Thread: Poverty, opportunity drive Mexican immigrants to Janesville

Warning there is a lot to read since this is a whole series of articles.


http://www.gazetteextra.com/mexico_journal080205.asp


Frank's Mexico journal

EDITOR'S NOTE: Janesville Gazette reporter Frank Schultz spent a week in Mexico in June with a group of fellow Americans, mostly Janesville teachers. His articles on the subject were published in The Janesville Gazette July 31-Aug. 2. In addition to those articles, Schultz compiled his notes into the following journal.

Background
The following is an edited version of my trip notes. Notes are the raw material for articles. Some notes made their way into the stories you will read in The Gazette. Some won't. But I thought all of the following was important in some way.

These notes are not chronological. I skip around, and I took out things that didn't fit. Don't take this as an authoritative work on Mexico. It's just some reflections by a guy who spent a few days on a tour bus. There is so much more to learn.



I begin with some random facts and thoughts from my research. Those who want to read more about the trip should skip down. Those who need to learn a little about why Mexico is so important should read on.

Mexico is the biggest source of legal immigration to the United States. It's also the biggest source of what the U.S. State Department calls "unauthorized" immigration.

The number of Mexican-born people living in the U.S. doubled between 1990 and 2000, to nearly 10 million. An economic crisis that began in 1994 probably had a big role in this.

Many of these new immigrants are poor, with poverty made worse for those who don't have the legal status that would help them get better jobs.

They enrich our culture. They're known for being hard workers. But their poverty strains U.S. resources.

The current Congress and President Bush are not the first national leaders who have worked on the problem. (For you C-SPAN addicts, the Senate Judiciary Committee recently began hearings on immigration reform. Wisconsin's Sen. Russ Feingold issued a statement on his position, which you can read on his Web site, http://feingold.senate.gov/~feingold/ statements/05/07/2005726436.html.

Meanwhile, we in southern Wisconsin are getting more and more Mexican neighbors.

Why Wisconsin?
Illinois is the state with the third-highest Mexican-born population, after California and Texas. Most of those people live in the Chicago area. So the influx of Mexicans into southern Wisconsin should not be surprising. We're just a couple hours away by Interstate highway. We are part of a regional population change.

But why are so many of our new neighbors from Oaxaca?

Perhaps because poverty is even worse in that southern Mexican state.

Mexico's "Amerindian population in the impoverished southern states" has a particularly difficult time finding opportunities for advancement, according to the CIA's "World Factbook,"

Between the lines, that means Mexico's Indians don't get a fair shake from the majority culture. Ironically, that culture refers to itself as "mestizo," which refers to the fact that most Mexicans have both native and European ancestors.

A cultural divide
We in the United States have our own problems with racism. In Mexico, the prejudice is against those who are short and dark-a description that fit most of the indigenous people we met in Oaxaca. They're nice folks, perhaps even friendlier to strangers than Midwesterners are.

But the poverty of so many was obvious. Adults and children begged on the streets. Others were almost as desperate. They spent long days on the streets, trying to sell a few baubles to tourists.

One little girl in Oaxaca, maybe 4 years old, came up to strangers and hugged them, looking up with a big smile.

A skinny boy sat on the street corner, playing a small accordion, singing his heart out over and over for coins.

Anyone with a heart would want to help.

Impressions
Jill Converse, a sixth-grade teacher at Marshall Middle School, had never traveled outside the United States before.

What surprised her most was the natural beauty.

"I had no idea the mountains were so beautiful," she said. "Another thing that really impressed me was how hard-working the people are."

Converse noticed that even the street vendors would frequently clean the sidewalks in front of their makeshift shops.

Converse said children she saw were much like the ones she teachers back home.

"I heard little ones whine in another language, but you could still tell it was whining," she recalled.

The teen-agers acted the same, but she detected a conservative dress in Mexico. American teens and pre-teens tend to dress more grownup, she said.

Converse will take her experiences into the classroom. One sixth-grade study unit at Marshall looks at the Yucatan Peninsula, which we didn't visit, but which has many cultural connections to the places we saw.

"So this trip really gave me a background in that," she said. "… Seeing the actual things was really enlightening. I learned a lot about Mexican history that I don't think I learned in school."

Converse also will use photos she took of Mexican art when she teaches the concept of symmetry in her math classes.



Mexico City is more than 1,700 miles from Janesville, as the crow flies. Add six more hours by bus to get to Oaxaca. And yet, people from Oaxaca come to live in Janesville, harsh winters and all.



An Associated Press article from early June:

WASHINGTON - One of every seven people in the United States is Hispanic, a record number that probably will keep rising because of immigration and a birth rate outstripping that of non-Hispanic blacks and whites.

The country's largest minority group accounted for one-half of the overall population growth of 2.9 million between July 2003 and July 2004, according to a Census Bureau report being released Thursday.

The agency estimated there are 41.3 million Hispanics in the United States. The bureau does not ask people about their legal status; that number is intended to include both legal and other residents. …

Immigration has become a volatile issue in Congress and border states, as well as in Georgia and other places where there has been a surge in new arrivals. Critics say lax enforcement of immigration laws has allowed millions of people to enter the U.S. illegally, take jobs from legal residents and drain social services.



Hispanics also are now the largest minority group in the Janesville public schools, surpassing numbers of black students this year, the district reported. Most of those Hispanics are of Mexican origin.

White students are still the overwhelming majority, however. Blacks account for just over 5 percent of students. Hispanics also are just over 5 percent.

Ten years ago, Hispanics and blacks each accounted for about 2 percent of Janesville public school students.



So Janesville is part of a national population shift in the Hispanic direction, and a large part of that shift is Mexican.

Some of these immigrants spend their life savings to get into the United States. Some never had any savings, but they risked their lives on epic journeys on foot, through deserts and across rivers.

Teacher Kim Sherry, another of my tour-mates, said she would never forget the day she asked her students to talk about how they got here. One student remembered clinging to the back of a parent as he swam the river.



MEXICO CITY, June 14
Our guide, Alex Ramirez Cruz, starts throwing facts at us right away, on the ride from the airport to the hotel.

We are now in the biggest city on the planet, with 22 million people.

Mexico's population is about 106 million. That means 20 percent of the population lives in the capital city.

An earthquake in 1985 killed over 10,000 people here.

(Guadalajara is Mexico's second-largest city, with about 4 million people, Alex tells us. But some figure there must be more than 4 million Mexicans in the L.A. area, so Los Angeles might well be Mexico's second-largest city, in a manner of speaking, he jokes.)

The Zocalo, Mexico City's main square, is third largest in world, after Russia's Red Square and China's Tiananmen Square.

The Aztecs founded the city in 1325. They chose the site after seeing an eagle, standing on a cactus, eating a snake. It was the fulfillment of an Aztec legend. The eagle, snake and cactus are depicted on Mexico's flag.

The Aztecs' pyramids and other buildings were destroyed or buried. The Metropolitan Cathedral, which I can see from our hotel room, sits on the site of a pyramid. We walk on streets built over the same earth where Aztec ruler Montezuma and Spanish conqueror Cortez once walked.

Poverty
"We have zillions of street vendors," a major problem, Ramirez Cruz said as we rode the half hour to our hotel at the city's center.

So street vendors take over sidewalks, sometimes even parts of the streets. They anchor their tarps to protect from sun and rain, anchor to anything available, including, in once case, a traffic light.

"We have hundreds of streets that have been gobbled up by street vendors," he said.

A church, 400 years old, has sunk 5 feet below street level over the years. It was built on the bed of a lake that Spaniards drained after they conquered the area in 1500s.

We will see many old buildings that have sunk or tipped like the tower in Pisa, Italy.

Our guide says if you dig anywhere around the Zocalo, you will find the remains of Aztec buildings. The Hotel Majestic is just off the square. We are sleeping on top of Aztec ruins. This is Ground Zero for Mexican history, the place where Cortez came to take over the Aztec empire.



At breakfast on our second day in Mexico, we learn that one of our group became ill and went to the hospital overnight with a severe headache. He and his wife later returned to the U.S.

Altitude sickness is the suspected culprit. Mexico City is 7,000 feet above sea level. Later, a few others in our group become less seriously ill. It's hard to tell whether it was the altitude or something they ate.



I find the little Spanish I know goes a long way. Our bus driver, Manuel, and I talked as we waited for the tour to finish shopping for silver jewelry and other gewgaws. Silver is relatively cheap in Mexico, our guide told us.

I broke the ice with Manuel with some Spanish. He asked me my name, quickly converted it to Francisco, and then to a Mexican nickname, Pancho.

A sweet man with a pleasant disposition, he was soon a favorite of everyone on the bus.

Manuel has been driving buses or trucks since he was 18. At age 31, he's engaged to be married and has lots of family in the Mexico City area. Also in southern California.

He worked in Southern California for more than two years, legally, he said. He delivered furniture and also installed wooden floors with an uncle. He came home, he said, because "I missed my family."

(On the flight home, teacher Colleen Neumann starts a collection to send Manuel and our guide, Alex, Wisconsin Badger shirts.)



At the start of our first full day, Alex takes us on a tour of the murals in the National Palace. This is where President Vicente Fox comes to work, not where he lives.

To get to the palace, we cross the Zocalo. Somebody's protesting something almost every day here on the Zocalo. Like our White House, it's a magnet.

A contingent of Triqui Indians from Oaxaca have been protesting here for years. I don't get a clear explanation, but their complaint has to do with a nearby derelict building occupied by homeless people.

At the palace, we see the huge murals painted by famed Mexican artist Diego Rivera. Those who saw the 2002 film "Frida" will remember Rivera. Good movie, about one of Rivera's many loves, the artist Frida Kahlo. Good movie, if you're into art and can handle the sex and politics.

Rivera painted the murals from 1929 to 1945. They are a tour through the high points of Mexican history, and our guide takes the opportunity to talk about the past.

One mural shows a green-eyed baby on the back of a native woman. It was Rivera's way of showing that intermarriage between the locals and the conquerors would result in Mexico's dominant mestizo culture. Most Mexicans are considered mestizos, Alex says. About 20 percent are full-blooded Indian. Another source I read put the indigenous population at 30 percent.

One thing that sticks with me is Alex's perspective on the 1846-48 war in which the United States invaded Mexico. U.S. Marines at one point marched into Mexico City.

We, of course, remember that war with the Marine Hymn, which starts: "From the halls of Montezuma…"

Alex tells us that the red stripe on the trousers of U.S. Marines' dress uniform is a symbol of that campaign.

The next day, we drive past U.S. Embassy. Alex points out barricades.

"Senor Bush is not very popular. The war in Iraq is not very popular," he said.

Later, I ask Alex whether the 1847 invasion by U.S. feeds the passions against the invasion of Iraq. Sure, he said, as does the fact that the Mexican War resulted in the United States acquiring Texas, the rest of the Southwest and California from Mexico.

The average Mexican can hardly forget that history, with place names such as Los Angeles and San Francisco, he said.

Alex isn't angry, though. He just states the facts. His pride in his country is evident. He seems to welcome the chance to expand the horizons of his visitors.



Schoolchildren are everywhere. Their school year continues into June, which seems to be prime time for field trips.

We notice all the kids are wearing uniforms, and Alex confirms: whether private or public, all school kids wear them. Several teachers say they like the idea.

As we continue the tour, we will see some schoolchildren with very fancy uniforms and others with very simple ones.

By law, Mexicans must attend school for nine years. But the law is not enforced, and many people, especially in rural areas, drop out before their ninth year, Alex tells us.



Gasoline costs the equivalent of $2.50 a gallon and has been that way for five years, Alex said. Mexico has lots of oil. Prices are controlled by Pemex, the national oil monopoly.



We visit the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

This is a huge deal in Mexican culture. The story goes that an Indian, Juan Diego, encountered the Blessed Virgin here some 460 years ago. She gave him roses, which he wrapped in his cloak to take to the authorities. When he opened his cloak, instead of roses, they saw the image of the Virgin.

The cloak is on display in a church at the shrine. Alex tells us the people make pilgrimages here, some walking on their hands and knees. We don't see any of these on the day we visit.

The fact that the Virgin visited an Indian is a huge deal. The message seems to be that they, too, are God's children, equals of the people who brought the new religion to Mexico.

Alex had told us that the Spanish priests were famed for the cruel way they imposed their religion on the natives. In some cases, it was convert or die. But Roman Catholicism certainly took hold and remains strong.

I am most struck by an incident outside a gift shop. The shop displayed a big reproduction of the Shroud of Turin. A small, old woman walked up to the image, reverently kissed the glass that covered it, crossed herself and walked away. No show. No hysterics. Just reverence.

Juan Diego was named a saint when Pope John Paul II last visited here, Alex tells us. The late pope was as beloved here as much or more than anywhere in the world. A huge statue of John Paul stands between the two churches on the site. I took a photo of two women holding small children, getting their picture taken at the statute's feet.

Nearby, the bus that the pope rode during his visits to Mexico is on display.

One sale in the gift shops were pictures of a peaceful looking John Paul being comforted in the embrace of the Virgin.

The shrine is guarded by uniformed guards with sidearms. Alex said they are there to keep out street vendors, who once took over the large plaza around the churches.

The neighborhood around he shrine is a poor one. Graffiti is on every wall, even on religious monuments.



Alex takes us on a tour of an upscale area in Mexico City. Beautiful old homes, gorgeous shops with luxury goods for sale.

On our drive back to the hotel, a portion of an aqueduct pops up in the middle of a boulevard. Built by the Aztecs, our guide says. It features arches, much like the Roman aqueducts. Under one of the arches are telltale pieces of cardboard that say "a homeless person slept here."



Back at the hotel, I decide I need to get a picture of beggars on the street.

I find a woman and a little girl, maybe 4 years old. I feel like such a vulture, taking their picture. I smile at the girl, ask her her name.

"Wanda," she says.

"Nice to meet you, Wanda," I reply, my supply of Spanish rapidly running out.

She smiles. The woman with her smiles. Most people walk by without glancing at the pair, even though it's a narrow sidewalk. I did see one man in a jacket and tie, however, drop coins into the palm of one woman.

People beg on the streets of big U.S. cities, but this is different, shocking to me, even though I had read about it.

As we drive out of town to see ancient pyramids, the next day, I see the shacks. Cobbled together with bricks, corrugated metal roofs and scraps of wood. I also see some other neighborhoods, obviously poor but nevertheless a big step from the shacks.



More drive-time lecturing from Alex:

Two-thirds of Mexicans don't own a car, so the bus system very important, in rural as well as urban areas.

I think: If they're used to buses being convenient, it must be difficult to adjust to our not-so-convenient bus system in Janesville. (Apologies to the Janesville Transit System, which can't compete with the fact that most of us have cars and wouldn't take a bus except in the most unusual of circumstances.)



We learn that the Aztecs are what Alec calls "the new kids on the block." Toltecs preceded them, also building fabulous buildings of stone.

Another culture-we don't even know its name-built some of the most massive pyramids in existence at a place outside Mexico City called Teotihuacan. Say it with me: TEH-o TEE-o ah KAHN.

To say those pyramids are impressive is not enough. They are, like, wow. I burn up a lot of film trying to capture their big-ness.



We pass a man plowing a field. Horses pull the plow. We pass a Pemex gas station. Alex says Mexico needs to diversify its economy. "We can't be so dependent on oil.



Oaxaca
Here's the start of a story that I later rejected. It didn't quite work:

Once upon a time, there was a region of beautiful mountains and fertile valleys.

Villagers worked the fields, growing corn and pineapples and squashes. They wove beautiful rugs, created pottery and carved colorful animals from the soft wood of a local tree.

They descended from different tribes-Mixtecs, Zapotecs, Triquis and others-but they lived in peace. Beside them in their fields and next to their villages lay the remains of great stone structures their ancestors had built.

They had pride in their heritage, and they spoke the languages of the past and held onto ancient traditions. They produced some of their country's most famous leaders, including Benito Juarez, who is famous for saying:

"Between individuals, as between nations, peace means respect for the rights of others."

Oaxaca was never an earthly paradise, of course. It has had more than its share of poor people for many decades. And in the past 10 years, there's been an exodus of Oaxacans, looking for better lives elsewhere in Mexico and yes, in the United States.



In talking to Jesus Hernandez Jr., it first struck me that racism plays a part in the Oaxacan exodus. So many Oacacans are short and dark, marking them as indigenous peoples.

Jesus, 26, tells me about a girlfriend he had in the city. A serious relationship, it seems, but she broke it up, telling Jesus she wanted offspring who were taller and lighter skinned and blue-eyed. She actually said she wanted to improve the breed. Yikes.

He told her off, saying that he wouldn't want to damage his own bloodlines by marrying her.

Jesus said TV and the rest of the mass media reinforce that prejudice every day: Beauty, in the eyes of the dominant culture, is tall. And the lighter, the better.

Now my wife, who isn't shy about such things, assured Jesus that he is a good-looking guy. He didn't need those assurances. He said that when he travels abroad, he finds more women admire him than in his own country.

We visit the sites of ancient stone buildings built by Jesus' ancestors. These guys could build. I understand a little more about Jesus' fierce pride in his heritage.



Everywhere we go, we see the ancient sites, often with very old Spanish churches built on top. In some places modern housing surrounds these sites. Mexicans live next to these reminders of their past. Perhaps they don't think about it because of the constant exposure. But it's startling to someone who has never been there before.

On our way back from Oacaca, we stop in Puebla and Cholula.

Cholula is the site of some amazing history. It is the site of one of the biggest pyramids on any continent.

When Cortez arrived, it was a regional religious center, which made it a target. Alex tells us that the Spaniards killed 10,000 people there to make their statement: Theirs was the only religion that would be tolerated.

The Spaniards also attacked the pyramid. Today, it is completely buried in earth, and a church stands at the top. The hill/pyramid looks like a mountain protruding above the plain that surrounds it. The view from the top is breathtaking, as is the walk up.

The only signs that a pyramid was here are some excavations near the base and a tunnel, carved by archaeologists, through a portion of the solid stone structure.



I lost one of my six days in Mexico to Montezuma's Revenge. I followed all the rules. I didn't drink the water or eat fresh fruits and vegetables, except at the restaurants where our guide assured us it would be OK.

I took Imodium and waited it out. I was barely able to function for a day. I wondered, through my suffering, whether Cortez's army suffered from this as they marched from the sea to the Aztec capital, for their rendezvous with history.

The locals got the worst of it, of course. They got smallpox and other diseases that wiped out hundreds of thousands. Students of history will recall that the same thing happened to Indians north of the border and in other parts of the globe as Europeans conquered and colonial zed.

I slept through an entire evening in Oaxaca, when my traveling companions went out for the evening and at a local delicacy, spiced and roasted grasshoppers. I heard they may have had a few beers, too.



There's no good way to end this. I used up my endings for the stories you can read in The Gazette. As I said in one of them, Mexico is a great place to visit, and I want to go back. I have so much more to learn.

Note to self: Take that Spanish class you keep talking about.





http://www.gazetteextra.com/mexico_daytwo080105.asp

Poverty, opportunity drive Mexican immigrants to Janesville

(Published Monday, August 1, 2005 11:37:40 AM CDT)

Story and photos by
Frank Schultz/Gazette Staff

OAXACA, Mexico -Jesus Hernandez Jr. weaves on a loom that belonged to the great-grandfather of his great-grandfather.

The 26-year-old is proud of the culture of his forebears. They were the Zapotecs, who ruled this section of Mexico centuries before the Spanish arrived.

Hernandez, his mother, father and other relatives make a living by selling rugs to tourists in Teotitlan de Valle, a village renowned for its weavers.

The Hernandezes are prospering. When a group of teachers from Janesville, Wis., visited in June, the Hernandezes were expanding the building that houses their home, their workshop and display area.

The Hernandezes seem to have made the right choices over the years. They stuck with the traditional methods of spinning and dyeing the wool. They have kept their quality high. They take pains to explain their traditional methods to groups of admiring tourists. The tourists respond by buying.

But too many people in his village and in the surrounding Mexican state of Oaxaca are not doing well. Poverty grinds them down. Hernandez understands why people leave:

"The truth is that Oaxaca doesn't have many opportunities. We are lucky that we have this kind of work."

The Janesville teachers included Oaxaca on their tour because many of their students come from here. They wanted to learn more about where their kids come from. As a reporter who tagged along with the teachers, I wanted to learn why so many Mexicans-especially Oaxacans-have ended up in Janesville.

"Sadly, Mexico exports people. We're hemorrhaging," said the Janesville group's tour guide, Alex Ramirez Cruz.

Lack of jobs and low wages are the prime forces that drive Mexicans to cross their northern border, Ramirez Cruz said. And most of the immigrants are among the least educated of Mexico's people.

The day the Janesville group landed in Mexico City, the guide pointed to the street vendors who have taken over sidewalks in large sections of the capital.

The vendors are a major problem, with roots in the fact that Mexico provides no social safety nets like those in the United States, he said.

"It just boils down to, if you don't work, you don't eat," he added.

In worse shape than the vendors were the beggars-sometimes women with young children. They sat on the sidewalks with their hands out. If they spoke, they did it quietly. One I passed on the street had learned a word of English.

"Money," he whispered. "Money."

We saw beggars and some very poor vendors on the streets of Oaxaca's capital city as well.

It's not as if Oaxaca is nearby. It's in Mexico's south, more than 500 miles from the southern tip of Texas, about 2,000 miles from Janesville, as the crow flies, about two-thirds the size of Wisconsin.

So why Oaxaca?

I could tell I struck a nerve when I asked two young artisans we met about the Oaxacan exodus. They responded passionately.

Like many of the poorer areas of Mexico, they've been losing people for years to the promise of economic opportunity in the United States and elsewhere.

In Oaxaca, things got tough in the mid- to late 1990s, said Jacobo Angeles, a woodcarver in the village of San Martin.

The economy went sour, and the militant insurgency in the neighboring state of Chiapas scared away tourists, Angeles said.

Like Hernandez, Angeles employs family members in producing his village's traditional handicraft-fancifully painted wooden coyotes, armadillos, jaguars and other animals-for the tourist trade.

Like Hernandez, Angeles prides himself on methods passed down by generations of artisans.

And like Hernandez, he understands why so many of his fellow villagers have left to seek their fortunes in other parts of Mexico and in foreign countries.

Angeles understands, but he's not happy with villagers who have cut their ties to their people and culture and with artisans who have given up their traditional crafts.

Some Oaxacans have improved their lives by living in the United States, but others have not, Angeles said.

The saddest stories are of men who left wives and children behind. Many remarry in their new homes, abandoning their Mexican families to live in poverty, Angeles said.

Angeles said his village president has appealed to the immigrants, asking them to come home or help financially, but the appeal fell on deaf ears.

Hernandez lamented the loss of fellow villagers as well, a loss made worse by the invasion of modern culture. He has nephews who are learning the weaving trade, but they prefer doing designs based on the Pokemon TV cartoons rather than traditional patterns.

"The culture is getting lost," he said.

Hernandez has heard from friends who now live in California: "They say, 'I'm not a Mexican. I'm not a Oaxacan.'

"But he also is not from the United States," he added with a laugh that expressed his frustration over people who abandon their culture.

Hernandez said he has university degrees in fine arts and psychology. The education helped him learn from modern culture while keeping his cultural roots strong, he said.

If he had stayed in his village, he would have married much earlier, and he would have been happy living in the traditional culture, "but these modern times would have finished my sons," he said.

Hernandez said that despite his family's prosperity, they are second-class citizens in the eyes of many of their fellow Mexicans.

Mexicans call themselves a "mestizo" culture-a mix of the local peoples and the Spaniards who arrived nearly 500 years ago.

But upward of 30 percent of Mexicans are believed to be purely indigenous, and the dominant culture often treats these people poorly.

Mexican mass media reinforce the belief that taller and lighter is better, Hernandez said, and his parents have difficulty getting seated in a restaurant because of their dark skin and short stature.

Hernandez himself is invited to speak about Zapotec art in the United States and Europe, but he is not recognized for his expertise in his own country, he said.

He had a girlfriend from a large city who dumped him because, she said, she wanted children who were tall, white and blue-eyed.

Such racism may play a role in Oaxaca's lack of opportunity. It is home to the widest variety of indigenous groups in the country. But economics may be the biggest factor in turning villagers into migrants.

Consider the university students that the Janesville teachers ran into in the main square of the city of Puebla.

In a quick conversation before a run to catch the bus, I asked the students if they would prefer to live in Mexico or the United States.

The United States has a lot to offer, they said, but those who travel north in hopes of striking it rich end up in low-paying jobs.

"It's just a dream," said one of the women.

No, was the general feeling, they would not abandon their families, their rich culture and the land they love for the United States.

These were young people whose families could afford college. They had what so many others in their country do not have, something they seek hundreds of miles to the north. They had opportunity.

www.gazetteextra.com

Janesville teachers visit Mexico for a class in culture

(Published Sunday, July 31, 2005)
Story and photos by
Frank Schultz/Gazette Staff

These teachers will have a lot to say when their students ask them what they did on their summer vacations.

They'll say they took a trip to Mexico. What they really did was go to school-the best kind of school.

Yes, the group of 19 teachers, spouses and others from the Janesville area flew to Mexico in June. But sandy beaches and snorkeling were not on their itinerary.

Instead, they traveled to the mountainous south-central region that includes Mexico City, the most populous city on earth, and to rural areas in the state of Oaxaca.

The group got up early, hiked through archeological sites, listened to lectures on Mexican history and soaked up the local culture.

It was work, but that's not to say it wasn't fun to climb a pyramid, sample the local food or visit a plaza where Mariachi bands hang out every night.

Some joined the tour just for the experience. Teachers came to enhance their knowledge. A Janesville Gazette reporter came along to write about it.

Ask teachers in southern Wisconsin why a trip to Mexico might help them do their jobs. They'll tell you the fastest-growing minority group in their schools is Hispanics, and most of those are from Mexico.

The number of Hispanic students in the Janesville School District has tripled in the past nine years. Many of those children's families come from Oaxaca.

Oaxaca is home to many of Mexico's indigenous groups, what we in the United States might call Indian tribes.

Lesson 1 for the teachers: Many of their students come from cultures where languages and traditions are quite different from mainstream Mexico.

An estimated 40 percent of Oaxaca's population over the age of 5 speaks an indigenous language. They learn Spanish in school, but many never complete more than five or six years of schooling.

Three of the teachers on the trip discussed why they were there and what they learned:

Cultural classroom

Colleen Neumann has wanted to see the pyramids at Teotihuacan since she read about them in her Weekly Reader. She was 8 years old.

Forty years later, she was there.

"That just shows you how your school can affect you your whole life," the longtime Janesville Spanish teacher said.

Neumann was interviewed on the tour bus, a day after she climbed the Pyramid of the Sun, said to be the third largest pyramid on the planet.

Neumann has been teaching Spanish to her fellow teachers for four years, in response to the increasing numbers of Spanish-speaking students in Janesville schools. This year, she decided to go one step further.

Neumann organized not only the tour but also a course through St. Mary's University of Minnesota so teachers could use their experience to earn college credit. Five of the teachers took the course. Neumann was the instructor.

Halfway through the trip, Neumann said she was pleased that everyone was embracing the experience. No one was resisting.

"I think it's really neat that teachers are interested enough in the region that their students are coming from that they would be willing to travel," she said.

The Wisconsin group's language, physical characteristics and clothing drew stares as they traveled. A few members spoke good to fair Spanish, while most others could manage only a few words or phrases.

How much more difficult it must be for the hundreds of Mexicans who have become permanent residents of the Janesville area to live in recent years, Neumann said.

I think it's hard for people to appreciate how brave these people are, to come to a new country and deal with the bureaucracy of a school district," she said.

Neumann has gotten a few Spanish-speakers in her Spanish classes in recent years, and she likes to joke with them in front of her non-Spanish speaking students. Someone inevitably says, "Hey, that's not fair!"

Neumann responds: "Now you know how they feel."

Neumann hoped the Mexico trip would be even more eye-opening for the teachers in her course. She required them to write a journal of their experiences.

"I think traveling is a very personally emotional experience," she said. "I think you learn more about yourself than with any other experience you can imagine."

One of the most emotional experiences for group members was seeing beggars on the streets. Often, a sad little child accompanied an older woman, both sitting on the sidewalk with their hands out.

It was hard to know what to do. Obviously, a few pesos could mean a great deal to these destitute people. Mexico has few if any shelters for the homeless and little in the way of any other social safety net for such people, our guide told us.

Neumann said the experience helps her recommit to doing more to alleviate poverty once she returns home, "because I can afford it, but most of the rest of the world can't."

It's too bad, Neumann reflected later, that all "our kids" in Janesville couldn't visit a foreign country, so they could see how good they have it.

Learning the lengua

Lynne Meding went to Mexico to learn more Spanish and more about Mexican culture.

Like a lot of the teachers, she has a professional need to know more.

"This is where a lot of my kids are coming from," she said.

The music teacher at Wilson Elementary School has taken several trips to Mexico and has worked hard to improve her Spanish at home.

"You can practice Spanish in your class, but it's just not the same as practicing here," she said.

About 16 percent of Wilson School students were Hispanic last year, but that will change in the new school year. Faced with ever-increasing numbers of Spanish speakers, the district is changing its plan for teaching English to the newcomers.

Instead of concentrating them at a few schools, the kids will be spread among schools in their neighborhoods.

Meding said she'll miss those who switch schools.

"They're some of my best singers. … We're losing some of our sweetest kids," she said.

While her grasp of the language is far from perfect, Meding said she is often called to the office to translate.

She also helps out other teachers when she can, explaining things in Spanish to kids who barely know English.

"My heart is for those kids that just arrived, who are lost," she said.

Meding said she has heard people discouraging kids from speaking their native tongues. She disagreed: "They need to keep that language. That's what's going to give them that job someday."

Meding works to involve the cultures of all her students in her music classes, said her principal, Ann Lund.

One way she helps the Mexican students feel welcome is to play "La Bamba" for a game of musical chairs at the beginning of the year.

Meding recalled one boy took immediate notice of the Mexican folk tune. She could almost read the thoughts on his face: "Wow, my music. My culture."

During the June trip, Meding jumped right in, talking Spanish whenever she had a chance.

"You're respected for just trying to speak their language," she said.

Like others on the trip, she was saddened by the sight of children begging in the streets.

"I thought, 'that could be my student.'"

Immigration, firsthand

When Kim Sherry told her Mexican students that she was going to Mexico this summer, they got excited.

"Their faces just lit up, and they wanted to learn exactly where I was going," she said.

Sherry has been teaching fifth grade at Jefferson School for 10 years. Each year, she teaches the required curriculum about immigration to America.

In recent years, Sherry's classes have included more and more new immigrants from Mexico, but her teaching materials say little about them.

"The majority of the texts are based on the European immigration," such as the Irish and the Germans, she said.

Of course, the textbooks can't keep up with the most recent wave of immigration. It's a story that hasn't yet ended.

"We're writing it now," Sherry said.

"They know why they come here," she said of her Mexican students. "But the American kids need to know. I think they need to know why."

That's a major reason Sherry spent her Herb Kohl teaching award money on the trip.

Even before she left, Sherry had a good idea why Mexicans migrate north: "You know it's the poverty, because the kids will sort of tell you, but I think you have to experience it."

Sherry encountered poverty in the eyes of a boy, age 5 or 6, on the street in Oaxaca.

"He had the saddest eyes. He looked like he'd been crying, and he was selling peanuts and candy," she recalled.

She couldn't resist buying from the boy.

Sherry also was moved by the sight of children who had nothing to sell, only a hand to extend.

"I had no conception they would be on the streets, begging," she said.

On the positive side, Sherry was impressed at Mexicans' extended-family togetherness.

It's not that Americans don't value their families, she said, but the families she encountered in Oaxacan villages included uncles and cousins, all working together, producing goods for the tourist trade.

For example, in the village of San Martin, the group watched men turn tree trunks into armadillos and jaguars while their daughters painted the animals in the distinctive, colorful style of their village.

The chief woodcarver thanked the group profusely for their purchases, "because all my family is dependent on your support."

Group members noticed that whether it was the street vendors, the farmers or the artisans, Mexicans worked hard for their livings.

Sherry brought back photos, books and other cultural materials to share with her students. She also brought home the emotional impact of what she saw and a wealth of experience that will come in handy when the topic turns to the questions: Where did you come from, and why did you come here?


http://www.gazetteextra.com/mexico_dayo ... 073105.asp

A short walk finds rich, poor and in-between in Mexico

(Published Sunday, July 31, 2005)

By Frank Schultz
Gazette Staff

MEXICO CITY-The central post office in the largest city on the planet is a beautiful building, nearly 100 years old.

I walked there from our hotel one evening and witnessed a scene right out of Charles Dickens' London.

For the first time in Mexico, I was on my own. I got directions to the post office, about six blocks away, and set off.

The narrow streets near the city's center bustled with shoppers, office workers, street vendors and a few beggars. The mix of diesel fumes and cigarette smoke reminded me of other big, old cities I had visited.

I found the post office with no trouble. I soon found the slow moving line. I waited patiently, admiring the marble and Italian ironwork. Silently, I repeated the words I had just learned from my multilingual wife: estampillas para tarjetas. Stamps for postcards.

Police men and women wandered around. After a day in the city's center, I was accustomed to seeing them, usually traveling in groups. Private security guards also were common, standing in the doorways of jewelry shops, wearing bulletproof vests.

The message seemed to be that crime is more common here than any place I had ever visited. But all was peaceful. I felt safe.

I was admiring the building and repeating my new words to myself when it happened. Two dirty boys in scruffy clothes, maybe 12 and 14 years old. They swept in off the street and went down the line, asking for money. They didn't get any.

One of the boys left, and the other one pushed himself to the counter, next to a middle-aged woman who was second in line. She tried to ignore him.

Suddenly, she shouted. He bolted, apparently with money she had held in her hand.

She was quick, though. She grabbed him and held him as he fell to the floor. She shouted for the police, who for some reason had disappeared. Perhaps the boys timed their attack to avoid the patrols.

After 10 seconds, the boy yielded the money, the woman released him, and he scampered out into the street. Police arrived in less than a minute, but the boys were gone.

The post office was built during the tenure of Mexican President Porfirio Diaz, who commissioned world-class public buildings to show the world that Mexico was a modern, stable place.

But historians say Diaz was a dictator who made the rich richer and the poor poorer.

Poverty is still common in Mexico to judge by the beggars, street urchins, shacks and neighborhoods covered with graffiti that members of the Janesville tour group saw.

However, there seemed to be plenty of Mexicans who live above the poverty line, and others who are quite rich.

Beautiful public buildings, such as the National Museum of Anthropology, and broad, tree-lined boulevards showed the country has its modern and yes, wealthy sides.

I wondered whether our tour guide was trying to make this point when he directed our bus through a ritzy section of town.

It was Mexico City's version of Beverly Hills' Rodeo Drive, the guide said. The streets were lined with gorgeous, old houses, some of which had been converted to shops with big windows, showing off fabulous bridal gowns and luxury cars.

No poor people in sight.

http://www.gazetteextra.com/mexico_daythree080205.asp

A Oaxaca/Janesville success story

(Published Tuesday, August 2, 2005 11:15:04 AM CDT)

By Frank Schultz
Gazette Staff

Salvador Gomez stepped across the border into the United States for the same reason most immigrants come here: opportunity.

He found it. He also found love, marrying a local woman 10 years ago.

Gomez is a native of a town of about 9,000 in the state of Oaxaca, the same state I visited last month and the same place that many local Mexicans come from.

I went to Gomez because the Oaxacans I talked to in Mexico knew only their side of the story. They lamented the loss of their neighbors. They were obviously unhappy at those immigrants who have cut themselves off from their native culture.

What they may be missing is the success of people such as Gomez.

Gomez is the son of a former tavern owner who now owns two bicycle shops in Oaxaca.

The eldest of nine children, Gomez has operated a landscaping business in Janesville for more than five years. Two years ago, he opened a garden center on Highway 26 just north of Janesville. He said he now employs 10 people full time.

But in the late 1980s, he was a professional baseball player in Mexico. It was a living, he said, and it made him more fortunate than many Oaxacans.

With no other skills, he faced uncertain prospects when his baseball career ended.

Oaxaca is largely poor and rural, and jobs were scarce, he said. It was common for people to go hungry.

He decided to try his luck north of the border. If he had stayed in Oaxaca, he'd probably have ended up living in poverty, he said.

"I came here looking for a better life, like a lot of immigrants," he said.

He had a cousin in the Chicago area, so he set out from his village in southern Mexico.

He crossed the border illegally in the desert near Tijuana.

"I just ran across, like everybody else," he said.

He started landscaping with his cousin and found he loved the work. He decided to make it his career.

Later, he joined another cousin in the Janesville area.

"I kind of liked it here. People around here are nice, and if you don't bother no one, no one bothers you," he said.

Gomez's experience reinforces previous reporting by The Janesville Gazette, which found that Oaxacans often come here because they've heard of opportunities from friends and family.

In 1996, Gomez married Brenda, which led to his becoming an American citizen.

In 1999, he left his job and the couple started their own business. He also took courses in landscaping at Blackhawk Technical College.

That's where he met part-time instructor Richard Miller.

Miller said Gomez impressed him with his quick grasp of landscaping principles while still struggling with English.

Gomez later volunteered as a guest lecturer and classroom helper, at the same time he was starting his own business, Miller said.

Miller was so impressed that he nominated Gomez for BTC's Community Service Award this year.

"I wish all startup businesses had that same kind of enthusiasm for being part of the community," Miller said.

Gomez and his crew work hard and offer a competitive product, Miller said.

"His portfolio for a paver driveway or pattern pavers in a patio or a front entry is just unbelievable. It's just beautiful work," he said.

"He's just one of those neat kind of guys who picks up on our culture and does well in it because of a strong work ethic and principles," Miller added.

Gomez said the only down side to living here is the occasional loneliness from being far from his family and the winters.

"I really like this country because of what this country has done for me," Gomez said. It's provided me opportunity, like it's done for many people. I believe in this country. If you're willing to work, you can be what you want to become."




http://www.gazetteextra.com/mexico_dayt ... 080205.asp

Mexico offers tourists its rich heritage

(Published Tuesday, August 2, 2005 11:15:04 AM

By Frank Schultz
Gazette Staff

Poor, poor Mexico.

It's so easy to leave it at that. After all, 40 percent of its 106 million people live below the poverty line.

It's no wonder that Mexicans by the thousands leave their homes and cross the border-legally or illegally-to seek work in one of the richest countries on earth.

But Mexico is also rich. No, I'm not talking about its oil revenues.

Start with its history. I've stood on the ruins of ancient civilizations in Greece, Israel and Jordan. Mexico ranks right up there.

Hundreds and even thousands of years ago, Mexicans built mighty cities and monuments of stone that stand to this day, their lines still straight as arrows.

They built enormous pyramids and other structures over hundreds of years without the benefit of draught animals. They did it solely with human hands and backs and minds.

Our tour guide in Mexico pointed out their genius at the ancient Zapotec city known as Monte Alban.

The Zapotecs leveled a mountaintop in order to build it. Ravaged by time, much of it has been restored, including some of the concrete-like plaster that used to coat its acres of stonework.

Look at how this plaster has deteriorated, the guide said, pointing. Then look down here, where the plaster is still strong and smooth, he said.

The good plaster was the ancient, original plaster. Similarly, restored portions of the buildings crumbled when the earth quaked. The original construction has rolled with many earthquakes and survived. Those guys built things to last.

We benefit from those ancient peoples every day. They gave us corn, a mainstay of American-not to mention Rock County-agriculture. It's possible that chocolate, avocados and tomatoes also originated in Mexico, along with a world-class cuisine.

Mexico not only has pre-Columbian history, but also some fantastic churches and public buildings going all the way back to the 14th century.

If Mexicans were impolite, they might point out that vast stretches of the United States once belonged to Mexico. They still carry Spanish names: Los Angeles. Colorado.

For all that, the people are warm and hospitable to Americans.

I still haven't mentioned Mexico's natural beauty, which rivals that of the United States, from its seacoasts to its gorgeous mountains.

Much more could be said. Mexicans have much to be proud of.

I already want to go back