Thread: In Mexico, boycott of U.S. goods appears to fizzle

http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/world/14475566.htm

Posted on Mon, May. 01, 2006

In Mexico, boycott of U.S. goods appears to fizzle

BY LAURENCE ILIFF
The Dallas Morning News

MEXICO CITY - Millions of Mexicans stayed home from work Monday to celebrate the May Day holiday and some even marched, but there were few signs of any widespread boycott of American goods in solidarity with immigrants in the United States.

Protesters intermittently blocked border bridges in Nuevo Laredo, Matamoros and Reynosa and urged Mexicans to stay home. Those who chose to cross the bridges were met with insults, according to media reports.

About 1,000 people dressed in white marched in the Mexico City suburb of Satelite, carrying pro-immigrant signs.

And in the city itself, participants in an annual labor union march held a brief protest in front of the U.S. Embassy, which was on the parade route. May 1 is international labor day throughout much of the world.

Immigrant activists had called for the protest, but business leaders had opposed it, and President Vicente Fox had stayed neutral.

Still, many Mexicans clearly knew about the boycott and thought it was a good idea, but the long weekend distracted more than a few.

"Oh, no, that's today?" said an embarrassed Isis Rico Aguilar, 22, a bank employee who was waiting for her McMeal at a McDonald's in Mexico City's touristy Zona Rosa. "I forgot, and I really wanted to support the boycott because I think it's really unfair how immigrants are being treated in the United States.

"I was going to Wal-Mart later on, but I am certainly not going now," said Rico.

Meanwhile, at a popular Wal-Mart store in downtown Mexico City, business was pretty normal for a Monday, especially considering the holiday, a store employee said. A steady stream of shoppers exited the store, carts filled with purchases.

Those interviewed were aware of the boycott in the United States and supportive of their countrymen, although ambivalent about joining a boycott.

"I'm Jewish and I've been discriminated against - my people have been hounded for 5,000 years," said Ilisch A. Sosa, 30, who works in the penal system. "We work very hard and take care of ourselves. But we don't boycott others to find a solution.

"I know the Latinos there want and deserve rights. But when you go to another country illegally you are breaking the law of that country. That's not honorable. Moreover, this company (Wal-Mart) employs many people here and around the world."

Officials of the U.S.-owned Wal-Mart stores in Mexico did not return calls seeking comment.

Ricardo Fonseca, 32, an employee with the VIPS chain of restaurants, which is owned by Wal-Mart, was shopping at the store Monday and said business appeared normal to him.

He said he was not obliged to shop at Wal-Mart but chose to do so.

"I know Mexicans are working hard here as well as over there to have a better life," he said. "But not shopping here is not going to resolve anything."

A few public figures, such as soap opera star Silvia Pinal and presidential candidate Roberto Madrazo, said they would not buy U.S. goods on Monday. And the governor of the border state of Nuevo Leon, Jose Natividad Gonzalez Paras, said he was eating tacos rather than hamburgers in solidarity with the immigrants and passing on his usual Coca-Cola.

But for a majority of Mexicans it was largely business as usual.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Staff writer Lennox Samuels in Mexico City contributed to this report.

It was a false boycott to begin with...how can you have a boycott when everyone has the day off, and over 90 percent of the businesses in the nation of Mexico were closed for the day, and the few who remained open had skeletal staffs on duty?

In short, it was a false boycott, and I find it odd that the American press has not called Mexico on it.

Pinto Bean