Buses overloaded at border

Hola y’all!

We all know that this monday marks the beginning of “holy Week” or “Semana Santa” and many of us want to go see our families in Mexico or they will come to visit. A word to the wise: plan accordingly and buy your tickets now, especially if you plan to go by bus. The bus systems are different for the Mexican and the American side and you will need to change buses in Laredo before crossing the border. The change is due to the fact that buses with American license plates can’t cross into Mexico, and buses with Mexican license plates can go no further than Laredo.

Nevertheless bus changing is not the problem. The problem is that bus tickets are not sold numbered. They work on a first on the bus first served basis. So it requires skill to get off the bus, get your luggage and be first in line to board the bus taking you to Mexico. The same system applies when you come back. buses stopping at Laredo release dozens of people that need to get to Dallas, houston, San Antonio or Austin and most of the times it is one bus that takes you every where and makes stops. 

This weekend I traveled from Monterrey to Austin and I saw a couple of people being left because there wasn’t enough space on the bus, or left at the border while getting the I-94 white permission. So, enjoy your “Semana Santa” just be ready to be early at the bus station and fully alert during your whole trip in order to get home and back safely.

Times are hard

Hola y’all!

It is no secret that the economy has taken an undesirable direction. And like always, none are hit harder than immigrants and minorities. In the past, economic crisis have precipitates spikes in immigration to the US.

“The current global financial crisis appears to be having the oppostie effect on Mexican migration: poor economic conditions are motivating Mexicans to remain at home” (Edward W. Littlefield)

Immigration from Mexico into the US, both legal and illegal, has stopped growing and has even reversed facing difficult conditions to find work in the US. The INEGI, Mexico’s statistical research organism recently reported that from August 2007 to August 2008 the illegal and legal outflow of immigrants has decreased in over 50%, from 455,000 to 204,000.

“Unemployment among Mexicans immigrants was 9.7% in January, up from 4.5 in March o last year and higher than the 7.6% for the US overall according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.”(Foreign Policy article)

The 16-35 million Mexicans who depend on remittances from relatives in the US to boost their incomes will have a harder time because remittances have decreased if not completely stopped with many Mexican immigrants returning home.  Remittances have decreased 11.6%.

The Colegio de la Frontera Norte (studies the northern border of Mexico) has reported a 24.5% increase in Mexicans returning home from the US in 2007. Numbers from 2008 are still being processed but expected to be higher. JP Morgan, an American investment bank predicts that Mexico’s economy will contract by 4% in 2009, which means even less jobs. The panorama for those heading back does not look any better.

Mexican migrants are returning home due to harsh economic circumstances in the US

 

Mexico’s economy secretary said early in February that “zero” formal jobs would be created this year. Mexico isn’t prepared to provide working possibilities to all those who return home to their families. Those who return with experience from their construction jobs and other and eventually find work will most likely be expecting higher wages than they will get…also hindering household economics.

“Mexico would be unable to cope with a mass return of migrant workers. For one, unemployment figures would rise at a much faster pace and any further social unrest of the back of this could destabilize the government” sair London’s Latin News Daily.  

The Reality of the Drug War

Hola y’all!

With the past coming of Spring Break and the possibility of hordes of youngsters heading into Mexico for a good time, the Amercian media made a statement by refereeing constantly to the Drug War in Mexico and the uncertain safety for those who ventured into the country for a couple of days.  This is understandable: any sort of situation becomes highly unsafe if you are talking about college students getting irrevocably drunk and wonder in the middle of the streets of Mexican border towns.

Medina Mora, Mexico’s Attorney General, said 8,150 people had been killed since President Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006. (LA Times)

Nevertheless, the media coverage of the drug war and its resulting violence is creating a negative image of Mexico that is sure to affect tourism. It is our job as Texicans to spread the word about the real situation of the drug war whenever someone asks.

Facts:

The war on drug trafficking has left a trail of violence but it is not so everywhere.

1)killings over the drug wars more than doubled in 2008 (compared to the previous numbers in 2007).

2)the violence is concentrated in border states like Chihuahua, and Baja California where the battle amongst cartels and with the police has taken its toll in lives.

3) Sinaloa, being the operating centre of the Sinaloan Cartel is also a hot spot for drug war related violence.

4)On 2 April, Eduardo Medina Mora, the Procurador General de la República, claimed that gang killings were down 25% in the first quarter of 2009.The Mexican government is under heavy pressure from the US to demonstrate that its security strategy is working. The easiest way to do this is to lower the death toll. It managed to reduce the death toll in Ciudad Juárez, the most dangerous city on the continent, by deploying 8,000 troops and police officers in the city for the whole of March.

Yet, we speak of 3 states in a country made up of 32, and where our tourism is mostly locate in the south-east region, as far away as possible from the drug war and the drama that is fighting drug trafficking.  And in comparison to other latin American countries, despite the drug war Mexico enjoys a lesser rate of violence.

“Mexico’s overall homicide rate, 11 deaths per 100,000 people, was a small fraction of the rates in Colombia, Guatemala and El Salvador” Eduardo Medina Mora,  Mexico’s Attorney General has stated.  (from NY Times article)

Granted this doesn’t mean that border towns such as Tijuana, Reynosa, or Ciudad Juarez are no longer unsafe, but that we cannot allow them to represent the whole country. Mexico has so much to offer and during these harsh financial times we need foreign investment. SO, as Mexicans abroad, we are ambassadors of our country. It is our duty to ease people’s minds, without ignoring the safety issue, but assuring them that Cancun, central Mexico, Vallarta, etc are places that, gladly, the drug war has left untouched.

Photo Essay about drug war

Outburst of Narco-related tourism

More than 9,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence in Mexico since President Felipe Calderon took office in 2006. And according to NY Times article “For Some Taxi Drivers, a Different Kind of Traffic” the site of these killings have become tourist attractions.

In Sinaloa, a Mexican state that is host to the drug war’s most intense scenarios you can visist the shrine to Jesús Malverde, the mustachioed bandit hanged in 1909 and now considered the patron saint to the underworld. But similar spots exist closer to the border with Texas.

In Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Tex., tourists, are taken to the spot where the cartel leader Osiel Cárdenas was arrested in 2003 after a shooting incident with Mexican officials.

Cabbies’ “narco-tours” in Mazatlán, a resort city in Sinaloa State, stop at a house that belonged to Francisco Arellano Félix, of the Tijuana cartel.

 

 “Tourism officials don’t want to promote the narco-culture,” said Silvestre Flores, a Sinaloa academic who has written about Mazatlán’s drug tours. “They see it as something that damages the image of the place.”

Nevertheless, even with all of the government’s efforts to draw attention away from these spots, occasionally people will leave flowers at their graves, or ask a taxi driver to take them to visit the final resting place of one or another deceased drug lord; a sign that the cartels still have a hold on Mexico’s imagination.

“Mexicans are fed up with their country’s unprecedented level of bloodshed as rival drug cartels clash with the authorities and among themselves. But the outrage is tinged by a fascination with the colorful lives of the outlaws.”

This is also a symptom of the lack of governability in the northern regions of Mexico where civilians are left withouth the protection of the State so they turn to drug dealers. Eventually their loyalty shifts from the federal government who does nothing for their particular situation, to the drug lord that protects them, employs them, takes care of their children etc.

March 28th “¡Si se pudo!”

PODER (People Organized in Defense of Earth and her Resources), successfully organized the Cesar E. Chavez “Si se Puede!” Marcha and Rally the past Saturday March 28th. This march was made in honor of Chavez’s birthday on the 31st of April and is done to remember the importance of this contemporary leader.

César Estrada Chávez (March 31, 1927 – April 23, 1993) was a Mexican American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist who, with Dolores Huerta, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers.[1] (wikipedia)

Groups of People gathered to march in rememberance of Cesar Chavez's birthday and what he stood for in terms of mexican american and farmers' rights.

 

The people involved in the march were carrying posters and signs that mentioned some of the most important points that Chavez championed over his time: health, education, civil rights, environmental justice, women’s rights…etc. Cesar Chavez inspired millions of people across the country of all races and nationalities to engage in social & economic justice for farm workers.  His life work to , empower the poor & disenfranchised is a model for all: a genuine Mexican American hero, that even if we wasn’t a Texican because most of his work took place in different states, he still embodies what we need, strong community leaders with a sense of culture and the courage to fight for the rights of his people 

Fellow blogger

hola y’all! 

In my internet adventures I found another blog that touches some of the issues particularly relevant to us “texicans”

Immigration Talk with a Mexican American  , is a blog written by a mexican american in response to media posts and stories about immigration. The blogger for this particular page is much more versed than I am in terms of immigation law and the judicial process involved so it is definitely worthwhile spending a couple of minutes perusing its posts to learn more about the situation that many of us are familiar with. 

 

de Limas y Limones

Hola y’all!

It is very interesting how discussions of cultural identity can jump out of nowhere. I was at a bar with a friend and he asked me to teach him how to drink tequila. Assumption #1: Mexicans know how to drink and enjoy tequila. So I agreed because it coincides that I am Mexican and I indeed like tequila. So I asked the bartender to bring us a couple of lemons, expecting to get the green kind, with the harder skin. He brought us our drinks and two yellow lemons. I was perplexed. In spanish, the green ones are “limones”  (sounds like lemons) and the yellow ones are “limas” (sounds more like limes).

Traditionally tequila shots are taken with "limes", green citrusy thing we know as "limones" in Mexico.

Decided to find out what had happened I asked my friend which are lemons and which are limes. His story was exactly the same as the bartender: green limes, yellow lemons.  Assumption #2: some words in english sound like things in spanish and refer to the same thing. So, if a simple thing like a garnish on a drink can be such a hassle, mexican-americans deal with even bigger language variances because we assume things. I believe this is important to being a “Texican” because being so close to home we take confidence in the fact that most people will understand what it is we want without need for clarification but then we get angry and feel offended if they don´t. 

Us, like every other person, immigrant or not, cannot rely on assumptions to communicate. We must me aware of the cultural differences that separates us, in order to work with them. In no way should we try to hide them or be ashamed of them. Take pride in who we are as a mixture of two worlds but don’t assume people will automatically understand it.