Multi-American ®

One of the many things that celebrated Mexican writer and diplomat Carlos Fuentes was outspoken about was immigration, including the U.S. labor market’s demand for it.

Fuentes, who died today at 83, was best known as a novelist; his 1962 novel “The Death of Artemio Cruz,” about the loss of idealism following the Mexican revolution, established his legacy as a leading political writer and thinker. He was also a columnist and political analyst, among other things, and served in Mexico’s foreign service as ambassador to England and France.

His foreign policy background made him a great interview on complex issues like immigration, a topic he covered in several interviews during recent years. He was critical of U.S. immigration policies, all the while recognizing the demand for cheap labor that helped lure migrants here.

In  2006, Fuentes was the subject of a multimedia interview with the Academy of Achievement, an educational nonprofit that collects interviews with and the stories of an impressive array of luminaries. Several videos are scattered throughout the Q&A, in which Fuentes discusses Mexican immigration to the U.S. What he said then resonates now, as migration from Mexico has dwindled in recent years, while some states have passed strict anti-illegal immigration laws that have left farmers in short supply of immigrant workers. From the Q&A:

There is a question that’s very much at issue in the United States today. Everyone’s talking about the immigration issue and what to do about our border with Mexico. We’d love to hear your views about that.

Carlos Fuentes: Listen, there are two sides to that. One is the fact that the United States needs workers. They happen to be Mexican workers because that’s the neighboring country. But let us imagine that Mexico had full employment one day. The workers would still be needed. Who would pick the fruit? Who would cook? Who would serve at tables? Who would take care of the children? Who would drive the buses? Who would do the catering and work in the hotels? You have to get them from somewhere. Or generate those jobs for Americans who don’t want to take them, obviously. So you are profiting from our labor.

And this, from the transcript of one of the videos:

In Mexico, we have a duty as well, and it is to provide labor to these workers. I wish they had never left Mexico. In the future, I want them to stay in Mexico. Mexico is a deeply divided country — 50 percent of the population of 100 million is poor. There should be jobs waiting for them. There are not. They have to come to the United States. We should provide jobs for 50 million Mexicans and help us step out of poverty. We’re still mired in poverty in Mexico. So I wish we had the offer of these jobs.

If we had a Franklin Roosevelt, he would find a way to give jobs to the 50 million, who would not migrate. But then that would be your problem: Where are your workers coming from?

Fuentes hit a similar note in this New York Times interview, also in 2006, when people were turning out to immigration reform rallies in record numbers. The rallies were fueled in part by opposition to a House immigration enforcement bill at the time known as HR 4437, otherwise known as the “Sensenbrenner bill” for its sponsor, Wisconsin GOP Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner. From the interview with Fuentes:

What do you make of the current furor over immigration in this country?

The Sensenbrenner bill is a folly. It does not take into account the needs of the American work force. You would pay heavily for the absence of these immigrants. The country would come to a standstill. You wouldn’t have people driving buses, tending restaurants, taking care of gardens and taking care of babies. You wouldn’t have people being enterprising.

Six years later, as farmers in states like Georgia and Alabama struggle with how they’ll get their crops picked in the fall, his words sound somewhat prophetic.