Uncovering Mexico
Jeremy Schwartz is the Mexico correspondent for Cox Newspapers. He is based in Mexico City.What's on this page?
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Home > Uncovering Mexico > Archives > 2008 > July
July 2008
Small town suspicion
We arrived in Obrajuelo, a tiny pueblo in Guanajuato, to speak with return migrants. The visit had been arranged well in advance and the local councilman was there to meet us when we pulled into town. But we could tell something was wrong as soon as we got out of the car. The councilman shook our hands, but he was antsy. He began mumbling something about us needing a permit to speak with the townspeople. This was beyond strange. As Orwellian as Mexico’s bureaucracy can seem sometimes, it still does not require journalists to get a permit to interview its citizens. Despite our protests, the councilman insisted we drive to the nearby county seat to get the permit. “There have been extorsions,” he said cryptically. “The people won’t talk to you until you get a permit.” At this point a police car pulled up and two cops began peering inside our rented SUV. OK, I told the councilman, we’ll go to presidencia municipal.
At the presidencia (a combo of city hall and county courthouse), a young man in the “social communication” section apologized for the hassle and explained that a few weeks ago someone had come to town posing as a journalist, talking his way into people’s homes and then robbing them. Officials just wanted to make sure I was legit. I showed them my government-issued press credential and was allowed to leave (the phantom “permit” did not exist - the young bureaucrat looked mystified when I told him councilman said I needed one).
Usually when we hit small towns in Mexico, the reception is warm and hospitable. We’ve had our finest meals in the homes of local residents, been grateful for their kindness and marveled at their willingness to open up to us. But on occasion we meet some suspicious minds. Obrajuelo is an extreme example, but I have been mistaken for all manner of American law enforcement.
In the coastal town of San Marcos, south of Acapulco, we set out in search of a former migrant who imported fighting cocks. This was a tough fellow to find. We asked half the town it seemed, until we finally found someone who knew where to find him. “But I doubt he’ll talk to you,” the man told me. “Oh, is he a little leery of reporters?” I asked. “What? Aren’t you with the embassy? I thought you were looking to take him in.” When I finally reached the cockfighter, he was friendly as could be once he realized I was a reporter.
In Luvianos, in the Tierra Caliente, friendly residents warned me that I might be mistaken for an FBI agent. The area had had its problems with drug traffickers and the FBI (or people the locals thought were FBI agents) had taken part in operations. Apparently white guys wondering the town tended to be law enforcement officials. After hearing that, I made sure to keep my reporter’s notebook prominently exposed.
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Driving through Mexico? Get your wallet out
We just got back from a road trip to nearby Michoacan and Guanajuato, both places a little more than three hours from the Mexican capital. The 376-mile round trip cost us about $54 in tolls, a vivid reminder that comfortable long distance driving is only for those with money in Mexico. To put the tolls in perspective, it would take a laborer making minimum wage 10 days of work to save enough money for the trip. The free alternative consists of horrendous, winding roads filled with frequent stops as you pass through small towns. Like many things in Mexico, road travel is a two-tiered system based largely on class.
Consider the following toll prices: from Mexico City to nearby Acapulco (at just four hours from Mexico City, it’s a favorite weekend getaway for Chilangos), it’ll cost you about $100 roundtrip in tolls. To drive from Nuevo Laredo to Mexico City and back, it’ll run you about $120 roundtrip. The Transportation and Communications Ministry has an excellent website that will compute your toll costs, valuable information for anyone planning a road trip in Mexico.
Many toll roads in Mexico were built and are managed by private companies, a privatization strategy devised by the cash-strapped federal government. The Calderon administration is planning on another 24 privately managed toll roads, according to the Los Angeles Times. While the strategy has resulted in many more miles of clean, fast highways, it’s also priced out average Mexicans.
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Cutting to the heart of the Mexico City emo question
Former AP journo turned freelancer-extraordinaire Ioan Grillo has produced this excellent video on the emo ruckus that consumed Mexico City a couple months ago. The mini-doc for current.com has one of the better definitions of what emo means in Mexico City as well as some jarring footage of a run-in between punks and emos.
For more insight into the emo phenomenon and subsequent attacks on them, blogger Daniel Hernandez (featured in the video) meticulously chronicled the emo saga during the dog days of the Mexican spring at his culture blog Intersections
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Mexican universities tougher to get into than Harvard
Here’s a statistic that may help explain Mexico’s economic malaise: only about 9 percent of students who applied to Mexico City’s vast National Autonomous University (UNAM) got in for the fall semester. That number, which comes to us thanks to David Agren over at The News (Mexico’s biggest English language newspaper has finally jumped online) and is further proof of the lack of opportunity that stymies Mexico’s youth.
As Agren reports, highly subsidized public schools like the UNAM are basically the only option for low income youth. Mexico’s private universities generally charge stratospheric prices and Mexico’s many so-called “institutes,” while cheap, are poorly regarded by employers. So when the UNAM rejects 57,000 kids in a single semester, you have to wonder where they will end up.
School officials blame (shocker) a lack if public funding for the space shortage, saying it hasn’t kept up with increasing demand.
But it’s not as though job prospects for college grads are all that great in Mexico City. The city is littered with computer science majors selling pirated software and biologists driving taxi cabs. More than 40 percent of Mexicans aged 15 to 24 can’t find a job, according to the nonprofit group Young Entrepreneurs for Mexico.
As Mexico lurches toward democracy, one if its biggest challenges will be creating opportunity for its youth. For too many, Mexico remains a closed society.
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Obama’s sister wooing expats in Mexico
The Democratic Party has made targeting ex-pats a priority this election season, hoping to take advantage of the more than 6 million Americans who live outside the country (that’s more than 24 entire states). For the first time, ex-pats got their own Democratic primary (Obama took 65 percent of the vote) and will have 11 votes at this summer’s Democratic convention in Denver.
Now that the general election is on us, the Democrats Abroad group is pushing its members to get their absentee ballots by signing up online. We’ll see if the effort improves the numbers. The AP reports that of the 990,000 who requested absentee ballots in 2004, less than 400,000 were actually counted (problems with foreign mail services got most of the blame).
Soetoro-Ng is a Honolulu teacher who is Obama’s half-sister on his mother’s side (after she divorced Obama’s Kenyan father, she re-married an Indonesian man). She will be courting Mexico City’s large American population, many of whom are indeed wealthy enough to afford a couple of plates.
There is also a Republicans Abroad group, which helps Republican ex-pats get absentee ballots for individual states.
Republican candidate John McCain visited Mexico last week, but it’s not clear if Obama will head south of the border before the election.
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Next Mexican resort: Tequila!
Tequila. Tacos. Acapulco. In that order, those are the three words that Americans most associate with Mexico, according to a study by Mexico’s National Tourism Confederation. Hoping to take advantage of that invaluable name recognition, the small town of Tequila (the birthplace of the famous spirit) is positioning itself as Mexico’s next major tourist destination.
Officials recently announced a $7 million infrastructure improvement for scenic lookouts, expanded roads, and artistic fountains. Several new resort-style hotels are in the works, hoping to convince tourists to spend the night (most visitors are daytrippers).
I haven’t visited Tequila yet (although I’ve tasted some of the amazing artesenal tequilas available in Guadalajara), but for those of you who have, what do you think of the plan to make it more tourist-friendly?
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Mexico on Miss Universe: We were robbed!
The Mexican commentators on Galavision were fuming after the results. “This makes me so mad,” said Eduardo Videgaray immediately after the broadcast ended.
In the aftermath of the pageant, angry Mexican web surfers took their anger out in cyberspace. “Without a doubt they stole the crown from Mexico. (She) had an elegance that the rest of them lacked,” said “Juan” on the Televisa website esmas.com. “Ivy” was even madder: “She was a perfect woman!!! She had everything to be a Miss Universe - height, body, face, intelligence, bearing. It makes me think that POLITICS WAS INVOLVED IN THIS!!!!”
On the Reforma newspaper website, “Ignacio” thundered: “Of course this was fraud! Mexico answered better and had much more class than the Venezuelan.”
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Mexico visitors to get sales tax rebates
Travelers to Mexico can now get the sales tax they paid while visiting returned to them as they leave the country. Mexico’s sales tax is nothing to sneeze at - normally 15 percent of purchases.The big catch is that you’ll need a receipt from a store that is part of Mexico’s Tax Administration Service, meaning purchases at Mexico’s legion of markets and street stalls don’t qualify.
The rebates are only available to visitors who leave by air or sea and can prove that they spent at least 1,200 pesos (about $115) while in Mexico, and don’t apply to lodging or food. For now the program is in effect at the airports in Mexico City, Cancun, Guadalajara, Los Cabos and Puerto Vallarta. The second stage will hit airports in Monterrey, Morelia, Mazatlan, Cozumel and El Bajio later this year.
The program is modeled after those in Europe and other international destinations and is aimed at stimulating travel (and souvenir buying) to Mexico.
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2010: Mexico City embraces the future
For the next two years, getting around Mexico City will be even more of a nightmare than usual. The city is plagued with massive construction projects that are snarling what is already gridlock traffic. But by 2010, just in time for Mexico’s bicentennial celebrations, Mexico City will have undergone a transportation facelift that should make the city far more livable.
City officials have done little in the last decades to ease Mexico City’s horrendous traffic. But Mayor Marcelo Ebrard has embarked on a number of projects, that, despite their short term pain, should ease things considerably.
The major street overhaul is taking place on the city’s Circuito Interior, a major thoroughfare that encircles the city. Despite being a major, divided highway, Circuito has several stoplights that halt morning and afternoon commutes in their tracks (why the road wasn’t built with overpasses is anyone’s guess - it’s like having stoplights on I-35 as it snakes through Austin). Ebrard is seeking to remedy the situation by building five overpasses that should make Circuito a free flowing entity and help commuters make their way across the city.
Ebrard is also making serious advances to the city’s public transportation. He is building the city’s 12th subway line, which has been dubbed both the “golden line” and the “bicentennial line.” With wifi, bathrooms and and a museum, the line will be the most luxurious and modern in the system and serve residents in the south of the city.
And Ebrard is continuing the Metrobus system started by his predecessor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Ebrard wants 10 Metrobus lines in the next decade and several should be ready in time for the Bicentennial. The Metrobus travels along major avenues in a dedicated lane, meaning the buses don’t get stuck in traffic. They also replace the army of “peseros,” mini-buses that make unannounced stops, drive like they’re being chased by the police and generally clog, rather than ease, traffic.
And tourists will love the new downtown trolley scheduled to be ready by 2010. The sleek-looking trolleys will pass through the Centro Historico and popular sites like the Palacio Nacional and Bellas Artes, helping ease congestion and giving the colonial neighborhood a modern twist.
And Eje Central, a main boulevard that ends in the Centro, is getting an environmental facelift, complete with dedicated lanes for electric buses, bike lanes and tree plantings.
In all, the improvements are badly needed. But getting to 2010 will try our patience.
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Mexico City kidnappers dress as police
Here’s yet another reason (and perhaps the most graphic) why Mexico City residents have a deep mistrust of police: according to the city’s attorney general’s office, 80 percent of the reported kidnappings in recent months occurred at the hands of criminal bands dressed as law enforcement agents.
According to the Reforma newspaper, in most cases the kidnappers dressed as agents of the AFI (Mexico’s version of the FBI), carried high caliber weapons and said they were looking for guns or drugs. They would force their victims from their cars and take them to a safe house. One unnamed source in the city prosecutors office said the favorite target of the faux police has been the children of wealthy businessmen.
Kidnappings have been falling in Mexico City since the mid 2000’s, when citizen’s groups staged massive protests against the rising crime wave. But the first three months of 2008 has seen a spike of 76 percent compared to the same period in 2007 (25 to 44 reported). Many experts pegged the increase on weak intelligence among law enforcement as well as the public’s reluctance to report kidnappings. It is often assumed here that police are in collusion with kidnappers and experts believe the number of unreported kidnappings could be more than double the official statistic.
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Merida Initiative: Behind the scenes
A couple weeks ago, the $400 million aid package known as the Merida Initiative, looked to be dying a slow, painful death. The U.S. Congress had saddled it with several human rights conditions that the Mexican government blasted as unacceptable. Few inside Mexico, including several lawmakers, had much hope the U.S. Congress would effectively agree to a do-over and strip their legislation of the offending conditions. Such a turn of events would represent a diplomatic coup in Mexico, and if there’s one thing the Mexican government hasn’t excelled at, it’s been influencing U.S. policy (see: eight years of Mexican frustration with U.S. immigration laws).
Yet last week, the U.S. Congress said “my bad” and rewrote its Merida Initiative package, stripping it of its most antagonizing conditions. How did this happen? The answer may have something to do with terrorism.
Publicly, President Felipe Calderon was pounding away at the U.S.’s responsibility in the drug war: after all, the Mexican president repeated, Mexican cops and officials were being slaughtered in an attempt to keep drugs from reaching the American market. Privately, the Mexican embassy in Washington D.C. was mounting a frantic lobbying campaign to save the aid package, an effort aimed primarily at Democratic congressmen, according to the El Universal newspaper.
But officials here say the key was the Interparliamentary Group Meeting in Monterrey at the beginning of June, which brought together Mexican and American lawmakers. Mexican deputies were able to convince their counterparts, including Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), of the importance of the package. Deputy Alejandro Chanona told El Universal that the most effective argument was that if both countries didn’t work together, it would open up the door to terrorism on the U.S.’s southern flank.
The about face by the U.S. Congress is now being interpreted in Mexico as “change of attitude” by the U.S. when it comes to the drug war, a sign that America has finally owned up to its responsibility to Mexico. Said Mexican Ambassador Jorge Montano: “I consider this decision a success in as much as it’s the first time the United States recognizes that it’s not a Mexican, or Central and South American problem, but that it needs to assume costs and responsibilities.”