| “I am 27 Miles from
Guanajuato and My Life is Spinning Out of Control!” Mexico and the Latino Initiative Gene Buccelli, Urban
League of the Central Carolinas, Inc. As part of their Latino Initiative for Public Policy and Civic Leaders, UNC Center for International Understanding (CIU) had prepared all of us very well for this cultural and educational trip. UNC CIU, Guest speakers and UNC professors briefed us on what to expect in Mexico and we had volumes to read, including an excellent book-Crossing Over-A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail by Ruben Martinez, which I highly recommend. I mean, we were briefed down to the recommended clothes to bring, shots to consider, who was our roommate, health care, and taxi’s not to ride, etc. I had all my emergency numbers, had my pesos, and my Pepto Bismol too! The itinerary was detailed with planned meetings with Government officials, community and college officials, and community groups. I was excited. The days were booked from early morning to late at night. You name it, they had prepared us. Listen, we had late night classes in Spanish before we left too! Hola! Buenos dias, Mucho gusto, Como Se Ilama? Me Ilamo, Soy, Tengo; I was ready, and these proposals weren’t going to hold me back. We left on March 15th and returned late on March 21st. There we all were, like Peace Corps workers, going to another country, ready to learn and find ways to build improved bridges across the “cultural divide.” We have no horror stories about the plane flights, lost luggage, getting sick on the food or water; we were all prepared and so was the airline this trip. The real adventure began as we listened to lectures, walked the streets of Mexico City and Guanjuato, toured some of the major museums, and visited three very warm and receptive rural poverty communities. We traveled primarily by bus, and for special mountain trips, by van. In addition, to the extensive learning experience, just being with some very caring and concerned Mecklenburg County Leaders was a great experience too! You do bond- when you are in a bus for 2-5 hours or touring a rural community and eating wonderful Mexican food cooked on the mountain top miles up (the cooked cactus was delicious by the way), and prepared by humble community residents struggling to survive-you not only bond but you are humbled. The lunches were like a Sunday church picnic, except we weren’t playing any games and it wasn’t potluck, the food provided was from the mountain and from the hands and hearts of the people. However, it was time for us, not only to eat, but also to listen to the many personal and community struggles, hopes, and challenges of these small Mexican communities. Our group included: Diego Anselmo, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD), Gene Buccelli, Urban League of the Central Carolinas, Inc, Marlene Cox, TJ Maxx, Elsie Garner, PBS/WTVI, Carol Hughes, Crisis Assistance Ministry, Men Tchaas Ari, Department of Social Services, Dan Clodfelter, Senator, NC State Government, Dianne English, Community Building Initiative, Peter Gilcrest, District Attorney, Kimberly Lewis, United Way, Joan Lorden, UNC Charlotte, Ed McMahan, Representative, NC State Government, Clayton Owens, Carolina Healthcare System, Patrick Mumford, Wachovia (City Councilman), Jorge Moller, Wachovia, Michael Marsicano, Foundation for the Carolinas, Angeles Ortega-Moore, Latin American Coalition, Cheryl Palmer, The Mint Museums, Elisa Rodriguez, Elisa Rodriguez Consulting Agency, Wayne Shirley, Mecklenburg County’s Sheriff’s Office, Ken Szymanski, Charlotte Apartment Association, George Wackerhagen, Duke Power, David Stephens CMPD, Jan Thompson, Mecklenburg County’s Sheriff’s Office, Eric Watson, Food Lion, and Millie Revenel, Melissa Edwards, and Gustavo Teran, UNC CIU. Each brought their own perspective and interest in learning more about Mexico and the immigration concerns and I think each, over the seven (7) days, came to some common ground of understanding about the issues and problems Mexico is facing and issues our country, state and county are facing. We really are a global community; yet I could sense there was a feeling that both Mexico, as well as the United States, is struggling to find our new identities. Did you know that Mexico has 32 States, I didn’t? We were sitting in a Pizza place, yes, Pizza in San Miguel with our Host family on Sunday and this little 10 year old child was selling a map and puzzle of Mexico, with the 32 States, that’s how I found out. It is in my office today. Mexico has over 104 million people and almost 50% are in poverty. Our group met in Mexico City (10 million) and in the state and also city of Guanajuato (I think I finally figured out how to say it too!). We also traveled to Chalco, several hours outside of Mexico City. Chalco has almost 400,000 people living there and most are extremely poor. As our bus drove through parts of the town, you could feel the poverty and isolation. Dogs roamed the streets and house tops, houses were Mexican style but old and gray. Old Chevy’s or Plymouth’s lined the streets or were parked in a garage for repair. (There isn’t the fancy 5-year new car loan process in Mexico and most can’t afford a new car anyway). Our destination was the Juan Diego Training Center. It is a wonderful “one stop” center of training for the community. Miracles in education, training, and childcare are going on there! It is the only training facility for Chalco! I promised them a load of books from the Urban League for the kids. Our other travels took us to Irapuato (1 million population) and through adventurous mountain terrains on eight (8) miles of dirt roads to two rural poverty communities, Tamahula and Gusano. Both communities each had 50-60 families and about 250-300 older men, women and young children living there. Amazing communities, surviving on shear vision and community willpower. All of these communities are missing their young men. It reminded me a little of the original movie, The Body Snatchers. These men are being snatched away, drawn away, if you will, from their lives in Mexico, and reappearing in the United States. They can’t survive on $80.00 a week in Mexico compared to the $300-400 per week in the states. Someone said in our group that, “this reminded them of the comments often made about African-Americans not wanting or not being able to survive on entry level jobs or minimum wage jobs in the states. The Mexicans are leaving Mexico for similar reasons and are taking the lower paying jobs. They want better jobs and want to earn more money to support their families too!” Interesting isn’t it? Over $12 billion a year comes to Mexico from remittance money-money sent back home. It is the third largest source of revenue, we were told. There is a strange and very sad dependency on this migrant worker’s income. The families depend on the US dollars, while the men’s lives are torn between home and the land of opportunity. While coyote’s are the body smugglers getting rich, the young men and many families are risking their lives by trying to survive in two countries. They come from a different culture with different values and a different National history. They come as strangers in a foreign land. Most of the time the young men don’t know how to survive in the states before they get here, but more and more premigration orientation on survival skills is taking place. These men are pulled away from their homeland by the anticipated job opportunities and it is no doubt that many become lonely and confused and as a result some turn to drugs and alcohol. It is heart wrenching for the families to be split, but they must survive. What’s the answer? The communities are trying to survive with little if any economic base. The women sell sheets, bake goods, and blankets and the older men raise farm products and goats or try working in nearby communities. In Tamahula, they were trying to get a goat cheese factory off the ground. There is no real economy and there really aren’t any jobs. These rural communities we visited didn’t have running water or heat and only limited electricity. One teacher rides his motor bike up the 8-mile dirt road just to teach school to the kids every day. The church was the central community meeting place and is the center of their lives and provides needed spiritual support and therapy. God knows we all need the respite. One lady, who we visited in Gusano, has three sons, 15, 17 and 19, all illegally living in Austin and working for a construction company. She worries each time they swim across the Rio Grande as they return home or return to the states. Her older son is building his home but he may never really permanently live there. Her one son married when he returned home for Christmas and returned to the states with his pregnant wife, both risking their lives swimming across the Rio Grande. We met with other government officials, community residents, and University staff. A wonderful lecture on Sincretiso and the Many Cultures of Mexico was outstanding…Though it was late in the evening on our first night and most of us were exhausted and couldn’t digest it all. Our lecture on Micro-financing as One Solution to Poverty was excellent and is being slowly implemented in some of the communities. In fact, many of the states are using Micro-financing as a strategy to assist communities to survive. (It seems to be a developing form of entrepreneurship or enterprise zones). I believe it will take a long time for it to really build any type of strong economy, if it can at all. However, it is a start and it gives some hope. When we met with the Governor of Guanajuato, he told us that his state has over 5 million people and that he had three main areas of concentration he was working on: (1) dealing with the economy and trying to build a stronger economic base, (2) dealing with the poverty and the struggling lives of his people, and (3) dealing with strengthening and improving law enforcement. We also met with other government officials, community residents, and University staff. We had an excellent tour of the famous area of Dolores Hidalgo and met with the Mayor, other officials and his staff. Yes, we had a few minutes to go through the town and buy some famous pottery. We spent our last day with our assigned host families learning more about the culture and getting to know them as people. Our host was the State of Guanajuato’s Social Services Director. We spent the whole day talking about the types of services he provides the state’s various communities and the differences and similarities to our County’s programs. He serves over 250,000 eligible needy families a year through his various programs. We also talked about the famous seven-siete (7) Luminaries (hills or volcano like areas matching constellations in the sky) outside of the City of Guanajuato that are supposed to be where flying saucers (over the years) had landed. Of course, the trip was not all business. There were periods where we were on our own and we would walk through some of the city’s shops near our hotel. As a group, we enjoyed several wonderful restaurants and evenings out at the Hacienda de los Morales and Real de La Esperanza. They served a great Cabernet Sauvignon 2003 wine that was just fabulous as you looked down the horizon towards the beautiful City of Guanajuato. We also had the opportunity to visit the National Cathedral, Templo Mayor, and the Museo Nacional de Anthropologia. I would be remiss if I didn’t explain about the title to this article. We had some good times and plenty of laughter in the buses and vans…that bonding I was referring to earlier. Well, we had some interesting adventures in our buses and vans. Both of the rural mountain communities were so isolated that there were no paved roadways up the mountain. In order to reach one community, we had to transfer off our bus onto four (4) vans and go up 8 miles of bumpy, narrow dirt roads. In fact, on one of these trips, Michael Marsicano was giving an interview by cell phone to the Charlotte Observer and we were all just cracking up…Over each bump and turn the cell phone would cut off. It was like a Survivor TV program and our challenge was to get safely up this 8 miles of unpaved road to who knows where while Michael is giving an interview to the Charlotte Observer, crazy, right? The other rural community had wider
unpaved roads but our bus got stuck going across a washed out roadway.
All of us had to get out and wait until the community piled rocks and
dirt across the washed out roadway so the bus could get across. Our
lives were really kind of spinning out of control and the situation
was out of our hands as we patiently waited to get across the roadway.
During one of our trips, one of our group members yelled out in the
midst of the fun and hilarity of the day, -“I am 27 miles from
Guanajuato and my life is spinning out of control!” In the News Release of March 3, 2005 regarding this Latino Initiative it indicated the following: “The goal of this Latino Initiative is to help local leaders identify practical strategies for addressing the challenges of a growing immigrant population. This region of the state has seen tremendous growth in its Latino population:
Life has changed for all of us. Life is changing in Charlotte-Mecklenburg County too. I don’t want to say things are really “spinning out of control” yet, but we do have to act. We are now a global community and Charlotte, (North Carolina and our Country) has to address these growing issues of immigration (legal and illegal). There are no easy answers. We all know we are already faced and often overwhelmed with the ongoing problems of poverty and inequity in our communities, and the expanding Hispanic/Latino migration simply adds another complicated ingredient for us to deal with. We must get together and discuss these complicated issues. Businesses, government officials, community groups, and churches must come together and work through the problems and issues as we move into the next decade. We know these are complicated economic, political, social, and certainly spiritual issues. Where is the moral high ground? How should we best approach this? How do we prepare for change but not run from change? Where are the best avenues of dialogue? What are we really called to do and act upon that we can be proud of? What are the compromises we all must make? How can we avoid being short sighted? How can we bring harmony to our ever-growing diverse population? These decisions are enormous and may move us out of our comfort level, but I believe we are up to the task, don’t you? This trip was extremely educational and informative and allowed 25 plus leaders to see the problems and issues first hand. It helped to put a missing face on the moral dilemma. I was changed and I have more empathy and understanding now, but there are no easy solutions. Socrates once said, “the beginning of wisdom is the realization of how little one knows.” I feel better educated after the trip but realize I still have so much more to learn. The community is being called to reach for the “higher angels” within us and not the “darker side”. Distinguishing between the two is our challenge. |