In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

2 Revolutionary Mexico A Brief Economic and Political History T o understand the U.S.–Mexico immigration dynamic, policymakers must examine Mexico through a complex series of lenses. Obviously, Mexico’s economic and political history directly affects its residents and thus the flow of immigrants into the United States. Certainly, the reasons that many Mexicans come to the United States to work are varied and not always simply because of a poor Mexican economy . However, without a doubt many Mexicans look to the north when jobs and wages in Mexico are suffering. The rapid increase in immigration from Mexico to the United States over the past twenty years reflects a complex and struggling Mexican economic picture. Mexico represents a symbol for education reform and for political corruption, for revolutionary ideas and for the dangers of unchecked globalization . These representations reveal themselves in the dichotomy of statistical data. The Mexican economy has been growing at an annual rate of 3 percent for roughly the past decade, one of the worst rates in Latin America.1 Contrast that number, however, with Mexico’s 92.4 percent literacy rate, one of the highest in Latin America.2 Mexico’s economic woes could merely reflect what is happening in all of Latin America, a region struggling in a global economy with relaxed free-trade rules and stiffer competition with a growing Asian market. In Latin America, per capita GDP declined by .7 percent during the 1980s and increased by just 1.5 percent per year in the 1990s. During this period, Latin America’s poverty rates did not change much, but the gap between rich and poor widened, a problem reflected in Mexico’s economy.3 30 Chapter 2 Mexico’s current economic plight revolves around a series of multifaceted issues concerning infrastructure, globalization, trade, and politics. Simply attributing undocumented migration to the United States as a reflection of Mexico’s stunted job growth overlooks the complexities and intricacies of the problem and the various relationships at work. The reasons behind slow job growth and large gaps between rich and poor are not as easy to understand and discern. The population increased in the mid-1970s, and residents matured and entered the workforce in the 1990s. Workforce participation of women also increased in the 1980s and 1990s, in part because the household needed help during economic downturns. The labor force expanded from 33.7 million immediately before NAFTA to 43.4 million in 2004, meaning that a million new jobs a year were needed to absorb the labor supply.4 But the economy failed to generate the jobs needed to keep up with population growth. Plausible explanations are hard to find, given some favorable factors : high prices for crude oil, large remittances from Mexicans abroad, and a low inflation rate. Some analysts describe the problem as Mexico’s failure to engage in “serious structural reform” of its rigid labor rules, poor tax collection , and government-controlled energy markets.5 Mexico’s infrastructure challenges remain a serious problem. Currently NAFTA’s structure represents the largest element in Mexico’s economic quagmire and can be viewed as a direct “push” factor for Mexican migration into the United States. However, NAFTA cannot be viewed in isolation when examining Mexico’s economic and political policies. How Mexico’s present economic and political systems feed into the Mexico–U.S. immigration debate can be completely understood only after examining the past century of history and what led up to the current political situation. The stage for Mexico’s current state of economic flux began to be set long before the country’s entry into NAFTA in 1994. The Mexican Revolution, 1910–1934 The Mexican Revolution of 1910 launched a widespread rebellion, changing the country’s social, economic, and political structures and creating longrange impacts for Mexico and its position in the global economy. Poor working conditions, inflation, inferior housing, deficient social services, low wages, and a general sense of discontent led people of all classes to revolt against the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz. During this time, a new generation of leaders began seeking far-reaching reforms to improve the lives of all Mexicans. The fundamental goals of the revolution (land redistribution, free and fair elections , and a democratic, accountable government) were incorporated into the 1917 Constitution. The constitution was predicated on the “social function” Revolutionary Mexico 31 of property, which required that even privately held property be used to benefit society as a whole. The constitution placed a...

Share