Author: michelle

It seems that the new President in Uruguay is keeping some of his campaign promises already, including a package of economic relief for the poor. There’s a follow-up article in the NY Times. According to the article:

As his first official action, Dr. Vázquez announced a sweeping “Social Emergency Plan” that contains food, health, job and housing components. The program, whose cost is estimated at $100 million, is to be aimed at the hundreds of thousands of Uruguayans who have fallen below the poverty line as a result of economic crises of recent years….

The new president’s second act in office was to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba. Ties were broken in 2002 as a result of a dispute that began when Dr. Vázquez’s predecessor, Jorge Batlle Ibáñez, suggested that human rights observers be sent to Cuba to document abuses there.

The economic crises mentioned in the text above were largely a result of the extreme economic crisis in Argentina. Uruguay’s large neighbor had to devalue it’s currency by 2/3s in 2001 and quickly went into a economic decline not seen since the Depression.

Uruguay’s new president has been inaugurated.

Today Dr. Tabaré Vázquez assumed the presidency in Uruguay. He is one of many leftist presidents elected in the last few years in Latin America. The most famous leftist president in the region right now is of course, President Lula da Silva of Brazil. If Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the popular leftist mayor of Mexico City is allowed to run for president in 2006, many think he will win. (The Fox administration has been trying to strip him of his immunity so that he can be prosecuted for allegedly ignoring a court order to stop construction on a road–near my work BTW–on expropriated land. News programs actually had segments showing the deserted road project and interviewed gardeners to determine whether the height of the grass on the cleared area was consistent with an end to construction around the time of the court order. It’s enough for its own post.)

In an article in the New York Times (free subscription required), they make much of the recent election of lefties south of the border:

Uruguay’s shift consolidates what has become the new leftist consensus in South America. Three-quarters of the region’s 355 million people are now governed by left-leaning leaders, all of whom have emerged in the past six years to redefine what the left means today.

They are not so much a red tide as a pink one. Doctrinaire socialism carries the day far less than pragmatism, an important change in tone and policy that makes this political moment decidedly new.

The emphasis on pink is an important one because most of these leaders have been fairly moderate once in office. They may campaign as heavy lefties (and even Lula had to soften his edges this last time he ran), most of the president’s mentioned pursue a slightly left of center agenda once in office. They do not expropriate industries, run up huge spending deficits, etc. Instead, they are very sensitive to market pressures and may even move more to the center than their constituents would like, just to make sure investors do not get spooked. In many ways, they have to be more careful than their conservative counterparts because the markets distrust them more.

Oh, BTW, one of the Dr.’s first acts as President was to resume full diplomatic relations with Cuba, which had been restricted three years ago. I guess for some that would be enough to paint the new administration red.

I don’t remember where I first heard about this, but Subcomandante Marcos of the EZLN and Mexico’s best-known mystery novelist, Paco Ignacio Taibo II have collaborated on a new novel: Muertos Incomodos (Uncomfortable Dead). The two have never met, and wrote separate sections, which were then put together. Something I read earlier said that Marcos contacted Taibo with the idea of writing a novel. Taibo was working on another project, but couldn’t resist the opportunity.

Marcos and Taibo agreed to write separate chapters about separate mysteries, and their two protagonists were to meet at the Monumento a la Revolucion in Mexico City at some point in the novel to join forces to fight evil.

I enjoy Taibo’s mysteries, though his recurring character, Hector Belascoaran Shayne, can be a bit too philosophical for my taste. He’s a Mexico City detective with a bad eye, limp, and eccentric siblings. He shares his downtown detective office with a plumber, upolsterer, and a third working-class guy whose job escapes me. Some of his books are political, like No Happy Ending, which is about a government sponsored massacre of university students in the early 1970s (not the 1968 massacre that is more well known). The government has released many documents about this particular event in the last few years, so I often include this in the list of books that my undergrad students can read in my Latin American politics class. It’s a short book, and provides some insight into Mexicans’ distrust of the government. Particularly striking is a shootout in the middle of a downtown street during the mid-1980s (when the book is set) where no one tries to stop the protagonist from leaving the scene after him and his buddy shoot some bad guys.

Anyway, here is an article about the new book by Marcos and Taibo on Yahoo! Mexico article.

And the leftist La Jornada newspaper published one of the later chapters of the book written by Marcos. You can read it online here. This excerpt suggests that the book will have no shortage of political jabs.

For instance, here’s an excerpt from the chapter online (sorry, accents are missing):

…el Alakazam me estaba explicando como hace sus magias, que sea esas coasas que apareces y desaparece cosas y que lee el pensamiento de la gente. Y entonces yo muy no le entendi y el me explico que el hace que la gente mire una mano y ya con la otra mano esconde o saca lo que tiene escondido. Y entonce yo le pregunte si es como hacen los politicos que te ponen a mirar una cosa mientras por otro lado estan haciendo sus maldades. Y entonces el Alakazam me dijo que eso mero, pero que los politicos no eran magos sino que eran unos hijos de puta, asi dijo….

A rough English translation of the above:

…Alakazam (a magician) was explaining to me how he works his magic, so that things appear and disappear and that he reads people’s minds. And then, I didn’t really understand him and he explained to me that he makes the people look at one hand and with the other hand hides or reveals what he has hidden. And then I asked him if it is like the politicians do, making you look at one thing while they do bad things the other way. And then Alakazam told me that this was it sort of, but that politicians were not magicians but were sons of bitches, that’s what he said…

I haven’t found a publisher listing or expected publication date, but I’ll be sure to read the book.

I ususually avoid personal posts, but lately all my dreams are about cars, elevators, and airports. What could it mean?

Aside from that, I’ve been reading a really good book by Paul Pierson called Politics in Time. It includes a critique of ahistorical political science and a really interesting discussion of how time or sequencing can be important for political outcomes. In particular, it has a very nice explanation of positive returns and how small events can push history down a particular path, and later similar events (even on a larger scale) can have little effect. In many ways, some of the arguments are very similar to those in his work on welfare and that of Theda Skocpol. Institutions matter because they shape future possibilities.

I had been thinking about ways to relate my arguments about the development of welfare institutions in Mexico to the functional needs of the dominant actors at the time of the creation of the institutions…like much of the political economy literature, but now I’m second guessing that strategy.

The office that organizes international study at Georgia Tech has asked me to contribute a 500 word essay about my Fulbright experience. Next week, I have to give a presentation on my Fulbright experience during the mid-year Fulbright orientation session. I thought I might brainstorm some ideas here first.

What have I learned?

That students everywhere complain and think they have too much work to do.
That there is always one smartypants student (who isn’t always that prepared) in every class, even in Mexico.
That academic departments are dysfunctional everywhere, though the dysfunctions reflect the local culture.
That I really love chilaquiles, and will hate to go back to Atlanta because no restaurant in the entire North Georgia area knows how to properly make them.
That I find Mexican driving habits annoying. How can people be so polite and formal face-to-face, and so ruthless in their cars?
That I miss my dog terribly, and that all Mexican dogs (even Doby, the friendly dog of the building consierge) are ugly in comparison.

But wait, I can’t say that….

What can I say?

That I have had much more time to write and get research done while away from Tech. I sent off three papers last fall to journals! I should have 2-3 more ready to go by June!
That my time away from Tech has led me to appreciate my colleagues in International Affairs, and I’m looking forward to being back in their company.
That I plan to be in a better position for my third-year review when I get back to Tech (and I’m hoping for a raise, too!).
That this year abroad has not been without sacrifices….it has been more expensive than we planned, and Brian has had to put off school another year. A year abroad would be even more difficult for those with children.
That moving to Mexico would have been even more difficult if we had not lived here before. It helps to go someplace you’ve already been.

I should probably have something in the list about cultural understanding and sensitivity, yadda yadda, but none of that seems like much of a surprise after living here three years. At this point, I am no longer awed by how nice and friendly Mexicans can be; I am just annoyed when they cut me off on the highway and don’t pick up their dogs’ droppings. It’s not that I don’t like Mexico or its people; I love both. It’s that after a while, I take for granted the good things and am merely annoyed by the bad.

Now, let’s see if I can go write that 500 word essay.

Mexican state elections

Last weekend, there were state elections in Baja California Sur, Guerrero, and Quintana Roo. The PRD managed to win governorships in BJS and Guerrero, and the PRI managed to keep the positin in QR. Some believe this is a good omen for the PRD and the presidency in 2006. According to the economist:

Despite that traumatic defeat, the PRI has staged a remarkable comeback over the past two years. Last year, it won 11 out of 14 state elections. But Guerrero has bucked that trend. Most pollsters had expected a close result there. In the event, the PRI suffered a drubbing at the hands of the leftish Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), whose candidate for state governor won by a 12-point margin. Thus ended 76 years of rule by the PRI in a state of marked contrasts. Acapulco’s glittering façades hide a city of slums and a hinterland of mountainous poverty, a breeding-ground of guerrillas, drug gangs and death-squads.

According to an article in the leftist La Jornada the PRI-Green Party and the PT claimed fraud in Guerrero by the PRD, but the official agency only reported one polling problem: one pollworker was drunk.

The La Jornada articles on the elections and results in Guerrero, Baja California Sur, and Quintana Roo.

Was cruising the Yahoo headlines and noticed this article. Nothing seems to be posted on La Jornada yet, though Reforma has an article I can’t access because I don’t have a subscription. Of course, this ‘crackdown’ is probably in response to the new travel advisory from the U.S. Secretary of State, which is mentioned in this Yahoo article.

The story that the AP cites from El Universal can be found here. According to the article, Nahum Acosta Lugo was the director of the President’s personal office of administrative assistants and is accused of passing information about the President’s schedule to a criminal organization. Apparently, this was “con el objetivo de atentar contra su integridad fisica.” Ok, so the Attorney General’s office can catch someone in the President’s office with ties to narcotrafficking, but what does that have to do with border security? The Attorney General’s office is spinning the arrest as evidence that they are cracking down on narcotraffficking, in response to U.S. concerns. Further, the aide has had that same job since 2001. He was either turned recently, or hasn’t been giving the bad guys very good information.

The other front page drama in Mexico City this week has to do with the suicide of a 14 year old girl named Stephanie. Apparently, she left a typed letter saying that she was killing herself because she lost $275 (U.S.) worth of cocaine, that she was supposed to be selling at her middle school here in the city. She lost the drugs because her school began searching/controlling backpacks and she had to hide the stuff somewhere else. The pushers threatened her family, so she decided to kill herself. The original El Universal story was published yesterday. Now, her friends say that she never sold drugs. It seems that the neighborhood where the school is located is near a fairly well-off area, though Stephanie apparently lived in a poor neighborhood. Parents of other students at the school are worried that drugs are still being sold inside the school, and that the Safe Backpack, Safe Path program hasn’t been implemented.

Back from hiatus. Spent the holidays frequenting Austin wireless coffeehouses and revising my NSF proposal. I figure that if I keep revising and keep resubmitting, eventually it will be funded.

This article on obsesity in Mexico is interesting, but not surprising.

According to the article:

According to the OECD, Mexico is now the second fattest nation in that group of 30 countries. A health poll in 1999 found that 35% of women were overweight, and another 24% technically obese….It is a symptom of their growing prosperity that these parts of the population have, probably for the first time, almost unlimited access to the greatest amount of calories for the smallest amount of money. But with little knowledge of nutritional values, their diets are now unbalanced and unhealthy.

Rising incomes for many probably mean they eat McDonald’s and other fast food more often. My husband has noticed that if someone here in the city is standing still, they are probably eating something. Food and snacks are everywhere. This is the only major city where I’ve seen people eating on the subway.

As I write this, I am recovering from my own breakfast of fried tortilla strips drenched in tomatillo salsa, with shredded chicken and cheese on top.

This is an interesting article about recent discoveries at the pyramids north of Mexico City.

On the subject of Wal-Mart in Mexico, you can read this story about the location of Wal-Mart’s newest store in the Mexico City area.

You can also take a look at the view from the pyramid of the sun at the archeological site.

And take a look at a picture of the new store. That link discusses the store’s history.

And here’s a picture of the relative position of the store to the archeological site. It seems to be not too close, though it will be visible from the tops of the pyramids. They did, however, disturb some ruins in the process of developing the site.

On the store’s website, they seem to defend their position by posting pictures of even uglier stores in the area.

and…

Have I mentioned the racism and classism prevalent in Mexico?

A couple of weeks ago, I took a trip out to a Sam’s Club and Superama in the Santa Fe area of Mexico City. (Superama, by the way, is a funny compound word…super in Mexico means about the same thing in English, and ama de casa means housewife. So Superama is a play on Superhousewife. I doubt it’s a Wal-Mart creation; more likely it was a local grocery chain that they bought.)

Both are owned by Wal-Mart. In the states, we don’t shop at Wal-Mart, but it’s hard to avoid here in Mexico. They own Wal-Mart, Sam’s, Superama, Vip’s, El Portal or Porton (I forget which), Ahorro, and probably a bunch of other restaurants and stores.

I went to this Sam’s and Superama because I knew where they were and how to get there, and because the Superama is very large and has a better selection than the small one near our apartment in the Condesa. They share the same parking lot.

Santa Fe is an area of Mexico City that literally used to be a large garbage dump. Now, it is the home of high rise office buildings and headquarters for major MNC’s in Mexico, such as Ford and Coke, and a really large high-end shopping mall, like Lennox in Atlanta. The area does have a few high rise condos, but mainly it’s a big business park area with few residents and low density. There is no where to go if you’re not in car. It’s a lot like the perimeter of parts of Houston. My university is perched on a cliff that overlooks the area.

There is a lot of on-going construction of new high-rises and office buildings throughout the area. These high rise buildings are built largely by hand, hauling loads of cement up in buckets. In much of Mexico City, the workers live on-site while the buildings go up, using bootleg electricity and only minimal plumbing. I’ve seen it only blocks from our apartment in the Condesa, supposedly the Greenwich Village of Mexico City. The workers live on site usually because they are from the countryside or live in poor areas where the commute would be too difficult. On Saturdays, the workers get paid and get off work early, and head to the local grocery to buy food for lunch and dinner.

That is how I came to witness about 20 male workers in line outside that particular Superama on a Saturday afternoon at about 2pm. I was so confused by the line, I almost stopped to get in line myself. Then, I noticed other people were going into the store through the other doors, and I figured the workers must be waiting in line for some particular service.

Once I had all my groceries, I asked the kid who bagged the groceries and offered to push the cart out to the car why all the men were waiting still in line to enter the store. (As an aside, it is normal for kids between 10 and 14 to work as bag boys/girls at the supermarket here. They do not get paid by the supermarket and only keep the tips given to them by customers. I think it is part of their ‘servicio social’ for school, which requires all students (high school and college for certain, though these kids are too young for high school) to perform a certain number of hours of community service.

Anyway, I asked the 12ish boy why the men were waiting in line, and he said, quite simply, because they are not allowed int he store except one at a time because they smell bad. You see, according to him, there are lots of people who are “bien educada”, which literally means well-mannered but is also Mexican code language for wealthy, who shop at this store and they would be bothered by the smell were all these workers to be allowed in at the same time. It is quite simple really, according to him.

I asked, “Doesn’t that seem a little racist to you?” And he said no. It was understandable because those men were not clean and smelled bad. Only 12 and probably from a not-so-wealthy family himself, and he had already assimilated those attitudes.

So much for human rights. Next time, I’m going to get in line with them.

As an aside, my husband has noticed that whenever the workers enter our local Superama in the Condesa, the security guard follows them around. Silly, especially since the punk-rich snotty Mexican teenagers would probably be more likely to swipe a bottle of booze than those workers stealing even a can of beans.

Then, on the way home, I was harassed, again, by the transit police. But that’s another story.

From the streets of Mexico City….this flyer for Hermana Paola.

Tarot, cards, hand and “videncia” readings

We return your partner in hours

We show the face of your enemies

We cure ills, spells, “salaciones” and curses

We repel undesirable people

We fix inheritances, judgments, business, and love lives

We cure unknown diseases

Immediate help. Don’t be incredulous.

Good and evil do exist. This is not a great problem for me, while others fail, I triumph. Visit me and I will convince you. This visit can change your life.

All for $100 pesos (less than $10 US)

Trabajos Garantizados

Guaranteed Work.

Correction to the Top 10 Halloween costumes for small children (under 10 years old) in Mexico City….. A surprising number of very small children (under 6 years old) were dressed as Chucky. No brides of Chucky, though. Creepy, either way.

Election night in the U.S….

…Scarier than small Mexican children dressed as creepy U.S.-inspired ghouls shoving small plastic pumpkins at your knees yelling “?Me regala por mi calabaza?”…..

…I can’t even bear to look.

Halloween! Halloween! Halloween!

That was the chant of a little boy dressed like dracula on the main plaza of Coyoacan last night. Thanks to WalMart, halloween is moving into Mexico. Costumes and candy are on sale at WalMart and its grocery-store affiliate, Superama. They have nearly replaced traditional Day of the Dead candy and offerings at the large tiendas de autoservicio. Unfortunately, most Mexican families only half understand the idea of Halloween. The kids get dressed up and carry their little plastic pumpkins, but they do it for 3-4 days straight. All weekend. And since most Mexicans don’t understand that Halloween for kids is about CANDY, they give the kids coins. So of course, some kids expect coins. And worse yet, the parents that bring their kids to enjoy Halloween in public spaces, don’t even bring candy to give other parents’ kids. Lucky there were a couple of prepared gringos last night with bags of sour bloody eyeball gumballs to hand out to the kiddos.

Top 10 most popular costumes for Mexican children for Halloween:

1. Babies dressed as pumpkins

2. Wednesday from the Adaams Family

3. Dracula

4. Catarina, the famous Mexican day of the dead figure

5. Harry Potter

6. Mummy

7. Scarecrow

8. Ambiguous devil child

9. Witch

10. No costume, plastic pumkin, give me money

On other fronts, I have managed to revise a paper to submit to a Mexican journal, and have cleared off my desk.

Last night, I went with a couple of friends to a gay bar near Plaza Garibaldi, here in the D.F. Garibaldi is something else itself. For blocks around the plaza, mariachis stand on corners and run along side cars trying to get a gig. They can get pretty aggressive, nearly jumping on hoods.

In any case, the bar was a small hole in the wall (named El 33). The walls were painted a garish turquoise with bright red trim. The waiters wore tired tuxedo shirts and jackets that always seems to be askew. There were several young, nervous transvestites, and several tough guys drinking steadily. It was a friend-of-a-friend’s birthday, and he had chosen the place. My friend and I spent most of the evening talking to each other, while she surrupticiously checked out the vesties behind me. It wasn’t a place that a foreigner should go to alone. After a while, three of us girls left for another bar named Millan. It was a nice mix of age, class, and identity. The music ranged from Los Fabulous Cadillacs to Guns and Roses to 60s surf to De la Soul. No porn shades (thank heavens).

Variation on an old theme.

Was supposed to pick up Gretta the Jetta from the Mexican shop today….precariously located on the edge of a neighborhood not unlike those made infamous by Amores Perros.

Of course. It’s not ready. Will be ready Monday afternoon, when I teach on the other side of town.

Should be ready Tuesday a.m.

I hope.

Bummer.

Austin Rock from fresh air.

I really should have started blogging as soon as we crossed the border. There is a lot to tell.

We left Austin nearly two weeks later than planned, since the Mexican government messed up my visa–sent it to El Paso, rather than Austin. So after much nail biting about all the electronics we were going to import, we decided to go ahead and enter the country as tourists. So, August 21 (or thereabouts), we loaded the car and left Austin. Well, between loading the car and leaving, the trunk got jammed shut, so we had to unload the Jetta through the backseat and reload. Also, I realized my box of books wouldn’t fit, and had to have them shipped.

So we headed southbound, and the border crossing was anti-climatic. No one wanted to search us. No one cared what we were importing. I could have brought so much more beef jerky if I had only known!!!

Our stay in Monterrey was nice, at some old hotel where Pancho Villa once rode his horse into the lobby during the Revolution. Now owned by Radisson.

The trip from Monterrey to Queretaro was also not eventful. Well, we did get pulled over once for going too fast through a wide space in the road between Matahuala (which is too small and poor to be on the government tourist site) and San Luis Potosi, but the Federale that pulled us over just told me to make my husband obey the traffic signs–grab him by the ear if need be. (There was no traffic sign, and the Fed had what must have been the only radar gun in all of central Mexico.)

We arrived in Queretaro really early….like 4 in the afternoon, but I had pre-paid our room. Turns out it takes a lot less time to go from Monterrey to Mexico City if you’re in a Jetta instead of a bus. Since I had only made the trip at least seven times round trip on bus, I had no idea. The good news was that we found a Sushi Itto nearby and had a decent dinner.

We arrive in Mexico City on Monday morning around noon as planned. I took a cab to CIDE, and taught my first class at 3:30. Everything seemed to be going well, except that the couch we thought would be in the apartment was gone….and the carpet smelled like dog pee….but otherwise, we were off to a good start.

So much for good starts.

By the following Monday, we had been pulled over by the police under dubious circumstances (I get conflicting explanations of whether they were justified or not); paid our first bribe to avoid having the car towed; been surprised when our cable internet was installed within 4 days of calling (though it took 5 hours to install); sat around an empty apartment while one man ripped out carpet and installed linoleum in the 2 bedrooms; joined Sam’s Club. After two weeks, I still didn’t have a desk. After three weeks, we still didn’t have a couch. On the other hand, I figured out how to hook our digital projector to my laptop, so we were able to watch Master and Commander and Lord of the Rings 3 (rented from Blockbuster…where they honored my membership from two and a half years ago) on the wall of our bedroom.

Now, a little over 5 weeks after we first left for Mexico City, we have furniture and things have settled down a bit.

I hope that regular blogging about academic and political subjects will resume shortly.

Oh, and I plan to add an occasional tidbit about living in Mexico City.

For instance, yesterday I headed to BuenaTierra for lunch. It’s in the neighborhood and has good breakfast, though it’s a bit overrated and the fresa and mamón young Mexicans that hang out there can be a little tiring. So anyway, people kept asking this guy at the next table for his autograph. He was with a striking woman who was probably in her mid thirties but dressed like she was 20, complete with tacky porn-shades. (Trends are a little slow down here.) According to my waiter, who told me in English, lest they overhear what we were talking about, that he was the “keeper” for the Mexican national soccer team. (I assume that meant goalie–but he didn’t seem that big. I thought goalies were always really tall and big.) Valet parkers, waiters, and staff from the nearby restaurants all came to get their pictures taken and to get an autograph. He seemed gracious enough. Another woman joined the couple and they smoked up a storm, and the women laughed a little too loud and obviously while the man talked on his cell phone about heading to Acapulco this weekend. The new woman asked him, “Aren’t you married?” (in Spanish of course) and the original woman at the table quickly chided her friend and told her not to ask him that. I got the sense that he was married, but maybe separated. In any case, the two women giggled and flirted like girls half their age, and generally made a spectacle of themselves. I just kept wondering who told her those porn shades looked good, and why didn’t the nice soccer guy tell her they looked to ridiculous.

That’s life in the Condesa. Muy mamón. Look it up.

Posting from Mexico City….after a long hiatus. I plan to start blogging again, soon.

md