Why is New Mexico poor and what should be done about it - Research Paper Example

? Why is New Mexico poor and what should be done about it? How New Mexico came to be Poor Poverty is a multi-dimensional phenomenon typified by a series of numerous aspects, including access to essential services such as education, health, and sanitation; human development, empowerment and basic civil rights. Poverty is a factor that is present in nearly all corners of the world. New Mexico is one of the nations strongly affected and hit by poverty (Garcia, 2006). This country has the highest poverty levels in the world, with a 22 percent of poverty levels. According to reports, New Mexico has the highest number of children under poverty. This is the highest level in the United States of America. New Mexico belonged to the Spanish empire for over two centuries and also the independent Mexico for more than two and half decades before being conquered by the United States in the American-Mexican war, in 1846 (Melzer et al, 2011). After the United States moved to conquer this state, many of the New Mexicans looked forward to the day that it would become a state and part of the United States. This took long, more than sixty years before it became a state. By the time this state was becoming a state of the United States; other nations had already gained their statehood. This delay in acquiring statehood is one of the factors that are attributed to its high poverty levels. Despite efforts by the New Mexican leaders and residents to support their nation, there are some factors that led to the delay in the acquisition of statehood. The first factor that hampered early efforts was a common ignorance on the state and unfair suspicion about its citizens. The other states of the United States were against the acquisition of statehood of New Mexico because of the high population of the Native Americans and the Hispanics who were considered foreign in terms of language, culture and religion. The people in the other states questioned the Hispanics and the Native Americans loyalty, who had for long lived under the Mexican and Spanish rule (Melzer et al, 2011). Secondly, territorial politics hampered New Mexico’s opportunities of acquiring statehood. The government was dominated by a bunch of corrupt politicians and businessmen. After the other states realized this, they tried to prevent New Mexico from becoming state by criticizing it. According to Melzer et al (2011), this led to the delayed statehood of the nation, which later culminated to the high poverty levels within the nation. In addition, the national policies adopted hampered the nation’s progress towards attaining statehood. Most of the policies adopted within the political arena had nothing to do with the New Mexico, and this immensely affected the progress towards statehood. Another cause of the delayed statehood of New Mexico was the prolonged Indian wars, which were very costly. In addition, these wars perpetrated the region’s reputation as a region typified by violent and primitive people. While some of the United States defeated some Indian uprisings, some Native American soldiers such as Geronimo fought many United States troops till 1886. The prolonged nature of the fights consumed a lot of resources (Melzer et al, 2011). These resources would have been used in development projects, which would have assisted in alleviating the present high poverty levels. By this time, New Mexico was under the claim of United States, Spain, Mexico and numerous Indian nations. The Indian-Mexican wars started as early as the end of the 16th century, when the Indians tried to go against Spanish rule. Later, the Indians came together to fight, kill, and chase Spanish colonists (Saragoza et al, 2012). The Indians continued to fight against the Spanish till when the United States army general, Kearny, promised the inhabitants of New Mexico that they would defeat the rebelling tribes once the country became a state and made part of United States. The United States forged with numerous strategies that would defeat the other Indian and Spanish tribes. These rebellions by the other tribes within New Mexico delayed its statehood, which either directly or indirectly affected the state’s development and poverty levels. A research carried out by Garcia (2006) revealed that an estimate of 20 million people in New Mexico live on less than two dollars per day. This has been attributed by numerous factors. One of the factors contributing to the state’s poverty levels is the increasing population which has put pressure on the available resources. New Mexico has few resources and the increasing population levels pressures the available resources in the state, which can only support a certain portion of the population. The Mexican war took more than half of the country’s resources. Since most of the people in the state live in the rural areas, there are high birth rates which contribute to the increasing population growth. According to Garcia (2006), a nation’s altitude of poverty immensely relies on its population growth rate. The high birth rates in such nations are the primary contributors to increased population, which in turn results to increased pressure on the existing resources. Education plays an imperative role in poverty eradication in a nation. Though New Mexico values education, there is a high dropout rate which has become an alarm to the nation at large. Research indicates that the high dropout rate is also contributed by the high poverty rates. Most of the pupils, about 50 percent, come from poor families and cannot afford lunch (Saragoza et al, 2012). When such families cannot afford food or clothes to wear, education becomes of low priority to them. Education is one of the basic factors to economic development. Completion of school ensures that there is the presence of employable people. The high dropout rate results to the high number of unemployable people. For instance, the call centers that settled in New Mexico lacked adequate employable people (Saragoza et al, 2012). Most of the companies and organizations in the nation hire a small portion of the people since they lack basic education. The high dropout rates have contributed to inferior outcomes. This is because most of the people who do not complete their education end up in low paying jobs. They lack adequate skills to get a good paying job. Therefore, the individual condition of people in New Mexico is one of the causes of poverty in the nation. This condition is well embedded on their education level, intelligence and skills which all affect poverty. The lack of education and necessary skills is one of the most fundamental aspects that contribute to penury in the nation. This means most of people are unemployed due to lack of adequate skills. Inadequate skills and basic educational background result to high unemployment rate within New Mexico. With high rates of unemployment in the country, crime rates have increased as people are desperate to put food on their tables (Garcia, 2006). The United States census identified extreme poverty in New Mexico as directly associated to regions of Native American reservations. Native Americans inhabiting these regions frequently feel left out, forgotten, and alienated by the American government (Garcia, 2006). There is a severe negative dishonor linked to these regions and provisos, which makes it difficult for the inhabitants. There are high suicide rates among the inhabitants and get little or no political voice. It has been long since someone saw or heard of a campaign to fight and enhance the lives and proviso of the Native Americans. In his research, Garcia (2006) shows that whenever dishonor and stigma are related to any other region within the state, it leads to the area being unattractive for business expansion, health care and education. The health care and education professionals will not want to be associated with such people. This leads to high unemployment rates, low education levels, and low-quality health care. These factors have contributed to the high rate of poverty within the state. Without private and public investments in the area, and better communication with the government, poverty levels are expected to soar up high. The progress of business in the region has been hampered by the existing political climate and bureaucracy. Opening a business in the region involves a long procedure and an individual will have to contend with an ever alternating scenery of players who may not like the business or have the authority to hinder the progress on one’s business (Saragoza et al, 2012). The political and economic environments in the state have been identified by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund as promoting poverty. This is because the government does not execute adequate policies to encourage triumphant growth in the region (Saragoza et al, 2012). As a result, the IMF and the World Bank cannot lend money to New Mexico. In this case, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank seem to promote poverty in the nation. Corruption is also among the factors that contributed to the high poverty levels in New Mexico. Corruption hampers development mainstays, people’s human right and legal structures tailored to protect them. New Mexico’s government is noted to pass policies, which results to lack of responsibility for their deeds, unequal development, excessive control and the high poverty rate. This placed a lofty expense on New Mexico’s society (Saragoza et al, 2012). In essence, corruption is one of the primary causes of poverty in a nation. When it occurs at all levels of the society, from government institutions to entrepreneurial institutions, it particularly affects the citizens. Corruption is one of the factors that siphoned off money and items planned to alleviate poverty in the nation. These seepages hamper the country’s investment levels, economic growth and poverty eradication efforts. Most of the resources that were set aside to alleviate poverty ended up in people’s pockets. Simultaneously, minor cases of corruption the resources of the poor individuals of New Mexico. This happens when people are compelled to offer bribes to access basic services such as education and health care (Saragoza et al, 2012). Corruption cases within the state also gave rise to nepotism where people recruit and employ their relatives. This is shown by incidences where people had been invited for interviews, but later the recruiters end up selecting and employing their relatives. Debatably, this immensely contributes to a state where there is a high disparity between the rich and the poor and a high number of poor people with few rich people. New Mexico’s geography is another factor that contributes to the high poverty levels within the country. The United States census report indicates that more than 50 percent of the people live in rural areas far away from the urban centers. The people in the rural areas do not access the urban centers because of the lack of transport and communication means such as roads, and water means. This makes it difficult to access food, education, and health care. The people living in such areas are separated from the rest of society. Since these people cannot access food and other essential services, they wallow in the miasma of penury with each new dawn (Saragoza et al, 2012). This resulted to a centralized state where all the institutions, affluent and educated people live in the urban centers, such as Mexico City while the poor and less educated people are left to the rest of the rural areas. Ways of combating poverty There are a myriad of ways of combating poverty in New Mexico. One of the main causes of poverty in the region is the lack of appropriate education due to the high levels of school drop outs. Poverty and school drop outs are interrelated issues. The high dropout rate, as indicated by Garcia (2006), results when most of the pupils or students do not complete their education. Therefore, improving education chances to children and ensuring that they stick in school is one of the primary factors to raising a population that will be depend on itself and will not struggle with penury. In reducing the high dropout rates, the state should ask itself numerous questions such as “How do we establish a sense of pride for completing a task, for staying until the end, for developing the initiative to develop knowledge and skills to make life comfortable for our families?” “How do we ensure that our youth stay in school and graduate?” This will take the society as a whole to demonstrate the significance of education. Increased education and reduced dropout rates will result to a skilled labor force. In this regard, the people will be able to get jobs and attain their up keep. Eradicating poverty brought by corruption implies subduing and dealing with barriers that prevent citizen commitment and state accountability. Since there are no equal rights and participation of the citizens in New Mexico, there will be a need to eliminate corruption. Numerous researchers and scholars have revealed that corruption can be used to influence a state’s political parties, process, and institutions to sustain the status quo, thus perpetrating penury and infringing on the rights of the citizens (Saragoza et al, 2012). These practices present a huge hurdle towards the development of the society. In order to reduce the high rates and cases of corruption, the state should devise ways on how to reduce corruption among the citizens and institutions. In this regard, the state should encourage political partaking and answerability. This can be executed through associating the rights of the people to answerable authorities in establishing a pro-poor anti-corruption stratagem. A pro-poor stratagem will identify some of the sources of economic in-equality among the people tackle the sources. This strategy will ensure that the marginalized and secluded communities within the state are considered and taken into account during any decision making process that involves development. The stratagem implemented should also have numerous objectives (Saragoza et al, 2012). These include encouraging immense apprehension and economic education among the inhabitants, thereby having adequate knowledge to challenge and hold the elites accountable, and strengthening the local democratic institutions. In addition, the government deeds to devise policies that will help in reducing the high population growth rates within the nation. High population puts pressure on the available resources within the state, and this can be reduced through policies that help in reducing the population growth rates (Garcia, 2006). This could be done through public education on family planning and extensive campaigns on the advantages and disadvantages of low population and high population respectively. The political and economic environments require reforms. These form the basis for economic development within the state. The government and other authorities within the country should be willing to offer support for the establishment and development of businesses. The government should revise some of its policies on support of businesses through incentives and subsidies in order to promote the development of the community (Saragoza et al, 2012). This will in turn increase lending by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to the region. This is because these institutions will have seen the desire and need by the government to promote regional development. While formulating the policies on regional development, the state should consider decentralizing its development. Analysis of the state’s poverty reveals that centralization of development is one of the factors that contribute to unequal allocation of resources and poverty. It is essential that the state government consider developing the rural areas through constructing roads and other transport means to facilitate the free flow of services to and from the people in the rural areas. References Garci?a, C. C. (2006). Psychosocial and cultural research on poverty in Mexico. New York: Nova Science Publishers. Melzer, R., Torrez, R. J., & Benham, S. M. (2011). A History of New Mexico since Statehood. New Mexico: University of New Mexico Press. Saragoza, A., Ambrosi, A. P., & Za?rate, S. D. (2012). Mexico today: An encyclopedia of life in the republic. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO. Read More