: Past, Present and Future

Professional Development: Journal: The International Journal of Continuing Social Work Education Article Title: Mexico: Past, Present and Future Author(s): Michael Lauderdale Volume and Issue Number: Vol. 12 No. 2 Manuscript ID: 122012 Page Number: 12 Year: 2009

Professional Development: The International Journal of Continuing Social Work Education is a refereed journal concerned with publishing scholarly and relevant articles on continuing education, professional development, and training in the field of social welfare. The aims of the journal are to advance the science of professional development and continuing social work education, to foster understanding among educators, practitioners, and researchers, and to promote discussion that represents a broad spectrum of interests in the field. The opinions expressed in this journal are solely those of the contributors and do not necessarily reflect the policy positions of The University of Texas at Austin’s School of Social Work or its Center for Social Work Research. Professional Development: The International Journal of Continuing Social Work Education is published three times a year (Spring, Summer, and Winter) by the Center for Social Work Research at 1 University Station, D3500 Austin, TX 78712. Journal subscriptions are $110. Our website at www.profdevjournal.org contains additional information regarding submission of publications and subscriptions. Copyright © by The University of Texas at Austin’s School of Social Work’s Center for Social Work Research. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A.

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Mexico: Past, Present and Future

Michael Lauderdale

An Early Breakfast patios framed by bougainvillea and jacaranda. One morning in the winter of 1986 I drove There were papaya trees with early fruit and the from my hotel in the Zona Rosa in to cool air required a jacket but if you put your chair the offices of the Deputy Secretary of Health, in the sun, it would be comfortable. Jose Laguna, for a 7:00 a.m. breakfast. Already The Deputy Secretary was an early riser and the city had begun to hum, but the daily toxic liked to get ahead of the day by having working brew of auto exhausts and open home-heating breakfasts, yet he was a delightful and generous fires had not yet filled the air and one was invigo- host who always provided some history lesson rated by its high altitude crispness. I looped down about medicine and health in Mexico as we would the Paseo del la Reforma and by the Angel of meet. I had called him from Austin as I planned Independence and turned down a quieter street for this trip specifically to meet with him. Unclear my friend’s offices. I noticed in the distance the about differences in some of the population data I Zocalo and remembered being there in 1968 was gathering from Mexican states and cities, I shortly after abortive student protests against the wanted to go over the figures obtained from the Mexican government that led to the “Tlatelolco Mexican health ministry (Salud), the Mexican Massacre” as part of the harsh reprisals of then census (INEGI), and the interior department President Diaz Ordaz. Mexican troops and police (Gobernacion). I was looking at Ciudad Juarez, had opened fire upon the protestors and many the largest Mexican city on the Mexico-U. S. bor- were killed but no full accounting of those events der and just across from El Paso, Texas. The three was ever concluded. I thought about how long estimates varied by more than 30 percent in the suffering the Mexican people could be and yet years I was using. there was always the sense of something beneath Dr. Laguna, who was the director of health the calm surface. That was my first visit two dec- planning for the Mexican Department of Health ades earlier to the City and I remembered the con- (Salud), an academic and physician, had taught tradictions of those days and how they remained for many years at the Mexican National Univer- today. sity (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de I slowed my car and found parking near my México). He had been dean of the medical school destination secluded from the cacophony of during the student activism days of the 60’s and awakening Mexican traffic. The health offices 70’s and was known as refusing to yield to a stu- were in stately governmental buildings much dent sit-in and being carried in his chair from his more than a hundred years old with large interior office by student protestors. Dr. Laguna was an

Michael Lauderdale, PhD is a Professor of Social Work at the University of Texas at Austin. Lauderdale’s doctoral research was based on a four-year study using participant observational and survey methodolo- gies of gangs in Oklahoma, Texas, Pennsylvania and New York City. He holds an interdisciplinary doc- torate is social psychology, anthropology and sociology. He has conducted research in Mexico and the Mexican border since 1966. He has taught in psychology at New Mexico State University and sociology at the University of Texas at El Paso. In the 1980’s he chaired the State of Texas Good Neighborhood Commission with offices in Austin and Mexico City and conducted a multiyear collaborative research effort with Katherine Selber, several UNAM faculty and the Mexican and Texas governments to apply GIS and desktop computing to forecast social needs and trends. For 30 years he has directed organiza- tional research providing services for the State of Texas.

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old school academic and scientist who felt that I shook my head, returned to his statement of science and teaching were a calling not a voca- the official statistics, and responded that that tion. He was revered as representing an institu- could not be! I asked, “How can you run a mod- tional quality of a dedicated scientist, educator, ern country if you cannot trust the official statis- and physician. A generation or more beyond tics! It’s like flying an airplane without instru- many of the faculty and staff of the Health De- ments.” Dr. Laguna replied, “No, it is not hope- partment and the University, he had the patience less. This is just Mexico. We do it differently of a man who had seen many changes in his coun- here.” He paused taking a long drink of the coffee try. and finally said, “You have to ask your cousin.” With Mexico and the surrounding communi- By now my frustration was evident. I shook my ties around 30 million people densely squeezed head and said, “How can I do that? I have no fam- into one of the most populous settings in the ily in Mexico!” It was Dr. Laguna’s time to shake world he would recount the beauty of Mexico his head. He said, “You are too influ- City in 1939 when he was a student and the popu- enced by the English and the Germans; too much lation was only a million in the city. He recalled raw empiricism! Truth does not always reside in the clear air, the open streets, and the city climate physical facts and you can spend far too much with an elevation of a mile and a half above sea time in compiling such.” level as a perpetual spring all with the visible He paused for several moments and then said, twin volcanoes of Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl “In Mexico we look to our family for truths.” I very unlike the crowded, dirty, and noisy city of said, “Then where does that leave me? Where today. In those days he said most of the city’s does it leave anyone not from Mexico trying to residents had been born there while today there understand or work with Mexico?” Dr. Laguna was a sense that thousands of rural people de- replied, “Mexico is different. We are realistic scended upon the capital city daily. about our official government rules. There are As we sat down to rich, dark Chiapas coffee, ways. are generous and will make you fresh , eggs, chilies and tortillas, I immedi- part of a family, a compadrazgo. Confianza is ately pressed my host with my questions about Mexico. We bargain with data but to find the how to resolve the alternative population figures I truth you have to find a cousin there and ask the had secured from the Mexican government. Mov- cousin. That is how Mexico works.” ing quickly to my business, I said, “Dr. Laguna, I My exchange with my Mexican colleague and need these data to be able to make comparisons friend early that winter morning has been re- we have planned with all of the twin cities on the peated many times in many similar ways in meet- border. To accurately map social forces we need ings with Mexican associates over the years. The the hard data.”(Lauderdale 1986) I explained I most frank discussions were at early morning was frustrated with my discussions with each of meetings or late in the day or especially in the the separate Mexican Federal authorities as none homes of my colleagues in Mexico City or Juarez could account for the three sets of very different or . It seems to mean that even the official estimates of the population. Dr. Laguna highest authorities in Mexico do not fully trust sighed as he often felt I took too little time for aspects of the government. Or perhaps Mexican social niceties always pressing work objectives authorities may be more candid about bureau- and said to me, “Miguel, you will never find the cratic reality than Americans. real population of any Mexican city by looking at How did this very different perception be- the official statistics. There is plenty of time. tween Mexicans and Americans come into being? Let’s enjoy the morning.” What role do history and culture play?

13 Mexico: Past, Present and Future

Mexicans do not view the world as Americans 1835 and 2000) in his travelogue through the new do. Every culture creates to some extent its own and world’s first democratic nation, extended as world view. For Mexicans the world view is one manifest destiny to support westward expansion that in the context of the family including the by the Jacksonian Democrats and extolled a gen- extension of family ties to close friends is where eration later as American exceptionalism by one finds constancy, security, and the truth many, including Frederick W. Turner (Turner (Kemper 1982). This separation of the external 1984). Mexicans, in contrast, are mindful of a world from kin is relatively less true for most longer conflicted history and one that is often Americans. remembered with pain. Paz and others he influ- For the Mexican there are always two worlds. enced reflect on the role of the past in configuring One is the world of the family, where there is the Mexican’s view of the present. These chroni- support and familiarity. The Mexicans use the clers of the emphasized the term confianza to refer to the well-knit kin and unresolved tension between the Indian and Span- friendship system that protects the individual. The ish world views. other is the external world where one must ven- These two significantly different world views ture but be wary. You must navigate the external of the United States and Mexico explain much of world of business, government, and other organi- what each country is today, some of the prospects zations carefully but you only know truth through of the future, and the complexity in crafting those close to you. (Lewis 1959; Lewis 1963; agreements between the two countries and cul- Madsen 1964; Riding 1988; Krauze 1990) tures. Persons concerned with trade in Mexico, This is an important cultural and psychological law enforcement authorities’ efforts to work with concept and one that causes much misunderstand- Mexican counterparts, and even travel in Mexico ing between Mexicans and Americans. Part of demand some understanding of the very different understanding this caution by Mexicans about the world views of Americans and Mexicans. For the non-family part of one’s world and the challenges Mexican the past is always prologue to the pre- it poses for Mexico and the United States can be sent and the future. To understand today in Mex- understood through an examination of Mexican as ico, the border with Mexico, and the orientations well as American history. Official agreements of people in the United States from Mexico, and casual meetings with the people of Mexico Mexican history provides unique clues. (New always carry some part of the thread of this dual- Cambridge Modern History 1962; Díaz del Casti- ism most eloquently presented by their Nobel llo and Cohen 1963; Fehrenbach 1979; Lauder- Laureate, (Paz 1950; Paz 1985) and dale, et al. 1970 Meyer, Sherman et al. 2003) the straight-forward and matter-of-fact practical- ity of the Anglo may miss the critical nuance of Mexico and the United States the Mexican. Paz expressed the dualism in The Mexico is a far more ancient land in terms of Labyrinth of Solitude through seeing Mexicans as people and culture than the United States. While if wearing masks of solitude hiding both unre- the earliest people populated Alaska, Canada, and solved indigenous pre-Columbian and Spanish then the contiguous 48 states before what is now identities. Mexico, some of the grandest cultures of the In contrast to Mexicans, Americans have more flourished in Mexico from the central of a sense of pragmatism and work toward an highlands of Mexico City into the tropical regions immediate future they feel they can control. This of the south and east to the Gulf more than a is a fairly singular cultural attribute noted at least thousand years before Columbus. Mexico has as early as 1826 by a French writer, (Tocqueville many historical similarities to the United States

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and is twined with both of its North American (Farb 1968; Thornton April 1997). Disease, even neighbors and yet is very separate (Díaz del Cas- more than war, destroyed the existing Indian cul- tillo and Cohen 1963; Fehrenbach 1973; Fuentes tures and population. Additionally, the United 1997). It is more ancient in the extent to which States through mechanisms like the Indian Re- cultures of antiquity still play a significant role in moval Act of President Andrew Jackson in 1830 Mexican society and culture today. forcibly marched many of the American Indian, The geography itself of the two countries has or Native Americans as is the current popular significance for the contemporary cultures and designation, remnants and placed them on reser- economies. The was more vations in Oklahoma, New Mexico, and the Da- difficult to traverse in the 1500’s to 1900’s with kotas that resulted in small indigenous popula- vast deserts, tropical forests, and high mountains. tions isolated from the swelling ranks of immi- This geographical separation and identity served grants from Europe, Africa, and Asia with less to preserve local cultures and resist the national significant impact on the development of culture homogenization of identity that occurred more in the United States. Far more than Mexico fully in the United States. through the way communities were populated, Mexico, like the United States, was populated through public schools, the unions, and the mili- with complex cultures hundreds of years prior to tary a unique American identity was forged. the arrival of Europeans in the 15th century. From There was a different process in Mexico. the first contact and through the next two centu- While war and disease severely reduced the ries, war and disease eliminated large percentages Indian populations of Mexico, the extent was far of the indigenous populations in both the United less than in the United States. There are some States and Mexico and elsewhere in the Americas detailed reasons for the greater continuity of the

15 Mexico: Past, Present and Future

indigenous populations and cultures in Mexico. populations of the United States were eliminated One was the fact that most of the immigration to through war, starvation, removal, and disease. Mexico as compared to the United States con- Indian names of places and rivers, Mississippi sisted of men, alone, from Spain and Portugal that (Ojibwa-Great River), Chicago (Algonquian or were soldiers of fortune rather than families com- Potawatomi-stinking field), Oklahoma ing to establish farms, businesses and communi- (Choctaw-Red People) are many but few of the ties. These men saw the new world as a source of descendants are left in the American population. mineral riches, especially gold, and intended to The American experience, far more than Mex- return to Spain and Portugal after discovering ico’s, is one of immigrants from many lands com- wealth and lead lives of leisure. This reality and ing to the nation and being socialized into Ameri- the fact in the Aztec conquest Spanish soldiers can culture. The Mexican experience is one of responded to far superior numbers of by conquerors, fewer in number coming and gaining building alliances with other Indian tribes that control, but being absorbed by the population and were suppressed by the Aztecs made the partici- cultures. For the Mexican, the state is imposed pation of the existing population and cultures from the outside and remains alien, but the family with the European conquerors more significant in is near and trusted. This reality underlies the tenu- Mexico. ous hold that the state has on the Mexican. The This set a path for Mexico where its popula- bargaining with representatives of the state such tion and cultures had a significant degree of col- as the “mordida” one pays when stopped by a law laboration with the conquerors and maintained officer, the need to have a “cousin” to find the more of the Indian population and cultures in the real story as Jose Laguna so artfully explained to surviving peoples. The Conquistador alliances me that winter’s day in Mexico City and, lastly meant greater communication with the Indians and critically, the vulnerability the state has dur- and this resulted in both marriages and alliances ing times of economic crisis are deeply important with Indian women that began the creation of in understanding Mexico today. mixed families between European males and In- dian females. Ancient Mexico Such relationships were symbolized in cultural Mexico at Cortez’s arrival was dominated by fact and myth by the sexual and political alliance one culture in the highlands of Mexico City, the between the Spanish Conquistador, Cortez, and Aztecs. They are thought to have immigrated dur- one of the favored young women of the Aztec ing a great drought from areas today that are near emperor, Moctezuma II. This woman, Malinque, the Four Corners Region of New Mexico, Ari- was said to be involved as Cortez’s concubine zona, Utah and Colorado to Mexico City about and assisted Cortez in the overthrow of her em- 1100 A. D. Yet they were only the latest immi- peror. Thus in one of the founding myths of the grants to these lands. They were influenced by Mexican state, there is the issue of the exploita- existing cultures most likely the Totecs. Even tion by the state, first by the Aztec and then Span- then, far older cultures had come and gone in ish, of the indigenous populations and the willing- Mexico including the Olmecs, the Mixtecs, and ness of one woman to be a traitor to her people the Mayas. Olmecs and Mixtecs had populated and collaborate with the conqueror. the central highlands of Mexico City for hundreds Myths and Indian population numbers in Mex- of years prior to the Aztecs while the Maya ico are significantly different from American homeland was along the Gulf including what to- founding myths and original indigenous popula- day are the Yucatan, Belize and Guatemala appar- tions. To a far greater degree the indigenous ently reaching its peak 500 years before the Az-

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tec. Throughout Mexico then and even somewhat Mexico City. By 1473, after subjugating today there were dozens of other cultures varying neighboring tribes, they ruled the largest empire in populations from a few hundred to several Mexico had ever seen. Their capital of Tenochtit- thousands and reaching back in time hundreds of lan, set on man-made islands in the lake of Mex- years. ico, was a picturesque city of pyramids, mile-long Somewhere around 1000 BC, the first of floating roads, aqueducts, vibrant marketplaces, Mexico's ancient civilizations, the Olmecs, estab- and one hundred thousand residents. Aztec mili- lished themselves in what are now the states of tary and trade routes dominated from the tropics and Tabasco. (Coe 1980; Fisher 1988) several hundred miles to the south to city-like They worshipped a jaguar God, built cities, con- dwellings north to the Rio Grande in today’s structed massive stone head carvings, and spread Texas and New Mexico. throughout central and southern Mexico until The lake was a source of food, including reed their civilization mysteriously vanished around islands that were built to support farming. It also 400 BC. The anthropological record is not clear served as a mote to protect the city. Leading a on whether they left the region or were absorbed highly codified government was an all-powerful or defeated by other civilizations. Though the emperor who exacted taxes from the conquered Olmecs left behind relatively few artifacts, their and distributed land to his people, especially the influence on later cultures was profound. In their warriors. When the Spanish adventurer Hernan wake came the Teotihuacan, the Zapotecs, and Cortez arrived in 1519, the rich city met his ex- Mixtecs of Oaxaca, the Maya of Yucatan, and, in pectations for conquest and wealth. (de Sahagœn the most southerly regions of Mexico, the 1950-1981; Díaz del Castillo and Cohen 1963; Toltecs, Aztecs, and dozens of smaller groups. Fehrenbach 1979; Cortés 1986; Díaz del Castillo These cultures devoted energies, resources, and 1986) lives to balance the spiritual and earthly realms. To appease their pantheons of gods, many of Conquest of the Aztecs these civilizations practiced human sacrifice, a The conquest of the Aztecs and the creation of fact that often overshadows their great achieve- , a great and tragic history, begins in ments in the realms of mathematics, astronomy, April of 1519 when Cortez lands in Veracruz on architecture, farming, textile weaving, art, and the Gulf Coast, about 200 miles east from the pottery (Fisher 1988). The Maya, for example, Aztec capital in the central highlands. Only about were so advanced in mathematics and astronomy 30 years earlier, the Spanish adventurer, Colum- that their calendar was the world's most accurate , had discovered the New World and many until this century. They could predict solar and soldiers of fortune began to sail to this world to lunar eclipses, had complex writings, and farmed seek riches. Stories of a civilization of gold had extensive areas from today’s Yucatan into Belize reached the years before and then en- and Guatemala. tranced the newly arrived Spaniards. Cortez was None of Mexico's pre-Columbian civilizations but one adventurer coming from Spain. Coronado is more storied or more central to much of mod- and Ponce de Leon prowled the upper Gulf Coast ern Mexico than the Aztecs. Though other civili- in search of riches, and Pizarro scorched a path to zations in Mexico achieved equal artistic and Peru destroying everything in his path for treas- greater scientific feats, none advanced as quickly ures of gold and silver. or ruled as much territory. Prior to the 15th cen- Cortez on the eastern Mexican coast had a tury, the Aztecs were a marginal tribe living on singular mission: defeat the Aztecs and take their the edge of , the site of present day gold. To do so, he had less than 400 soldiers, 16

17 Mexico: Past, Present and Future

horses, 14 pieces of artillery, 11 ships, guns, and slipped away in the middle of the night and ran ammunition. His first act upon landing was to for the coast. On the way, over half his force was burn all but one of his ships so that there could be killed by the pursuing army but Cortez’s luck no retreat. His goals and that of his men were to held, and he with the survivors returned with conquer for gold and then return to Spain to enjoy thousands of Indian allies to conquer the city a lives of privilege and leisure. That he was able to year later. defeat an empire of many thousands with just a When Spain arrived in the Valley of Mexico, it few hundred men seems nothing short of miracu- found one dominant culture, the Aztecs, and nu- lous, but some of his success can be attributed merous subjugated Indian cultures. After a hun- simply to luck and exploitation of existing myth. dred years of war and conquest primarily directed The first lucky break came from an Aztec toward the Aztecs, Spain turned to efforts to con- myth of Quetzacuatl, a light-skinned man -- their vert the indigenous people to Roman Catholicism most important god – who had long ago traveled and settling them into farming communities. By to the east, but was said would one day return. then most of the Aztec temples had been razed, When the Aztec ruler, Moctezuma II, heard sto- their warriors killed, and the very stones from ries of the white men landing from great ships on their greatest temple used to build Mexico City’s the east coast and then when he saw Cortez and first great Roman Catholic cathedral. What gold his light-skinned men upon their arrival in Teno- and other precious metals and gems existed had chtitlan, he believed them to be emissaries of the been shipped to Spain and Portugal, and the great Quetzacuatl himself. Wearing armor that Spanish Crown and the Church now sought other glistened in the sunlight and riding horses, which means of bringing riches back. at that time were unknown to the Indians, they The Aztec empire was gone but the Indians, did, indeed, seem some sort of gods. The oppor- though in greatly diminished numbers, remained. tunistic Cortez did not attempt to correct Mocte- Like England, France, and the Netherlands, colo- zuma and this is where the myth of Malinche ap- nial lands could now be seen as agricultural areas pears. She was thought to have been one of the that could be either populated by Europeans or favored of Moctezuma and knew the Aztec court conversion of the locals to farmers that would and Moctezuma well. She advised Cortez that help build national mercantilist empires in Moctezuma thought Cortez came from this most Europe. powerful god and he could use that advantage by playing on Moctezuma’s desire to seek favor Conversion to a Colony from Quetzacuatl. Cortez seized on the informa- For Mexico, the State and the Church became tion and subsequently returned the emperor's hos- the vehicles to convert the remaining indigenous pitality on meeting the Spaniard by taking Quet- people into agricultural workers to contribute zacuatl hostage. produce and taxes to the Spanish empire. With The next stroke of luck came when State protection the Church established missions the compliant Moctezuma ordered his people to across Mexico and into what is today Texas, New stand down against Cortez’s men and their Indian Mexico, and . Missions reached as far allies, and by the time the Aztecs began to resist, north as San Antonio in Texas, Santa Fe in New Cortez had already brought in reinforcements Mexico, and San Francisco in California; how- from the coast. The Aztecs finally disowned their ever, the Indians resisted conversion to Catholi- cowed, captive emperor, who died a prisoner in cism. his own palace. When the Aztecs laid siege to the Each of the hundreds of Indian cultures had palace that Cortez had seized, Cortez and his men strong religions, often a pantheon of gods, and

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integration of the religious beliefs into the social ness and even the deep antipathy of today’s Mexi- organization, which influenced tribal and city can toward the Roman . This political leadership and set roles for women and feeling is vividly expressed in the murals of Oro- men. Often women played more significant roles sco and Rivera, in violent protests against the than men in the continuity of the religious beliefs Church, and in seizures of church lands. It was through their responsibilities of raising the chil- not until 1992, during the administration of dren and maintaining the home. The new religion Salinas, that many of the strictures in Mexico proffered by the conquering Spanish with its male against wearing clerical garb and Church owner- priests was not compelling to the Indians. ship of land were eased. However, Indian conversion was significantly By the eighteenth century Mexico was firmly accelerated with the reports in 1531 of a Nahautl- established as a colony of Spain with a far-flung speaking young Indian women appearing in a missionary structure, a complex population of pre vision to an Indian girl and calling for a mission -existing Indian cultures, and a rapidly growing to be built. The Church explained this as a heav- population of mixed bloods that later would be enly sign calling Indians to the Church. The ap- referred to as (the mixed ones). Mexico, pearance of this woman, known as the Virgin of with its fertile plains and great mineral wealth, Guadalupe, is a second founding myth of the was the crown jewel of Spain's colonies (Frye modern Mexican state. It served to announce that 1996). It was heavily taxed, ruled directly from God had sent a message through the image of an Spain, and permitted no autonomy. The Spanish Indian woman to call all Indians to the Holy monarchs distributed land to Spanish settlers in Church. The message would be used to counter the form of encomiendas. These were the prede- the racialism that has always existed in the soci- cessors to the hacienda, also known as Spanish ety between those of European bloodlines and the land grants, which included the Indian residents Indian. It additionally served to make the Roman as part of the property. Catholic Church a special institution for any peo- These properties were worked by Indian slaves ple of Mexico with Indian blood. A form of the whom the settlers were charged to protect and Church developed that was both the Catholicism convert to . A caste system devel- brought from Spain and many of the beliefs and oped: there were Espanoles (Spaniards born in practices of the various Indian cultures. Spain), criollos (Mexican-born, but with Spanish Part of the mission role in the culture was to blood), mestizos (Spanish and Indian), and finally establish trade and banking. The banking was the indigenes (the Indians). It was the Indian often conducted by Portuguese settlers who pur- slave class that worked the fields, did the heavy- chased franchises from the Church and who stoop agricultural, road building, and land- would provide loans to the Indians and increas- clearing chores. Because of their forced depend- ingly the mixed Indian and Spanish population. ence on the hacienda owners, and without resis- Some of these settlers were Sephardic , tance to European ailments, the Indians were rid- skilled in trade and banking and beginning to flee dled with debt and disease long after Spain abol- the Spanish Catholic Church’s cruel and ruinous ished slavery in 1548. Inquisition. In the 16th century the Church forbade Like the United States, the deaths of the in- the collection of interest on loaned money and the digenous Indians due to war, disease, and starva- franchise arrangement with these settlers pro- tion were stark. For both countries some estimates vided that economic function and revenue to the are that in a hundred years the original popula- Church. This arrangement of the Church, mer- tions were reduced to a tenth of their original chants, and the Crown explains much of the wari- number. But, in Mexico, unlike in the United

19 Mexico: Past, Present and Future

States, the remaining Indian populations served to other war with a European power, as France create the basis of the modern Mexican popula- sought to impose colonial rule after Mexico failed tion. Unlike in the United States where most of to pay debts on French and other European loans. the population today originated via immigrants Also involved in those tensions were a series of from other countries, most of the Mexican popu- wars and border conflicts with the United States. lation traces much of its history and blood to the Of particular note are the Texas war for independ- original indigenous peoples. Indeed Mexico is ence in 1835-1836, the Mexican-American War somewhat unique in the Americas with the high in 1848, and the Gadsden Purchase in 1854. percentage of the total population having Indian These three together resulted in Mexico losing blood, including the wealthiest and most powerful much of its northern area, almost half of the coun- of the society. Contrast this to Canada and the try which now forms the states of the American United States where the indigenous populations southwest and west. were almost completely eliminated to some coun- A constant theme in Mexican public social tries in the Americas where the remnant indige- science education is fear of the “colossus of the nous populations continue to live in remote areas north”- the United States- and a concern that with dominant control by highly European- Mexico will lose more of itself to its powerful oriented elites. northern neighbor. Those fears resulted in many efforts to secure the north to the central govern- Revolution ment in Mexico City. Transportation and commu- For most of the 18th and 19th centuries Mexico nication networks radiated out of central Mexico was beset by revolutions attempting to reconcile and east-west patterns were discouraged. Gover- the colonial ambitions of Spain and France and nors and mayors of all states and especially the the tensions in regions of Mexico as the colonial north were chosen for loyalty to Mexico City and powers sought to subdue existing cultures and often lived most of their lives in Mexico City convert them to plantation-type agriculture. The with only the period of being a governor to live in conflicts included the efforts of the Roman the outlying states. A program of food subsidy Catholic Church to convert the Indians and com- and government encouragement of large families peting loyalties to Europe and the growing popu- during much of the 20th century to populate the lation born in Mexico but of Spanish and land with Mexicans was created to thwart territo- origins. While the country’s southern border was rial expansionistic aims of the United States. relatively quiet, the north faced first predatory activity of Indian tribes and then in the 18th cen- The Independent North tury the intentions of Anglo populations for local The historical reality of the original northern self governance and ultimately wars with Texas territories of Mexico is less a part of Mexico than and then the United States. In 1810, a Catholic some would argue. The Aztecs, the Spanish, and priest, Hildago, angered by the exploitation of the the Mexican governments readily brought under criollo, mestizo and indigenes populations, agi- control the central highlands around Mexico City, tated for independence. He is remembered for his the lowlands to the east to the , cry for independence, the “Grito.” This became and the area west to the Pacific. The northern the Mexican War for Independence, which did realms as well as the south strongly resisted Mex- not succeed until ten years later when Spain ico City’s political, religious, and economic con- granted independence after having reacquired trol. Vast deserts, sparsely settled, isolated popu- Mexico from France during the Napoleonic wars. lations, and difficult mountain ranges and great Forty years later Mexico was involved in an- distances made control north of Guadalajara,

20 Professional Development: The International Journal of Continuing Social Work Education

Leon, and San Luis Potosi problematic. San An- to pin down and destroy soldiers on foot and hold tonio, Texas, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and San Mexican ranches and Roman Catholic missions Francisco, California, were each so distant from hostage. Their raids isolated Mexican villages, Mexico City that reaching these settlements re- with activity extending as far south as Saltillo, quired an arduous journey by horse and wagon Coahuila, about 300 miles from San Antonio, that took between one and two years. Trails were Texas. They effectively cut the Catholic missions, not well marked; water and food had to be carried citizens with land grants and military garrisons in for long distances as forage and supplies were not San Antonio, Texas, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, available. Further, hostile populations were ready from Mexican control. The Comanches were the to raid traveling parties. reason that the Spanish and then the Mexican The Indian populations resisted both Spanish state could never secure Texas, and thus opened and Mexican control, and repeated uprisings oc- the path for Anglo migration into the area. With- curred in California, Arizona, and New Mexico as out the Comanche, Texas would still be Mexico. well as in many of the Mexican states. The most (Wallace and Hoebel 1952; Hagan 1993; Neeley complete resistance was exercised by a tribe in 1995; Fuentes 1996; Noyes 1999; Fehrenbach the southern plains that simply stopped the ad- 2003) vance from Mexico City. At the time of Colum- bus, the Comanche, (Wallace 1952) an offshoot Mexico’s Last Great Revolution of the Shoshone, were migrating as a weak and This 20th century revolution in Mexico, a long poverty-stricken band of hunters and gatherers and bloody war, started in 1910. It resulted in a from Montana to the southern plains. They en- single party, the Party of the Institutionalized countered and avoided the powerful and numer- Revolution (PRI), which controlled the nation for ous Sioux, Cheyenne, Kiowa, Wichita, and almost the remainder of the century. The revolu- Apache (Smith 1996; Trigger and Washburn tion was largely a reaction to the 40 year dictator- 1996). To the east were the Caddo, a formidable ship of Porfirio Diaz. Diaz had come to power via southern agricultural culture. Somewhere in the a military coup which overthrew the elected late 1500’s these Indians began seeing Spanish president, Benito Juarez, a common man and the soldiers on horseback. They secured strays and only full-blooded Indian to be president. In the stole horses from the Spanish and the Mexicans, years of this dictatorship the repressive regime and quickly became the first American tribe to sold off much of Mexico to foreigners, leaving fully use the horse. In fact, they were the conduit landless peasants across Mexico. By the end of of the horse to other Indian tribes on the Great the Diaz regime, 3,000 families owned half of the Plains as well as a source of horses in trade with land in Mexico. With a great concentration of Mexicans and Anglos. By the time Anglos began wealth there was widespread poverty among the to appear in the Southwest in the early 1800’s the 13 million, with almost half being Indians. Comanche were a powerful and wealthy people As in the past the revolutionaries came from numbering in the tens of thousands. the south and the north, not Mexico City or cen- By the time of the American Revolution, the tral Mexico. Part of the 1910 Revolution was to Comanche had blocked both Spanish and later break up the large land holdings of a few families Mexican expansion into lands north of Monterrey and re-distribute the lands back to the peasants. and west to El Paso. Developing into brilliant This included stripping the Catholic Church of its horsemen, able to fire from a moving horse, they vast land holdings and other wealth. Another part became the same sort of mobile force as two hun- was to extend government involvement in many dred years earlier had the Mongols in Asia, able parts of the culture and economy. This was to

21 Mexico: Past, Present and Future

remove foreign ownership that was seen as a ves- deep in poverty, Mexico sought to transform itself tige of colonial domination that had plagued the from a culture of largely subsistence farmers to country for all the years of its existence. For ex- industrialized and urbanized people. It had the ample, in 1938 Mexico nationalized the oil indus- goal of becoming much like the Untied States, try and created PEMEX, a state-owned company France, Great Britain, Germany, and Japan. It was that controlled all oil production, refining, distri- a sufficiently large nation, had great natural re- bution, and sales. Telemex controlled telephone sources, and a large potential if somewhat under- communication, and similar government and qua- educated workforce which could be mobilized to sigovernmental monopolies existed in many other transform the country. areas of the economy. The PRI exercised power from Mexico City into every state, county, and Industrializing Mexico city. Roads, telephone lines, airline routes were One solution to the vast need for semi-skilled all spokes that radiated from the hub in Mexico jobs appeared with the concept of Mexican as- City to all outlying areas. sembly factories, the maquilas or . Much of the political structure of Mexico has Mexican entrepreneurs saw that firms located continued since pre-Hispanic times, with central near the US-Mexico border, especially near authoritarian regimes extending controls from Texas, using cheap Mexican labor could attract Mexico City north to the deserts of the southwest assembly work now done in American plants. to the Gulf to the east, the Pacific to the west, and Once assembled the products were trucked back into the tropical lands of Guatemala and El Salva- north to the States. The assembled goods, not dor. The centralizing pattern from Mexico City permitted to be sold in Mexico, did not compete always seems to exert itself even if the revolu- with Mexican firms and the labor economies were tionaries come from the northern or southern re- attractive. gions. But the certainty of the control is abridged These developments might also solve the en- by the distances and the enduring cultural differ- demic poverty of the border cities which de- ences in the Mexican population. pended upon providing low-cost and often shad- During most of the 20th century the power owy entertainment for visiting Americans. Juarez, from Mexico City was lubricated by profits from for example, as early as the Depression, was a the control of businesses. The control was en- major source of bootleg alcohol for the United hanced sharply in the 1970’s by the discovery of States. These border cities were an embarrass- one of the world’s greatest oil fields, the Can- ment to the elites and emerging middle class of tarell, in the Gulf of Mexico. At the time of its Mexico City. Industrialization was an alternative discovery only the Saudi Arabian Ghawar field to bars, restaurants, and bordellos that were seen had larger reserves. Yet with the discovery Mex- by many to characterize its northern border cities. ico knew that it must find ways to absorb the Maquilas also served as a social and economic huge population growth that had come from gov- experiment for Mexico and the United States. ernment efforts to encourage large families. Once Leaders in both countries were concerned with the government had provided food subsidies to developments in the European community where increase the size of the Mexican population, by easing trade restrictions and allowing labor mo- the 70’s the population had grown beyond the bility between countries promised future eco- resources of subsistence farming in rural Mexico nomic growth. The maquilas would test the inte- and migrations to urban areas had begun to gration of Anglo capital and managerial skills change the nation from mostly rural to urban. with lower cost Mexican labor to create plants With more than 70 million people in 1970, many that could effectively compete in the emerging

22 Professional Development: The International Journal of Continuing Social Work Education

globalization of the world’s economy. The ma- with labor costs of about $25 an hour. Then two quila experiment laid the foundation for NAFTA- years later the factory was moved to the Dallas - the broad set of agreements among Canada, the area with labor costs at $10 an hour but, now, in United States, and Mexico to create a common Juarez, labor costs were $3 a day! The plant had market in the Americas. This experiment, created two assembly lines and all of the employees were by the elites in the three nations, has played out young women. I found that most of the employ- somewhat complexly. Here are two examples. ees had moved from small towns and rural areas I was in Mexico City at the UNAM campus in and had come to the city to escape lives of pov- June of 1989 and noticed large crowds of faculty erty, early marriage, and caring for large families. and students in classrooms and lounges watching They spoke excitedly of living in the large city, television reports of the protests of Chinese citi- near America, shopping, and buying things like zens. When the Chinese army tanks began to make-up and designer jeans. seize control of the protestors in Tiananmen Under Mexican law factories have to provide Square, applause broke out in the audience and medical care and I met the factory physician, a then cheering. I was very puzzled by these emo- young woman as well. I understood that part of tional expressions. Mexico City elites and par- the hiring procedures was a pregnancy test and ticularly UNAM intellectuals were the liberal the physician was to provide fertility control in- core of Mexico. I presumed that there would be a formation and technologies to the employees. sense of identity among Mexican liberals and Under Mexican federal law pregnant women and young Chinese seeking to overthrow the oppres- those who have babies are entitled to substantial sion of the Chinese Communist state. In conver- benefits charged back to the employer. From this sations with faculty and senior government bu- employer and my experience over the years I reaucrats during that week, I learned that a very know that efforts to avoid hiring pregnant women different concern had animated what appeared as as well as keeping low levels of employee preg- contradictory emotions. The Mexican intellectu- nancies have been controversial issues with the als were seeing China and its vast labor pool as program. potential competition-- a threat to Mexican labor Substantial social policy plus cultural and reli- in the emerging globalization of labor. Senior gious contradictions were and are involved in the economic officials felt Mexico had only a five to Mexican experiment with factory work. One was ten year window to industrialize its large potential the fact that birth control would limit the earlier labor resources before the world labor market efforts of the Mexican government to expand the would be hit by almost a billion new workers. If national population. A second contradiction is the Mexican plants could be built and a Mexican opposition of the Roman Catholic Church to the workforce recruited and trained, then they would means of birth control provided by medical per- have social capital in place to compete against the sonnel. A third contradiction was disturbing the coming waves of cheap labor from Asia. The traditional role of women as remaining in the Tiananmen Square incident would provide addi- home or at the farm, not working in settings with tional years of advantage to the Mexican changes other men and women. Substantial conflict and underway! misery may have grown from this contradiction. The second example was my first visit to a A fourth contradiction is the long remembered new maquila at an early assembly plant, Elamex, scars of colonialization by foreign powers, and in Juarez in 1986. The plant assembled floppy the fact that these maquilas were owned by for- disk mechanisms for computers. The product had eign companies and in many instances the factory been produced five years earlier in Minneapolis authorities were foreign nationals.

23 Mexico: Past, Present and Future

The promise of the maquila experiment was to As long as trade barriers fall and economic provide companies, especially American compa- growth continues the original experiment has nies, a source of lower labor costs for manufac- great impact on Mexican society. turing tasks. Never popular in the United States, The maquilas produce a variety of products, especially with organized labor, it was explained and the impact on the American automobile in- as an effort that would keep jobs near the United dustry is an instructive example. Lured by low States that otherwise would migrate to other areas labor costs, the Big Three have been crucial to an with large populations needing jobs and willing to industry that now makes up 3 percent of Mexico's work for even lower wages. This included coun- gross domestic product and accounts for a fifth of tries like Egypt and Turkey, and most importantly its exports. The 13 plants run by Ford Motor Co., India and China. Chrysler LLC, and General Motors Corp. account The advantage to Mexico was, first, jobs to for more than 50 percent of Mexico's auto pro- help absorb the young and growing population duction. Mexico is heavily reliant on exports to that could no longer be supported by agricultural the United States. Three-quarters of vehicles pro- work or existing Mexican factories. For decades, duced in the country are exported, 70 percent of tourism and guest-worker programs where Mexi- them to the U.S., according to the Mexican Auto can workers travel temporarily to work in the Industry Association. As U.S. car sales plum- United States helped Mexico deal with surplus meted, Mexican auto exports fell nearly 8 percent workers. It was hoped that expanding factories in November, and production declined 2.1 per- would provide a higher wage to the Mexican la- cent. Since the 1990s, wages as low as $1.50 an bor market, and that it would also build critical hour helped lure an average of about $2 billion skills in manufacturing that would strengthen the per year in foreign investment in the auto indus- Mexican economy. try, which now employs some 500,000 people, Creating factory jobs can be capital intensive. directly or indirectly. Estimates were that it took $100,000 to The disadvantages of the maquila experiment $1,000,000 of capital investment for each job have focused upon the threats to the culture and created. The United States or Germany took gen- traditional social organization. A separate disad- erations to create such capital investments and vantage is that the factories were built in areas thus industrial jobs. Mexico sought to jump start with better transportation -- the cities -- and thus the process and skip so many years by permitting worsened problems of inadequate housing, trans- investment and ownership from other countries to portation, medical, educational, and retail ser- assist Mexico in building an industrialized econ- vices. This is true in the border cities but even omy. Jobs providing incomes for unemployed and more so in Mexico City where air pollution and underemployed workers decreased poverty, less- traffic gridlock is a daily fact of life. ened welfare costs to the government, made the government more secure, provided an external The Promise of Oil source of capital for industrialization, built criti- Maquila-led industrialization was one side of a cal labor force skills, and developed world mar- two-pronged effort to modernize Mexico and kets for Mexican manufactured goods. Soon the break decades of rural poverty and chronic unem- maquiladora concept spread beyond the border ployment and underemployment. It grew far be- cities to much of Mexico. The maquilas today are yond initial expectations and served to spur the now part of the larger movement of Mexico, industrialization process far beyond the original through NAFTA, to integrate into the labor and maquilas of Juarez-El Paso, the largest twin cities capital markets of the United States and Canada. on the border. The second part of the effort was

24 Professional Development: The International Journal of Continuing Social Work Education

and is oil. country that celebrates the 1938 nationalization of In the mid-1970’s angry shrimp fishermen, led its oil industry as a federal holiday, it is clearly an by a Rudesindo Cantarell, confronted the state oil act of desperation. But promising offshore dis- monopoly, Pemex, in Veracruz. They complained coveries in Mexico will likely take decades to about oil oozing out of the sea bed, which ruined bring to production, according to Simmons their shrimping, and demanded compensation for (Simmons 2008), due to the extreme depths and drilling or piping actions of Pemex. Pemex had massive technical challenges of drilling and no wells in the area and the accidental discovery pumping the oil to the surface. of oil by the fishermen changed the fortunes of It may be too little too late to replace the rap- Mexico. The source of the complaint was an un- idly disappearing Cantarell production. In as little known giant reservoir of oil that had long seeped as 12-24 months, the effects may be felt both in some of the underground petroleum to the sur- Mexico and the United States. Replacing the 1.3 face. That reservoir was named after the leader of million barrels per day the US now imports from the fishermen, Cantarell. Mexico will not be readily achieved. (As a means Mexico has long relied heavily on Cantarell, of comparison, the United States imports 1.4 mil- the super-giant discovered in 1976, for both do- lion barrels per day from Saudi Arabia and mestic consumption and export. In the first dec- slightly more from Canada.) For Mexico, the ade of the discovery and production, Mexico felt problems run much deeper, as it must quickly its oil riches would be the equal of the Gulf States diversify its economy or face wrenching eco- of the Middle East. Extravagant plans were made nomic and social dislocations. The adjustment to use the income from the oil to modernize Mex- period will likely bring great change and tumult, ico’s infrastructure as well as to address the en- perhaps across the border as well. demic poverty of about 40 percent of Mexico’s citizens. However, the size of the find has proven A Crossroads Coming less than the initial expectations. Somewhere between 2009 and 2011, the price In the early years it produced about 1 million of energy will head back to its old highs and barrels a day. Through technology that production likely well beyond. Deleveraging and psychologi- was boosted to a peak output in 2003 of 2.1 mil- cal forces can rule the markets for any short-term lion barrels per day (65% of total Mexican pro- period. Looking ahead, the fundamentals will duction). It apparently held near that figure for prevail, as they always do. As economies around two years and then began to decline sharply. To- the world are printing money for huge stimulus day the figure is roughly 900,000 barrels per day. programs, oil companies are shuttering produc- The most troubling aspect is that the decline rate tion. Combined with a 9.1% depletion rate, the is accelerating, estimated at 2.5% per month cur- imbalances are growing. A crossroads is coming, rently, or 30% annually. It is expected to stabilize where demand will re-ignite at some point and at 500,000 barrels a day in 2012? supply will have difficulty catching up. There is a liquid fuel crisis that has only been in a brief res- No Oil Exports after 2009? pite from the bursting of the real estate bubble By the end of 2009, Mexico may no longer be and the resultant credit deleveraging. an oil exporter. It will be very difficult to replace Pemex in October lowered its 2008 output the oil revenue that supplies 40% of the Mexican forecast by 3.6 percent to as low as 2.7 million budget. The Mexican government has recently barrels a day after interruptions from hurricanes. taken the unprecedented step of allowing foreign It was the third time Pemex reduced its forecast oil companies to explore for oil in Mexico. In a for 2008, after a faster-than-expected decline at

25 Mexico: Past, Present and Future

Cantarell. Output fell 33 percent from a year ear- Mexico has one of the strongest economies of lier, more than twice as fast as government esti- the Americas. It is rich in natural resources in- mates, to 862,060 barrels a day. Declining pres- cluding oil, several minerals, and productive fish- sure in the field has made it more expensive and eries on both the Atlantic and Pacific side. The harder to continue recovering oil. Cantarell ac- Mexican transportation and communication sys- counted for 32% of Pemex’s total output, less tem is among the most highly developed of Latin than half of the 65% it represented at its peak. Oil American as are its institutions of science, tech- exports fell 20 percent to 1.511 million barrels a nology, and higher education. However, Mexico day, according to a chart on Pemex’s web site. has limited arable land for crops such as corn or (Martinez 2008, December 22; Llana 2008, Feb- wheat. Until two decades ago, Mexico was self- ruary 26) sufficient in agriculture but today it imports sub- stantial amounts of grain, chicken, and beef from Modern Mexico--Three Regions the United States. Its tropical to semi-tropical Today Mexico is a complex society of 109 climate is ideal for fruit and vegetable production. million. It is a young population with a median The viability, however, of mining, and vegetable age of 26 years (compared to a U.S. median age and fruit production is dependent upon export of nearly 38) and has for two decades had a capacity, particularly to the United States. Recip- sharply decreasing rate of population growth. It is rocal issues exist in the States. For example, Mex- the most populous Spanish speaking country in ico is Texas’ largest customer of its agricultural the world, yet few of the population are of pure exports. Spanish descent but more accurately American As in centuries past geography plays a large Indian with lesser amounts of European ancestors role in the activities and outlooks of the Mexican largely from Spain and Portugal. It is one of the people. Mexico has several very distinct geo- few countries of Latin America that is truly domi- graphical, economic, and cultural regions. nated by a population with mostly American In- dian descent. This reality has long been an issue The Federal District among Mexicans where it is often apparent that Mexico City has a population of about 20 mil- European physical characteristics are preferable lion with another 10 million in nearby areas and a to Indian. Yet the ascendancy of those with In- regional culture often termed chilango. People dian blood to political power dates back to Benito from other regions of Mexico view the chilango Juarez, in the 1860’s. In Mexico today, the popu- as feeling superior, cultured, and shaping the des- lation is about 60% mestizos, 30% as indigenous tiny of Mexico. Chilangos will often view persons people, the Indian, and most of the remainder as from other regions of Mexico as provincials. It is white. The racial and cultural categories, men- not unlike the view that people from the East and tioned above, of Espanoles (Spaniards born in West Coasts of the United States have of the Spain), criollos (Mexican-born, but with Spanish heartland, the “fly over country.” Mexico City is blood), mestizos (Spanish and Indian), and finally the traditional seat of power in Mexico dating the indigenes (the Indians) are less serviceable back more than 600 hundred years (Kemper today. NAFTA, modern communications, con- 2002). Mexico, or at least the denizens of Mexico sumerism, and travel have lessened the distinction City, has always exerted efforts toward strong of Espanoles and criollos as the mestizos are the centralization and that continues today, but with- bulk of the population. However, to varying de- out the strong single-party rule created in the grees in the country, prejudice exists against In- 1915 revolution which controlled the country dian populations and Indian features. until the end of the 20th century.

26 Professional Development: The International Journal of Continuing Social Work Education

Mexico City is built on the bed of the lake that hang in the balance. One afternoon in the 1990’s I originally was the floating city of the Aztecs. En- finished some meetings at the American embassy gineering keeps the water that once filled the lake in Mexico City and chatted with an old friend drained as the city setting at about 6,500 above who had worked in the State Department for sea level is surrounded by high country -- large many years, including several assignments to volcanoes south of the city and mountains to the Mexico. I had mentioned to him that I would north. It is densely populated with some leave in two days with pressing meetings in Aus- neighborhoods having continuous human settle- tin and then to Washington. He said, “Well, I ments for over 700 years. It has 18 boroughs con- have heard that tomorrow the airline employees taining larger neighborhoods called colonias are planning a strike so you might move your ranging sharply in wealth with some being simply plans up to this evening or in the morning by the shanty towns resting on the rubble of the great latest.” I asked to use his phone and hurriedly earthquake of 1985. Only in the last decade has made new reservations to leave in the late after- the streaming of rural people from central and noon. south Mexico to Mexico City subsided. The City I asked him if he ever worried that he might be today accounts for about 20 percent of the gross stranded in Mexico City and how would he get national product of Mexico and includes the out if there were general strikes. His wife and wealthiest ten percent of the Mexico City popula- children lived in Mexico City and getting back to tion. While Mexico’s politics are largely conser- the States could be a challenge. He smiled and vative, Mexico City’s are liberal. Nominally Ro- said, “All you need is a late model Mercury Mon- man Catholic, is hedged both terrey. You smoke the windows and pull the li- by the role of the Church in the exploitation of cense plates.” We both laughed as that was the Indians and the fact that Indian beliefs and prac- vehicle then favored by the high ranking drug tices have produced a Catholicism different from traffickers in cities like Mexico City or Guadala- that in much of Europe or the United States. jara. It was presumed that such persons would All regions of Mexico, as its Aztec predeces- own the local police and maybe even the Feder- sor, through colonial times in the 16th, 17th, and ales (the Mexican Federal Police). As I pulled my 18th century and through the revolutions of the papers together, I said to him, “Why do we con- 19th and 20th century have been bound by wealth, tinue to try to understand Mexico. Perhaps it is power, and political sophistication to Mexico best left alone.” He said, “Mike, the great fear for City. This power has been exercised through po- 50 years is what do we do with a dead elephant litical control from the selection of governors on our doorstep?” down to city mayors. Government-owned busi- nesses -- like banking, oil, and communication -- The Indian South provided positions to those loyal and funds to Many forces serve to challenge the power of secure the support of the populace with subsidies the central state. In contrast to Mexico City and to lower the price of foods like flour, , and the northern areas south of Mexico City, with the for tortillas. exception of tourist spots such as Acapulco on the As my friend at the early breakfast explained, west or Merida to the east in the Yucatan, are Mexico is always two worlds, and often no offi- where Mexicans of more fully and full Indian cial is assured full knowledge of the official descent and culture are predominant. One chal- world. Kin and informal networks are critical to lenge is the pull of traditional cultures never fully success. Rumor is often the surest source of dis- assimilated into the mestizo state. This is strong- ruptions and sometimes civic life can appear to est in the Mayan lands of the Gulf Coast and the

27 Mexico: Past, Present and Future

southern states like Oaxaca, Chiapas, and Ta- introduces an important destabi- basco. Spanish literacy is less, poverty is greater, lizing force moving along both the Gulf and the and illegal immigration of indigenous people Pacific coast. from Belize, Guatemala, and El Salvador create problems not unlike those in the southwestern The Independent North United States. These immigrants are poorer, less Regional differences are most pronounced and educated, and often in poor health. Perhaps 30 changing in the north where travel, media, trade, percent of the population south of Mexico City and currency provide a strong draw toward speak the traditional Indian languages of Zapotec, American culture. Many of the states north of Mixtec, , and Mayan. Mexico City are arid and mountainous and were These are lands of traditional villages often sparsely populated in pre-Hispanic times. As with strong rivalries and plagued by the loss of noted, the successful warrior characteristics of the tribal lands to large farms. This loss of land to Comanche and the Apache and Yaqui to the west wealthy elites began to stir strong feelings of pro- kept the control of Mexico City weak and erratic. test which were supported by both a liberation Today, many of these states and larger cities be- philosophy from some Roman Catholic priests ginning 200 miles north of Mexico City are often and notions of personal salvation presented by closely linked to the American side by business, Protestant missionaries. Indeed, an interesting travel, and family ties. Guadalajara, Torreon, and feature of the south of Mexico has been the ac- Monterrey have ready auto and air connections to tivities of these two religious groups. These areas the American side, and English is as commonly are the seat of radical separatist movements in the spoken there as it is in the higher income areas of 1990’s against the central government in Mexico Mexico City. Shopping trips to Texas cities have City. This has long been the land of the surenos, always been common and wealthier Mexicans use far more true to Indian beliefs than Roman Ca- medical facilities in Houston and San Antonio, tholicism or Mexican nationalism. The growing and it is traditional to have children acquire col- narco traffic of illegal drugs moving north from lege educations in the United States.

28 Professional Development: The International Journal of Continuing Social Work Education

The Border the maquilas, the power of American media, the Ties with the American side are even deeper in waning riches of oil, and the new centers of the “twin cities” that extend in the east from power provided by the lucrative illegal drug trade Brownsville and Matamoros through El Paso and to America. Cuidad Juarez to San Diego and Tijuana. The Since the 1980’s, much of western Mexico has Mexicans refer to this zone as “La Frontiera.” It become a contested land as cocaine, metham- is a transition zone between the two cultures, phetamines, marijuana, and heroin are moved by clearly neither Mexican nor American. With its land, air, and sea. These narco powers began to be rapid growth and access to the rest of North evident in the 1970’s especially in the western America it may be the most rapidly changing part state of Sinaloa where its capital, Culiacan, be- of . came headquarters for packaging marijuana and This zone has a joint population of about 30 opium grown in its remote mountainous valleys million and extends easily 150 miles north in the and cocaine brought up the west coast for ship- United States and south into Mexico. The rela- ment into the United States. Even as the United tions are most intense and complex on the Texas States was successfully disturbing the Caribbean border as compared to New Mexico’s, Arizona’s, drug route into Miami, a far larger and more so- and California’s. Well-to-do Mexicans own phisticated system of drug distribution was grow- homes on Padre Island or in the southern moun- ing across the northern states and cities of Mex- tains of New Mexico. Houston and San Antonio ico. A similar pattern exists along the Gulf. Major with their university medical schools provide high entry points are at the twin cities with Laredo and quality health expertise to Mexican clients. Shop- El Paso perhaps the largest. These gateways or ping visits include malls in Houston, San Anto- plazas (the bridges between the cities) are the nio, Austin, and Dallas. For more than 20 years zones where competing cartels seek to control Mexicans have kept bank accounts in the border access to move illegal drugs north and dollars states to protect against weakness in the Mexican south. peso. Until the wars of the drug cartels began, Frequently both Mexico City and Washington, there were steady flows of shoppers and vacation- D.C., write off the battles of the drug cartels and ers from states like Texas and California to border the growing brutality as a continuation of the wild cities, to the Mexican Gulf and Pacific coast, and and degraded nature of the border cities. Mexico in the case of California far down the state of City has never been in favor of these cities as they Baja California. have been seen simply as embarrassing tourist Indeed, those of the north are called nortenos, spots to serve the more base nature of the Grin- and they are known for their lack of subtlety, their gos. They have also long been a source of con- aggressiveness, and their more abrupt ways. Their cern as they represent a not-so-subtle incursion of skills with the land and the cattle they imported American ways into Mexico. What this misses, from Spain created the that became the with its view of the violence as a law- basis of the American cowboy. American notions enforcement matter, is that the extent, duration, of the West with personal characteristics of inde- and brutality are now a challenge to the existence pendence, entrepreneurial effort, and distrust of of the Mexican state itself. The American re- distant formal authority find resonance in the sponse of bringing to bear its Federal resources, north and produce a continual concern in Mexico including the military and the recent use of terms City that America will again grab a piece of Mex- such as “surge,” are redolent of American efforts ico as it did in the 19th century. These fears are in Iraq. Northern Mexico or all of Mexico is not made real with the Americanizing influence of Iraq. In Mexico and certainly in northern Mexico

29 Mexico: Past, Present and Future

and the American southwest are 500 years of con- erty, including a small middle class. Repeatedly tact and mutual trade. Men in armored vehicles in Mexican history the distribution of income has wearing military uniforms and masks will not favored the very few with the greater percentage solve the problem. Soldering and policing are two of the population existing in great poverty. Oil very different tasks and to mistake one for the and industrialization were the hopes to correct other can lead to disaster. this condition but progress has stagnated. Without The problems derive from the failure of eco- a large and strong middle class, the government nomic development on the Mexican side. The and the wealthy are at risk of economic decline distance and misunderstandings of Mexico City and class-based conflict. The fact that many for its northern areas are part of the reason. The wealthy people and even ones of moderate means drug appetite of the American side is another part fear kidnappings for ransom is an illustration of of the reason. Today the United States is depend- the decline in the Mexican state. Mexico will be ent upon Mexico for oil imports. Mexico is de- unable to survive as the largely urban nation of pendent upon the United States for food imports. today without economic engines to provide jobs The drug violence tells us more of the failure of and sustenance and, through these means, secu- understanding and leadership of both sides than rity. simply the failure of policing. A third challenge is the need for more and higher paying secure jobs in the Mexican econ- Summary-The Challenges for Mexico omy. While the last thirty years have seen great These are the challenges facing Mexico today. progress in moving from a rural and agricultural One is the role of the Mexican state and the psy- state with much subsistence-based agriculture, far chological orientations of the citizens. Since pre- too many factory jobs have low skill levels and Hispanic times much of the society has seen the low pay. This has been much of the legacy of the state as externally imposed, controlled by various maquilas, jobs of limited intellectual and skill conquerors, and a vehicle that exploits citizens. content exported from the United States, Ger- The state will alternatively use force and subsi- many, and Japan to a cheap labor state. Globaliza- dies to secure compliance. The citizen views the tion of such labor has forced Mexico not to com- state warily as a corrupt vehicle from the local pete just with American labor that is paid by a cop to the highest office. A dedicated and honest factor of 10 or more per unit of work but with civil service is less well-developed than in many workers in China and India where wages are a modern societies. Some promise occurred in the fraction of already low Mexican wages. late 1980’s with the departure of the Miguel de la A fourth challenge is the decline of producing Madrid administration, which signaled the end of oil fields to generate funds for the State and ex- the monopoly power of the PRI that had domi- port earnings. Without these earnings Mexico can nated all of Mexico since the 1910 revolution and neither command nor coerce loyalty to the state. the appearance of alternative political parties in The large earnings from illegal drugs, the prox- the south but especially in the north of Mexico. imity to the American side where there is money Vicente Fox and then Felipe Calderon of the PAN and a market for the drugs, and the readily avail- provided some hope of more viable political insti- able weapons that can be purchased in a Houston tutions. Institutions survive either from coercion or Los Angeles build an alternative government or trust. Neither is in adequate supply for Mexico in the northern lands. today. The strength of confianza betrays the A fifth challenge is the current economic de- weakness of the nation. cline in the United States. For many decades the A second challenge is the high level of pov- U.S. has served as a safety valve for the unem-

30 Professional Development: The International Journal of Continuing Social Work Education

ployed of Mexico who could find earnings here. like northern Mexico, more populous, less edu- During the real estate boom of the last decade cated, younger, and poorer. Such findings have millions of Mexicans found work in real estate substantial significance when viewed through the construction and related fields. With the bursting lenses of theories of social participation and inno- of the real estate bubble those jobs are gone, vation (Sampson 1988; Putnam 1996; Putnam which increases unemployment of Mexicans in 2000; Skocpol 2003). the United States or sees their return to cities in Mexico’s challenges are substantial and endur- Mexico, which already has too few jobs. ing. In the 20th century it made great progress in A sixth challenge is the fact that the north of economic development and improving education, Mexico has always looked as much to the United housing, and health for greater percentages of the States as to Mexico City as its center of gravity. population. It entered the global arena of labor As earnings from oil and manufacturing decline, and manufacturing and now is exposed to these the ties of the north to the United States will forces seeing India, China, and even Central strengthen. The growth of PAN majorities in cit- American countries competing for manufacturing ies and states of the north challenge the powerful for lower wages than Mexico’s. Its largest trading grip of Mexico City. The existence of drug cartels partner is the United States but that exposes the as an alternative to government gives pause to the country more to the vagaries of the American assurance that Mexico can continue in the 21st economy. The violence, now endemic not just on century as it did in the 20th. the border but in much of Mexico, is the more visible indicator of a nation that may be failing. A Dead Elephant on the Doorstep Past solutions have partial adequacy, and desper- A decade ago Texans first began to be con- ate migration to the Southwest border is already cerned about the changing demographics of their producing alarms in many American states. state. The state demographer, Steve Murdock As my recounting of conversations with (Murdock 1996), extrapolated interim census esti- friends and colleagues in Mexico some years ago, mates and suggested by 2030 or so Texas would much about Mexico remains mysterious to become a minority-majority state. The most Americans and perhaps to Mexicans as well. Part populous ethnic group would be persons of Mexi- of the mystery is that facts about Mexico’s econ- can descent and they would become the majority. omy, its governments, and much of its social or- Murdock focused his report on several attributes ganization are elusive, and that may be deeply of Mexican-Americans in Texas and similar at- rooted in the anthropology and psychology of tributes of Mexican citizens. Among Murdock’s Mexico. That is part of what my old physician points and extrapolations were that Mexican- friend explained as I puzzled about trying to se- Americans had the lowest levels of school attain- cure a population estimate of Mexican cities. My ment and highest levels of school dropouts of all sense was then and is today that there are few ethnic groups in Texas. Lower educational levels “facts” about Mexico. mean lower incomes and perhaps higher crime Today there is a dimension of this reality as rates. Importantly Mexican-Americans were less well in the States. Unemployment statistics in the likely to vote, participate in civic organizations, United States are illustrative. The Labor Depart- own a business, serve on juries, school boards, ment reported in December, 2008, a national un- etc. They were as a group in Texas like Mexicans employment rate of 7.2%. However because of in Mexico, and that as a culture very wary of reporting and statistical adjustments over the last civic engagement. Murdock concluded that with- 20 years this rate underestimates what would out cultural change, Texas in 2030 would be more have been reported in the 1980’s. Today’s rate

31 Mexico: Past, Present and Future

Source: The Merida Initiative, “Guns, Drugs, and Friends”, S. Prt. 110-35. Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate. 110th Cong., 1st Sess. December 21, 2007, pp. 7-8, at http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi? dbname=110_cong_senate_committee_prints&docid=f.39644.pdf (July 11, 2008). appears to underestimate the underemployed and tual, and the government is greater in Mexico the discouraged worker. John Williams runs one than it is in the United States. This is a potentially popular internet site that provides sharply differ- perilous state of affairs for any nation if trust ent figures than those provided by entities like the erodes in the government, its currency, and its Department of Labor and the Federal Reserve. official numbers. (Williams 2008) A second part of the mystery is the fragility of Nevertheless my experience is that the discon- the labor market in Mexico as expressed memora- nect between the citizen, including the intellec- bly for me by the paradoxical reactions of UNAM

32 Professional Development: The International Journal of Continuing Social Work Education

liberals to the assault at Tiananmen Square. It of military forces and strategies. That is also the remains as vulnerable today. Mexico does not Mexican response. This is not promising and may have the educational infrastructure to provide prove paradoxical. Significant among the major high school and college to most of its population. violent entities of the Mexican cartel are groups Without education, especially at the higher levels, known as Zetas. These are felt to be former mem- Mexico cannot generate an economy that pro- bers of the Mexican army trained at elite military vides high levels of jobs and income, which trans- posts by the United States Army to improve com- late to wealth. (Meyer, Sherman et al., 2003; mand functioning and combat in asymmetrical Heckman 2008; Katz 2008) situations. These are cartel members with inti- A third part is the whispered fear of persons mate knowledge of the weapons and tactics that long familiar with Mexico of what could be the the American military has evolved to use in situa- American response in the face of a failed state in tions like Bosnia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. They are Mexico. Other contributions in this volume exam- using these skills against Mexican civilians, po- ine some of the detail of the criminal gangs that lice, and the military with devastating effect. now plague all of Mexico. To a great extent law Hasty solutions are the most likely to yield enforcement in Mexico has been corrupt for dec- unintended consequences. The American re- ades by the standards of the United States, Can- sponse to date is slow and only beginning to de- ada, and much of Europe. Municipal police of- velop. Other urgencies -- including wars in the fices have supported themselves with fines, and in Middle East, terrible storms along the Gulf, and some areas an officer’s beat is his franchise. spreading economic problems -- have delayed There have been times and locales in the United recognition of how dire the situation is. Mexico’s States when this was true but it is more continu- problems play more to immediate “bites in the 24 ous and pervasive in Mexico. However, in the last hour cycle of cable news” than to a considered, two decades the degree of corruption, violence, long-term understanding of the cultures and organized cartels, money, and direct challenge to economies of the two nations. An effective re- the government are without precedent in a hun- sponse must include changes in the educational dred years. Efforts to control the plazas, the system in both countries, efforts to understand the bridges that lead from Mexican border cities into very significantly different cultural outlooks be- the United States, have rendered cities such as tween Americans and Mexicans, strategic choices Nuevo Laredo, Juarez, and Tijuana combat zones in manufacturing directions and energy develop- with deaths in Juarez alone in 2008 running about ment, greater transparency in government at all 3,000. It is the visibility and urgency associated levels, adjustments in saving and consumption with this violence that is forcing the Mexican patterns, restrictions and controls on certain trade topic on the United States and the border question and labor items, and structured interventions in on Mexico City. As President Calderon has civic participation. Without such fundamental sought to control the violence in the border, the efforts, more police, soldiers, walls, and helicop- result seems to be that the cartels have moved to ters run the risk of being only palliative. challenge the government itself. High level offi- With a crashing world economy, the bank- cials have been killed, and kidnapping for ransom ruptcy of some of America’s grandest banks, bro- long a fear of the wealthy in Mexico now appears kerages, insurance companies, and even auto at rate of 40 a week and afflicts the middle class manufacturers, a new President in the United as well as the wealthy. States, anger and fear building in American com- So far the American response has been either munities toward outsiders, rising unemployment, increased police presence or, failing that, the use sharp oscillations in the price of oil, and a deep

33 Mexico: Past, Present and Future

apprehension of cartel violence on both sides of Fisher, L. E. (1988). Pyramid of the Sun, Pyramid the border, the United States and Mexico must act of the Moon. New York: Macmillan. judiciously and with all deliberate speed to ad- Frye, D. L. (1996). Indians into Mexicans : his- dress these issues. tory and identity in a Mexican town. Austin: University of Texas Press. References Fuentes, C. (1996). A New Time for Mexico. http://www.geographia.com/mexico/ Berkeley: University of California Press. mexicohistory.htm Fuentes, C. (1997). A new time for Mexico. http://www.colmex.mx/ Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press. http://mexico.web.com.mx/english/ Hagan, W. T. (1993). Quanah Parker, Comanche http://www.mexicosolidarity.org/ Chief. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. http://www.trace-sc.com/ Heckman, J. (2008). "Schools, Skills and Syn- http://www.unam.mx/ apses," Economic Inquiry 46(3): 289-324. http://lanic.utexas.edu/la/mexico/ Katz, C. G. a. L. (2008). "The Race Between http://www.presidencia.gob.mx/ Education and Technology". New York, NY: http://www.mexconnect.com/ Oxford University Press. http://www.mexonline.com/ Kemper, R. V. (1982). "The Compadrazgo in http:// www.inegi.gob.mx/ Urban Mexico." Anthropological Quarterly 55 (1): 17-30. Coe, M. D., and Richard A. Diehl (1980). In the Kemper, R. V. (2002). Mexico City. Encyclope- Land of the Olmec. Austin: University of Texas dia of Urban Cultures. M. E. a. C. R. Ember. Press. Danbury, CT, Grolier Publishing Co. 3: 184- Cortés, H. (1986). Letters from Mexico. New 197. Haven: Yale Univ. Press. Krauze, E. (1990). "Mexico: Biography of de Sahagœn, F. B. (1950-1981). The Florentine Power." New York: Harper. Codex: A General History of the Things of Lauderdale, M. L., Peterson, J. H., and Swadesh, New Spain, Books 1-12. Salt Lake City: Univ. F. L. (1970).""Sistemus cuantitativos en el of Utah Press. estudio del combio sociocultural," America Díaz del Castillo, B. (1986). The Discovery and Indigena, Vol. XXX, No. 1. Conquest of Mexico1517-1521. Laguna Beach, Lauderdale, M. (1986). "Applications of GIS to CA: Buccaneer Books. Mexican Social Data." Third Robert Sutherland Díaz del Castillo, B. and J. M. Cohen (1963). The Seminar 3, Austin: University of Texas at Aus- conquest of New Spain. Baltimore: Penguin tin. Books. Lewis, O. (1959). Five families; Mexican case Farb, P. (1968). Man's rise to civilization as studies in the culture of poverty. New York: shown by the Indians of North America from Basic Books. primeval times to the coming of the industrial Lewis, O. (1963). The children of Sânchez: auto- state. New York: Dutton. biography of a Mexican family. New York: Fehrenbach, T. R. (1973). Fire and blood: a his- Vintage Books. tory of Mexico. New York: Macmillan. Llana, S. M. (2008, February 26). Mexico's Oil Fehrenbach, T. R. (1979). Fire and blood: a his- Imports. Christian Science Monitor. Boston, tory of Mexico. New York: Collier Books. MA. Fehrenbach, T. R. (2003). Comanches: the history Madsen, W. (1964). The Mexican-Americans of of a people. New York: Anchor Books. South Texas. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart

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