From Xico

Mexico's Night at the Oscars

Those of you who watched the Oscars last Sunday probably saw Alejandro González Iñárritu give his very short speech. In case you didn't, or in case you forgot, González Iñárritu won the award for best director and his film for best film and I don't remember what the third award was for. He said, "I want to dedicate this award to my fellow Mexicans, to those who live in Mexico, and I pray that we can find and build the government that we deserve." 

He also said, "I just pray that they [immigrants in the US] might be treated with the same dignity and respect as those who arrived before and built this incredible nation of immigrants."

Quite a lot of people in Gringolandia as in Mexico noticed and commented.  My favorite column is by Jorge Ramos writing in Reforma.  Anderson Cooper is the US version of Jorge Ramos, but Jorge Ramos has Andersoon Cooper beat by a mile (or maybe 1.61 kilometers), although maybe because he has such varied places to express himself and those places don't mind references to writers like Octavio Paz..  

Among other things, Ramos said,

"It isn't easy being Mexican these days. If you live in Mexico, you are live in one of the most violent countries on the continent and, possibly, one of the most corrupt."

 

To me it appears as if the President and some of his cronies don't even realize they are corrupt: it is a fairly small club they belong to, and they only talk to each other, or so it seems.  Maybe they say, "Well, everybody does it."  And perhaps everyone they know does.

 

Ramos goes on to talk about undocumented workers (or what a lot of people in Gringolandia like to call 'illegals' or worse:

"And if you live in the United States without a work permit, visa or residence permit, it is very possible that at some point you might have been discriminated against and even persecuted.¨

 

Because we live in a largely working class colonia we know some people who have gone to Gringolandia and returned.  Not too many, maybe one I can think of, really wants US citizenship or wants to return because he prefers life there. Legal immigrants have to return to keep their legal status in case they ever want to go again to work.

Ramos continues, "There is little to celebrate. But when there is, no one stops us. So the cyber fiesta for winning four Oscars—film director Alejandro González Iñárritu (3) and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki—is attention-grabbing. These Oscars follow the two won last year by Emmanuel Lubezki [his first] and director Alfonso Cuarón.

"We Mexicans are good at partying. Our fiestas are inversely proportional to our squabbles. The more problems there are, the more we enjoy partying. In Labyrinth of Solitude, Octavio Paz wrote:

'It is significant that a country as sad as ours has so many and such lively fiestas. For us, the fiesta is an explosion, an outburst ... There is nothing more lively than a Mexican fiesta.'

"But, also, our fiestas are a form of protest. We take advantage of them to complain and let off steam. Once again Paz:

"In the swirl of the fiesta, we explode. More than opening up, we tear ourselves open."

"Iñárritu's speech in accepting one of the Oscars channeled the anger and frustration felt by many Mexicans on both sides of the border:

"Having come to office via an election questioned for tricks and serious allegations of conflict of interest, Peña Nieto is not an Oscar-winning President. If we have two Oscar-winning filmmakers, why haven't we been able to find a good director of the country?

"The second part of Iñárritu's remarks, about Mexican immigrants living in the United States, was equally strong:

'I just pray that they might be treated with the same dignity and respect," said Birdman's director, "as those who arrived before and built this incredible nation of immigrants.'

"More than half the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States are Mexican. They live persecuted and in the shadows. And the current Congress and Republican governors, mostly, are trying to block President Barack Obama's executive action that would try to help millions of these Mexicans. It is difficult and frustrating being Mexican and undocumented in the United States.

How could Sean Penn have joked,'Who gave a green card to this bastard?' Fortunately, the audience   didn't laugh."Ït went over so badly because It reflects many Americans' xenophobia and rejection of Mexican immigrants."  

 

Or maybe worse, total lack of interest in Mexico and Mexicans.  A relative, a well-educated successful man said he doubted many people in Boston where he lives ever thought about Mexicans.  This didn't seem to be an issue of concern with him.

 

Ramos went on, "In a television interview after the award, Iñárritu was asked about how weird it was that two Mexicans, consecutively, have won an Oscar for best director. 'That's suspicious,' he responded with humor. But, actually, these Oscars destroy many of the stereotypes about Mexicans.

"It isn't easy being Mexican, either inside or outside of Mexico. But when things are tough, the wins are richer, they have more impact, and the fiestas are a blow-out. For there, among the tequilas and the Tweets, I again heard the phrase: Success is the best revenge."

 

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China's Voracious Appetite Is Devouring Mexico's Crafts

In at least two important areas Mexico has seemingly managed to put the kibosh on China's efforts here. The first was the cancellation of its winning bid to build high spped rail here.The second was shutting down the Dragon Mart development near Cancún because of serious environmental damage.

But China has many tentacles.  Now China is overwhelming Mexico's artesanal production.  With Chinese junk, of course.  Today's La Jornada quotes Socorro Oropeza the director of the Unión Nacional de Productores Artesanales Coyolxauhqui which claims 15000 members as saying "We [artesans] are being extinguished" by the cheap Chinese imports. Although Mexican artesans have won international prizes, most live on the edge of poverty, without land. Rodrigo Gutiérrex from the indigenous community of El Rosario in Jalisco said that artesans had stopped making ceramics because of Chinese "junk".  Instead, almost all the artesans in his area collect plastic bottles for which they get 12 pesos a kilo.  (That would be empty plastic bottles.)

As far as I know, there is no official national government support for Mexican craftsmen.  Here in our area, there is a government store, but I don't know about anything else.  I do know we still buy lovely pots and casseroles and dishes from Puebla and our area.  But tourists are the big market.  Tell any you see to BUY MEXICAN.

 

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Dear President Obama, About Aid to Central America

Dear President Obama,

I read a couple of days ago that you were going to seek a billion dollars in non-military aid to Central America in projects designed to reduce the need for people to emigrate.  Although it sounds more humane than sending military aid, aid in the guise of economic and social assistance can backfire pretty seriously. The unfortunate tendancy of diplomats and politicians and the like is to associate in other countries with their counterparts. I suspect at least in some ways, these officials have more in common with each other than with the rest of the people in a country.  Mr. President, you seem to have a real liking for President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico and have offered him support without having any real understanding of his position in his own country.  What you really should do in the case of not only Mexico but Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras is first learn about the country away from the leadership.  A bridge to that knowledge could be Peace Corps Volunteers.  I think the Peace Corps was pulled out of Honduras a couple of years ago, but there remain blogs by some PCVs on the web.  Just look up Peace Corps Honduras.  Guatemala still has Peace Corps, and the web provides some good entries into its experience there.  Same with El Salvador.  I was quite surprised to find out there were Peace Corps Volunteers in Mexico, where my husband and I have lived for eight years.  Having been in the Peace Corps way back in the 1960s, we both would vouch for the fact that at least some of the PCVs have clear-eyed views of the countries they are serving and could even help people from Washington find their way around away from the diplomatic circle. Find some in a variety of situations.

Another thing to understand is that you can't really just suddenly understand the political situation.You might  talk to Carlos Slim about the politics in Mexico.  He's an interesting, odd man who is also very rich. Sometimes he tops Forbes's list of the richest people in the world.  He also owns 17% of the New York Times where there have been some interesting developments regarding Mexico recently. In Mexico, where too many journalists are killed, some nDonetheless remain who would provide excellent insights into power and corruption here. You could start with Carmen Aristegui and Denise Dresser and Roger Ackerman, among others. I translate articles once a week for a site called Mexico Voces: Where Democracy and the Drug War Collide. You can Google the address.  I think journalists in Guatemala, etc. might do the same.

What you also have to understand is that NGOs often have great limitations.  They come in with a vision of what they want to do and all too often trample over local people who understand quite well how things are going.  The local people also often have very good knowledge of what their needs are:  ask them to help you decide what to do.

American economic beliefs are harmful to a lot of people here in Mexico and Central America.  Yes they need education and jobs, but most of all they need to belong to their communities and to be interested in helping them and their families.  I don't think it is good to just lambast the present, but indeed, jobs which uproot people and make them leave for distant places where jobs in Mexico exist in large factories or cut out local potential and cause people to feel they must migrate don't provide good aid.  An example of this is I think farming.  Mexico used to be self-sufficient in corn at least, but the competition from NAFTA products has made it too difficult to earn a living farming corn in Mexico for many people.  Industrial pig raising in our state has put local pig farmers out of business.  The waste from these plants has sullied local water supplies.  Good economic aid might be pilot agricultural projects that exist in a local community that has good resources for farming: good soil and water, for instance.  You might want to get in touch with Robert Hunter Manson at the Institute of Ecology at the University of Veracruz, for instance. His email address is [email protected].

Then there is the problem of crime.  It isn't just going to go away if you rip out people's crops or enlarge the police force, and certainly it isn't if you bolster the military.  I don't have any contacts in this area, but I'm sure you could find some.  It is absolutely critical to understand at least a little of how crime has poisoned the wells.  

I could go on and on and on, obviously, but this is a start.  I want you to know that I deeply love Mexico.  It is a wonderful country, full of cultures and art and history, and a lot of other stuff. It has not benefitted from the US helping greatly to militarize the problems caused by drug gangs.

As my grandmother would have said, "Don't go throwing good money after bad."  And I know you are extremely intelligent, in fact intellectual.  We very smart people often misjudge a situation because we draw connections before we really have some of the important facts.

Most sincerely yours,

Esther Buddenhagen

Colonia Ursulo Galván

Xico 91240, Mexico