Impact of US economic crisis felt in Mexico
It is the capital city of Mexico, commonly known by foreigners as Mexico City and by residents as Distrito Federal (Federal District), and it is the most important industrial, economic and cultural center in the country, with the population in the metropolitan area is estimated to be 19,826,918 people, making this city the third largest city in the world by population.
“So what,” you may ask. Have you ever thought about going to a place where everywhere you look you see people, buildings, trash, and stray dogs, followed by a funky smell which mixes the delicious aroma of Mexican cuisine with the aroma of sewer and urine? That’s probably not the image you have of Mexico. I would also rather have a more peaceful, tropical, good smelling picture of Mexico but such an image was forced to change on my last trip.
I arrived in Mexico City on the last day of 2008, and I had a desire to record everything that was happening around me. Minutes after arriving, I had my first Mexican experience – a foreigner walked out of a money exchange office at the airport while yelling at the teller, “This is @#$% bull****! What kind of place is this?” I eventually found that the frustration was caused by the discrepancy in advertisement and a fee the teller attempted to charge the tourist for exchanging money into pesos.
I experienced situations like this day after day, sometimes a few times a day. At first I couldn’t understand why people were so frustrated, angry, and looking for every way and excuse to get the last peso out of you. Then, there it was it finally clicked – the economy. I realized that even though it’s not covered in American media, the economic struggles faced by the United States are having their respective effect in the economy south of the border.
Job losses in the US are not only affecting those in high positions, but also those working at places where immigrants are needed for their cheap labor and, in some cases, for the survival of a business itself. Immigrant workers losing jobs in the US are forced to return home; they are forced to return to an already decayed economy that continues to decay as the United State’s economy worsens. Today, for every dollar you take to Mexico you get up to $14.50 pesos, while a year and a half ago you could only get $10 pesos at the most. That may sound like good news for us, but terrible news for Mexico.
As immigrants return to Mexico, new employment options have to be sought after, and without many left, immigrants are forced to leave their home-states to go seek a job in the already overpopulated metropolitan area of Mexico, where job opportunities for them will not be any better than those found across the northern border.
Jobs have gone from an office-space, to selling food on the streets, to becoming a ‘slick robber’. Headlines continuously remind people about job losses and the constant increase in crime as a result. I must credit one slick robber who came up to me with the best costume ever – he faked having been recently beaten by a taxi driver, and was covered in what looked like blood He politely asked me for money, or else! I, of course, gave him the money before finding out any other “slick tricks.” This blood-covered person is an example of how bad the economy is in Mexico, though his “slick way” and made me aware of what’s never talked about in the north – poverty in Mexico caused by a foreign country.
Short URL: http://www.themountaineer.org/?p=345
Posted by Beatriz Gomez
on Feb 11, 2009 Filed under First-Person, Voices.
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