VivirLatino

We’ve spent a considerable amount of time the past two days interrogating what type of citizens Latin@s in the U.S. are. Now, let’s consider what type of world travelers U.S. citizens are.

via Diana Scimone

“Some Americans take advantage of prostituted children while traveling to impoverished countries for business, tourism and other legitimate reasons. Others travel abroad specifically for a ‘sex tour.’

“Sex tourists travel to countries such as Cambodia, Thailand, Costa Rica, Mexico and Brazil, expecting anonymity, low-cost prostitution, easily accessible children and impunity from prosecution.

“Notably, it is estimated that one-third of the prostitutes in Cambodia are children. The United States has laws that prohibit sex with minors in other countries and has greatly increased government efforts to combat this problem. Under the Protect Act of 2003, United States citizens or residents who engage in sexual activity abroad with a child under 18 can face 30 years in a U.S. prison. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is now actively investigating American sex tourists abroad and making arrests.

“Sexually exploited children are severely wounded physically and emotionally. Many acquire diseases such as HIV and AIDS, and almost all experience rejection by their families and communities in addition to fear, shame and despair.”

Now, am I pointing to this information to say that all U.S. travelers are out to rape little children, and as such, “american identities” suck? Of course not.

I am instead pointing to this information to show that the issues around “citizenship” are simply not as cut and dry as many would have us believe. Undocumented persons in the U.S. as well as their very legal citizen children are expected to show loyalty to a country and “respect laws” to prove that they really and truly are citizens and belong here–and yet many of the same citizens (many of which are undoubtedly Latin@) that scream about “obeying laws” are crossing into other countries for the exclusive “benefit” of affordable sexual access to young children.

There are no solid borders or boundaries between citizens of one country and another–while many U.S. citizens travel abroad for access to sex with children, the U.S. is seeing more and more cases of sex trafficking rings.

And of course, the ultimate irony is that a huge population of trafficking cases in the U.S. occur when very wealthy immigrants that can afford to opt-in to the legalization process in the U.S. bring their much poorer and often uneducated servants and helpers with them–often depriving the women/girls of passports they were promised and holding them captive both for sex and labor.

But legal immigrants are supposed to be ok, right?
Should loyalty to an unstable and ultimately false “american” identity really be the guiding standard of “good citizen” or “bad citizen?”

Should there be set of “traits” that identify “good” citizens from “bad” ones? Which set of citizens is more guilty of raping small children? Which set of citizens is more guilty of showing impunity in host countries?

The fact is, immigration as an international structure is often used in such as way as to *increase* crime and violence rather than curb it. That is, all those “legal” immigrants and travelers (including U.S. citizens), use immigrations laws and their legal status as “good immigrants” to hide, cloak and otherwise silence crime and violence.

But if we admit that the “american identity” is not really the problem of the immigration debate, what do we do then? Where do we go with “reform?”

What would happen to crime and violence if instead of centering the enforcement of a national identity in immigration reform debates, we instead center sex trafficking?