Two Continents, One Problem

In the meantime here's a side of the so-called immigration debate we don't often see in the U.S. press: how painfully obvious that it is not a light choice to leave one's home for jobs in the U.S., when it tears families apart.

"[
Youth suicides soar in wake of Ecuador's exodus]," by Chris Kaul of the LA Times, brings a needed look at what immigrants to the U.S. leave behind:

The southern province of Azuay has sent more emigrants to the United States and Europe than any other region in Ecuador. The exodus of young fathers, and lately mothers, has had devastating consequences for the youths they leave behind.

A sharp increase in adolescent suicides as well as teenage pregnancies, alcoholism, car wrecks and declining school performance represent the dark side of Ecuador's migration phenomenon. Although the flight of as many as 20% of its citizens over the last few decades has created an economic windfall totaling $2 billion a year in remittances, the social costs have been high.

"Fifteen years ago, youth suicides were unheard of," said Guido Pinos, a psychiatry professor at the university in Cuenca, the provincial capital. "Now they have become a kind of fashion, or what we in psychiatry term a 'model,' to follow to escape from conflict, from being uncared for or feeling abandoned."

Even this good article doesn't touch on ways to address the root causes of the broken families and ended lives, though: lack of economic opportunity.  Kaul describes a program seeking to engage kids in groups and head off suicidal depression, but it was ended due to lack of funds.  That's sort of a clue, but Kaul doesn't get much deeper than identifying migration itself as the "root cause," except with this paragraph:

The surge in suicides coincides with an explosion in Ecuadorean emigration that began more than seven years ago after a financial crisis caused bank failures, widespread unemployment and poverty.

Now we're getting somewhere.  A source of the problem that could be investigated!  Of course, the LA Times doesn't.  A brief look into just this crisis would have revealed the neoliberal economic policies pushed (perhaps more aptly put, imposed) by the United States government– unflinching as always in the face of human devestation.

A post-crisis report, "The Social And Economic Impacts of Structural Adjustment Policies in Ecuador 1982-1999" (English Summary, PDF) concluded:

trade liberalization policies might have had some positive impacts on a few, very specific export-related activities. However, when assessed from a broader perspective, such policies brought about serious problems to enterprises oriented towards domestic-markets, i.e., small and medium-scale firms.  The latter cannot easily sell their goods on foreign markets or remain competitive with respect to imported goods.

This report was issued in 2001 by the Civil Society Network (SAPRIN), the Government of Ecuador, and the World Bank.

You can imagine, then, what those below and to the left have to say about replacing an unjust economic system that enriches a few and stunts the potential of many since long before 1999 and still today.