Articles of Interest
Mexico, Arizona's best friend
By Ricardo Castro-Salazar*
Click here for spanish version published in La Estrella>
It is easy to lose perspective of Mexico's importance to the United States, particularly during this time of negative media exposure. Yet the complex relationship between the two countries extends far beyond their problems. Particularly in Arizona it is important to understand the magnitude of this relationship so we may appreciate not only its challenges, but also its benefits. I highlight here just a few of the established links between the two countries, focusing on the critical role they play in Arizona's economy:
Officially, Mexico is the United States' third most important trading partner, having been nudged from second place by China. Yet if one compares the value of imports and exports between the U.S. and these countries, one will discover that Mexico consumes almost twice the amount of U.S. goods than China does. With more than twelve times the population of Mexico, China buys fewer U.S. products, but remains the second most important trading partner due to the U.S.'s substantial deficit with China.
Mexico suffers problems of inequity, violence and poverty, say its critics, but the global economy views the country very differently. With a population of 113 million, it houses a more attractive market than many European nations. Impressively, Wal-Mart owns more than 1,400 stores across its territory, including the previously Mexican-owned chains Suburbia, Superama and Aurrera. There are also hundreds of international companies in Mexico and, in spite of the country's challenges, U.S. businesses are expanding (New York Times).
Critics of globalization see this as the corporate invasion of the country. Nevertheless, the story is more complex. Mexico's economy is expected to displace Italy’s as the tenth largest in the world by 2020. Mexico also serves as home to the greatest number of U.S. nationals residing outside of the United States. It is estimated that there are more than one million Americans aged 60 and above living in Mexico, many of whom work in the country (El Financiero).
Moreover, Mexico has become one of the primary destinations for "medical tourism." It is forecasted that by 2020 the country will receive 650,000 visitors for medical reasons, most of whom will be from the U.S. MedToGo International, an agency founded in Arizona, sends patients to Mexico for all types of medical interventions, from in vitro fertilization to heart surgery.
For Arizona, Mexico is crucial. The greatest foreign consumer of Arizonan goods is Mexico (Arizona Department of Commerce). The main trading partner of Arizona by far is its southern neighbor. Canada, its second largest trading partner, consumes less than half of Mexico's share. Moreover, according to a study by the University of Arizona in 2009, the state receives more than 24 million documented visits from Mexican tourists, business people, family members, students and others each year. On average, they have an economic impact of $7.3 million per day throughout the state. In the city of Tucson alone, Mexican visitors spend over one billion dollars annually.
These figures are not new, but it is important to emphasize that they translate into tens of thousands of jobs for Arizonans. In addition, Mexican visitors pay millions of dollars in taxes for what they consume in Arizona, but only Arizona residents benefit from those taxes.
There are also Mexican investors and entrepreneurs who invest large sums in the United States, but in this regard California and Texas enjoy the largest pieces of the pie. The thriving Texan city of San Antonio, for example, has managed to benefit greatly from the Mexican investment that it actively promotes.
The relationship between Mexico and the U.S. will grow in importance as demographics continue to evolve. The Mexican-American population in the U.S. now numbers 31 million, forming part of a Latino/Hispanic population greater than the total populations of Spain, Canada or Australia. In Arizona, 30 percent of the population is Latino/Hispanic, while this proportion rises to 35 percent in Pima County (2010 Census).
These demographic trends provide for a natural interaction between our binational communities, as well as a growing interdependence. Mexico is Arizona's neglected best friend, and it provides an essential key to the recovery and growth of the state's economy.
*Dr. Ricardo Castro-Salazar, president of the Tucson-Mexico Sister Cities, a Research Associate at the Center for Latin American Studies, University of Arizona.One Journalist's View on Mexico
By Linda Ellerbee
Sometimes I’ve been called a maverick because I don’t always agree with my colleagues, but then, only dead fish swim with the stream all the time. The stream here is Mexico. You would have to be living on another planet to avoid hearing how dangerous Mexico has become, and, yes, its true drug wars have escalated violence in Mexico, causing collateral damage, a phrase I hate. Collateral damage is a cheap way of saying that innocent people, some of them tourists, have been robbed, hurt or killed. But that’s not the whole story. Neither is this. This is my story.
I’m a journalist who lives in New York City, but has spent considerable time in Mexico, specifically Puerto Vallarta, for the last four years. I’m in Vallarta now. And despite what I’m getting from the U.S. media, the 24-hour news networks in particular, I feel as safe here as I do at home in New York, possibly safer. I walk the streets of my Vallarta neighborhood alone day or night. And I don’t live in a gated community, or any other All-Gringo neighborhood. I live in Mexico. Among Mexicans. I go where I want –which does not happen to include bars where prostitution and drugs are the basic products–, and take no more precautions than I would at home in New York; which is to say I don’t wave money around, I don’t act the Ugly American, I do keep my eyes open, I’m aware of my surroundings, and I try not to behave like a fool.
I’ve not always been successful at that last one. One evening a friend left the house I was renting in Vallarta at that time, and, unbeknownst to me, did not slam the automatically-locking door on her way out. Sure enough, less than an hour later a stranger did come into my house. A burglar? Robber? Kidnapper? Killer? Drug lord?
No, it was a local police officer, the beat cop for our neighborhood! who, on seeing my unlatched door, entered to make sure everything (including me) was okay. He insisted on walking with me around the house, opening closets, looking behind doors and, yes, even under beds, to be certain no one else had wandered in, and that nothing was missing. He was polite, smart and kind, but before he left, he lectured me on having not checked to see that my friend had locked the door behind her. In other words, he told me to use my common sense.
Do bad things happen here? Of course they do. Bad things happen everywhere, but the murder rate here is much lower than, say, New Orleans, and if there are bars on many of the ground floor windows of houses here, well, the same is true where I live, in Greenwich Village, which is considered a swell neighborhood — house prices start at about $4 million –including the bars on the ground floor windows.
There are good reasons thousands of people from the United States are moving to Mexico every month, and it’s not just the lower cost of living, a hefty tax break and less snow to shovel... Mexico is a beautiful country, a special place. The climate varies, but is plentifully mild, the culture is ancient and revered, the young are loved unconditionally, the old are respected, and I have yet to hear anyone mention Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, or Madonna’s attempt to adopt a second African child, even though, with such a late start, she cannot possibly begin to keep up with Angelina Jolie.
And then there are the people. Generalization is risky, but— in general — Mexicans are warm, friendly, generous and welcoming. If you smile at them, they smile back. If you greet a passing stranger on the street, they greet you back.
If you try to speak even a little Spanish, they tend to treat you as though you were fluent. Or at least not an idiot. I have had taxi drivers track me down after leaving my wallet or cell phone in their cab. I have had someone run out of a store to catch me because I have overpaid by twenty cents. I have been introduced to and come to love a people who celebrate a day dedicated to the dead as a recognition of the cycles of birth and death and birth — and the 15th birthday of a girl, an important rite in becoming a woman — with the same joy.
Too much of the noise you’re hearing about how dangerous it is to come to Mexico is just that — noise. But the media love noise, and too many journalists currently making it don’t live here. Some have never even been here. They just like to be photographed at night, standing near a spotlighted border crossing, pointing across the line to some imaginary country from hell. It looks good on TV.
Another thing. The U.S. media tend to lump all of Mexico into one big bad bowl. Talking about drug violence in Mexico without naming a state or city where this is taking place is rather like looking at the horror of Katrina and saying: Damn! Did you know the U.S. is under water? or reporting on the shootings at Columbine or the bombing of the Federal building in Oklahoma City by saying that kids all over the U.S. are shooting their classmates and all the grownups are blowing up buildings. The recent rise in violence in Mexico has mostly occurred in a few states, and especially along the border. It is real, but it does not describe an entire country.
It would be nice if we could put what’s going on in Mexico in perspective, geographically and emotionally. It would be nice if we could remember that, as has been noted more than once, these drug wars wouldn’t be going on if people in the United States didn’t want the drugs, or if other people in the United States weren’t selling Mexican drug lords the guns. Most of all, it would be nice if more people in the United States actually came to this part of America – Mexico is also North America–, you will recall) to see for themselves what a fine place Mexico really is, and how good a vacation –or a life– here can be.
So come on down and get to know your southern neighbors. I think you’ll like it here.
