Arranged marriages in Mexico?

[zacatecana]

Originally Posted by malamute

It's one of those unfortunate culture clashes or collison of two very different cultures, different values, different beliefs.

Here -- we can't have different laws based on different ethnic origins. We can't say it's okay to sell one minor girl but not another. We can't have one father selling a young daughter while a girl of American heritage is protected from being sold.

Yet -- the father and the man who bought the girl (even if he didn't pay) did not believe they were committing a crime.

It is very unfortunate. Now, I dont know what people consider worse, that he gets deported so tax payers dont pay for his imprisonment or that he does time in prison and then gets deported. It looks like they are going to deport him.

[zacatecana]

Originally Posted by malamute

I don't think it's good to have people uprooted so quickly like this and thrown into a culture and way of life for which they are not prepared.

I dont think anyone threw them into this culture. They chose to so they should have at least learned some of the laws. The most important ones. My father has been here for decades and he has never even had a traffic ticket in his life. Now they have to pay the consequences.

Originally Posted by malamute

I hear people from Ciudad Juarez talk about the Oaxacans and Central Americans that have moved in by the thousands but they come with little more than the clothes on their backs, they have to leave children home alone to work in the maquilas, they are very naive about city life, they can't raise their children in the traditional way, they're very poor but now they see wealth and material things, their kids grow up wanting -- but unprepared.

Overall it's not a good thing - everyone says that's what has helped create the big crime wave in that city which 30 - 40 years ago was just a sleepy somewhat rowdy northern border town with it's own northern Mexican kind of culture.

Dont believe the hype. It is easy to blame others for one's problems, specially when they seem "different" from us. In reality, my parents live among many Oaxaquenos and they seem to be very calm, non violent and law abiding people. The rural towns that have a large population of Oaxaquenos even when they are very poor communities, are not big on crime rates. That they speak their dialects, it is very true but some of the new generations also speak spanish and now they are learning english. Wow, even better than us, they are trilingual.

Originally Posted by malamute

I know poverty is hard but living in crime filled city slums isn't so great either. A 14 or 15 year old girl starting a family will not make it in this country. Yet like in this case, the girl was told to go off with the buyer and she did, back home that may have led to a stable marriage, not very likely in the USA.

I agree that it is very difficult to survive with those kinds of traditions but trust that they children of these immigrants do see it and are changing. I have spoken to some of them. Some will tell you that the parents have opted on marriage once a legal adult and others do want to go to college and get a degree. I would hope that all go to college but some people have a calling for something else.

[malamute]

Originally Posted by zacatecana

It is very unfortunate. Now, I dont know what people consider worse, that he gets deported so tax payers dont pay for his imprisonment or that he does time in prison and then gets deported. It looks like they are going to deport him.

I think in this case, deportation is the right thing to do, like you said, he had the responsibility to learn the culture and laws of the USA when he made the decision to relocate here. He didn't intend to break the laws apparently but he also didn't intend to learn them.

The USA does not have to change it's culture to accept this tradition and the taxpayers here should not have to support the children a 14 year old girl sold by her father is going to begin having here. To make it in the USA, one must complete at least a high school education, and in most cases one should marry legally before starting a family because it takes two parents and we should not accept pedophiles which is what this case is all about. The cost of living in the USA is extremely high and these people simply do not have the mindset for it, no way can 14, 15 year old brides really "make it" here.