Posted on 07/12/2006 1:16:18 PM PDT by SmithL
Mexicans living in the Bay Area are split roughly along class lines in their choice for Mexico's next president, conversations with community leaders and everyday people reveal.
Business owners, their employees and people who can readily afford to travel tended to support Felipe Calderon, the apparent winner of last week's election, while his unconceding rival Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador found favor with the more precariously employed and their advocates.
In San Pablo, arguably Contra Costa County's most Latino city, workers and customers at Carmelita's Beauty Salon on Tuesday expressed hope that Calderon will prevail.
"It will be good for the Mexicans who regularly travel across the border," said customer Silvia Ledesma, who described herself as a housewife. Before current president Vicente Fox took office in 2001, travelers ran into a gamut of corrupt border agents who demanded bribes, she said. Under the PAN -- the initials in Spanish of the National Action Party, the party of Fox and Calderon -- government services got more professional, she said.
Her stylist, Maria Villaseñor, said many PAN officials speak fluent English, an important asset in international relations, and are altogether more cosmopolitan than their counterparts at the PRD -- the initials in Spanish of Lopez Obrador's Party of the Democratic Revolution.
"And I don't like the fact that he's pro-Castro and pro-Chavez," Villaseñor said, a reference to the heads of state of Cuba and Venezuela, both of whom are at odds with the Bush administration.
Calderon, the conservative candidate, edged out the left-populist, former Mexico City mayor Lopez Obrador by a mere 240,000 votes out of 41 million cast.
Lopez Obrador has challenged the result before the Federal Electoral Tribunal, which has until Sept. 6 to certify the election.
Roberto Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which saw its 70-year-old hold on the executive office broken by Fox six years ago, finished a distant third.
A block away from the salon, Maria Lopez, who cleans houses for a living, said she hopes Lopez Obrador pulls through.
"He seems more sincere, and I want him to win because he will make Mexico better," she said. "He will help the poor and the people in need of security."
Calderon, on the other hand, will help only the well-off, she said.
Although both candidates vowed to advocate on behalf of Mexican immigrants in the United States, Lopez said she is "very doubtful."
"They all promise a lot, but then they do nothing," she said, echoing a fatalism shared by many of her countrymen and countrywomen.
"Traditionally, Mexicans don't trust the system," said Hector Rivera, a psychologist with the Contra Costa County health services department and an instructor at John F. Kennedy University in Pleasant Hill who travels frequently to Mexico.
"When you go to Todos Santos Plaza (in Concord) to the farmers market, where a lot of people speak Spanish, you ask them, 'What do you think of the election in Mexico?'" Rivera said. "They say, 'Nothing has changed. The people in power are going to support each other.' There's a sense of hopelessness."
Nativo Lopez, president of Hermandad Mexicana in Los Angeles, said Mexicans in California are divided about the election much along the same class lines as in Mexico.
"Those who favor the PAN candidate feel he represents continuity and stability," Lopez said. "Those who are supportive of the PRD and Obrador view him as a better defender of the rights of poor people, working people and immigrants, and willing to challenge notions of U.S. hegemony."
He cited as an example Lopez Obrador's intention to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. Calderon defends NAFTA in its current state, even if many rural Mexicans have been driven off their land since it went into effect in 1994.
"He believes that further privatization and foreign investment will provide for alternative employment in other sectors," Lopez said, "but that hasn't panned out in the last six years."
"The upper middle class in Mexico and the elite have done quite well under NAFTA," Lopez said, but not so the poor and the middle class.
Lopez Obrador's pledge to defend the rights of immigrants in the United States resonates with Mexico's poor, whose ranks constitute most of the illegal immigrants in this country, Lopez said.
"He (Lopez Obrador) would empower the (Mexican) consulates to intervene more aggressively in defending the rights of immigrants that are violated, and negotiate terms for legalization of immigrants," Lopez said.
Mexico's current electoral drama could provide lessons to the United States, which faced a somewhat similar drama in 2000, Lopez said.
"Here, you have a candidate (Lopez Obrador) who has expressed adamantly ... that he will exhaust all legal remedies ... and that he will mobilize throughout the country to protect the integrity of the franchise."
Juan Francisco Prieto, a case manager with the California Human Development Corp. in Brentwood, which serves farm workers, said most of his clients supported Lopez Obrador.
"We see people come here from Mexico looking for jobs," Prieto said. "That's what we don't have over there, and this guy was promising that he was going to help the poor."
That includes the immigrants. Fox has done little for them, Prieto said, but he conceded it is not all Fox's fault.
"After 9/11, the U.S. put him in the freezer," Prieto said. Even so, he said, his clients think Lopez Obrador will be a better advocate than Calderon for immigrants -- as well as those who would stay in Mexico if they felt they had the choice.
"He (Lopez Obrador) wants to open jobs in Mexico, and fight for labor's rights," Prieto said. "Calderon has mentioned he is going to help the farmers in Mexico, but it's one thing saying it and another thing doing it."
Francisco Flores, who came to the United States from Mexico 48 years ago, owns Taquería La Guarecita on San Pablo's 23rd Street. That makes him a member of the middle class here, he said, but he grew up poor and thinks Lopez Obrador offers a better future for Mexico.
"He (Lopez Obrador) will academically educate the people of Mexico so we don't have to come to the U.S. or any other country to find a better future," Flores said. "If Calderon is our next president, there would be no chance for people like me."
Why are they bringing this crap with them?
I think it may be time to start requiring loyalty oaths of any legal immigrants.
Translation - illegal aliens and their enablers.
I don't know how they know whom to favor all the way up in the Bay area. After all, I doubt that either candidate drove flatbed trucks all the way up there to throw them candy and cigars.
If any of them gave a sorry da*n about thier country, would they *be* there trying to fix it, right now?
What? They're still Mexicans?
Never mind....
I watched that election from northern Mexico myself and people were NOT divided along class lines. Tons of poor people were voting for Calderon, I learned that straight from them.
Why the heck should the President of Mexico do ANYTHING for people who have fled his country? Geez, these people are morons.
The newest wave of invaders are here strictly for STUFF, and I hope that becomes obvious to as many Americans as possible.
IRRIDENTISM is thy name.
I didn't realize that to be a real American, you must give up any interest in countries other than the US, even if you have family or friends there.
Be honest with yourself. You know the problem is a bit more than reading the newspaper.
I never said it was just reading the paper. However, there are plenty of "real Americans" that have strong interests in other countries. Italian Americans voted in the Italian election and no one complained that they weren't real Americans.
Many of the people referred to in the article were legal, or they wouldn't travel frequently between the two countries. They are allowed to have an interest in other countries (even strong interest) and shouldn't be criticized for it.
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