribes, who practiced cannibalism and kept the Taino as a food source! The Taino were eager to ingratiate themselves with the Spaniards, who were brutal but not looking for a Taino entree.

Many of the harshest accusations revisionist historians raise stem directly from the writings of Bartolomé de las Casas and Francisco de Bobadilla. The former was a Spanish priest who documented many of the worst acts committed by Spanish leaders in the New World. Yet on Columbus, he wrote “The admiral should have taken pains to bring love and peace and to avoid scandalous incidents, for not to perturb the innocent is a precept of the evangelical law who’s messenger he was. Instead, he inspired fear and displayed power, declared war and violated a jurisdiction that was not his but the Indians…” and also “Truely (sic), I would not dare blame the admiral’s intentions, for I knew him well and I know his intentions were good. But…the road he paved and the things he did of his own free will, as well as sometimes under constraint, stemmed from his ignorance of the law (editor’s note: i.e., the Gospel).” De las Casas presents no strong case against Columbus.

As to de Bobadilla, he authored an investigation that is the basis for most of the revisionist historian charges against Columbus. But he was scheming to replace Columbus from early on, and his account of charges must be viewed in that light. He succeeded in having Columbus recalled to Spain, but there Columbus was ultimately freed, although he lost his titles and lands in the New World (to de Bobadilla, among others). The Spanish Crown was more displeased at the disorder in its new colonies than in the inhumane (by current standards) behavior of its Governors.

What of the charge of genocide? Genocide is the intentional elimination of a nation or group. Columbus may have been violent by modern standards (although hardly by the standards of his time), he may have been unfair, but he never imagined his encounter with the natives peoples of the Americas would result in their demise. Diseases were misunderstood at the time, and he had no way of knowing or understanding the locals’ inability to deal with the endemic diseases his crew carried. He did nothing to prevent or further the spread, as he didn’t know how. If Columbus had bowed down to the native Gods, dropped off his armor and renounced Spain to become a Taino, nothing would have changed. All (over 95%) of the natives would have died in the next ten years. This is not genocide, as no one intended it.

Does Columbus deserve a national holiday and statues in parks? What we celebrate speaks to what we respect and honor. If we demand perfection in our heroes, we’d have only statues of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. But do his acknowledged faults disqualify him? Every historical figure must be judged against his or her times, and by their specific accomplishments. Woodrow Wilson brought freedom and self-determination to millions in Europe, but he was an avowed racist and supported eugenic policies. FDR was one of our greatest Presidents, a superb wartime political leader, who ordered both the round-up of Japanese Americans and denied the entry of Jewish refugees. Nelson Mandela proved stronger than the chains of apartheid, but he was once a member of the Communist Party and planned terrorist attacks. And so it goes.

What Columbus did would have been accomplished by someone, eventually. Yet he was the first, and many failed before he succeeded. His failures were real, too, but within the standards for his time. On balance, he merits his due.