Across Borders Diverse Perspectives on Mexico Collected Essays of Contributors to the 11th Annual International Studies Symposiium Edited by Jessica Perkins R Karen Campbell Across Borders: Diverse Perspectives on Mexico Collected essays of con~ibutors to the 11th Ann\lal International Studies Symposium Copyright 2007 ISCMexico 12-227 5 Bayview Ave. Toronto, ON M4N 3M6 mexico@mexicosymposium.org, All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of ISCMexico. Lbrary and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication International Studies Symposium (11th: 2006: Glendon College) Across borders : diverse perspectives on Mexico : collected essays of contributors to the 11th annual International Studies Symposium/ edited by Jessica Perkins & Karen Campbell. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-9783097-0-1 l. Mexico-Congresses. I. Campbell, Karen, 1983- 11. Perkins, Jessica Ill. Title. Fl202.168 2006 The Independent Study Committee on Mexico: Karen Campbell Chad A. Craig KarenMurray Jessica Perkins Abbey Sinclair Michael Thayer Editors:jessica Perkins & Karen Campbell 972 Layout & Cover Design: Peter Cas tell Printed in Canada by Thistle Printing Ltd. ' C2007-901675-8 Across Borders Diverse Perspectives on Mexico This publication contains a compilation of papers written by some of the distinguished Mexican specialists who participated in Across Borders: , Diverse Perspectives on Mexico, the 11'" Annual International Studies Symposium that took place on February 11, 2006. The symposium was successfully organised and fundraised by the Independent Study Committee on Mexico, a group of six undergraduate students from th~ BA program in International Studies at Glendon College, York University. It featured seven panels and twenty speakers, ten of whom have contributed to this volume. The panelists represented an array of disciplines - anthropology, sociology, economics, history, political science, international relations/studies, Canadian studies, Mexican studies, gender studies, environmental studies, migration studies, and cultural studies - and included business leaders, diplomats, and academics. Established in 2003, the Independent Study Committee on Mexico was created to take on the task of emulating a project designed by students eleven years prior. No professor started the committee, chose its members, or decided upon the country of study. No member of this committee had been to Mexico, or had even taken a course on Mexico. In fact, only one group member could speak Spanish fluently. What would lead us to taking on this seemingly incredible task? We can honestly say that it was the thrill of the challenge. Our goal was to learn more about a particular country in the world, so why not create opportunities for dialogue and interaction on our own with the individuals who could educate us and support our efforts? If there is anything that our program at Glendon has encouraged, it has certainly been to test boundaries. The symposium organised by the ISCMexico was a success in two ways: first, it fostered a dialogue among a wide variety of perspectives and subjects, and brought in a general audience of more than 200 individuals to the event. Second, it was successfully organised by a group of students who needed to take on an entirely new role - from students to organisers - armed with a great deal of enthusiasm, determination, and professionalism that was not, frankly speaking, often expected from us. As to why this may be of interest to the readers, it is important to understand that the papers in this volume are a product of the symposium, and have been edited by two members of the Committee who are not experts on Mexico. In publishing this volume, we hope that our efforts will continue to enrich the knowledge that exists on Mexico, and will challenge the stereotypes held by North Americans who may or may not know very much about their neighbour. We do not claim that this is a comprehensive reader or textbook. Rather, for those who wish to gain a sense of the complex relationship that the Mexican state has with its North American neighbours and with its diverse population 9-omestically, this volume is generally intended for an academic audience that seeks to learn about some of the current issues and lived realities that face the incredibly diverse groups of people in Mexico. Table of Contents Contributors and Symposium Panellists Foreword xiii Introduction xvii Acknowledgements xxi Addressing Trans-Border Migration and Development David A. Shi rk The Impact of Neoliberal Reforms and Mexican Emigration on the 15 North American Labour Market Richard Roman and Edur Velasco Arregu i Canada-Mexico Relations, Presentation Text 31 juan Bosco Mart[ Ascencio The Future of Mexico-Canada Relations: Thinking Outside the Federal 39 Box Duncan Wood The Puebla-Panama Plan: A Strategy for Regional Dev~lopment? Alejandro Al varez Be jar Anthropological Perspectives on Environmental Concerns in Rural Mexico: Ethnography in the Calakmul Model Forest, Campeche )ulia E. Murphy Indigenous Movements in Mexico: Impasse or Forward Motion? John Gledhill Social Movements and the Questioning, Shaping, and Challenging of Mexican Democracy John Stolle-McAI/ister Mexican Machos and Hombres Matthew C. Gutmann Nosotras: Representations of Gender and Class Identities of Female Office Workers in Post-Revolutionary Mexico Susie S. Porter Acronyms Map of Mexico Index 53 71 99 119 135 159 175 179 181 ALEJANDRO ALVAREZ BEJAR Professor, Faculty of Economics Universidad Nacional Aut6noma de Mexico Contributors "The Puebla-Panama Plan: A Strategy for Regional Development?" Alejandro Alvarez Bejar (Ph.D. Sociology) is a political activist and full~ time professor in the Faculty of Economics at UNAM. His current and ongoing research is on the Puebla-Panama Plan (PPP) and the sub? regional impacts of economic integration in the Centre-North and Southeast regions of Mexico. He is the author of many articles on the Mexican and global economies, Mexican politics and unions, and NAITA. He is the author of La crisis global del capitalismo and is completing a book entided Mexico en la jaula de hierro del neoliberalismo: economia mundial, bloques regionales, y resistencia social (Mexico in the Iron Cage of Neoliberalism: World Economy, Regional Blocs, and Social Resistance). He has been on the editorial board of, and has acted as a regular contributor to, Punto Critico and Corre la V oz. JUAN BOSCO MARTf ASCENCIO Director-General for North America Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs "Presentation Text, Canada-Mexico Relations" On February 1, 2004, Juan Bosco Marti Ascencio was appointed Director General for North America at the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs (SRE) of Mexico. From 2003 to February 2004, he acted as Chief of Staff for the Undersecretary for North America at the SRE. He participated in President Fox's economic transition project and in financial sector coordination. Mr. Marti was advisor in the President's Public Policy Office where he participated in the creation of the U.S.? Mexico binational programme, P4P. He coordinated diverse studies which focused on increasing competitiveness in the North American region. Mr. Marti has vast experience in the financial sector as well as in investment banking companies like Merrill Lynch and Arthur Andersen. He is the Coordinator of the Mexican Government's Relief Efforts of Evacuees of Hurricane Katrina and personal representative of the Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Mexico, Luis Ernesto Derbez. JOHN GLEDHILL Max Gluckman Professor of Social Anthropology Co-Director of the Centre for Latin Ame1ican Cultural Studies University of Manchester "Indigenous Movements in Mexico: Impasse or Forward Motion?" John Gledhill is Max Gluckman Professor of Social Anthropology and Co-Director of the Centre for Latin American Cultural Studies at the University of Manchester, a member of the U.K. Academy of Social Sciences, and Chair of the Association of Social Anthropologists of the U.K. and Commonwealth (2005- 2009). His publications include Casi Nada: Agrarian Reform in the Homeland of Cardenismo (1991), Neoliberalism, Transnationalization, and Rural Poverty (1995), Power and Its Disguises: Anthropological Perspectives on Politics (2000) and Cultura y Desafio en Ostula: Cuatro Siglos de Autonomia Indigena en la Costa-Sierra N ahua de Michoacan (2004). MATTHEW C. GUTMANN Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology Brown University "Mexican Machos and Hombres" Matthew C. Gutmann is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Brown University, where he teaches classes on gender and sexuality, health, political anthropology, ethnicity and race, and ethnography in the Americas. He has a Ph.D. and M.P.H. from the University of California at Berkeley and has been a visiting professor in France, Mexico, and Spain. He has been awarded numerous fellowships and grants, including a National Endowment for the Humanities University Professor Fellowship. Among his publications are The Meanings of Macho: Being a Man in Mexico City (California, 1996; Spanish version: Colegio de Mexico, 2000), The Romance of Democracy: Compliant Defiance in Contemporary Mexico (California, 2002; Spanish version: Fondo de Cultura Econ6mica, 2005), Mainstrearning Men into Gender and Development: Debates, Reflections, and Experiences (with Sylvia Chant; Oxfam, 2000,), and the edited volumes Changing Men and Masculinities in Latin America (Duke, 2003) and Perspectives on Las Americas: A Reader in Culture, History and Representation (with Felix Matos Rodriguez, Lynn Stephen, and Patricia Zavella; Blackwell, 2003). JULIA MURPHY Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology University of Calgary "Anthropological Perspectives on Environmental Concerns in Rural Mexico: Ethnography in the Calakmul Model Forest, Campeche" Julia Murphy is a faculty member in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Calgary. Originally trained as a biologist, her graduate degrees are from York University's Faculty of Environmental Studies (FES) and Department of Social Anthropology (M.A., Ph.D). Her graduate research examined rural development initiatives in Yucatec Maya ejidos in the states of Quintana Roo and Campeche. Her Mexican research interests include ethnographic perspectives on development, natural resource management and environmentalism, gender and women's involvement in politics, and indigenous peoples. SUSIE PORTER Associate Professor, Departments of History & Gender Studies University of Utah "Nosotras: Representations of Gender and Class Identities of Female Oflice Workers in Post-Revolua'onary Mexico" Susie Porter is Associate Professor in the Department of History and the Gender Studies Programme at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City. She is the author of W orkingwomen in Mexico City: public discourses and material conditions, 1879-1931 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2003), which was awarded "Outstanding Publication" by the Latin American Studies Association, Labour and Class Relations Studies Section (2005). She is also the co-editor of a publication in press on Mexican women's and gender history. Dr. Porter recently completed work as Director of Latin American Studies at the University iii of Utah, and hosted the third International Colloquium on the History of Women and Gender in Mexico. She currently lives in Mexico City with her husband and two children and is conducting research on gender and middle-class identity, 1920-1950. Her current research is funded by the Fulbright Foundation. RICHARD ROMAN AND EDUR VELASCO ARREGUI Associate Professor, Retired, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto Professor, Department of Economics, Universidad Aut6noma Metropolitana-Azcapotzalco "The Impact of Neoliberal Reforms and Mexican Emigration on the North American Labour Market" Dr. Roman was a professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto for three decades and has been an Associate Fellow of the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean at York University for many years. He is presently teaching a graduate seminar on Advanced Issues in Latin American Politics in the Political Science Department at York University. Dr. Velasco is Professor of Economics at the Universidad Aut6noma Metropolitana-Azcapotzalco, Mexico City, and has been a long-time activist in the Mexican labour union movement. They have been conducting research together on Mexican workers, trade unions, and continental integration for a number of years and have published various articles on these topics in academic and political journals. They are in the process of completing two books on these themes: The Peculiarities of Mexican Development: Mexican Workers, Unions and the State, and Mexican Work~rs, NAFTA and Continental Integration. DAVID SHIRK Director, Trans-Border Institute University ofSan Diego "Addressing Trans-Border Migration and Development" David Shirk has been the Director of the Trans-Border Institute since 2003. He is Assistant Professor in the Political Science Department and received his Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Shirk conducts research and publishes on topics related iv to Mexican politics, U .S.-Mexican relations, and a variety of policy issues along the U.S.-Mexico border. Recent publications by Dr. Shirk include Mexico's New Politics: The PAN and Democratic Change (Colorado: Lynne Rienner, 2005); a forthcoming co-edited volume, Reforming the Administration of Justice in Mexico (forthcoming, 2006); "Slavery Without Borders: Human Trafficking in the U.S.-Mexican Context," CSIS Hemisphere Focus, January 23, 2004; and a forthcoming co-authored book, Contemporary Mexican Politics (Rowman and Lttlefield Publishers, forthcoming). JOHN STOLLE-MCALLISTER Assistant Professor, Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics University of Maryland, Baltimore County "Social Movements and the Questioning, Shaping, and Challenging of Mexican Democracy" John Stolle-McAllister earned his Ph.D. in Cultural Studies from the University of Minnesota in 2000 and is currendy Assistant Professor of Spanish and Cultural Studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. His research analyses the political and cultural work of local organisations and small communities in opposing outside projects and adapting national and global thought and practice to their particular contexts. He teaches classes on Latin American cultural issues, human rights and ethnography. He has published several articles on social movements, the Mexican Transition, and popular culture, and his book, Mexican Social Movements and the Transition to Democracy (McFarland, 2005), details the cultural processes in Tepozdcin's anti-golf course and Atenco's anti-airport movements. His current project involves examining and comparing the discourses of indigenous identity and pluriculturalism in social movements in Ecuador and Mexico. DUNCANWOOD Director, Canadian Studies & International Relations Programmes Instituto Tecnol6gico Aut6nomo de Mexico "The Future of Mexico-Canada Relations: Thinking Outside the Federal Box" Duncan Wood received his B.A. (hons) in Politics from Leicester University in the U.K. in 1989, his M.A. in Political Science from V McMaster University, Canada in 1990, and his Ph.D. in Political Studies from Queen's University, Canada in 1996. Since 1996 he has been teaching and researching at the lnstituto Tecnol6gico Aut6nomo de Mexico (IT AM) in Mexico City where he directs the Canadian Studies Programme and, since January 2001, has been Director of the Undergraduate Programme in International Relations. Dr. Wood's research focuses on the political economy of international finance, Canadian, British, and Mexican foreign policy, and in particular in recent years on Canada-Mexico relations. Dr. Wood is also Director of a consulting company called ThinkMexico, providing services to foreign and national firms in the Mexican and Latin American contexts. vi Symposium Panellists DAVID BARKIN Professor, Department of Economics Universidad Aut6noma Metropolitana-Xochimilco Dr. David Barkin is Professor of Economics at the Xochimilco Campus of the Universidad Aut6noma Metropolitana in Mexico City. H~ received his P.h.D. in Economics from Yale University and was awarded the National Prize in Political Economics in 1979 for his analysis of inflation in Mexico. In 2005, the University of Guadalajara honoured him with its "Recognition for Lifetime Achievement in the advance of knowledge and the training of scholars in social sciences." He is a member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences and of the National Research Council. In 1974, he was a founding member of the Ecodevelopment Centre. His most recent books include: Wealth, Poverty and Sustainable Development and lnnovaciones Mexicanas en el Manejo del Agua. He is interested in the process of unequal development that creates profound imbalances throughout society and promotes environmental degradation. His recent research focuses on the implementation of alternative strategies for the sustainable management of resources. Much of his work is conducted m collaboration with local communities and regional citizens' groups. RAFAEL J. CORTI~S Trade Commissioner of Mexico Bancomext Rafael Cartes holds a B.A. in Political Science & Public Administration and M.A. in Economics & Business Law from the Universidad lberoamericana, as well as an M.B.A. from the Kellogg-Schulich programme. Before joining the Mexican Bank for Foreign Trade in 1989, Mr. Cartes worked at the Mexican Ministry of Planning and Budget as Financial Director of the National Institute for Statistics, Geography and lnformatics. I;Ie also served at the Ministry as Chief Administrative Officer for the Undersecretary's Office. He was vii Marketing Manager for North America at the External Promotion Directorate of the Mexican Bank for Foreign Trade, and was Deputy Trade Commissioner for Mexico in Miami from 1991 to 1995. He has represented the Mexican Bank for Foreign Trade in extensive commercial missions to the U.S. and was appointed Trade Commissioner of Mexico in Toronto on April1, 2000. DANIEL DRACHE Director, Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies York University Daniel Drache is Associate Director of the Robarts Centre of Canadian Studies and a professor of Political Science at York University. He has written extensively on globalisation, North American economic integration, and new state forms and practices. He is a regular eommentator on national news for the CBC and other networks. His latest book, Borders Matter: Homeland Security and the Search for North America (Halifax: Fernwood, 2004) is also being published in Spanish and French editions. EMMANUEL KAMARIANAKIS Counsellor (Commercial) and Trade Commissioner (Trade Policy} Embassy of Canada in Mexico Emmanuel Kamarianakis is Counsellor (Commercial) and Trade Commissioner (Trade Policy) at the Canadian Embassy in Mexico. He is responsible for all trade policy issues between Canada and Mexico, and supervises the trade promotion side for the Environment and ICT units. Originally from Montreal, Quebec, Mr. Kamarianakis completed his studies in Business at the University of Calgary in Calgary, Alberta. Before being recruited by the Canadian Foreign Service, he worked on the Alberta Stock Exchange, a venture-capital exchange specialising in resource industries. He began his career with the Department of Foreign Mfairs and International Trade in 1993. Mr. Kamarianakis has previously been posted abroad in Tehran, Iran and in Athens, Greece. In Tehran, he was responsible for the Oil and Gas Sector. Before coming to Mexico, he acted as Senior Trade Commissioner responsible for Canada's trade and economic relations with Greece, in Athens. viii HEIDI KUTZ Director for Mexico and North American Division Foreign Affairs Canada Ms. Kutz is currently the acting Director of the Mexico and North America Division for Foreign Affairs Canada. She received a B.A. in Communications from the University of Calgary, and an M.A. in Public Administration from Carleton University, Ottawa. Since 1995, she has worked in various divisions and offices of the Canadian government, including the Parliamentary Relations Division, Peace-building Division, and Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. In 1996, she was assigned to the Mexico Division in the Canadian Embassy in Mexico, where she was also stationed from 2001-2004. She was involved in the lnter-American Division of Foreign Affairs Canada as a Coordinator for the Summit of the Americas (1999-2001), and in 2005 she became Deputy Director of the U.S. Advocacy and Mission Liaison Division. CASSIO LUISELLI FERNANDEZ Director, International Studies Department & Centre for Mexican Studies Instituto Tecnol6gico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey Keynote Speaker Dr. Cassio Luiselli Fernindez is a Mexican economist. He obtained his M.S. in Economics and Ph.D. in Development Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has written over forty-five technical and academic articles, and is author and co-author of several books. Dr. Luiselli received decorations from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), as well as from the French, Italian, Japanese, Bulgarian, and Korean governments. He also received the Kellogg's Foundation Food System Leadership award. He has previous teaching experience at UNAM, Universidad lberoamericana, El Colegio de Mexico, lnstituto Matias Romero de Estudios Diplomaticos, and TEC de Monterrey. Within the Public Administration he has worked for the Treasury, he was advisor to President Fox and he was coordinator of the Mexican Food System. With the Fox administration he was Subsecretary of Environmental Regulation at the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources until September 2004, and Co- ix President of the Mexico-Korea Commission for the 21" Century. Dr. Luiselli was Ambassador of Mexico to the Republic of South Korea and the first Ambassador to the Republic of South Africa when Nelson Mandela was elected president. He also held posts as Ambassador in five other African countries, and was permanent observer of Mexico to the Southern African Development Community. ALBERTO MIRANDA Senior Vice President Scotiabank Inverlat Alberto Miranda holds an Industrial Engineering degree from the Universidad lberoamericana at Mexico City and an M.B.A. from Kellogg-Northwestern University. He joined Scotiabank's Mexican subsidiary in 1987. At Scotiabank lnverlat, he has held different senior management postt.lons in corporate finances, equity research, compliance, market risk management, and strategic planning. He was heavily involved when Scotiabank increased its lnverlat ownership from 55% to 91% (now at 97%) and was part of the Scotiabank lnverlat's Board of Directors for more than three years. He has been working in Toronto since 2003, in different credit areas as part of a training programme, where he has been exposed to credit adjudication for Canadian, American, and Mexican companies. ISIDRO MORALES MORENO Visiting Scholm~ School of International Service American University, Washington D. C. Dr. Isidro Morales Moreno is currently a visiting Fulbright scholar at American University, in Washington D.C., working on a book about the present and future of regionalism in North America. He is a member of Mexico's National Research System, the Academic Council for the United Nations System, and the Mexican Council for Foreign Affairs. His main research areas are the geopolitics and geo-economics of trade and investment markets, the political economy of regional integration, U.S.-Mexico trade relations, and U.S.-Latin American relations. He has co-authored two books and published several articles in specialised journals, which recently include, "Post-sovereign Governance in a Globalizing and Fragmenting World: The Case of Mexico," and X "Estados Unidos y el 'regionalismo abierto' en las Americas. Lecciones del TLCAN para Mexico y para las negociaciones del ALCA". ANNE RUBENSTEIN Associate Professor, Department of History York University Anne Rubenstein is Associate Professor of History in the Faculty of Arts, York University. Her first book, Bad Language, Naked Ladies, and Other Threats to the Nation: A Political History of Comic Books in Mexico (Duke University Press, 1998) was translated and published last year by the Fondo de Cultura Econ6mica under the title De Ios Pepines a Ios Agachados. Comics y censura en Mexico. With Eric Zolov and Gil Joseph, she co-edited Fragments of a Golden Age: Cultural Politics in Post-Revolutionary Mexico (Duke University Press, 2001.) Her recent research extends her interests in media, politics, and gender in Mexican history, concentrating on movie audiences, moVle-gomg, fashion, and fans from the 1920s to the present. ERIC ZOLOV Associate Professor, Department of History Franklin & Marshal] College Eric Zolov is Associate Professor in the Department of History at Franklin & Marshall College and Associate Editor for The Americas: A Quarterly Review of lnter-American Cultural History. He is the author of Refried Elvis: The Rise of the Mexican Counterculture (University of California Press, 1999) and co-editor and contributor to Fragments of a Golden Age: The Politics of Popular Culture in Mexico Since 1940 (Duke University Press, 2001), and Rockin' Las Americas: The Global Politics of Rock in Latin/o America (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004). He is also co-editor of the classroom reader, Latin America and the United States: a Documentary History (Oxford University Press, 2000). Currently he is researching and writing on the impact of the Cuban revolution on Mexican political culture and U.S.-Mexico relations during the 1960s, for which he has received a Fulbright fellowship (2002) and National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships (2001-02; 2005). xi Foreword )udith Adler Hellman In April 2005, I received an e-mail from a group of International Studies students at Glendon College, who invited me to meet with them t9 formulate plans for a symposium to be held at Glendon in February 2006. This group - formally known as the "Independent Study Committee on Mexico" - made clear from the outset that this event would be organized and run entirely by undergraduate students, and would be the eleventh in a series of annual symposia, each focused on a different area of the world and on a different theme. Meeting over dinner, I began to propose the names of Ontario? based experts on Mexico, but it soon became clear that the students' vision was to invite faculty from York University but also reach beyond the local pool of mexicanistas to include experts from across Canada, from Europe and the United States, and of course, from Mexico. Moreover, they hoped to bring together Canadian and Mexican diplomats and business leaders with the distinguished academics who would attend and present papers. To be sure, the students seemed disappointed to learn that February 2006 would find me on sabbatical and pursuing my own research in Mexico and New York. However, seeing that I had let them down in this regard, I tried to compensate by throwing out name after name of some of the most important contemporary analysts of Mexican politics and society, hoping that at least one or two of these leading lights would actually make the trip to Toronto in the middle of winter, and that, for the rest, the students might fill in the spaces with the unquestionably strong corps of experts on Mexico that we are fortunate to have in Toronto. I wished these enthusiastic students good luck, requested that they keep me on their mailing list, and went off on my own sabbatical travels. Because I was out of the loop for roughly one year, readers can imagine my surprise and delight to find myself, in March 2006, at the meetings of the Latin American Studies Association, the premier conference in our field, where one important Mexicanist after another xiii came up to me to say: "Wherever have you been? I was invited by a group of undergraduates to the most splendid one-day event at Glendon College, and I figured on seeing you there, and all I can say is that you missed a wonderful experience!" Thus, I necessarily felt great regret that poor timing put me far away from Toronto at the very moment that I might have enjoyed what others insisted was a wonderful day of exchange of ideas. At the same time, I had the great pleasure and pride to hear from Canadian and international colleagues of the success of our students' hard work. Under the circumstances, I must consol myself with the fact that the organizing committee had the wit to collect and publish the papers that were presented and that those of us who were not lucky enough to be present can now access at least some of the stimulating discussion that unfolded. And so it is that the thinking of experts like the renowned anthropologists of Mexico, John Gledhill, Matthew Gutmann, and Julia Murphy, the political economists, Alejandro Alvarez Bejar, Richard Roman and Edur Velasco, the cultural studies expert, John Stolle? McAllister, the historian, Susie Porter, and political scientists, David Shirk and Duncan Wood, are now available to all of us. It is nothing short of remarkable that all this has been fashioned by a group of undergraduate students who have clearly demonstrated what curiosity about the world, combined with great energy and enthusiasm, can produce. Judith Adler Hellman is Professor of Social and Political Science at York University, and the author of books that include Mexico in Crisis (1978, 1983, 1988), Mexican Lives, (1994, 1998) and The Rock and the Hard Place: The World of Mexican Migrants, (forthcoming 2007). She has been editor of the Canadian journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and is author of dozens of articles and book chapters on Mexico. xiv Introduction The challenge in creating a multidisciplinary work is to illustrate how various research subjects and appproaches link to foster dialogue. At first glance it may not appear that these papers interrelate, but reading them in the order presented will reveal a logical discursive thread. This volume is structured so that the book progresses from a macro to a micro level of discussion, moving from debates on state-led visions of progress to analyses of their effects on communities and individuals. For the reader who is more interested in reading about local attempts to inform decision-making at the state level, it is useful to read the book in reverse. Regardless of how one chooses to approach these essays, they all contribute to each other and to the overall themes discussed. As a nation-state that continues to progress as a strong power in the Americas, it is important to understand how Mexico will move forward with its neighbours in the North and South. Mexico has made every effort to integrate itself into the North American continent as an equal partner, yet Canada and the U.S. have been reluctant in their responses by comparison. In recent years, tensions have arisen among these three partners following a number of significant events: the election of President George W. Bush to office; the security concerns and resulting legislations passed following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S.; the debates that continue concerning illegal migration from Mexico to the U.S.; the heated 2006 presidential elections in Mexico with its highly contested results; and recently, concerns following the deaths of Canadian tourists in Mexico. As the essays progress to a micro level, the focus shifts to how national and international discourses have affected communities at a grassroots level. Specific case studies illustrate how groups within a given society can achieve their own goals, working with or against greater nation-state buliding efforts. Mexico is a rich resource for the study of social movements and mobilizations and in this volume, specific experiences of indigenous communities are explored. As the subjects in the essays shift to focus on Mexico City, further support is given to the dialogue concerning how class, gender, race, culture, and ethnicity are implicated in nationalist discourses. It is crucial to take these factors into account in order to understand how historically (especially since the Mexican Revolution in the 20'" century) efforts at building the Mexican xvii state and national identity have drastically transformed the livelihoods of the many diverse peoples within the country. Ultimately, our hope is that this volume will illustrate just how complex and passionate the process of building the Mexican nation-state has been. An incredible effort has been made by the Mexican state to firmly establish itself as a powerhouse in the Americas, and as a distinct and important ally to the U.S. and Canada. Along the way, as these contributors have shown, the Mexican people have worked just as tirelessly, fighting to ensure that their own concerns and causes continue to inform the way in which their futures will unfold. xviii Acknowledgements It is amazing to think that three years have passed since our committee of six first sat down in our third year to discuss our visions for the realization of this ambitious project. Mter working through the intense and sometimes frenzied process of organising the symposium, it has been refreshing to finally have the time and space to reflect on the knowledge gained from our fall seminar and discussions on our symposium day, as well as on the experiences we had on our field research trips to Mexico in the summer. How exciting it has been to take on this next challenge of creating a book! These papers represent years of research on Mexico, and have been entrusted to us by accomplished and dedicated Mexicanists. It has been an inspiration, as students and first-time editors, to engage in these areas of academic life and we are so grateful for what we have gained. We extend our heartfelt thanks to Professors Elisabeth Abergel and Domenico Mazzeo for their advice and encouragement throughout this last phase of the project. To Professor Judith Adler Hellman, thank you for your insights and kind words. To Peter Castell, our sincerest thanks for lending your artistic talents and hours of dedicated work to our Committee. We have so many individuals to thank for their support, wisdom, advice, time, talents, and loyalty to us in believing in what we were capable of doing. First and foremost, we would like to thank the contributors of this volume: Dr. John Stolle-McAllister, Dr. John Gledhill, Dr. Duncan Wood, Dr. Richard Roman, Dr. David Shirk, Mr. Juan Bosco Marti Ascencio, Dr. Julia Murphy, Dr. Susie Porter, Dr. Alejandro Alvarez Bejar, and Dr. Matthew Gutrnann. We have loved working with your materials and enriching our knowledge on so many important issues concerning Mexico. To the other speakers who came to our symposium to share their expertise: Ambassador Cassio Luiselli Femindez, Mr. Rafael Cortes G6mez, Mr. Emmanuel Kamarianakis, Ms. Heidi Kutz, Dr. Susie Porter, Dr. Eric Zolov, Dr. Anne Rubenstein, Dr. David Barkin, Dr. Isidro Morales Moreno, Mr. Daniel Drache. Thank you for your contribution to our project as well. A note of thanks to Ambassador Andres Rozental, for his guidance and assistance with our Canada-Mexico Relations panel. xxi Thank you to Glendon's Principal, Dr. Kenneth McRoberts, and to Consul-General of Mexico to Canada Carlos Pujalte for their participation and support of our event and assistance with the field research trips. Thanks to Mr. Cuauhtemoc Villamar with the Consulate? General of Mexico, Mr. Rafael Cortes with Bancomext, Mr. Graeme Hamilton with DFAIT, and Mr. Michael Locke with Scotiabank for their enthusiastic work on our behalf. We would also like to thank a number of individuals who facilitated the smooth and professional course of our symposium day. Our thanks to the panel moderators: Ms. Carmen Sanchez, Mr. Jose Luis Atristain, Dr. Eduardo Canel, Dr. Edward Silva, Dr. Colin Coates, Dr. Elisabeth Abergel, and Dr. Margarita Feliciano. A special thanks to our photographer, Dylan N eild, our film editor, Michael Caldwell, and staff coordinator, Charmaine Bene. We are very appreciative of the support we received from our Glendon and York communities, and would like to thank the following individuals: Dr. Deborah Barndt, Mr. Gilles Fortin, Ms. Veronique Ng, Ms. Bakham Hensbergen, Mr. Y oani Kuiper, Ms. N atalie Riggs, Mr. Roberto Alvarez, Ms. Marion Frankian, Ms. Lila Manseur, Dr. Louise Lewin, Ms. Nadege Lefebvre, Ms. Susan Miller, Ms. Patricia Moukossi, Mrs. Fiona Kay, Dr. Sheila Embleton, Mrs. Lynn Horwood, Dr. Adrian Shubert, Ms. Marie-Therese Chaput, Mr. Pascal Lewin, Ms. Julie Drexeler, Mr. Gerard Stocker, Mr. Eugene Webster. A warm thanks to our volunteers and peers who donated much of their time to us throughout last year: Alan Pelizer, Roberto Alvarez, Aaron Doupe, Ana Giuliano, Ana-Maria Oroianu, Andrea Schoenauer, Anne Staver, Ashwini Sukumaran, Beth Milne, David Patterson, David Tenorio, Freedom Forever, Jessica Duarte, Jessica Henderson, Julia Cao, Kimberly Richards, Madeline Feicht, Mahreen Nabi, Mathieu Kiss in, N atalie Riggs, Polina Kukar, Sabrina Verdejo, Sophie Pires, Veronica Cappella, Breno Horsth, Pam Robertson, Christine Y oon, Genevieve Bowers, Tahmina Haque, Kathy Taler, Chris Pearsell-Ross, Ayesha Menezes, Karen Pasch, Marjoriejulien, and Keith Campbell. This has been an emotional, life-changing experience that pushed all of our limits; we would like to thank, from the bottom of our hearts, our friends and loved ones for their moral support and love that was always appreciated. xxii Addressing Trans-Border Migration and Development David A. Shirk Note: This paper synthesizes points developed in a research brief co? authored with Robert Donnelly for the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego. The author would also like to thank Theresa Fires tine for her able assistance with maps and data. Any errors of fact, argument, or omission are strictly attributable to the author. Recent legislation passed in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate seeks to add another 700 miles of fencing and additional manpower along the traditionally open 2,000 mile U.S.-Mexico border. Yet building walls and fortifying borders in the era of globalisation and economic integration holds inherent contradictions, and promises little in the way of effectiveness. Indeed, the failure of current U.S. border enforcement efforts to repel illegal border crossers is one of the most empirically verifiable points in the current debate on immigration. Over the past decade, despite tens of billions of dollars in border enforcement, the number of undocumented migrants in the U.S. has grown to over 11 million people, over half of them from Mexico. Real solutions to trans-border migration must take into consideration the challenge of making Mexico a stronger N AFT A partner by promoting economic development and poverty reduction. THE EVOLUTION OF U.S. IMMIGRATION POLICIES It is important to contextualize current trends in U.S.-Mexico migration. When we look at the multiple waves of migration to the U.S. over the past two centuries, there are two peaks that have both coincided with major expansions of the global economy. The first major wave of U.S. immigration - peaking around 8.8 million people from 1900-1910 - was comprised almost entirely of Europeans. Irish, German, Polish, 2 David A. Shirk and Italian immigrants dominated previous diasporas to the U.S., as they fled hardships in the Old World and sought a better life in the United States. In their search for opportunities, however, virtually every major wave of migrants struggled against a backlash of xenophobia and nativist fears of group competition in the U.S. Their collective experiences point to a frequently unacknowledged aspect of U .S. political culture, which is that entering the "melting pot" implies that new immigrant groups often undergo a trial by fire to "assimilate" and become "Americans." It is also worth noting that - in the midst of a major wave of European migration to the U.S. in the early half of the 19'h century - most migration between the U.S. and Mexico was from the former to the latter, as U.S. nationals entered Mexican territory with thinly-veiled separatist notions. Then, after the 1846-48 U.S.-Mexican war, there was an exodus of Mexicans returning across the border that had crossed them. Meanwhile, for the remainder of the 19'h century, discriminatory . U .S. migration policies discouraged or otherwise restricted non? European migration, especially in the case of Chinese and other Asians seeking opportunities in the Americas. Mexican Migration in Historical Perspective, 1900-2000 1901- 1911- 1921- 1931- 1941- 1951- 1961- 1971- 1981- 199~ w w ~ ~ ~ w ro ~ ~ oo --Mexico - -Europe --Asia - - - ?Other Americas --Africa Source: "Immigration by Region and Selected Country of Lasl Residence, Fiscal Years 1820-2001," lmmjgration and NaturaJjzation Se1vjce. At the turn of the 20'h century, U.S. immigration policies became much more restrictive, particularly in response to new waves of Eastern European immigrants. Overall, however, the point is that U.S. Addressing Trans-Border Migration and Development 3 immigration policy has been historically coloured by nativist and even racist anxieties, at least until the 1960s. Thereafter, the civil rights movement led to a major shift in U.S. immigration policy, with the goal of establishing fair quotas regardless of race (and an emphasis on prioritizing family reunification as a determining factor in visa processing). Over time, the system that has evolved has proved one of the most liberal immigration policies in the world, and has allowed generation after generation of migrants to contribute their skills and culture to the fabric of the United States. Thanks to this shift in U.S. immigration policy, over the last three decades there have been major increases in legal migration from non-traditional sources in Asia and the Americas. Still, U.S. immigration quotas were ultimately unable to keep up with worldwide demand for visas, especially during the so-called "lost decade" of the 1980s when many Latin American countries were plagued by severe political and economic crises. Hence, would-be migrants who were unable to obtain visas simply entered the U.S. and sought jobs without documentation. This was especially true for Mexico, where for many years migration to the U.S. functioned almost as a pressure-release valve to alleviate economic crises and prevent domestic political discontent. For this reason, many Mexican politicians have tended to view unauthorized immigration rather benignly, if not outright permissively. Indeed, past Mexican administrations seemed to reject out of hand any collaboration with U.S. migrant-containment strategies, and Mexican officials frequently cited the constitutionally sanctioned freedom of mobility to excuse themselves from collaborative efforts to stem illegal border-crossing attempts. In any case, by 1986 the number of undocumented immigrants in the U .S. was so great that U.S. policymakers opted for a major immigration policy reform by granting most long-time undocumented residents amnesty and a chance to obtain U.S. citizenship. In addition, this new legislation - known as the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) - brought calls for increased border security to prevent unauthorized entry into the U.S. However, without significantly increased quotas, demand for visas continued to outmatch the supply, and undocumented migration continued; only now it was fuelled by the personal networks of newly legitimized immigrants with would-be migrants from tl1eir home countries. By 1990, Senator Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) proclaimed: "Uncontrolled immigTation is one of the greatest tl1reats to the future of this country." In the next few years, the prospect of a major economic agreement between Canada, Mexico, and the U .S. - the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFT A) - heightened concerns 4 David A. Shirk about a "NAFT A Train" of undocumented immigration and organized crime moving across the U.S.-Mexico border. Hence, in the early 1990s, U.S. officials began an aggressive effort to stem the flow of unauthorized migration and illegal drugs into the country by developing a strategy of "concentrated border enforcement." THE fAILURE OF CONCENTRATED BORDER ENFORCEMENT Beginning in 1994, U .S. officials initiated a series of unilateral initiatives - from Operation "Hold the Line" (also called the "Blockade") in Texas, to Operation "Gatekeeper" in San Diego - that focused on enhancing border security primarily by establishing fencing, increasing the presence of border patrol personnel, and introducing lighting and high-tech surveillance equipment in major populated centres along the U.S.-Mexico border. The immediate impact of these initiatives was to accomplish a considerable degree of order in the areas where border ?enforcement measures were concentrated. However, because the U.S. government simultaneously relaxed interior enforcement - that is, the use of workplace inspections and apprehensions of unauthorized residents living within the U .S. - those undocumented migrants who continued to flow through the border in unprotected areas and by other means were able to find employment without serious obstacles. In other words, while raising the hurdles for unauthorized entry, U.S. immigration control strategies during the 1990s and into the next century ultimately failed to deter undocumented immigration. In the final analysis, efforts to secure the border over the past decade have accomplished basically three things. First, while largely undiminished, undocumented migrant flows have been rerouted overland through dangerous desert and mountain areas, underground through sophisticated tunnel systems, and overseas along open U.S. coastal areas. Some experts have referred to this trend as the "balloon effect," since the tightening of enforcement measures in certain areas has simply caused migrant flows to bulge in other segment~ of the border region, with major crossing routes shifting from California and Texas to Arizona. Still, the increases in border enforcement- especially after the 9/ 11 terrorist attacks - has effectively raised the costs and difficulties of land-based entry to the U.S. This has had the secondary effect of breaking traditionally circular or cyclical patterns of migration, whereby migrants travelled across the border seasonally or during economic crises to work in the U.S. and later returned to their home communities. As U.S. border controls have grown tougher, migrants are less inclined to return home on a seasonal or cyclical basis, and instead have opted to Addressing Trans-Border Migration and Development 5 reside permanently in the U.S. Thus, ironically, the implementation of tougher border controls has unintentionally contributed to a greater tendency toward long-term unauthorized residency. Second, as undocumented migrants have sought to avoid the perils of desert and mountain crossings, there has been a proliferation of people smuggling, document fraud , and visa overstays. Seeking to avoid detection at the border, undocumented persons increasingly rely on professional smugglers ("coyotes" or "polleros") to transport them across the border.' Such "professional" smugglers charge exorbitant rates (averaging around $1,500 USD), often financed by a migrant's friends or relatives already residing in the U.S ., and are well positioned to take advantage of their customers.' Meanwhile, for many migrants another path to unauthorized entry or residence in the U.S. is made possible by the ready availability of false documentation (fake driver's licenses, social security cards, and the like) that can be used to secure employment and a semblance of citizenship.3 Also, as many as one? third of all unauthorized residents living in the U.S. are estimated to have fallen into unautl1orized status by overstaying tl1eir visas after entering the country legally. Finally, as a result of the new dangers involved in land-based crossings, too many migrants crossing in the border's scorching deserts and formidable mountainous regions suffer a horrible fate, with thousands dying in the process over the past decade. At the O ctober close of the Border Patrol's fiscal year for 2006, an estimated 4,045 migrants had died of extreme temperatures and other hazards at the border since 1995. A record 472 of those lives were lost in the 2005 fiscal year, while the number dipped approximately 5% in fi scal year 2006 along with overall unauthorized flows during the same period. For their part, U.S. lawmakers could be much more effective at averting these trends if they simply stopped turning a blind eye to employers who hire undocumented workers. While many truly A study by the National Foreign Intelligence Board repmts that illegal migration is "facilitated increasingly by alien-smuggling syndicates and corrupt government officials." National Foreign Intelligence Board, Growing Global Migration & Its Implications fo r the United States (3 March 200 1). Available at: . 2 Smugglers fees can be much greater than the average. In one case repOtted by IJ1e New York Times: "Government officials said they were deporting 319 illegal migrants, mostly from Ecuador, who had been detained by Mexican and U .S. Navy ships in the I;'acific Ocean. The migrants were traveling on two fishing boats stopped in separate incidents off the coast of Chiapas, in ? Mexico's south. Officials said IJ1c migrants had paid smugglers as much as $4,000 each to help iliem D?avel tlu?ough Mexico to the United States." Sec Tim W einer, "\"'orld Business Briefing Americas: Mexico: Migrants Being DepOited," New York Times, 12 Dec. 2002. 3 Most U.S. citizens rely p?imarily on official identification issued by state governments - because civil libertarians and individual privacy rights groups strongly oppose the creation of a national identity card- since IJ1e re is no mandatory system of national identification "~iliin ilie U .S. 6 David A. Shirk innocent employers surely hire undocumented workers only unwittingly (thanks to false papers) , most do so with a wink. Such employers reckon that they need the labour, and really do not have the means (or the obligation) to enforce the government's immigration laws. Not surprisingly, cracking down on employers (read "campaign donors") has not been a popular idea among elected officials for some time. Moreover, doing so could actually negatively impact U.S. consumers (who benefit from lower prices made possible by low-wage migrant labour). Instead, policy makers have focused on the prospects for a comprehensive immigration reform - such as the so-called Kennedy? McCain initiative in the U .S. Senate- that would create a migrant guest worker program to liberalize labour flows between Mexico and the U.S. Critics of migrant guest worker programs raise various concerns (unacceptable workplace conditions for migrants, lower wages for native workers in affected industries, and no certainty of averting undocumented migration) , and past experience suggests that such programs primarily address the needs and interests of the receiving country, rather than promoting economic development in the sending country. Moreover, guest worker programs do not necessarily prevent visa overstays or undocumented immigration outside of established quotas for temporary employment. Canada, which currently admits approximately 20,000 seasonal migrant labourers from Mexico and the Caribbean through its guest worker program, continues to have an estimated 400,000 undocumented migrants residing in the country. Thus, to address undocumented migration, both Canada and the U.S. would benefit from looking at what gains could be made through a more concerted effort to promote development in migrant sending communities. In the end neither border enforcement, nor workplace raids, nor guest worker programs can really address the crux of the problem. While U. S. demand for Mexican labour is a significant part of the equation, as long as millions of Mexicans face difficult economic circumstances in their own communities there will be massive pressure to seek better opportunities elsewhere. In short, the true limitation of U.S. immigration and border enforcement policy has been a failure to recognize the major causal factors driving migration from Mexico, and the urgent need to promote economic development to help benefit migrant sending communities. Addressing Trans-Border Migration and Development 7 PROMOTING ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN MEXICO Few U.S. officials have seriously advocated addressing the problem of undocumented migration at its roots through concerted policy initiatives to promote sustainable, equitable economic development in Mexico. Yet, with projections of continued large scale unauthorized migration from Mexico to continue in full force - possibly more than doubling the undocumented population living in the U.S. over the next twenty-five years - consideration of longer term solutions to Mexico's larger development challenges is urgently needed. The "push" and "pull" factors underlying Mexican migration to the U .S. are relatively simple. While rare instances of political instability during the 20'" century have caused some migration from Mexico across the border (as was the case during the Mexican Revolution of the 1910s), the primary "push" factor has been economic instability and lack of employment opportunities. As tough times have pushed Mexicans to migrate in search of jobs - and with significant U.S.-Mexico wage differentials (See Figure: Comparing U.S. and Mexican Manufacturing Wages) - the strong performance of the U.S. economy has "pulled" Mexican workers into the U.S. in search of better employment and earmngs. ---?-??-??-?-- -?-----?-?--------? ????--?-?------?----??- ------? ?????--?--?- . ??????--?--- -?--?------???-?-----?-??- ????--?---?-----?-----?--?----??--?-------?? ---?? Comparing U.S. and Mexican Manufacturing Wages $18.00 ----------- ----------------, .. $16.00 -- ----- -Mexico ----------------------??---------?---------?---------?----------------- " - us ~ $14.00 ------------------------------------------------------- .. Ill D. $12.00 -- ;;,;;;;;;, I!! ~ $10.00 r----------------------------------?---------------- 8 ui $8.00 ::i .E $6.00 t-----------------------1 ! $4.00 - ------------------------------ - ~ $0.00 +-----~--""""T---~--""""T---...,-------i 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 Source: Mexico Watch . 8 David A. Shirk GDP Per Capita in Mexico, 1900-2003 o ~~m-~~~~~~m+.~mm~~~~mn~mm~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Source: Mexico Watch . Many U.S. citizens may wrongly assume that higher levels of poverty and lower levels of development in Mexico have maintained a steady stream of humanity across the border. Yet, historically, migration - along with Mexico's levels of poverty - has ebbed and flowed along with the significant booms and busts in the Mexican economy. Moreover, Mexico's economy grew quite strongly from the 1940s through the 1970s, with sustained annual growth rates of over 6% thanks to a state-led growth model which used protective tariffs and subsidies to privilege Mexican production over foreign imports (See Figure: GDP Per Capita in Mexico, 1900-2003). However, this so-called "import substitution industrialization" (ISI) model imploded in the 1980s, as inefficient domestic production contributed to a lack of competitiveness, and a series of fiscal and monetary crises led to major disruptions in the Mexican economy. Thus began the most recent wave of mass Mexican migration to the U.S. Over the course of the 1980s and 1990s, Mexico reluctantly shifted to an aggressive export-oriented growth model - formalized by the country's signing onto the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in the mid-1980s, its entry into NAFTA in 1994 and its negotiation of a myriad of other free-trade pacts with worldwide partners. NAFT A proponents vowed to reduce illegal immigration by bringing the Mexican economy up to "First World" standards, primarily by expanding the country's manufacturing base. "We want to export products, not people," said then-Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari as negotiations were taking place in the early 1990s. Certainly, Mexico's macroeconomic shift brought some definite benefits and helped to sharpen the country's investment profile among developing Addressing Trans-Border Migration and Development 9 nations. Overall, trade between NAITA countries increased dramatically, and Mexicans made gains in middle wage earnings relative to the minimum wage from 1990-2000. Yet in the dozen years that have elapsed since N AFT A officially went into effect on January 1, 1994, Mexico's opening to global economic competition has been accompanied by significant challenges. During the 1990s, Mexico's economic restructuring brought job losses in uncompetitive industries (notably agriculture), and currency volatility - such as the nearly one-third devaluation of the peso in 1994 and ensuing economic crisis - seriously diminished the buying power of Mexican wages. Although middle-class incomes improved significantly in Mexico over the 1990s (especially in northern Mexico), by the end of the decade the buying power of Mexico's poor was less than one third of what it had been in 1980. Moreover, poverty rates of 60% and above continued to plague Mexico's rural areas and heavily indigenous south, and overall economic inequality remained high (with Mexico's Gini index of 54.6 ranked 109'" out of 123 countries in 2000). (See Map: Earnings in Mexico). Not surprisingly, throughout the NAFTA era, rates of unauthorized migration have steadily increased during this period. While N AFT A did promote growth in the northern industrial belt, it did so principally by intensifying the export activity of in-bond assembly plants or maquiladoras - not by creating a permanent manufacturing structure that made use of regional intermediary goods and raw materials. These maquiladoras attracted migrants from the Mexican interior to settle along the border, which became a convenient jumping off point for unauthorized entry into the U.S. Meanwhile, competition from China has weakened the maquiladora sector, raising concerns about the job growth along the border. Meanwhile, over the last two decades, these challenges have been aggravated by lower-tl1an? expected GDP growth, ineffective governance, rule-of-law challenges, and educational deficits, factors that exacerbated the difficulties of millions of potential Mexican migrants . 10 David A. Shirk Legend l ess th an minimum wage {'%) 3~ ? 10% 11%- 20% 21%-Xl% 31%- 40% . ., ... , .. - 51%?00'< 2%- 10% 11%- 21Ai 21%- 30% 31%- 40% 41%-50% 51%? 00% 61%- 70f? 71%-00% 81%-00% 91%-100% 0%- 10% 11%-Jl% -21%- 3J% - 31%-40% - 41 %- 42% 42% of working population earn 5 times or mon~ than the minimum wage in Benito Juarez, D.F 3J5 610 1 ,220 kllometers "Includes all municipalities formed prior to 19~ and some formed correspond to municipali!ies that wete form1ng in 1996 and 1997. N I Source: Earnings data from INEGI XII General Population ;wd HousingSwvey2000. Maps by TBI Research Assistant Theresa Fires tine. Addressing Trans-Border Migration and Development 11 Income Distribution in Mexico by Population, No income < 1 x 1-2x 2+to5x >5x Unknown minimum minimum minimum minimum wage wage Sources: Income data from INEGI Agenda Estadistica 200 I. Thus, when Mexico's long-time ruling party - the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) - lost the presidency in 2000 to former Coca? Cola executive Vicente Fox, many hoped that his six-year term would bring much-needed change. In an attempt to promote economic development, President Fox experimented with a mix of public policy initiatives to improve governmental revenue (e.g., fiscal reform), infrastructure development (e.g., the Puebla-Pana.ma Plan), and micro? economic solutions (e.g., micro-credit lending and the Oportunidades program). Moreover, his ambitious agenda for change sought to overhaul the Mexican justice system and improve education. However, Fox's domestic programs - hobbled by partisan divisions in Mexico's Congress, and attempted without full participation of Mexico's NAFT A partners -have met with only limited success. Today, with roughly 40% of Mexican households still living in poverty (defined in Mexico as households earning less than $5 USD per day), the supply of potential Mexican migrants seems enormous; certainly much greater than the 161,445 legal permanent resident immigrant visas granted by U.S. officials to Mexicans in 2005. Unless better employment opportunities and higher wages can be provided in Mexico, the overwhelming "push" factors that have driven recent migration will no doubt continue to influence prospective innovative approaches, and much cooperation by Mexico and the U.S. will be needed to address this issue. Indeed, according to the Mexican federal population agency (Consejo Nacional de Poblaci6n - CONAPO), as 12 David A. Shirk many as 400,000 to 500,000 Mexicans are expected to emmigrate to the U.S. per year through about 2030, no doubt swelling the total number of unauthorized Mexican immigrants in the United States in the foreseeable future. Innovative approaches and many hands will be needed to address this issue. HOW TO PROMOTE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN MEXICO? Promoting economic development in Mexico will obviously require sustained and far-reaching reforms in Mexico's domestic economic policy, education and human development, management of public? sector enterprises, and the provision of basic infrastructure (particularly in Mexico's underdeveloped South). Throughout his term, Fox strongly advocated similar reforms, but was hamstrung by a divided Congress that opposed his key initiatives. Like Fox, incoming Mexican President Felipe Calder6n advocates boosting private-sector investment, improving ? Mexican education, building up infrastructure, and promoting fiscal reform in order to provide greater resources for government programs. Calder6n may actually accomplish more in this regard than Fox did. Despite an extremely close (and highly controversial) presidential election in July 2006, the centre-right National Action Party (PAN)- the party of both Fox and Calder6n- picked up seats in the lower house of Congress. Also, for the first time ever, the PAN became the dominant party in the Mexican Senate. Striking a new deal with Mexico's now debilitated former ruling party (PRI) - which may be induced to support PAN initiatives in order to strengthen its own bargaining position - could enable Calder6n to pass reforms that will help to bridge the gap between Mexico's haves and have nots. Indeed, if he hopes to have a mandate to govern, Calder6n must do so with the fierce urgency of now. Anger over the closeness and perceived irregularities of the July elections has contributed to smouldering popular indignation among supporters of leftist candidate Andres Manuel L6pez Obrador, who lost by only less than 1% of the vote. CONCLUSIONS: fiNDING CONSENSUS ON MIGRATION In the intensely polemical debate on undocumented immigration to the U.S., two indisputable facts emerge. The first is that current U.S. border security initiatives have failed to stop undocumented immigration. The second is that more needs to be done address to the deeper underlying economic factors that contribute to large-scale Addressing Trans-Border Migration and Development 13 migration from Mexico. Many anti-immigration activists adopt a finger? wagging position, emphasizing the corruption and ineptitude of Mexican politicians. Yet, it is important to recognize that Mexico's troubles over the past two decades have to do in large measure with (the attendant disruptions brought on by) a macro-level shift in Mexico's economy and the emergence of a new globalised marketplace. NAFT A, at least as it was originally envisioned, was intended to help usher in that new global era by bringing Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. economically closer together, and even reduce undocumented immigration. Unfortunately for Mexico, the deal entailed free flows of goods and capital, but not labour (its one area of comparative advantage). Moreover, opening to international trade entailed a massive restructuring of its economy, volatile currency fluctuations, deteriorated wages, and lostjobs. The Impact of Neoliberal Reforms and Mexican Emigration on the North American Labour Market Richard Roman and Edur Velasco Arregui ABSTRACT The labour market and labour movements of North America are being transformed by neoliberal reforms and free trade agreements that restrict labour rights and by the intensification of migration from Latin America that has resulted from these reforms. Precarious migration by Mexicans to North America and the shifting of production to Mexico are exerting a downward pressure on the labour market and on working conditions in all three countries. Emigration from Mexico has not been lessened by these plant relocations as they are part of a package of neoliberal reforms that destroy more jobs and sources of livelihood in Mexico than they create. Wages and working conditions will continue to deteriorate and labour organisations to weaken throughout North America unless and until the labour movement develops new ways of organisation and struggle that are inclusive of all sectors of the labouring populations, are transnational, and challenge the new "free trade" systems of labour regulation. I. MEXICO AS A POOL FOR THE RESERVE ARMY OF LABOUR In his classic text, "Structural Change in the New Economy," the legendary president of the Federal Reserve Board of the U.S., Alan Greenspan, celebrated the most prolonged expansion in the history of the U.S. as a consequence of the irresistible power of competition and the growth of the efficiency of corporations: "States with more flexible labour markets, skilled work forces, and a reputation for supporting 15 16 Richard Roman and Edur Velasco Arregui innovation and entrepreneurship will be prime locations for firms at the cutting edge of technology." 1 Alan Greenspan's comparison of the U.S. and Europe hails the unilateral control of labour market flexibility by corporations as the key to U.S. economic superiority. In elaborating the reasons for U .S. prosperity, he concluded: An intriguing aspect of the recent wave of productivity acceleration is that U.S. businesses and workers appear to have benefited more from the recent advances in information technology than their counterpa1ts in Europe or Japan. Those countries, of course, have also participated in tllis wave of invention and innovation, but they appear to have been slower to exploit it. The relatively int1exible and, hence, more costly labour markets of tl1ese economies appear to be a significant part of the explanation. The elevated rates of return offered by tl1e newer technologies in the United States are largely the result of a reduction in labour costs per unit of output. The rates of return on investment in the same new technologies are correspondingly less in Europe and Japan because businesses there face higher costs of displacing workers than we do. Here, labour displacement is more readily countenanced both by law and by culture. Parenthetically, because our costs of dismissing workers are lower, the potential costs of hiring and the risks associated with expanding employment are less. The result of tills sigilificantly higher capacity for job dismissal has been, counter-intuitively, a dramatic decline in the U.S. unemployment rate in recent years. ' In the months after the signing of NAFT A, Greens pan was obsessed with its possible effects on prices and labour costs (Woodward). However, productivity increased at the same time that unemployment surprisingly decreased without provoking a shift in the balance of forces in the U.S. labour market in favour of workers. The problem was not insignificant given that labour costs represent 70% of the operating costs of the U.S. economy. The explanation of this surprising outcome is found in the greater insecurity of workers and flexibility of management in hiring and firing, which Greenspan so praised. Furthermore labour insecurity was rooted in an unusual scissor effect: the simultaneous presence of an accelerated rate of technological change and the incorporation of a pool of new workers in conditions of extreme vulnerability, the millions of Mexican workers who entered the U.S. labour market in those years. The Mexican crisis of 1994, from this perspective, was not a minor or insignificant factor in maintaining the general rate of profit of the U.S. economy. The U.S. economy had begun to experience a sharp scarcity of unemployed. This tight labour market had the potential of undermining labour discipline and contributing to an upward movement of wages. The Mexican crisis alleviated this problem by expelling millions of workers who replenished 1 Greenspan 2000. 2 Greenspan 2000. Impact of Neolibera/ Reforms and Mexican Emigration on North American Labour Market 17 the reserve army of labour in the U.S. The Mexican crisis played an essential role for the growing U.S. economy. We will return to Greenspan and this issue in part IV. A certain amount of unemployment is good for Capital, though bad for both employed and unemployed workers. A surplus of workers gives Business flexibility and leverage to exert a downward pressure on wages and benefits. Firms, sectors, and the economy as a whole have an uneven rhythm of production. Workers are needed at times and not needed at other times as the cycle rises and falls. Individual firms want workers when they need them but do not want to pay wages and benefits to the workers when they do not. A reserve supply of labour helps capitalism solve this dilemma. They can be hired and paid when needed, and discarded when not needed. The costs of their survival, until needed again, are externalised. The costs are passed on to the state (social safety nets, such as welfare or unemployment insurance) or to family and friends. Aside from the need to have workers when you need them (or else miss profit opportunities), Capital wants cheap, productive and disciplined workers. As well as creating an upward pressure on wages, labour shortages contribute to a feeling of independence and possible insubordination on the part of workers. Thus, from the point of view of capital, a reserve army of labour is important not only for having labour when it is needed, but also having the kind of labour that is wanted . Capital can draw on domestic reserve armies of labour in certain periods, and women, especially victimised minorities, and regions with chronically high unemployment have often played this role. But these sources of surplus labour are not always available at the price and within the terms that Business is willing and/or able to pay, and, as citizens, they are entitled to a variety of rights. There are, therefore, special advantages to drawing on a labour reserve from abroad. The costs of producing this labour force - the raising and educating of children until attainment of working age - has been paid for by the other society. These immigrant workers are generally vulnerable due to economic needs, language barriers, and limitations on their legal rights within the host nation. They are more easily disposable when no longer needed. Those workers who toil in their home country for foreign or foreign-linked capital are also often denied citizenship rights because of the autl1oritarian structure of many of these regimes. There are two processes through which Capital draws on external reserve armies of labour throughout the world. One is immigration. The other - made much more possible by developments in technology and trade agreements - is the global reorganisation of production to incorporate low wage zones. In the case of the U.S., the 18 Richard Raman and Edur Velasco Arregui two processes come together in the massive in-migration of Mexicans and Central Americans and the burgeoning of maquiladoras and Export Processing Zones. Many of the Mexicans come as undocumented workers, which makes them both legally precarious and restricts their entitlements to health care or education for their children. Their legal vulnerability and economic dependency facilitates their exploitation which, in turn, exerts a downward pressure on the demands of longer? term resident labour populations. The participation of Mexican nationals in the U.S. labour force and in the society at large has always been a source of great controversy. But the long, shared border with Mexico has provided a partial alternative to having foreign workers resident in the country. This alternative, the relocation of part or all of the production process to cheap labour areas, was not a totally new strategy. It did, and continues to take place within, as well as between, nations across the world.3 But the border of a first-world country with a third-world country created even steeper wage and other associated costs of production incentives that were even more dramatic. It also facilitated and facilitates wage and work discipline within the U.S. by serving as a vivid threat - shape up, give up previous gains, or lose out on jobs. These two processes, insecure immigration and plant relocation, are part of a broader package of neoliberal reforms aimed at increasing managerial power over labour. Other components of this package involve reducing the social net to put more pressure on people to work for less and making taxation levels more competitive with low tax regions and nations, which also means fewer funds for the social net. The privatisation of all things that can be turned into sources of profit, both public enterprises and public goods, such as water, are also part of these policies. The investment guarantees in the various "Free Trade" agreements are aimed, in significant part, at creating a legally secure area in which the search for cheap and flexible labour could be safely deepened, regionalised, and/or globalised. Business interests have been the driving force for the creation of these treaties in their constant efforts to maintain or increase profits. Business responded to the crisis of the 1970s by developing more aggressive strategies towards labour. The neoliberal strategies are deliberate attempts to sharply increase the domination of capital over labour. They pre-date the trade agreements, which themselves seek to insulate these policies from tampering by governments or civil society in tl1e future. 3 Cowie 1999. Impact of Neoliberal Reforms and Mexican Emigration on North American Labour Market 19 11. NEOLIBERAL REFORMS, ECONOMIC CRISES, DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE, AND LABOUR MIGRATION: THE PUSH An understanding of the radical demographic change in the Western hemisphere is necessary in order to grasp the basis for the torrential force of this great wave of human migration. Economic crisis and restructuring provide the push for the emigration towards the U .S. But the dimension and power of this migration has its underlying basis in the demographic transformation of the Western hemisphere. There has been an inversion of the population ratio between the U.S. and Latin America from the beginning of the last century to the beginning of this century. Early in the 20'" century, there were more people living in the U.S. than in all of Latin America. In 1914, the U.S. had a population of 100 million, while all of Latin America only had 80 million, and most of these lived in rural areas. Eighty-six years later, the numbers were dramatically reversed. Latin America had a population approximately double that of the U.S.: 500 million in Latin America and about 260 million in the U.S. The rapid growth of the Mexican labour force, the several economic crises, the restructuring of the economy in a manner in which formal sector jobs have diminished, and the common border, accelerated migration from Mexico to the U.S. in the 1980s, 1990s, and the first years of the 21" century. The northern trajectory of Mexican workers has been both to the maquila border zones and over the border to the U.S. The rapid growth of the Mexican labour force combined with Mexico's economic crises has greatly increased unemployment and underemployment. The dramatic drop in real wages has pushed more family members into the work force. As well, cutbacks in social services and in subsidies to tl1e agricultural sector are also pushing more and more Mexicans northward. 4 As well, the promise of some employment, albeit at the bottom of the occupational ladder in the U.S., has continued to attract Mexican workers. This attraction has intensified as the wage differential between Mexico and the U.S. has grown with each peso devaluation and the ongoing fall of real wages in Mexico. There now also exists a self? sustaining labour recruitment social infrastructure based on generations of previous migrants and tl1e physical contiguity of Mexico and the U .S. This self-sustaining system meshes with and is made possible by the 4 As NAFTA opens Mexico up to more U.S. grain imports over the next decade, large numbers of Mexicans will be pushed ofT the land. Some writers expect the numbers to be in the millions in the first ten years of this new centmy. 20 Richard Roman and Edur Velasco Arregui embeddedness of this source of labour for sectors of U.S. industry.5 As Kearney has aptly stated it: "Foreign labour is desired, but the person in whom it is embodied is not desired."6 This states well the divergence between the labour recruitment and regulation strategy of sections of Capital and the opposition of various sectors of society to the inclusion of the bearers of this labour power as fellow members of society. Conflicts over citizenship rights and the boundaries of society and nation become confounded with conflict over real or perceived economic interests.7 The state, therefore, is involved not only in mediating and managing interest conflicts but also ideological and status concerns over the boundaries and ethnic character of society. Ill. HISTORY OF MEXICO-U.S. LABOUR FLOW Mexican workers have long played a significant role in the U.S. c::conomy. During World War I, when the U.S. faced labour shortages, the government adopted the Temporary Admission Program to import cheap Mexican labour for U.S. industry and agriculture. In the early 1920s and most dramatically, in the Depression of tl1e 1930s, there were massive deportations of Mexicans by the U.S. government. Again, with labour shortages during World War II and the Korean War, the "Bracero Program" was enacted, again, to import Mexican labour. And again, in the period of 1954-1 955, the U.S. government carried out its "Operation Wetback," in which approximately 3.7 million Mexicans were deported. 8 5 The application of the concept of embeddedness as well as the notion of the self-sustaining migration process can be found in the work of Wayne Comelius, Roger Waldinger, and Robe1t Smith. See Cornelius 1998. 6 Kearney, quoted injarnie Peck 1996:10. 7 These issues are used as mobilizing issues in political struggles (e.g. Buchanan in the presidential prima~ies of 1996 and 2000, and also the anti-immigrant Bill 187 in California) building on the status, cultural, and economic anxieties of sections of the AmeiiCail population. 8 When Attorney-General Herbe1t Brownell.l r. ordered "Operation Wetback" in .J une 1954, he "cited the possible illegal entrance of political subversives as a chief reason for his action ... " (Meier and Hibera 1993: 189). While "approximately 3,700,000 undocumenteds returned to Mexico between 1950 and 1955, only 63,500 were expelled as a result of fonnal deportation proceedings. Many left the country 'voluntarily'" (Meier and Hibera 190). The term "wetback" is a derogatory tenn used to label MexicailS by U.S. whites, especially in the Southwest. The term refers to an image of Mexicans crossing the Ri o Grande Hiver, the border between Texas and Mexico. As late as 1951, the President's Commission on MigratOiy Labour in Ame1ican Ag1iculture said in its Final Rep01t: "The wetback is a Mexican national who, figuratively, if not literally, wades or swims the Rio Grande. Whether he enters by wading or swimming, crawls through a hole in a fence, or just walks over a momenta~ily unguarded section of the long land border, he is a wetback. Since he enters by evading the immigration ollicers, he is, in any event, ail illegally entered alien. The term wetback is widely accepted a11d used without derision; hence for convenience, it is used here." Quoted by David M. Reimers 1992:58. The a~?gument that this Impact af Nea/ibera/ Reforms and Mexican Emigration on North American Labour Market 21 There was a diminished flow of immigration for the next ten years (1955-1965) but it picked up steam again in the second half of the 1960s and even more so since the 1970s. The density of community and family links between Mexicans on one side of the border and Mexican-Americans and Mexicans on the other side create powerful networl}s for cross-border labour mobility. The deep crises of the Mexican economy since the 1970s as well as the devastating neoliberal restructuring have intensified the push out of Mexico. The insatiable desire of U .S. employers for cheap and vulnerable labour has produced powerful pressure groups for loopholes in policies intended to regulate or stop undocumented immigration. 9 The very programs meant, in part, to contain Mexicans in Mexico stimulate further migration. The maquila program, for example, attracts workers from other regions of Mexico to work in the frontier. Work in the maquilas enhances transferable skills, intensifies awareness of the great differences in wages on both sides of the border, familiarises people with the border region, as well as brings them to the edge of the "First World" (Sassen, 1996). The ongoing tension over immigration policy and job protection has led to a variety of measures and legislation, including the increasing militarisation of the border. 10 Nevertheless, the demographic pressure, the economic disparities within Mexico and between Mexico and the U.S., the desire of Capital for cheap labour, as well as the desire for a reserve army of labour to use as leverage for more general wage and work discipline, make the immigration flow uncontainable. The U.S.-Mexican labour market grew significantly in the post World War II years and even more sharply in the last thirty years. The maquila program did not deter it but, in fact, acted in a complementary manner. NAFT A was politically promoted in the U.S., in part, as a way pejorative tenn was used without derision shows the depth of racist attitudes in these cliscussions. 9 The "T exas Proviso" provides a good example of the effectiveness of the agribusiness lobby. President Truman and the Ametican Federation of Labour sought to pass legislation in the early 1950s to outlaw the employment of undocumented immigrants. But "Senator James Eastland of Mississippi, a staunch supporter of tl1e national origins quotas and limited inunigration and an opponent of refugee bills like tl1e Displaced Persons Act, was tolerant about admitting undocumented aliens. He insisted the Douglas amendment (to make tl1e employment of undocumented aliens illegal-EV/ RR) was 'unfair to the farmer or the Mexican involved." The law tl1at was finally passed "made it a felony instead of a misdemeanour to wilfully import, transport or harbour illegal aliens ... The law specifically said that employment of undocumented workers did not constitute 'harbouring'." "The exception, known as the Texas Proviso, inclicated a clear victory for the growers." In Reimers 5!-52. I 0 Andreas 1998; Dunn 1996. In 1982, the INS carried out "Operation jobs" (its label) which was aimed at removing undocumented workers from "high paying jobs" in order to make these jobs available to Americans. Raids were carried out in nine cities largely aimed at Hispanic citizens, mainly Mexicans. These were inefTective and challenged by civil rights ;md civil liberties groups, and, finally, suspended. (Meier and Ribera 191). 22 Richard Raman and Edur Velasco Arregui of stopping the undocumented immigrant flow. It does not allow for the free flow of labour. Nevertheless, it helps complete the integration of Mexican labour into the U.S. labour market. For while NAFTA makes all of Mexico a maquila zone, some production still must take place closer to consumers and less mobile capital in the U.S. needs to continually lower its labour costs to compete with goods now entering more and more freely from Mexico. A great volume of Latino workers have moved into fundamental sectors of the U.S. labour market to do this work that cannot be readily relocated. Latino workers are very important in specific sectors, both labour intensive and high tech.11 IV. MIGRATION, POVERTY, AND THE DOWNWARD HARMONISATION OF THE U.S. LABOUR MARKET As the previous section has shown, the tremendous role of immigrant labour in the development of U.S. capitalism is not new. And Mexico has always been an important source. But the importance of Mexico specifically - and Latin America more generally - has mushroomed. Mexican labour on both sides of the border has become increasingly important to U.S. capitalism. It can be estimated that one of three employed Mexican nationals are employed in the U .S. 12 And one of four industrial workers in Mexico are employed in maquilas. Large? scale immigration to the U.S. remains one of the highest migration flows in the world. 13 Of the 6.8 million legal immigrants who came to the U.S. from 1990-1995, roughly 38% were from Latin America. Of the vast number of non-legal immigrants in the U .S., a 1992 report indicates that two out of five were Mexican, and two out of three were Latin American. If we add seasonal workers to legal and non-legal Mexican 11 The sunbelt boom and its expanded low-end manufacturing and se1vice job base were significant factors in the demand for Mexic;m labom. By 1990, 37% of young Mexican immigrant men and 59% of young Mexican immigrant women were employed in manufacturing, overwhelmingly in direct production tasks. (Vemez and Ronfeldt 1991). Other studies show that these workers were employed not only by labour-intensive u?aditional indusfl?ies (e.g., shoe and garment manufacture, consll'!lction) but also by high-technology li1ms with seemingly safe market positions (Cornelius 1989; Fernandez-Kelly 1983; Gonza!ez Baker et. al. 90). 12 Velasco and Roman 49. 13 The population of the U.S. grew from 248.1 million in 1990 to 261.1 million in 1995, an increase of 13.5 million people in five years (the U.S. increase in those live years was equal to about half of the total population of Canada in the same period). The rate of population growth "by natural increase" was 1.1% in rounded figures. Official statistics show that there were 6.8 million legal immigrants in this period, which implies that 50% of the absolute population growth of the U.S. can be attributed to the flow of immigrants from other countries. (U.S. Statistical Absu?act, 1996, pp. 8-18). The volume of legal immigrants in 1994 was 804,000. Of this 804,000, 38% or 304,000 came from Latin America; 292,000 from Asia; 161,000 from Europe; 26,000 from Africa; and only 20,000 from Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Impact of Neo/ibera/ Reforms and Mexican Emigration on North American Labour Market 23 residents of the U.S., we can say that approximately I 0 million Mexican nationals live in the U .S. for part or all of the year. 14 The new waves of Mexican migrants are being incorporated into an economy that is being re-organised for cross-national production in a neoliberal framework. Production is being disaggregated and integrated continentally. This has profound implications for the incorporation of immigrants into the labour force. Earlier waves of European immigrants made economic gains through political and trade union struggle in the context of an expanding U.S. economy. These opportunities, however, were generally blocked for Latinos and Blacks through the practices of institutionalised racism, which ghettoized them in job sectors of lesser opportunity. However, while the job ghettoization of Latinos and Blacks persists, the character of the expansion of the economy is radically different: it is an expansion based on a systematic attack on wages, job security, and working conditions. The opportunity structure for advancement through immigration has shrunk as the labour market has been harmonised downward in the name of international competitiveness. This deterioration of the labour market is produced both by corporate and government policies (welfare reform, anti-union policies). The sectors in which immigrant labour is concentrated have been the most vulnerable to the threat and practice of job relocation, restructuring, and downsizing. This transformed job structure Gobs relocated to Mexico, downsizing, casualisation, etc.) is not only the entry point for the new waves of Mexican immigrants but also the location of the previous waves of immigrants and the Mexican-American population. They remain concentrated in the low end of the employment structure, in the jobs 14 The importance of Mexican and Latin Ame1ican migration for the growth of the U.S. labour force becomes more sharply visible if we add non-legal immigration to the legal. The INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service of the U .S. govemment) estimated that there were between 3.4 and 4 million undocumented workers in the U.S. However, there are indications that the real number is much higher, perhaps around 6 million people, who live submerged in an underground social and labour world within the U .S. If we extrapolate from the study, Mig1<1tion Between Mexico and the United States, we would see that the number of undocumented immigrants of various nationalities is quite underestimated in the official figures. The 1992 study referred to above shows only 3.4 million undocumented immigrants, of whom 1.3 million are of Mexican 01igin. But the study shows that the real numbers of undocumented workers, permanent and temporary, in the U.S. economy is actually much higher. In fact, it may have reached 6 million in the second half of the 1990s, e.g. 5% of the economically active population of the U.S. By ll1e end of ll1e century, these figures could increase to 8 million or 6.3% of the economically active population of the U.S. vVhichever set of figures is more accurate, the growth of the Latino labour force in ll1e U.S., of which Mexicans are the majority, has been and will continue to be enormous. Latino workers have been predicted to have reached 27% of the U.S. labour force lllis ye;u?. And, by 2004, it has been predicted ll1at Lttina workers will outnumber female "Anglo"/wllite workers (Zaragoza V;u?gas 243). The above prqjections do not include the 3 million Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico. 24 Richard Roman and Edur Velasco Arregui most vulnerable to relocation and therefore also to the effective use of the threat of relocation. Thus, the new entrants and the various layers of previous immigrants and Mexican-Americans are being compressed together at the bottom end of a job structure, which itself is being transformed in a downward direction. The presence of 11 million Latino/a workers in the U.S. labour market coincides with the destruction of the old social contract of the post-war period. As well, it takes place in a very different context than early 20"' century immigration. Immigrants then, as now, generally concentrated in certain niches . When the economy expanded, these immigrants and their children could move out into other areas or make gains in these expanding job niches. But now, the expansion of capitalism is not producing better opportunities but a worse and more casualised labour market. The job niches being carved out are shrinking because of downsizing and relocation to Mexico, among other places. Thus the recent immigrants, the 1.5-generation immigrants (those born abroad but raised in the U.S.), and the second-generation are finding their prospects very bleak. The combination of the persistently large immigration flow with the deteriorating job market bodes ill for the immigrants and their children. As one author has put it: "If the niche shrinks while the numbers entering it grow, conflict and downward mobility will result." 15 The combination of a deteriorating labour market with the systematic assault on organised labour has made U.S. labour very weak. 16 This assault has been carried out both by companies and governments through legislation and practices that have made union 15 Smith 151. 16 It is more than coincidental that immigrants amass in cities of declining unionization. Jobs are still present in these cities - though these are old jobs that have been downgraded or new, low end jobs. Weak and declining unions find it difficult to organize new workers, immigrant or non-immigrant. The lack of organisation and clout undermines resistance to the replacement of union jobs with non-union jobs through restructuring, contracting out, etc. In this context, the mass of new workers can be used to beat down wages and working conditions and further weaken unionism. Job protection through exclusionary strategies is not viable in tllis new situation of tl1e continentalisation of the labour market and globalization of production. New York City had a unionization rate of 38% in 1983, but this declined to 25% in tl1e 1990s. Chicago declined from 25% to 18% in tllis period and Los Angeles from 22% to 15%. Unionized workers in cities witl1 large Latino populations are mainly composed of small groups of federal public employees who have unioni7,1tion rights by law, while tl1e rest of tl1e labour force lacks union organisation. The rate of unionization is 9% in Miami, 7.2% in El Paso, 7% in Houston, 6.8% in Dallas, 6.5% in Phoenix, 5.9% in San Antonio, and 3.6% in Austin, Texas. If we exclude the public sector and focus on tl1e 110 nlillion workers in tl1e private sector, the rate of unionization in the U.S. falls below 10%. This is a dramatic decline from tl1e 35% rate at the end of World War II . Thus, most U.S. workers lack the organisation to bargain collectively over their conditions of employment. But, in the case of La.tino workers, tl1e low rate of unionization, 12%, has a devastating effect on salaries. The combination of falling salaries and tl1e slow but continuous rise in productivity has polarized income as never before in U.S. histOiy. Impact of Neoliberal Reforms and Mexican Emigration on North American Labour Market 25 organisation, collective contracts, and strikes almost impossible in various parts of the U.S. As well, the weakness of U.S. labour is a result of the inability of traditional unionism to effectively confront these attacks. These conditions facilitate the use of mass immigration as a way of lowering the wage bill and disciplining the whole of the working class. It is not immigration per se that weakens unions and the position of workers in the labour market. 17 It is the inter-connected combination of these labour market changes and both the weakness and the strategies of U.S. unions that permit the demeaning treatment of undocumented workers and the general deterioration of conditions of work. Returning to Alan Greens pan's argument, we can see that one important result of the Mexican crisis of 1994 was that the tendencies in the Mexican and U.S. labour markets criss-crossed. Whereas the reserve army of labour of the U.S. decreased continuously in the following thirty-six months from 9.6 million to 6.2 million unemployed, the mass of unemployed in Mexico rose from 2.8 million to 4.6 million. 18 40% of Mexicans and Central Americans continued to have incomes below the poverty line, another 17% had gross incomes that oscillated around the poverty line, and only 15% were involved in work that gained them incomes two times the poverty line. The 1994 Mexican crisis, in one fell swoop, produced millions of newly unemployed workers. The incorporation of this surplus labour force into the U.S. labour market, without labour rights or union organisation, was fundamental for the prolongation of the profitability of U.S. corporations over the next four years. This absorption of a major part of Mexico's surplus labour force by the U.S. economy took place through two mechanisms. The 17 As mentioned above, it: is not immigration per se that causes a deterioration of living and working conditions of wage earners. Earlie r waves of European immigrants were able to experience rising wages and living conditions in the generally expansive U.S. economy of the 20''' century. These objective conditions, along with the struggles of immigrant and non-immigrant workers tl1rough their unions led to tl1e wirming of 1ights as well as better wages and conditions. Management, in some sectors, found it necess:uy :u1d possible to live in f?iendly or hostile coexistence with collectively org:u1ized workers. The relative strength of unions in these conditions allowed for the sometimes successfu l collective defence of workers' rights. Thus, the impact o f immigration on tl1e workforce depends on tl1e structural changes going on in the economy (type of expansion or contraction) , the size and character of the immigration, the stTenglh of collective organisation of tl1e working class (unions), :u1d tl1e stance of unions toward tl1e acceptance or rejec!lon of immigrant workers. The key is tl1e m:umer in which immigrant workers are absorbed into the labour force :u1d working class culture :u1d institutions. The manner of absorption depends on several things: the slate of tl1e labour market (declininglexp:u1dinglchanging), the strength of unions , the st:u1ce of unions (fraternal? welcoming, racist-excluding), labour legisla!lon and enforcement (anti-racist or facilitating racial segmentation, allowing sub-standard conditions, or enforcing minimal labour sl;md:u?ds - tl1ereby reducing the opportunity and incentive lo use immigrant labour as a cheap labour force :u1d lever to drive down labour stand:u?ds in general). 18 Anuario Estadistico de Ios EUM 2002:223. 26 Richard Roman and Edur Velasco Arregui first was the significant expansion of the maquila industry during the second half of the 1990s. The second was the massive migration of Mexican workers to the U .S. In both instances, the absence of the rights of association and collective bargaining were fundamental in preserving the low salaries of the recently arrived in the workshops and factories on both sides of the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo. The real and potential presence of Mexican workers in the continentally integrated manufacturing process of U.S. industry, without socio-political rights or unions, created the conditions for intimidating U.S. and Canadian workers with the threat of plant closures and relocation. The opening of the migratory floodgates in 1995 alleviated the labour shortage for the booming U.S. economy. For the migrants, it involved exchanging one kind of suffering for another. On one side of the border, the migrants had suffered the poverty of starvation, a palpable lack of food, and basic services for themselves and their families. On the other side of the border, their poverty rose to U.S. poverty levels but tl1ey had to endure the pitiless appropriation of their life energies and bodies in the machinery of U.S. production in order to keep themselves and their families from sinking below the poverty line. In the course of this exchange of suffering, they had also to endure the alienation of immigrants from their roots and the racism of their host country. Some of the consequences of this deterioration in the labour market have been partially overcome by having many members of the family participate in the labour force. The cultural capacity to constitute extended family units - and the sacrifice of more and more living labour for lower and lower wages - has been the only way that Latino families have been able to pay the very high rents of U.S. cities. It is only by combining five or six salaries within extended families living in overcrowded single-family housing that makes the payment of rents possible that would be impossible to cover with a single salary. Latinos constitute a significant portion of the population of nine of the ten major metropolises in the U.S. These developments have involved the deindustrialisation of the "Rust Belt" and the destruction of its unions as industry has been relocated to the Sunbelt of the U.S. south. The presence of 18 million Latino workers is coincident with the dismantling of the old, post-war social contract. Migration does not, in and of itself, produce a deterioration in the conditions of life and work of wage-earners. It did not do this in earlier periods of U .S. history. The effect of immigration depends on the general development of the labour market, the type of government regulation, and the strength of unions. Corporations have used immigration as part of a more general strategy to reduce salary Impact of Neo/ibero/ Reforms and Mexican Emigration on North American Labour Market 27 levels and increase flexibility. The corporate assault has combined the vvidespread use of immigrant labour with an attack on unions and workers rights and governmental regulation that obstructs unions and leaves undocumented workers without protection. The great importance of Latinos, especially Mexicans and Central Americans, in the reserve army of labour (which we are defining, roughly, as those below the poverly line) can be seen in changes that have taken place between 1980 and 2003. The Latino segment of the reserve army of labour grew from 11% of the total number of poor people in the U.S. to 24,% in this period, although they only made up 13.8% of the total population in 2003. Latinos have now slightly surpassed Afro-Americans within the reserve army of labour and, together, they have gone from being 41% of the reserve army of labour in 1980 to almost 48% in 2003. The immense majorily of these poor Latinos are of Mexican and Central American origins. In spite of the (U.S.) economic boom of the 1990s, the number of poor Mexicans witl1in the U.S. did not cease to grow, increasing from 3. 7 million in 1990 to 5.4 million in 2000 and 6.2 million in 2003. Nevertheless, non? Latino "whites" still make up a majority of the reserve army of labour. The last few years have seen a substantial growth in the number of both employed and unemployed Latinos, a seeming paradox that is explained by the magnitude of the migration to the U.S. This has been the case throughout the slow economic recuperation that began in 2002, during which the number of unemployed Latinos continuously grew to 20% of the total of unemployed workers, in spite of, simultaneously, gaining ground in the over-all labour market, as we will see later. At the other extreme from poor workers [Latino migrants, poor whites, and (the long term marginalisation of) Blacks] is the nucleus of the dominant class of U.S. capitalism, that 5% of the population that receives 22% of the national income of the U.S., that is, five million famili es with an average annual income over $3 million USD. Latino workers have become the majority within workers of colour. In a period of lwenty years, their percentage of blue and white collar workers combined has gone from 7.8 % in 1983 to 20.1% (10.6 million) of these workers in 2004 while the Afro-American percentages have remained relatively unchanged, increasing from 13.4% to 13.8% (6. 7 million) in the same period. Alongside Latino and Black workers, there is a growing portion of workers of Asian origins and the large majority of increasingly impoverished white workers. In line work and transportation, the percentage of Latinos of the whole labour force in that segment has gone from 8.3% to 19.2%, in construction from 6% to 25%, in hotel services from 10.1 % to 38.2%, in building cleaners from 8.9% to 26.8%. One of five workers in the U.S. today is Latino and they 28 Richard Roman and Edur Velasca Arregui continue to be the most dynamically growing sector of the working class of the world's leading capitalist power. CONCLUSION Neoliberal reforms in Mexico and in the U.S. have had a sharply negative effect on job opportunities, wages, benefits, and working conditions. They have been an important factor of the push of Mexicans to the U.S. And, in the U.S., these neoliberal reforms have meant that recent waves of Mexican immigrants are entering a labour market which is itself deteriorating. The combination of the increasing numbers of desperate migrants and a general downward push in the U.S. labour market creates conditions in which a scapegoating of the immigrants as the source of the deterioration is strongly possible. The alternative would be to see the neoliberal restructuring of the labour market as the source of the deterioration on both sides of the border ? and labour organisation and action as necessary to slow or reverse these policies. But this requires major changes in the labour movements of both countries. Workers and unions must aim for a unionism that is inclusive, emphasises solidarity rather than competition, and seeks to reverse the neoliberal policies that have been so hard on workers on both sides of the border. Impact of Neo/ibera/ Reforms and Mexican Emigration on North American Labour Market 29 REFERENCES Andreas, Peter. "The U.S. Immigration Control Offensive: Constructing ;m Image of Order on the Southwest Border." Crossings: Mexican Immigration in Interdisciplina1y Perspectives. Ed. Marcelo M. Suarez-Orozco. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998. 343-56. Cornelius, Wayne. "The Structural Embeddedness of Demand for Mexican Immigrant Labour." Crossings: Mexican Immigration in Interdisciplinmy Perspectives. Ed. Marcelo M. Suarez-Orozco. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998. 115-144. Cowie , J efferson. Capital Moves: RCA 's 70-ye;u? Quest for Cheap Labow: Ithaca-London: Cornell University Press, 1999. Dunn, Timothy]. The MilitariZ. 1-Iaas, Peter M. "Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination." lntemational Organization 45. 1 (\.Yinter 1992): 1-35. H1istoulas, Alhanasios. "Trading Places: Canada, Mexico and Continental Security." The Rebordering of North America. Eels . Peter Andreas and Thomas Biersteker. New York, Roulledge Press, 2003. P1ivy Council Office. Canada-Mexico Partnership: Backgrounder. Ottawa: Privy Counci l Office, 2005. Available at . The Puebla-Panama Plan A Strategy for Regional Development? Alejandro Alvarez Bejar Note: This paper is part of a research project funded by DGAPA? UNAM/IN 307102-3 ABSTRACT The Puebla-Panama Plan (PPP) appeared in the first year of Vicente Fox's administration as a program of regional development for the southeastern states of Mexico and its links with Central America. It is based on two suppositions: that the region lags behind the rest of the country, especially in regard to infrastTucture, poverty, and marginalisation; and that since Mexico has seen great inequality in the implementation of public policies it is necessary to "insert" the region into the stream of globalisation. World Bank estimates indicate that Mexico will need an investment of $20 billion USD per year for the coming ten years in order to close the gap in that line. But the nature, amount, scope, and political impact of those investments have been rejected by many indigenous communities, social organisations, and political forces, locally as well as nationally. The official basic diagnostic of the region's troubles remains the same as many years ago: the region's agricull11ral zones are poorly structured, its industrial space is concentrated in only one area, communications are deficient, and its predominantly youthful demographic pattern contrasts witl1 the distribution of its population. But the general formula for solving the problems remains quite conflictive (to open up, privatise, and deregulate) and the priorities and amount of public expenditure benefit the few. This paper will identify, critically, the most important economic, political, and social challenges related to the PPP, and will answer to 53 54 Alejandro Alvarez Bejar what extent the region is not only already inserted into the stream of globalisation through regionalisation with North America, but has also suffered its worst effects, looking at the content and direction of exports and imports, the nature of agricultural activities (coffee, corn, beans, sugar, rice), and the ecological damage to biodiversity due to the exploitation of natural resources, oil, petTochemicals, electricity, as well as activities such as tourism. Finally, it will criticise the linear relationship established in the PPP between communications and development, arguing that the connection remains unclear, and concluding that without explicit public policies, built by consensus with the local communities in all of the aforementioned areas, it is impossible to speak of a "strategy of regional development." INTRODUCTION This paper has been organised into four main sections. The first one gives some historical background to understand the specificity of regional development in the Mexican experience, going back from the model of Import Substitution Industrialisation (ISI) to the most recent Export Oriented Industrialisation Model (EOI). It recovers recent data from regional changes to show increased polarisation instead of regional convergence and the worst welfare indicators concentrated in the southern region. The second section recovers the basics of the PPP as a regional development plan for the southeast region, calling attention to the different stages that the prqject has gone through, until finally "greening" its projects and widening the institutional scope as to leave it practically in the hands of the Inter-American Development Bank (ID B). It is also related to other transnational projects now at work directly or indirectly in the big region of Central America and Mexico, such as the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor (MBC), and with the deepening of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In the tl1ird section, we take a look at the geo-economic potential of the South-Southeast (S-SE) region of Mexico, its natural resources, pool of cheap labour, biodiversity, and strategic geographical situation for international trade, but also to the problems of poverty and vulnerability to natural disasters. In the final section, we examine the federal expenditure priorities in order to show the real level of resources committed to the project and the consistency of the same. This is to say that only the The Puebla-Panama Plan: A Strategy for Regional Development? 55 development of highways and electricity interconnections are revealed as real priorities. Furthermore, going through the lack of coordination in agriculture to the environmental crisis of the region, inconsistencies are shown. We conclude with some ideas for the construction of ecological alternatives, building a new consensus with the indigenous communities and people of the region. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Until the 1980s, regional development policies in Mexico were in reality sectoral development policies, with projects carried out in the U. S. as their model (such as the T e1messee Valley Authority program in the 1930s). For example: the development of hydraulic works to expand the frontiers of agriculture in the north; the promotion of industrial parks and cities in the central regions to stimulate the emergence of new industries; the encouragement of economic development in the arid and semi-arid zones which constitute the largest portion of Mexican territory; and the development of programs for taking advantage of water catchments (such as those on the Balsas, Papaloapan, or Gr~jalva rivers in the states of Guerrero, Veracruz, and Chiapas respectively). Between the decades of the 1940s and the 1970s, under the ISI model, the state functioned as the engine, prot.:1gonist, coordinator, and executive of public policies devised in order to create a commercial class which would generate employment for salaried workers. 1 Under this industrialisation scheme, the design of sectoral policies always had regional implications, though this geographical dimension tended to depend on the weight that regional power groups had within the federal government. One notable feature of Mexico is its strong regional disparities. This, among other reasons, has led some to speak of a northern Mexico and a southern Mexico since the mid-1990s. In the fifteen years since 1990, the strict logic of North American integration and the emergence of information technologies has held sway, and it is evidently since this date that the notion of 'locking-in' the structural reforms imposed in the 1980s, which were oriented towards implanting the new EOI model, has come into force. 2 See Francisco Garcia Moclezuma, El ordenamicnlo tenilan?al y la planeaci6n del Dcsan-ollo en Mexico, la Macro-region mexicana del Phw Puebla Panam;i, Ph.D. Thesis, Faculty of Economics, UNAM, Mexico, 2005, chapter 2. 2 I have examined the global logic of this process in Aleiand ro Alvarez, "Mexico: relocating the State within a new global regime", in Stephen Clarkson and Marj01ie Gri flin Cohen, eds., States Under Siege: se1mpenpheml countJies under Globalism (London, U.K.: Zed Books, 2004) . 56 Alejandro Alvarez Bejar For this same reason, since the end of the 1980s regional policy was in good measure linked to the needs of social policy, which explains why programs for alleviating poverty were concentrated in the S-SE region, such as the National Solidarity Plan initiated by Carlos Salinas de Gortari, which played a key role in the Mixteca zones in the state of Oaxaca, the Selva Lacandona in Chiapas, and the Huasteca zone of Veracruz. At the end of the 1990s, the so-called "Priority Region Attention Program" emerged with President Ernesto Zedillo, which covered the Canada norte, Selva Norte, the Sierra, and the coastal areas of Chiapas; the Mayan areas of Campeche and Quintana Roo; the eastern and coastal areas of Yucatan; the Sierra, Montana and Costa Chica areas of Guerrero; the lsthmus-Papaloapan, Sierra de Juarez and Mixteca zones of Oaxaca; the Sierra Norte and Mixteca areas of Puebla; and in Veracruz the Sierra de Soteapan, the Valle de Uxpanapa, and the Sierra Negra de Zongolica.3 Since then, there have been very significant changes to the five major regions of Mexico (being the North, the Pacific, the Centre? North, the Centre and the South-Southeast), beginning with the increasing transnationalisation of economic interests which now operate with near-complete freedom in the country. These are significant changes as much for their effect on the behaviour of the Gross Domestic Product (generated by state and by per capita GDP) as for that on the standard of living of broad swathes of the population affected by the logic of structural changes, something which can be seen clearly reflected in indicators of well-being and of human development, as well as poverty indexes. One of my colleagues at the faculty has demonstrated the existence of important changes using the most recent and detailed statistics, from both the Mexican National Census System run by the INEGI (National Institute for Statistics, Geography, and Information) and the Human Development Index (HDI) by state of the UN's "UND P Report on Mexico" (the first set showing information at municipal or Basic Geostatistic Area levels, and the second taking into consideration over 30 socio-economic variables from income levels and employment, to living conditions (existence of piped water, electricity, and drainage), and health, to educational levels, among other indicators). 4 3 See Pedro Ponce Javana, El PPP y las comunidades indigenas, Ph.D. T hesis, Universidad Aut6noma de Chapingo, Mexico, 2005, still without ex;m1ination date. 4 See Gabriel Mendoza Pichardo, "Evoluci6n econ6mica y social de !as regiones de Mexico, 1990-2005", Paper lo the Seminar De las Integraciones Region;des a Ios G unbios Loc;1les, Faculty or Economics, UNAM, 2005; see also Gennan Sanchez Daza y M; for the analysis on itrunigration bill H.R. 44.37 in U.S. Congress see David Bacon, "The Border is a Common Ground Between Us", Fiatlux Redux (19 Dec. 2005), available at . 9 See World Bank, Proyeclo del Con-edor Biol6gico Mesoamen'cano-Mexico, 211 36-ME (6 Dec. 2000), Washington, D.C. The Puebla-Panama Plan: A Strategy for Regional Development? 59 Campeche, Quintana Roo, and Yucatan) and the seven Central American states, although in these same states there are numerous accusations that the project is really concerned with developing what in practice is better known as bio-piracy. 10 The basic diagnosis of the region's troubles remains the one originally formulated by a group of economists lead by Santiago Levy, in a technically sophisticated study carried out at the request of the Ernesto Zedillo administration after the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas. 11 According to that study, in the S-SE the agricultural space is poorly structured, its industrial space is concentrated in only one part (the state of Puebla, though recently assembly plants have been established in Puebla, Yucatan, and Chiapas), communications are deficient, and its predominantly youthful demographic pattern contrasts with the mostly rural distribution of its population (60% dispersed over a huge rural area, that is to say nearly 11.5 million people living in settlements of less than 2,500 people and 5.3 million in settlements of less than 15,000 people), with 11 million people concentrated in 156 urban areas below the size of the national average. 12 BASIC FEATURES OF THE CURRENT STATE AND THE ECONOMIC POTENTIAL OF THE S-SE REGION The S-SE of Mexico covers 25% of the territory of the country (around half a million square kilometres) and around 18% of the population in the 2000 census, which generates 11.6% of the country's GDP. Of this population, over 4 million are indigenous peoples, (out of a total of 6 million in the country as a whole), so that in the region the languages most widely-spoken after Spanish are Nahuatl, Maya, Zapoteco, and Mixteco, though in each state a further eight to fifteen languages are in use, which together with geographical isolation explains the precariousness of basic education levels.13 T his also explains the reference to a region of huge cultural and linguistic diversity. To top it all, the poverty indicators and tl1e geographical situation have become a nightmare since the majority of the states in the region are located in a zone which due to its geographical conditions is I 0 Another delailed and ctilical review of that Projecl e