AMLO in Mexico!

The reformist left-center candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador, commonly referred to by his initials AMLO, won a striking victory in the Mexican national election Sunday. And a woman from his Moreno party because the first female leader of Mexican City, a position previously held by AMLO and the source of much of his favorable reputation. This election victory wasn't some kind of fluke. It was a real political success for AMLO and his policies.

AFP reports (Leftist 'AMLO' sweeps to Mexican presidency 07/02/2018):

It is the first time in Mexico's modern history a candidate has won more than half the vote in a competitive election, and a resounding rejection of the two parties that have governed the country for nearly a century. ...

Lopez Obrador, 64, sought to downplay fears of radicalism, after critics branded him a "tropical Messiah" who would install Venezuela-style policies that could wreck Latin America's second-largest economy.

"Our new national project seeks an authentic democracy. We are not looking to construct a dictatorship, either open or hidden," he told cheering supporters, promising to safeguard freedoms, respect the private sector and work to reconcile a divided nation.

The endless War on Drugs that the US has promoted for decades, is key reasons for the grievances of the Mexican electorate:

Lopez Obrador successfully tapped voters' anger over a seemingly never-ending series of corruption scandals and horrific violence that left a record 25,000 murders last year -- an orgy of bloodshed fueled by the country's powerful drug cartels.

His coalition -- led by the Morena party he launched in 2014 -- appeared to be on track for a strong showing in state and congressional races as well, winning six of the day's nine governor's races, according to exit polls.

That included Mexico City, where a woman was elected for the first time ever, the scientist and environmentalist Claudia Sheinbaum.

John Ackerman (El día después La Journada 02.07.2018) notes that AMLO summarizes his political project as, "No mentir, no robar y no traicionar." ("Don't lie, don't steal and don't betray." And he writes:

No podemos dejar solo a López Obrador. Si bien la crítica al poder gubernamental es siempre esencial, también tenemos que tener claro que los gobiernos de izquierda se enfrentan a enormes retos con respecto a su relación con los poderes llamados "fácticos" que operan fuera de la institucionalidad democrática, como los oligarcas, los narcotraficantes y los grandes medios de comunicación.

La sociedad mexicana ha dado una enorme muestra de valentía, de fuerza y de dignidad el domingo, primero de julio. Celebremos la victoria. Nos la merecemos después de tantas décadas de luchas constantes por la justicia y la democracia, en las cuales han ofrendado sus vidas miles de héroes ­anónimos.

[We cannot abandon López Obrador. Certainly, criticism of governmental power is always essential, but we also have to be clear that governments of the left confront enormous challenges in respect to their relationship with the powers called "real" who operate outside of democratic instutitionalism, like the oligarchs, narcotrafficers, and the big communications media.

Mexican society has displayed an enormous show of courage, strength, and dignity on Sunday, the first of July. Let's celebrate the victory. We deserve it after so many decades of constant struggles for justice and democracy in which thousands of anonymous heroes have offered their lives.]

WaPo goes after AMLO

US reporting about Latin American politics, even in Mexico, can be painfully bad. This editorial from the Very Serious Washington Post is an example, Mexico’s could-be president is a lot like Trump. That doesn’t mean they’d get along. 06/17/2018

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, commonly referred to as AMLO from his initials, is a center-left candidate with a long record as a political reformer, an opponent of corruption, and five years as a successful head of Mexico City's government. Polls are showing him with a strong lead in Mexico's presidential race a week from this Sunday.

How the WaPo editorial board decided he has a "reactionary agenda" is hard to fathom. Especially since they also bizarrely claim he intends to implement "the catastrophic '21st-century socialism' of Venezuela." (Or, technically, strongly imply it as a live possibility.) What the Venezuela reference is supposed to mean other than "bad" and "scary" isn't clear and it makes no sense anyway.

And despite the title, AMLO has shown no tendencies for incoherent tweets, recklessly threatening war, or kidnapping small children from immigrants and sticking them in cages. The WaPo could just say they prefer a corrupt president for Mexico who will do whatever Washington and corporate lobbyists tell him to, without the strange fantasies about AMLO in this editorial.

This is a goofy piece.

On the other hand, Nathaniel Parish Flannery's piece, Mexico's 2018 Election: Populism Vs. Prudence Forbes (!!), is notably more sober:

The 2018 election will have a big impact, not just for Mexico but also for multinational companies that operate in Mexico and north of the border in the US. Companies such as GE, IBM, Ford, Citi and Wal-Mart have invested heavily in Mexico over the last twenty plus years. Mexico’s economy has grown in fits and bursts during the NAFTA era but recent governments have done little to address the longstanding woes of a deeply divided society. In the 2018 election many parts of the country citizens tired with rampant corruption, brutal inequality, and decades of sluggish growth will have to decide between trying to persevere and preserve the nascent gains from the export-focused NAFTA era or shift to re-embrace a populist model that wants to at least partially reject the export-led development model and focus on boosting local industrial and agricultural output. During the NAFTA era presidents from Mexico’s centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and right-of-center National Action Party (PAN) have embraced a corrupt form of neoliberal capitalism that has focused on investing heavily in industry in export sectors in the north of the country but has done substantially less to foster real development initiatives in the country’s impoverished south. [my emphasis; internal links not included]

Flannery interviews Patrick Iber, a Latin American history scholar, who addresses the kind of propaganda in WaPo's silly editorial:

Ever since his first presidential campaign, there has been a sector of Mexican opinion that fears that AMLO would turn Mexico into a kind of Venezuela. This kind of insinuation contributed to the results of 2006—officially a very narrow loss for AMLO. Former president Vicente Fox has said that AMLO doesn’t respect Mexico’s democratic institutions, and the writer Enrique Krauze imagined in The New York Times that Lopez Obrador could "move toward annulling the division of powers and subordinating the Supreme Court and other autonomous institutions after restricting the freedom of the media and silencing any dissenting voices.” To me this seems extremely far-fetched.

There are all kinds of ways that AMLO communicates respect for democracy and the rule of law. One of his rivals, Ricardo Anaya, has suggested that he would arrest the current president, Enrique Peña Nieto, if he were found guilty of corruption. AMLO has said it isn’t the president’s job to make such determinations. Other times, AMLO says he can’t commit to unilateral changes his supporters want, as they are the responsibility of Congress.

It is true that AMLO frequently makes reference to popular plebiscites, as have some of the other left-wing leaders in Latin America of recent vintage. But when pressed, he describes them as another democratic mechanism, not as a replacement for the authority of the legislature. Furthermore, the results of plebiscites would not necessarily lead to radical change. For example: abortion, same-sex marriage and adoption are legal in Mexico City. When asked if he would he would extend those rights to the rest of the country, he says he carry out a popular consultation because it’s a diverse country. The likely result of such a plebiscite would be to deny those rights on a country-wide basis, so this is probably a way of holding together his left-right MORENA-PES coalition. [my emphasis]

Iber has a differently kind of comparison for AMLO, "People always want to compare Latin American leaders to each other, but the political personality that AMLO most reminds me of is Jimmy Carter. Like Carter, he is promising moral renewal after a corrupt and unpopular administration."

US-Mexico relations

McClatchy reports on the state of US relations with Mexico, Which country are Trump officials talking to the most? (Hint: It’s not Russia) 03/27/2017

Mexico experts like Andrew Selee, executive vice president of the Wilson Center, a Washington research center, see a deliberate effort to prevent a crucial relationship from sliding off the rails.

“It really is a surprising level of engagement,” Selee said in an interview. “The only other country I can think of where we’re seeing this kind of visible engagement is probably Israel. I don’t see any other relationship where we’re seeing as much.” ...

The two countries have had so many meetings that other governments are looking to Mexico for advice on dealing with the Trump administration. That’s often a question that comes up when Latin American and European diplomats travel to Mexico to meet with government officials there.

“They’re saying ‘Hey, tell me what is going on in the Trump administration. What is your experience?’ ” said Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington organization focused on Latin America. “They’ve been sort of the specialists on the Trump administration because they’ve had more exposure to them.”

It’s unclear how productive the meetings actually are. Each side is sizing up the other.

What is clear, though, is Mexico is the only country that combines the two issues that are pillars of Trump’s campaign: trade and immigration. As they fill jobs, officials are discussing who might be best to deal with whom in the Mexican government. [my emphasis]

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto seems to be trying to minimize the confrontation with the US. Because he had previously enjoyed good relations with the Obama Administration. The Peña Nieto government had been a loyal practitioner of "Washington Consensus" neoliberal economic policies, which was in conformity with Obama's generally conservative - really conservative! - policies in Latin America.

Deportees in Mexico, refugees in Hungary

AlJazeera reports on Mexicans deported from the United States, Back to reality: Waves of US-deported Mexicans struggle to survive 03/19/2017:





Aljazeera's Inside Story also reports on the ugly way in which Hungary is dealing with the refugee crisis in Europe, highlighting how badly the EU as a whole is handling this situation, Why Hungary's crackdown on refugees is being criticised 03/19/2017:

Mexican politics and the Trump mass deportation program

The left-leaning Party of the Democratic Revolution (Partido de la Revolución Democrática; PRD) is positioning itself by calling for “Solidaridad con México ante las agresiones del gobierno de los Estados Unidos” ("solidarity with Mexico before the aggressions of the government of the United States.") (Jesús Zambrano se integra a la Alianza Progresista y presenta resolutivo perredista contra políticas de Trump Proceso 12.03.2017)

But the PRD itself may be flaming out as a political force. Elected officials and party activists have been leaving the party. Their high point electorally was 2006, when their Presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador won 36% of the vote and nearly 30% in the election for deputies to the Congress. Their percentage has notably declined since then. (Jesús Cantú, El PRD, con cáncer terminal Proceso 09.03.2016)

The next Mexican national election is coming in July 2018, including the Presidency.

López Obrador himself (also known by his initials AMLO) is coming to New York this week to support Mexicans living in the US against Trump's mass deportation. He also plans to visit Washington, Laredo and San Francisco. These days, I guess the State Department has to learn about a major opposition politician from Mexico visiting the United States from the news like the rest of us.

Since Trump's election, AMLO has also visited Chicago, El Paso, Los Ángeles and Phoenix. (David Brooks [not Bobo!], AMLO llegará a NY para promover defensa de inmigrantes La Journada 09.03.2017)

Daniel González and Rafael Carranza, Mexican populist Andrés Manual López Obrador calls Trump border wall 'criminal act' in Phoenix visit Arizona Republic 03/06/2017:

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the Mexican presidential hopeful, brought his populist message to Phoenix on Tuesday, denouncing President Donald Trump's "criminal" border wall and immigration policies.

"The U.S. economy can not be sustained without the labor of immigrants, and he knows it," López Obrador said in a rousing speech in a Phoenix ballroom packed with hundreds of cheering supporters, mostly immigrants from Mexico.

"The wall is not going to stop the flow of workers. It's just going to make it more dangerous," he said. "That is why I believe it is a criminal act."

The leftist Mexican politician and former mayor of Mexico City also attacked corrupt governments in Mexico that he said force Mexicans to seek better economic opportunities in the U.S.

AMLO has a new electoral vehicle after breaking with the PRD. "López Obrador, founder of the left-wing National Regeneration Movement, or MORENA, in Mexico, has not officially announced his candidacy for the 2018 Mexican presidential race. But he is campaigning like a candidate, having already held rallies in several U.S. cities with large Mexican immigrant communities, including Chicago, Los Angeles, and El Paso, where he spoke Monday."

Campaigning against Trump is a promising posture for the 2018 election:

"What the Trump administration is doing is really inflaming nationalist attitudes in Mexico," said Francisco Lara-Valencia, a professor at Arizona State University's School of Transborder Studies. ...

"He is coming here because he recognizes that (Mexican migrants) are a source of economic stability" through the billions of dollars in remittances they send home to relatives each year, Lara-Valencia said.

López Obrador also understands that Mexican migrants in the U.S. have the power to influence how friends and family members back home may vote in the Mexican presidential election, he said.

Ramirez said López Obredor has a better chance of delivering his message directly to migrants in the U.S. because the media in Mexico favors the Mexican establishment and unfairly paints López Obrador as a radical socialist. ...

During his speech in Phoenix, López Obrador said he is touring U.S. cities to offer his "unconditional support for our immigrant community" and to confront "the campaign of hate, and the campaign against Mexicans who come to look for a better life and an honorable life" not available to them in Mexico.

Univision interviewed AMLO in February, López Obrador: “México no ha entendido cuál es la estrategia de Donald Trump” 02/08/2017:

Daniel Borunda reported on his El Paso visit (Mexico's Obrador talks of Trump in El Paso visit El Paso Times 03/06/2017

The fiery leftist candidate is a fixture in Mexico politics and has run twice before for the presidency. The third time is the charm, he said on stage to loud cheers.

"We are going to end the principal problem of Mexico, which is corruption," López Obrador said.

He said Mexico's problems stem from government policies that harmed farmers, fostered low wages and forced people to leave their homes and migrate.

He pledged to cut taxes, lower gas prices and increase development with the building of roads, schools, hospitals and other public works.

He would create a free zone along the U.S.-Mexico border to spur investment, lower prices and raise wages. He pointed out that Mexican factory workers earn pennies compared to workers doing the same job in the United States.

Immigrants aren't the only victims, López Obrador said adding that drug violence in Juárez was the result of "absurd security strategies" and government policies.

"In recent years, we saw how a police problem escalated until it converted into a war that cost thousands of lives and resolved nothing. The price was tragic," he said.

On AMLO leaving the PRD, see Mexico's Lopez Obrador leaves coalition to form new movement BBC News 09/10/2012. MORENO was set up as a political party in 2014.

Fighting the mass deportation

A press release from the National Immigration Law Center describes legal efforts on behalf of Daniela Vargas, the Argentine Dreamer arrested in Jackson MS by ICE in an obvious retaliation for her having spoken out publicly against the Trump Family Business Administration for arrested her father and brother as part of their mass deporation operation (Civil and Immigrants’ Rights Groups Work to Win Release for Dreamer Daniela Vargas and Prevent Deportation 03/07/2017):

Civil and immigrant rights groups have taken legal action to stop the deportation of Daniela Vargas, a DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) recipient who was detained by immigration agents immediately after she spoke at a March 1 press conference protesting recent U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in Mississippi. Vargas spoke of her hope that she and other Dreamers could remain in and contribute to this country.

The National Immigration Law Center (NILC), the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the law firm of Elmore & Peterson, and the Law Office of William Most filed a habeas petition on Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, Alexandria Division.

“Detaining Dany just minutes after she spoke publicly about immigrants’ rights appears to be nothing short of ICE retaliating against somebody who dared assert their First Amendment rights,” said Naomi Tsu, deputy legal director for the SPLC. “Dany, an aspiring math teacher and active community member, is not a threat to her community. Her detention only serves to chill free speech and stoke fear throughout immigrant communities.”

BBC Mundo reports on the 23 countries that ICE describes as uncooperative or outright refusing to take deportees that the US claims are from their countries. (Los 23 países que rechazan recibir a sus nacionales deportados desde Estados Unidos 03/07/2017) Cuba is the only one from Latin America on the list of 23. Canada is also not one of the 23. And Canada is seeing an increase in the number of Mexicans requesting refuge there. Aumenta en Canadá el número de peticionarios mexicanos por refugio

Just Security 03/08/2017 provides A Line-by-Line Comparison Between Trump’s Original Muslim Ban and Today’s 03/08/2017.

Faiza Patel evaluates the new order in A Muslim Ban By Any Other Name Smells Just the Same Brennan Center 03/06/2017: "The revised executive order President Trump signed Monday morning is still a Muslim ban and it is still unconstitutional."

I'm guessing that the Trump Family Business Administration will try to protect at least one business from being much disturbed: the small arms proliferation business, which relies heavily on its own form of undocumented activity, Estados Unidos, principal vendedor de armas a México Proceso TV 03/07/2017:

Separating refugee kids from their parents on the southern US border

Mexican Chancellor Luis Vedegaray made an official statement of concern to the US government over the leak and/or trial balloon of a proposal to separate mothers caught crossing the US border without proper papers from any of their children they might be bringing in. (Angélica Mercado y Sivia Arellano, Preocupa a México que EU separe a madres de hijos: Vedgaray Milenio 07.03.2017)

The current government of President Peña Nieto is trying to avoid confrontational postures with the Trump Family Business Administration. But both the immigration and trade policies of the Trump family will make confrontations difficult to avoid.

Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! discusses the latest version of the Muslim ban, This is Still a Muslim Ban: Trump's New Executive Order Decried for Discriminating Based on Religion 03/07/2017

Aljazeera's Empire Files reports on the new Muslim ban, Will Donald Trumps' travel bans serve any purpose? 03/07/2017:

The PBS Newshour presented these two reports on the new ban. Trump administration announces new travel ban 03/06/2017:

This second one features the notorious xenophobe and segregationist Kris Kobach, Is Trump’s revised travel ban constitutional? 03/07/2017:

Trumpism with a not-quite-so-nasty face but still xenophobic

Trump's budget State of the Union address to both House of Congress Tuesday evening sounded a lot like his campaign speeches. But since he omitted his attacks on those he and his base consider enemies, like the press or Hillary Clinton, many pundits in their theater-criticism commentary on the speech will find a gleam of statesmanship in it.

What stood out to me is that he devoted a large portion of the speech demagoguing against immigrants, linking them rhetorically to violent crime and murder and terrorism. He also signaled that he wants to escalate the decades long War on Drugs. The two together add up to many more Latino and African-Americans stuck in penal institutions.

Cenk Uygur grudgingly rates it as Trump's best speech, though he has major policy criticisms of the content, Best Trump Speech Ever The Young Turks 02/28/2017:

This report from The Real News from before Trump's speech takes a sobering and harsh though realistic look at that prospect in Is Trump Preparing a Wave of Mass Criminalization? 02/28/2017:

In a maudlin twist that Cenk calls "emotional porn," Trump had three people who had a close relative killed by undocumented immigrants sitting in the Presidential box and told a version of their stories. This kind of story was a standard feature in his campaign speeches and a key way he tried to rouse and appeal to xenophobic fear and hatred.

Sabrina Siddiqui and Lauren Gambino reported on that tactic in a pre-speech article, Trump invites relatives of those killed by undocumented people to Capitol Hill 02/28/2017.

This cartoon was featured today by Proceso using the face of our ExxonMobil Secretary of State to stand for the hostile policy of the Trump Family Business Administration toward Latino immigrants and toward Mexico in particular:

In the article La 'diplomacia' del desprecio that the cartoon accompanies, La "diplomacia" del desprecio," (The "Diplomacy of Contempt), Héctor Tajonar writes:

La manifiesta hostilidad de Donald Trump hacia México coloca al país en una situación de vulnerabilidad y riesgo acaso no vivida desde 1846, año del inicio de la guerra planeada por el presidente James K. Polk para apoderarse de la mitad del territorio nacional.

[The manifest hostility of Donald Trump toward Mexico puts the country in a more vulnerable and risky situation that we have seen perhaps since 1846, the first year of the war planned by President James K. Polk take over half of the national territory.]

The historical refernce is, of course, to the Mexican War. Or as it's known in Mexico, La guerra entre Estados Unidos y México.

Hope and decency vs. fear and hatred in the Trump mass deportation

Pilar Marrero sums um Trump's first weeks in office, which have emphasized his mass deportation effort against Latino immigrants (Un mes de Donald Trump: enfoque intenso contra la inmigración La Opinión 24.02.2017):

Un mes y pocos días después de tomar posesión de la Casa Blanca, el presidente Donald Trump ha dictado órdenes ejecutivas amplias para la ampliación de deportaciones, reafirmado su compromiso con el uso de cárceles privadas para inmigrantes, iniciado el proceso de buscar constructores para el muro fronterizo y prácticamente ha eliminado el uso del español en su gobierno, a excepción de una pírrica cuenta de Twitter (@LaCasaBlanca) que no ha tenido una actualización desde hace 24 días.

[A month and a few days after taking possession of the White House, President Donald Trump has issued broad executive orders to increase deportations, reaffirmed his promise to use private prisons for immigrants, initiating the process of looking for builders for the frontier wall and practically eliminating the use of Spanish in his government, with the exception of a Pyrrhic Twitter account that hasn't been updated for 24 days.]

Since private prison companies will be making money and getting lots of new detainees to hold in the Trump mass deportation operation, it's worth remembering always what a truly bad idea that private prisons are in any case. The story gives us a reminder, Private prison deprived inmates of heat and hot water for months, lawmaker finds by Mary Ellen Klas Miami Herald 02/25/2017:

The 284 women housed in C-dorm at Gadsden Correctional Facility lived for months without hot water or heat, faced flooded bathrooms daily and endured water rations when the septic tanks were jammed with food waste.

After state Rep. David Richardson demanded action following a series of surprise visits over the past 18 months, the private prison operator that runs the facility — Management Training Corp. of Centerville, Utah — received approval from the state to repair and replace the water heater, at a cost to taxpayers of nearly $10,000. But Warden Shelly Sonberg never authorized the work.

Religious communities are playing an important part in immigrant support. Here's just one of many local examples: Sarah Tan, Piedmont: Crowd turns out for immigrant-aid workshop The Montclarion/East Bay Times 02/20/2017:

More than 100 people — including Kehilla Community Synagogue members and the general public — turned out Sunday to find out how to support immigrants.

Kehilla Community Synagogue hosted an “Accompaniment Teams” workshop to enlist those interested in helping the newcomer families acclimate to life in the United States.

The project, called “Nueva Esperanza,” has four teams. At Sunday’s meeting, members of the teams spoke to the public about how hosting asylum-seeking and refugee families from Central America has been an enriching experience for all involved. ...

Kehilla’s accompaniment teams are organized through Nueva Esperanza, which is a project of the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, and the Rev. Deborah Lee, the interfaith group’s director, was also present at the workshop. The Nueva Esperanza program was established in 2014, and Lee said she began it to help the growing number of immigrants fleeing violence in Central America.

“There was so much negative anti-immigration sentiment, even back then, that we wanted to show people there was a group that said, ‘Welcome,’ ” Lee said. “And also, not only did they need to know they were being welcomed, they also needed concrete support.”

Catholic campus groups and Catholic colleges are also stepping up to support immigrant students, especially DACA students (Dreamers), as Shireen Korkzan reports for the National Catholic Reporter Online (Despite Catholic campus support, DACA students fear deportation 02/23/2017)

Trump's views of DACA recipients seem ambivalent. In a press conference Feb. 16, he said DACA is "one of the most difficult subjects I have because you have these incredible kids, in many cases, not in all cases. And some of the cases, having DACA and they're gang members and they're drug dealers, too. But you have some absolutely, incredible kids, I would say mostly. They were brought here in such a way — it's a very — it's a very, very tough subject."

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security says Trump's new immigration policies will leave DACA alone for now, but the fear of possible arrest and deportation still lingers.

CNN reported Feb. 14 that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, commonly known as ICE, detained Daniel Ramirez Medina, a 23-year-old DACA recipient living in the Seattle area. ICE has alleged Medina is a gang member and a "risk to public safety," even though his attorneys denied all accusations. Medina, who doesn't have a criminal record, has a bond hearing Feb. 24.

Immigration rights groups say Medina might be the first DACA recipient who has been arrested without cause.

Catholic institutions of higher education across the country are also concerned about their undocumented students. After the presidential election in November, the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities released a statement expressing support for undocumented students at its member institutions through "campus counseling and ministry support, through legal resources from those campuses with law schools and legal clinics and through whatever other services we may have at our disposal."

Pilar Marrero's report describes the mounting effects of the emerging state terror against immigrants:

Según PEW, el 55% de los inmigrantes indocumentados, 38% de hispanos nacidos en Estados Unidos y 49% de residentes legales hispanos, están preocupados por su futuro en el país. Un 47% de los adultos hispanos, de cualquier estatus migratorio, está “muy preocupado” o “algo preocupado” por las deportaciones, sea la suya propia, amigo o familiar.

[According to Pew [Research Center], 55% of undocumented immigrants, 38% of Hispanics born in the United States and 49% of legal Hispanic residents are preoccupied about their future in the country. Around 47% of Hispanic adults, of any immigration status, are "very preoccupied" or "somewhat preoccupied" by the deportations, whether its themselves, a friend or a family member.]

Meanwhile, the conservative government of Mexican President Eenrique Peña Nieto is handling Central American refugees in a dubious way itself, Mexico doubles deportations of US-bound migrants 02/14/2017:

In a more decent North America, the governments of the United States, Canada and Mexico would be cooperating constructively on ways to combat violence in Central America, create jobs in Mexico and set up sane, humane and realistic immigration policy in the US. As important as it is to debunk false comparisons between Obama's immigration policy and the far more radical and draconian mass deportation Trump has set in motion, the fact is that Obama's Administration had a conservative policy in Latin America, the Cuba normalization notwithstanding. Supporting the 2009 coup in Honduras was not only a particularly bad decision, one of the which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was very proud, contributed directly to dangerous conditions in that Central American country.

It's worth remembering that when the Bill Clinton Administration made its big push for the NAFTA treaty negotiated under Old Man Bush's Administration, one of their arguments in favor of it was the idea that the treaty would create more jobs in Mexico and thereby reduce unauthorized emigration from Mexico to the US.

It didn't work out that way, as James Patterson explained in Restless Giant: The United States From Watergate to Bush v. Gore (2005):

NAFTA did not seem to greatly benefit Mexico, which suffered, as earlier, from widespread poverty and unemployment. Struggling peasants raising maize, hit hard by competition from the United States, were devastated. These and other desperately poor people continued to stream into the United States, provoking rising tensions in many parts of the Southwest.

Of course, when production of grains shifts from Mexico to the United States, displaced Mexican farm workers migrate in greater numbers to work for big growers in California and Texas and elsewhere.

We need really different kinds of policies. And not the different kind the Trump Family Business Administration is implementing.

Deportation Nation today

Xenophobia is ugly and often stupidly self-destructive. One example: Nathan Fletcher, Trump order drops protection for families of deployed military San Diego Union-Tribune 02/24/2017.

Here's another, Silvia Zuvieta Rodriguez considered suicide after her father was deported PBS Newshour 02/24/2017:

Apparently hassling legal travelers for no good reason is also part of the America First ritual now: Emma Graham-Harrison, US border agents ask Muhammad Ali's son: 'Are you a Muslim?' The Guardian 02/25/2017; Bonnie Malkin, Australian children's author Mem Fox detained by US border control: 'I sobbed like a baby' The Guardian 02/24/2017; Mem Fox, Australian author, gets apology after being wrongfully detained at LA airport ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) 02/204/2017.

The ABC story reports, "She said the border agents appeared to have been given "turbocharged power" by an executive order signed by President Donald Trump to 'humiliate and insult' a room full of people they detained to check visas."

Speaking of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation has set up a Trump's America webpage. Here's another of their current stories, Donald Trump: Mexico bristles at US President's 'hostile' new deportation rules ahead of immigration talks 02/24/2017:

Mexico is reacting with anger to a Trump administration plan to deport non-Mexican illegal immigrants over their border if they entered the US from the southern neighbouring nation.

One official called the new US immigration guidelines "hostile" hours before senior Trump administration envoys began arriving in Mexico City for talks on the volatile issue. ...

Mexico's lead negotiator with the Trump administration, Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray, said there was no way Mexico would accept the new rules, which among other things seek to deport non-Mexicans to Mexico. ...

Roberto Campa, who heads the human rights department of the Interior Ministry, said the plan to deport non-Mexicans to Mexico was "hostile" and "unacceptable."

One of the dangerous moves of the Trump government is a push to quickly expand ICE enforcement with contractors, aka, rent-a-cops.(Pilar Marrero, La rápida contratación de agentes migratorios tiene sus peligros La Opinión 02/24/2017) Private security in an office building is one thing. Inadequately trained rent-a-cops on highly sensitive border enforcement is a different thing.

Keeping an eye on the role of private contractors will offer revealing insights the Trump mass deportation. Private for-profit prison businesses will get a cut of the action - and cash, of course! - in the vast new detentions by the Trump Family Business Administration as part of the mass deportation drive. (Madison Pauly, The Private Prison Industry Is Licking Its Chops Over Trump's Deportation Plans Mother Jones 02/21/2017)

It's worth keeping in mind that our anti-public-education Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos' brother is Erik Prince, Yes, the Blackwater guy. (Jeremy Scahill, Notorious Mercenary Erik Prince Is Advising Is Advising Trump From the Shadows The Intercept 01/17/2017) I will be astonished is he doesn't get cut in on some major business in this process, i.e., the mass deportation and the rest of the Trump fiasco.

The risks to Mexico in this mass deportation are enormous. If this Administration does what President Tinyhands proposed to do during his campaign and pushes out 11-12 million undocumented immigrants, and pushes the bulk of them into Mexico, that would be a real humanitarian catastrophe with Mexico bearing the brunt of it.

Olga Pellicer is not impressed so far with the cautious approach Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has been taking to the new US administration so, as she explains in México en la política exterior de Trump Proceso 24.02.2017. She references the multi-city demonstrations on the 12th of February encouraged by Peña Nieto's political operation to show solidarity with the Mexican President against the US that had a notably modest turnout:

La falta de una narrativa convincente que vaya desglosando objetivos, estrategias, costos y logros en el acercamiento al gobierno de Trump es una de las debilidades más evidentes del camino seguido por Enrique Peña Nieto. No hay un discurso que concite el apoyo de grupos amplios de la sociedad mexicana a los objetivos que se fijen para la relación con Estados Unidos. Al no existir ese discurso, los intentos de movilizar a la población para expresar su agravio por los mensajes humillantes de Trump a los mexicanos han sido un fracaso. La falta de claridad respecto de las causas a defender en una marcha explica los resultados tan limitados de las que se llevaron a cabo en diversas ciudades del país el domingo 12.

[The lack of a convincing narrative that breaks out objectives, strategies, costs and benefits in the approach to Trump's government is one of the most evident weaknesses of the [conciliatory] road chosen by Enrique Peña Nieto. There is no discourse that draws the support of broad sections of Mexican society to the objective on which they are focused in the relationship with the United States. Since this discourse doesn't exist, the effort to mobilize the population to express their insulted from the humiliating messages from Trump to the Mexicans has been a failure. The lack of clarity to respect of the causes to be defended in a march explicates the so limited results in the turnoout of those in various cities of the country on Sunday the 12th.]

Here is yet another example of how implemented standard neoliberal Washington Consensus economic policies leaves the public of a country doubtful about whether they can trust the established political elites to get even a critical matter of national interest right.

Demonstrations across Mexico on Sunday against Trump's and his wall

Demonstrations took place in various Mexican cities against Trump's anti-Mexico policies.

Melenio reports on the demonstrations in Marcha México contra Trump 02/13/2017

Mariana Atencio reports in Widespread Anti-Trump Protests Take Place Across Mexico NBC News 02/03/2017:

Wide-spread anti-Donald Trump demonstrations were held in 18 cities across Mexico on Sunday, marking the country's first such protests since the U.S. president's inauguration less than a month ago.

The principle behind them was simple: a show of national unity against Donald Trump.

But this made me do a double-take:

Some 70 organizations were involved in the rallies, including Amnesty International, Mexico's National University, business and community organizations and numerous young activists.

In Mexico City, 11,000 people marched along Reforma Avenue to the iconic Angel of Independence with banners that called the U.S. president "Twitler" and read, simply, "Stop Trump."

I don't know what size demonstrations one might typically expect in nationwide demonstrations in Mexico. But 11 thousand doesn't strike me at first glance as a large crowd for a Sunday for a national issue like this with broad public support.

Atencio does note, "However, some demonstrators choose not to protest after encountering those supporting President Enrique Peña Nieto, underlining ideological fractures inside the country between those who support the Mexican president and those who oppose him. Peña Nieto's approval ratings are the lowest they've been since he took office."

That was obviously a complication. Some of the demonstrators reportedly protested against both Trump and Peña Nieto. (Rosalía Vergaqra, Movilización anti-Trump, marcada por divisiones Proceso 12.02.2017)

El Universal reports that the number of demonstrators in Mexico City was closer to 20,000. (Marchan 20 mil contra Trump en laCDMX, estima la SSP 12.02.2017)

The Los Angeles Times report refers to the official city estimate of 20,000 in Mexico City, but adds, "The turnout was relatively modest in a city that regularly hosts massive demonstrations." (Patrick McDonnell, Thousands march against Trump in Mexico City: 'Pay for your own wall!' 02/12/2017)

An analysis in Proceso (Marco Appel, Trump, México y la Unión Europea 13.02.2017) reports that Peña Nieto's government is trying to forge closer ties with the EU in the face of the new pressure from the US under Trump.

Trumpism and Latin America

The first few weeks of the Trump Family Business Administration are having a notable on international relationships within Latin America.

Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia and Peru have all publicly expressed diplomatic support for Mexico in its disagreements with the US over the Trump Wall. (México agradece a Argentina su “solidaridad” y prioriza la relación bilateral El País 07.02.2017)

The Trump Wall seems to have already come to symbolize the internal anti-immigrant measures against Latinos in the US, Trumpist white nationalism/racism against Latinos, and the often obnoxious way the US behaves in Latin America generally.

It's not surprising that Latin American nations would look to make more common cause with each other with Trump as US President and taking such an openly hostile position towards Mexico, to the point of threatening to send in troops! Making common cause makes plain good "realist" sense.

What is surprising to me to see that Argentine President Mauricio Macri's government is taking a particularly visible role in this effort. Peña Nieto publicly thanked Macri for his country's "solidaridad frente a la nueva posición adoptada por el Gobierno de Estados Unidos" ("solidarity in facing the new position adopted by the government of the United States"). Macri's Foreign Minister Susana Malcorra said that Argentina was ready to make a statement of support a week earlier, but postponed it at Peña Nieto's request. (Malcorra: “Latinoamérica no es más dura con Trump porque México no lo pide, busca un acercamiento” El País 07.02.2017)

Argentina and Mexico were already making bilateral agreements last year, Macri's first full year in office. (Daniel Venegas, Peña Nieto firmará acuerdos de cooperación con Argentina Melenio 28.07.2016) In his public expression of gratitude to Macri this week, the Mexican President also stated that Mexico would be giving a higher priority to bilateral commercial agreements with Argentina.

But the context for such cooperation is rapidly shifting with the new administration in Washington. Despite the pragmatic adjustment of relations with Cuba under Obama, he and his Secretaries of State Clinton and Kerry adopted a basically conservative policy toward Latin America. And I mean conservative in the ideological sense, not in the sense of caution. At the end of his term, Latin American politics had shifted in a way that was amenable to that approach. The left-leaning governments of Argentina and Brazil had been displaced by conservative ones dedicated to neoliberal "Washington Consensus" and to close cooperation with the Obama and the once-presumed Hillary Clinton Administrations. In Argentina, the change took place by legitimate elections in 2015, in Brazil in 2016 by a "soft coup" that the Obama Administration clearly found to be not unwelcome.

With Mexico in the conservative hands of Peña Nieto's government, Washington had friendly conservative governments committed to neoliberal economic policies in the north in Mexico and Argentina and Brazil in the south, able to press for conservative regime change in Venezuela, neoliberal economics and the weakening of regional organizations like UNASUR that the Obama Administration saw as challenging US hegemony in Latina America.

Macri now is at least giving public signals that he wants to position Argentina with other countries in both Latin America and Europe that are alarmed by Trump's generally reckless and hostile approach to foreign policy. Macri plans to visit Spain later this month. said that Argentina was ready to make a statement of support a week earlier, but postponed it at Peña Nieto's request. Malcorro also commented, "Trump ha descolocado al mundo, no solo a la Argentina" ("Trump has disturbed the world, not just Argentina").

And Mexico now has new incentives to make regional alliances to provide diplomatic and business options to the changed situation with the United States. Peña Nieto also has the incentive that he's been an unpopular President, which is not unusual for governments following a dogmatic austerity program. "Donald Trump’s obsession with constructing a wall on the frontier with Mexico has achieved something inconceivable — the start of a campaign to unite the country which could favour President Enrique Peña Nieto," writes Cecilia González (The Mexican side of the wall Buenos Aires Herald 02/03/2017) She explains the Mexican President's problems this way:

The mirage constructed by Peña Nieto started to collapse as from September 26, 2014, when 43 students from the Escuela Normal Rural Isidro Burgos in Ayotzinapa went missing after a hail of gunfire in Iguala, Guerrero, one of the poorest and most violent states in the country. The fatigue with the long silenced violence, the profile of the missing (poor youths studying to be primary school teachers in impoverished areas) and the presence of journalists during the gunfight triggered massive protests in Mexico and other countries. The world learned of disappearances and murders in Mexico under a supposedly democratic government. Peña Nieto’s international image never recovered, above all because the government wanted to manipulate the evidence and close down the case, which was prevented by the families of the victims supported by human rights organisations.

In late 2014, when the government was still facing the impact of the disappearance of the 43 Ayotzinapa students, a team of investigative journalists headed by Carmen Aristegui revealed that first lady Angélica Rivera had purchased a US$ 7 million mansion from Grupo Higa, a company which Peña Nieto had favoured with multi-million public works contracts when he was governor of the state of México. In mid-2015, his friend Virgilio Andrade, the official heading the civil service, concluded (to nobody’s surprise) that there was no conflict of interest but the stain of corruption left by the “white house” proved indelible for the government.

As if Peña Nieto was short of problems, on July 12, 2015, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, fled from a maximum-security prison via a tunnel a kilometre and a half long which his accomplices had patiently built in more than a year. The Mexican government became a laughing-stock and never recovered, not even when the drug czar was recaptured six months later.

And then there is the issue of the structural poverty which Mexico suffers and which no government has reduced, for which all ex-presidents are responsible and which is the main cause of Mexican emigration to the US. According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), during the first two years of Peña Nieto’s government poverty in Mexico rose from 51.6 to 53.2 percent. Over 60 million Mexicans are poor and do not expect to improve their lives in their own country. How are they not going to try their luck on “the other side”? [my emphasis]

John Ackerman summarizes Peña Nieto's situation this way (Mexico: Ending the Neoliberal Nightmare NACLA 48:4 2016):

After the election of Peña Nieto in 2012, the international press explicitly hailed him as the man who would be able to stop the advance of South American “populism” and bring back the “Washington Consensus” as the dominant ideology in Latin America. Indeed, Peña Nieto’s central, though unstated, objective since taking power on December 1, 2012, has been to dismantle the progressive legacy of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. He has drastically rolled back protections for labor, imposed neoliberal education reforms, and moved to hand over the enormous oil and gas industry to transnational petroleum companies. He has also turned Mexico into a servile client of U.S. foreign policy and its northern neighbor’s “national security” concerns.

Macri's solidarity with Mexico against Trump doesn't mean that the previous goals of the Mexico-Brazil-Argentina conservatism has completely changed. But the foreign policy context has shifted dramatically.

And in Macri's domestic policy, he's applying a bit of Trumpism in restricting immigration himself from some other South American countries: Bolivia, Paraguay, Peru. (Bolivia envía una delegación por el decreto migratorio de Macri Página/12 05.02.2017.

Macrismo is, of course, generated protest and resistance, not least because of the grim results of over a year of neoliberal, Herbert Hoover/Angela Merkel austerity economics, El pueblo argentino marcha contra políticas del gobierno macrista teleSUR 02/05/2017:

Xenophobia in Texas and, uh, threatening war with Mexico?

Trumpists in Texas seem to be enthusiastic about expelling Latino immigrants: Mike Ward, Abbott cuts funding to Travis County over 'sanctuary city' policy Houston Chronicle 02/012017.

Travis County's female Latino sheriff Mike Ward, Sally Hernández, is a particular target of the Texas Trumpists on this issue: Pilar Marrero, Gobernador de Texas en guerra contra los inmigrantes de su estado y contra Sheriff latina La Opinión 01.02.2017.

And, oh yeah, Trump threatened to go war with Mexico today: Dennis Slattery, Trump threatens to send troops to Mexico to stop ‘bad hombres’ in phone call with Mexican president New York Daily News 02/01/2017; Presidencia y la Casa Blanca desmienten versión sobre amenazas de Trump La Jornada 01.02.2017.

Both the White House and the Mexican President's office are denying the report, which originated with the AP.

The Guardian's report from David Agren contains a classic of understatement: "Talk of troops violating Mexican sovereignty stirs up strong emotions in Mexico, which lost half its territory – including California, Arizona and Nevada – in the Mexican-American war of the 1840s." ('Bad hombres': reports claim Trump threatened to send troops to Mexico 02/01/2017)

Mexico says No to paying for the Trump Wall

Aljazeera's Inside Story looks at Trump's first week as President, Trump's first week at work: the report card 01/27/2017, which treats the new diplomatic confrontation with Mexico over the Trump Wall and the anti-immigrant policy as a major issue:

The President of Bolivia is appealing to Mexico to start "looking to the south more," i.e., building stronger cooperative alliances with Latin American countries to counter the new hostility from the United States. (Evo Morales llama a México a "mirar más al sur" y construir la unidad de AL La Jornada 27.01.2017; Ante amenazaas de Trump, Evo pide a México mirar al sur Milenio 26.01.2017)

Mexico's President Enrique Peña Nieto is taking a "Just Say No" approach to paying for the wall, apparently with near-unanimous political backing at home. (Daniel Venegas, Peña se reúne con legisladores para hablar sobre Trump Milenio 27.01.2017; Tiempo de unidad El Universal 27.01.2017; Empresarios respaldan a EPN tras cancelar reunión con Trump El Día 27.01.2017)

Mexico 'will not pay for US border wall'BBC News 01/26/2017

See also Mexico: Trump's wall tax would cost U.S. consumers Reuters 01/26/2017 (embedding not available at this writing).

The South American multilateral organization UNASUR has issued a statement against Trump's demand that Mexico pay for the wall. Even the neoliberal rightwing President of Brazil, Michel Temer, who has been a hardline supporter of Washington Consensus policies.

Enrique Peña Nieto's election as President in Mexico

Harley Shaiken writes about the results of the Mexican Presidential election in , Return of the PRI: How did this happen? What does it mean for Mexico? Berkeley Blog 07/05/2012:

Three powerful forces fueled this surprising turnaround. First, the conservative PAN failed to deliver. Despite democratic gains, Vicente Fox muddled through his six-year term, and then Felipe Calderón led the country into a murderous drug quagmire costing 60,000 lives and $60 billion over the next six years.

Second, the economy has averaged an anemic 2 percent annual growth for over a decade. Despite an expanding middle class, poverty and inequality remain high. Mexico has no shortage of billionaires — including the richest person in the world — but close to 60 percent of Mexican workers earn less than $14 a day. Many voters seemed to buy into the argument that the PRI, whatever its faults, at least knows how to deliver.

Finally, the PRI ran a slick, effective campaign. It managed to transform its image from the party of the status quo into the party of reform with minimal change to its structure. Enrique Peña Nieto, now the president-elect, provided a fresh face on the podium, obscuring the fact that the old-guard retains decisive roles behind the scenes. [my emphasis]

The drug war continues to be a nightmare. It would at least help mitigate the horrors in Mexico if the United States would clamp down on the traffic in automatic weapons so actively supported by the NRA and the even more extreme gun enthusiasts acting as flaks for the gun manufacturers as well as just being their extremist selves.

Narco News TV provides this report, Mexican Elections 2012: When Bribery Doesn't Pay 07/04/2012:

Tim Johnson also reports on vote-buying claims in Did the PRI buy votes with gift cards? McClatchy Newspapers 07/05/2012.

Tags: drug war, enrique peña nieto, mexico

Mexican President Calderón gets "fast and furious" with the United States

Felipe Calderón

 Mexican President Felipe Calderón had some harsh words for the United States after the deadly terrorist attack on a casino in Monterrey, Mexico, in which dozens of people died. Página 12 reports in Calderón dijo que Estados Unidos también tiene responsabilidad en el ataque al casino de Monterrey 26.08.2011:

El presidente mexicano consideró que el hecho en el que murieron al menos 60 personas fue "el más grave atentado contra la población civil inocente que haya visto el país en mucho tiempo" y anunció un refuerzo de la seguridad con fuerzas federales. Por el ataque que habría sido cometido por carteles de drogas, responsabilizó, además, a su vecino del norte, "el mayor consumidor de drogas del mundo y a la vez el mayor vendedor de armas" para los narcotraficantes.

"Parte de la tragedia que vivimos los mexicanos tiene que ver con el hecho de que estamos al lado del mayor consumidor de drogas del mundo y a la vez del mayor vendedor de armas en el mundo que paga miles y miles de millones de dólares en el mundo a los criminales para proveerlos de estupefacientes", reclamó Felipe Calderón, durante una de sus primeras apariciones tras el atentado.

Asimismo, pidió a la sociedad, al Congreso y al gobierno de los Estados Unidos "que reflexionen acerca de la tragedia" que viven México y muchos países latinoamericanos por el "consumo insaciable" de drogas en ese país.

[The Mexican President considered that the incident in which at least 60 people died was "the worst attack against the civil population that has been seen in the country in a long time" and announced a reinforcement of security with federal forces. For the attacked, which was alleged committed by drug cartels, he also blamed his neighbor to the north, "the biggest consumer of drugs in the world and at the same time the biggest arms dealer" for the drug traffickers.

"Part of the tragedy that we Mexicans are living has to do with the fact that we are next door to the biggest consumer of drugs in the world and at the same time the biggest arms dealer in the world that pays millions and millions and millions of dollars in the world to criminals to provide them drugs," accused Felipe Calderón during one of his first appearances after the attack.

At the same time, he asked society, the Congress and the government of the United States "to reflect on the tragedy" through which Mexico and many Latin American countries are living because of the "insatiable consumption" of drugs in that country.

I'm guessing most Americans don't much care what the President of Mexico is saying about this or anything else. Maybe we all should be paying a bit more attention.

The Los Angeles Times has a decent version of this story: Calderon calls on U.S. society to curb its drug use 08/26/2011.

There was a revelation recently of an ugly incident in US-Mexican relations involving a US sting operation called Operation Fast and Furious that involved just what Calderón references, US arms trafficking to Mexican drug cartels:

Bill Conroy, ATF's Fast and Furious Seems Colored With Shades of Iran/Contra Scandal Narco News 07/10/2011:

Fast and Furious actually [allowed] some 2,000 or more firearms illegally purchased in the U.S. to "walk" (or be smuggled under ATF's watch) across the border in a supposed effort by the federal law enforcement agency to target the kingpins behind Mexico’s narco-gun-running enterprises, ATF whistleblowers contend.

Two of the guns linked to the Fast and Furious operation allegedly were found at the murder scene of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, who was shot to death by Mexican border marauders in Arizona late last year.

Richard Serrano, U.S. Embassy in Mexico not told of ATF guns sting Los Angeles Times 07/26/2011:

Ultimately, ATF lost track of an estimated 1,700 weapons that were part of the so-called Fast and Furious operation, which began in November 2009.

Nearly 200 such guns were later recovered at crime scenes in Mexico. And two AK-47s from Fast and Furious were recovered in December at the scene of the fatal shooting of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Arizona. [my emphasis]

Daniel Hernandez, 'Fast and Furious' scandal grows with revelation that Mexican cartel suspects may be paid U.S. informants Los Angeles Times 07/11/2011

Patrik Jonsson, How Mexican killers got US guns from 'Fast and Furious' operation Christian Science Monitor 07/26/2011

Tags: felipe calderón, mexico, war on drugs

Now this is different

Following up on the previous post about Mexico and the merging of cultures, here's a TV clip from Aljazeera English about Mayans in southern Mexico converting to Islām.



Tags: islam, mexico

Zorro's times: classes and races in el Nuevo Mundo

Spain's New World was diverse, but not "multicultural"

Working to understand more about the real-life times of the fictional Zorro, I found myself needing to learn about some previously-obscure issues. Like the ones in this post.

A critical concept in Spain was limpieza, literally cleanliness, but which also meant "racial purity". More specifically, it meant descent from Christian Spaniards, i.e., without Jewish or Muslim ancestors.

In the Nuevo Mundo (New World) colonies in Zorro's day (early 19th century), there was an elaborate system of racial categories which also translated to a large degree into class position and social/political power.

Carlos Fuentes describes the following categories, in Spain's New World empire. He estimates about 18 million inhabitants around 1810 who he classifies as follows:

Caucasians; 4 million. This included "limpieza" Spaniards born in Spain, who were known as peninsulares or gachupins. This group also included "limpieza" Spaniards born in the colonies, called criollos (Creoles). Peninsulares had a more privileged and powerful position than criollos. The colonial independence movements were largely led by the criollo elite.

Indígenas, or indios (indigenous Indians); 8 million, and, negros (blacks); 1 million. Blacks and indígenas were the poorest, least powerful and most exploited groups. Some blacks were slaves.

The remaining 5 million were composed of a variety of distinct groups, defined by their parents' race, of which Fuentes gives the following: mestizos (white and Indian); mulato (white and black), a derisive term; tercerón (mulato and white); cuarterón (tercerón and white) tenteneaire (tercerón and mulato); and, saltapatrás (cuarterón and black).

The criollos in Mexico and Central America also referred to the lower classes more generally as "léperos".

Isabel Allende in her Zorro novel gives quite a bit of emphasis to the role of these racially-defined social categories. I'm not sure at what point in the literary development of the Diego/Zorro character that he bacame a mestizo. In Johston McCulley's original story The Curse of Capistrano/The Mark of Zorro (1919), Diego was a criollo.

Allende definitely made much of Diego's indígena heritage from his mother Toypurnia/Regina. She also makes his relationship with the indígena Bernardo one of a lifelong, sibling-type relationship: "hermaos de leche" (like brothers from birth). She has Diego and Bernardo learn about the network of tunnels in their area, which Zorro later used to navigate his way around secretly. In her version, he takes the name Zorro from his meeting his totem animal, a fox (zorro), during a rite-of-passage indígena vision quest.

The 2007 telenovela, Zorro: la espada y la rosa, reatins Diego's mestizo status and uses the same background with Toypurnia as his mother.

The various racial divisions played a big role in the telenovela, as in El Gobernador Fernando's tortured relationship with the indios. They also add the various complications with the gitanos (Gypsies, Romany).

The various geogrpahical/administrative division of Spain's New World Empire can be confusing. As of 1784, the divisions were the virreinatos (vicroyalties), each ruled by a virrey (viceroy). They lay roughly as follows in present-day terms.

Virreinato de Nueva España: Mexico, Texas, California and much of present-day southwest and western United States; sparsely populated territories of Lousiana and Florida were also administratively part of Nueva España.

Virreinato de Nueva Grenada: Central America, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador

Virreinato de Perú: Peru, part of Brazil

Virreinato de Buenos Aires (aka, Virreinato del Río de la Plata): Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Chile, Uruguay

The Virreinato de Brasil, generally corresponding to present-day Brazil, was ruled by Portugal.

Sources:

T.R. Fehrenbach, Fire and Blood: A History of Mexico (1973)

Carlos Fuentes, El Espejo Enterrado (1992).