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Posted on Tue, Apr. 25, 2006

Economic improvements
Mexicans rally for reforms back home, too

MARY SANCHEZ
The Kansas City Star


Interested in gauging the impact of the May 1 Day Without Immigrants?

Look to Mexico.

The U.S.-based call for immigrants to stay home from work and stores is an offshoot of the massive rallies organized in recent weeks urging Congress toward comprehensive, not punitive, immigration reform.

But May 1 will also see protests in Mexico City against Mexico’s failure to provide adequate jobs for its citizens.

The Mexico City protests also succinctly respond to a common question in the United States: “Why don’t Mexicans protest for change in their own country?” The answer is, they do. They always have, often with dangers that thankfully most U.S. citizens never face.

Last week two persons were shot dead and one was crushed to death when 600 Mexican police stormed a steel plant where workers have been on strike for three weeks.

U.S. lawmakers can huff and puff all they want about building impractical walls at the border. They can soothe dreamers who think it is possible to deport 12 million people with roundups like the one that captured 1,100 immigrants last week.

But people with opportunities in their own country do not migrate.

On May 1, a quarter million to a half million people are expected to stream to the zocalo, Mexico City’s central plaza. With Los Pinos, Mexico’s White House, as a backdrop, the people will rally for workers’ rights, part of the traditional International Workers Day.

You can bet many of the speeches will portray the migrant Mexicans in the United States as a sad outgrowth of failed promises for economic reform in Mexico.

Mexico is also nearing summer presidential elections when Vicente Fox will be replaced. Fox ends his six-year term without fulfilling enough promises for union reforms and other changes.

Organizers say this has led to an unheard of solidarity between Mexico’s corporate and independent union leadership. Both groups are dismayed that more jobs in Mexico are heading to China.

Subcomandante Marcos, the pipe-smoking, ski-masked leader of the Zapatista movement, will attend the Mexico City rallies, too. He has been traveling throughout Mexico, gathering stories of strife and hardship to further “the other campaign,” the belief that none of the current political parties can lead Mexico out of economic turmoil.

Martha Ojeda, executive director of the San Antonio-based Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras, sums up common sentiments: “When President Fox talks about democracy, what kind of democracy can’t let workers choose their own (union) leaders?

“What kind of democracy has journalists who can’t write about drug traffickers without being killed or disappearing?”

Ojeda will be at the Mexico City rallies after stopping off in Kansas City this week.

She uses a simple formula to paint the picture of Mexico’s economy. What workers in the United States earn in a day, workers in Mexico can make in a week. And workers in Mexico make in a week what workers in China make in a month.

Many Mexicans are disillusioned with Fox now, but his 2000 election was a massive step toward strengthening the country. Fox, of the National Action Party, known by its Spanish acronym of PAN, was the first change in political party leadership for Mexico in 71 years. Before that the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, virtually controlled everything: state governors, the country’s courts and its Congress.

The term “stolen election” doesn’t even begin to describe the violence and outright theft involved in such a reign.

Thirty years of brave work by Mexican citizens forced voting reforms and other changes. This is the same type of grass-roots activism swelling among many immigrants in the United States and the people who are calling for the May 1 boycott.

Problem is, the boycott faces serious impediments. No central organizing force exists at the national level. Influential Latino leaders, including ones in Mexico, are pleading for students to attend school and for people to go to work, but then to gather at end-of-the-day rallies.

Boycotts are only effective when a geographic area and particular product are targets. A national, general strike is difficult to manage and may even contribute to brewing backlashes among U.S. citizens.

Some businesses with high numbers of immigrant employees, such as packing plants, have decided to simply close on May 1. Those employers already know the value of their workers, whether they are paying them full value or not.

What the U.S. rallies accomplished is a firming up of solidarity among the marchers. They achieved a positive feeling that change can occur.

And with the fervor in Mexico growing as well, there is hope.


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To reach Mary Sanchez, call (816) 234-4752 or send e-mail to msanchez@kcstar.com.