Vida Newspaper, Volume 4, Issue 5 - April 1977

April, 1977 VIDA Page 7 MEXICO Jose Lopez Portillo, Mexico’s new president, assumed office on December 1 in the midst of the most difficult crisis yet faced by the capitalist world’s oldest single-party state. Since Lopez Portillo’s election on July 4, two major events have raised serious doubts about the ruling Institu¬ tional Revolutionary Party’s (PRI) ability to continue its traditional vacillation between populism and repression. September 1, the government announced the first of a two-step 100% devaluation of the peso, and then on November 19, out-going President Luis Echeverria exprop¬ riated nearly 250,000 acres of pri¬ vate farm land for distribution to angry peasants. Both the devalua¬ tion and the land expropriation are elements of the delicate politi¬ cal juggling act which has come to characterize the PRI, which grew out of Mexico’s 1910 Revolution. Since that Revolution — which was fought and won by peasant armies but soon came under con¬ trol of a rising industrial class — the ruling party has based its power on the shaky balance of these two elements. It has sought, on the one hand, legitimacy in the eyes of workers and peasants by offering periodic social reforms. And, on the other, it has pursued the growth of a free-enterprise economy based on unparalleled concessions and incentives to private, and especially foreign, capital. Immediately after the Revolu¬ tion and then again in the ’30s, extensive agrarian reform and progressive trade union legisla¬ tion gained the support of workers and peasants. But since World War II, demands of the working class have been increasingly sub¬ ordinated to the needs of foreign and national industrialists. DEVALUATION: INFLATING PROFITS The recent devaluation of the peso is the logical result of this pattern of development, which has made Mexico increasingly dependent on U. S. market. About three-fourths of Mexico’s trade is with the United States. As Mexi¬ cans say, when the U. S. economy catches cold, Mexico gets pneumonia. When the international reces¬ sion of the early ’70s began to re¬ strict the U. S. market — and espe¬ cially after President Nixon raised U.S. tariffs on imports in 1972 — Mexico’s trade balance went increasingly into the red. Last year Mexico’s trade deficit was more than $3 billion. Added to the trade deficit are the billions of dollars spent by the government to subsidize cheap oil, electricity, railroads and the like for private business. In 1974 alone, the government spent $1.3 billion to make up for losses in these industries — a subsidy that particularly benefits the manufac- turing'sector, 40 percent of which is controlled by multinational corporations. At the same time, Mexico’s spending on social ser¬ vices has lagged far behind that of other large Latin American na¬ tions. The huge government deficits resulting from these subsidies have forced Mexico to borrow heavily from foreign banks and from international financial in¬ stitutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. By this fall the trade deficit and the massive borrowing had pushed Mexico’s total foreign debt over $20 billion — eight times greater than its debt of six years ago, and one of the largest of any Third World country. The devaluation was intended as a step towards reducing the country’s balance of payments de¬ ficit, something Mexico’s cre¬ ditors have been pressuring for. In theory, devaluation is supposed to reduce imports by making them more expensive in Mexican cur¬ rency, and stimulate exports by making them cheaper on the in¬ ternational market. But in prac¬ tice, imports cannot be signific¬ antly reduqed without serious negative effects on the economy, since the bulk of imported items are essential for industry and food consumption. Since the Mexican devaluation is combined with wage freezes, the brunt of the economic burden will be borne by the working class, while private industry will be able to recoup the profits eroded by the international reces¬ sion of recent years. After the re¬ cent 100% devaluation, prices on many basic consumer items nearly doubled, while wage in¬ creases were held to only 22%. The result was a larger profit mar¬ gin for private industry. The new (Continued on Page 8) Asian-American Student Association: A Declaration There is a new voice at LMU; the flowering of a new awareness. The Asian-American Student Association was formed to share the experiences and to promote the interests of the Asian Ameri¬ can. These experiences and needs have remained unexpressed and ignored for too long. The situation must be rectified. It is the aim of the AASA to achieve solidarity among diverse Asian as well as other Third World peoples, and through various social, cultural, and political activities, to estab¬ lish better understanding & com- municaion with the LMU com¬ munity at large. The AASA recognizes that Asians include a wide range of peoples, each with a distinct cul¬ ture and identity, but because of the reality of living in America it has become necessary to form an alliance to preserve those iden¬ tities and to form an alliance to preserve those identities and to have our voices heard. Our com¬ mon experiences have been racial oppression, and, for many still, economic disadvantage. The idea that Asians are a model minority who have “made it’’ and have successfully assimilated is a myth and a lie, especially when assimi¬ lation means nothing but the an¬ nihilation of all those feelings and impulses in our hearts and souls which characterize us as Asian, be it Chinese, Japanese, or Pilipino. We can no longer pretend that this isn’t the case. It is not enough to make personal, or short range sac¬ rifices, to quietly “move up” as individuals, yet all the while re¬ maining withdrawn into our own world, the ghetto of the mind. There must be a united, concen¬ trated, and open effort at defeating racism, prejudice, and ecoinomic as well as racial discrimination on all fronts. The Asian American Student Association therefore welcomes all who care and have the courage and determination to join in the struggle. DARE TO STRUGGLE» DARE TO WIN! Anyone interested should send their correspondence to Campus P.O. Box 224. (VIDA would like to extend its congratulations to the AASA on its formation and we welcome the opportunity to work together to realize the common endeaors we all are working towards.] The need is there. We can’t afford to forget. Experanza por M. Duran Esperanza is the oldest of my family. She was only six years old when my family moved to California. My mother tells the storry of how much Esperanza cried when she was told that we were leaving Mexico and that she would have to leave her friends behind. She even hid for a few hours the day before we left. We all laugh at that now, but she still says it hurts her to remember why we had to leave. We couldn’t afford to continue living in Mexico. There had to be a way out. California seemed like the only place to try to make it. Esperanza talks about the way things were when she arrived in California. There were cars in the street that went every which way. There were big markets with the shelves filled with cans and bot¬ tles of unrecognizable things. She wanted to go home, to spend the afternoons with the old ladies down the street. “I hated California. But now things are different. I wouldn’t want to go back. My home is here. I’m an American.” She repeats these lines over and over. They are almost like a litany. Esperanza is 28 years old, mar¬ ried, has two children, a home, and a working husband. They have moved out of Los Angeles, to the suburbs. They don’t like living in the ghetto. When she copies over to visit on Sunday, she parks the car in the driveway, makes sure it is locked, and closes the gate to the fence. I always ask her why she does that and she always replies, “I don’t trust the niggers around here.” She doesn’t trust the niggers. Iwish I could tell her to remember when she first started school here in Los Angeles. Weren’t her first friends black? Didn’t she even once date a black guy? She never locked her car then. But I suppose you can call her a member of the white flight away from the inner city. The groups of people that had to leave it all behind and seek safety somewhere else. It seems as though she almost wants to leave her culture behind. I remember the day she came home and told my mother that she had legally changed her name. “My name is Hope now, I drop¬ ped the Esperanza. It’s easier for some people to pronounce.” “Sure it’s easier for your white friends to pronounce,” answered my mother. I still feel very close to Es¬ peranza, but sometimes I wish that she could share some of our experiences. Sometimes when we go to Mexico, I wish that she would say that she would like to go with us, at least to visit the fam¬ ily. “I’d rather go to Hawaii. I’ve already been to Mexico.” Her oldest girl is fgive years old and speaks very broken Spanish. “Oh, she’ll learn it later. Besides it isn’t that important. I only use my Spanish when I come down here to visit my mother.” ALMA DEL BARRIO "MUSICA LATINA" FM - 88.9 ON YOUR LISTENING DIAL KXLU — LOS ANGELES Where you hear the best in the world of Latin Music. 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