.
1995 NY Times article: "
Maya Indians in the state of Chiapas who took up arms on the very day Nafta took effect."
6/11/1995,
"Racism? Mexico's in Denial." NY Times, Anthony DePalma, Mexico City
"Shrouded in mystery and myth, the heroes of Mexico's Aztec past are honored in glorious monuments all over the country. But the living descendants of Moctezuma are not
allowed to eat in some of Mexico City's best restaurants.
The racial inequities are not just limited to the
Maya Indians in the state of Chiapas who took up arms on the very day
Nafta took effect more than a year ago, in what is slowly taking on
shades of a national civil rights movement for Indians. Indigenous
people all over Mexico, and those with Indian features -- and dark skins
-- all feel a degree of the same kind of intolerance.
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Bigotry? What Bigotry?
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"We got there early by Mexican standards, around
7:45, and the place was empty," Mr. McDonald said. "But we stood there
waiting and waiting until finally the maitre'd came along and told me,
in English, that domestics are not served here." Mrs. Miranda was not
wearing a uniform, Mr. McDonald said. The restaurant simply assumed that
because she was an Indian she was a maid.
The restaurant manager, Mario Padilla, acknowledged
that it is policy at Prego and other top restaurants to prohibit
servants and drivers, many of whom are Indians. "The type of people who
usually come to restaurants of this class all have servants, but they
usually leave them at home," Mr. Padilla said. He said the restriction
was needed to protect patrons against people who "lack discretion" and
try to bring their servants. He denied the policy was discriminatory.
"We're not racists," he said. "We're just trying to protect the image of
the restaurant."
Social Tension
"There is going to be a sharp increase in social
tensions," said Sergio Aguayo, a human rights activist in Mexico City,
"and some of it is going to be racially inspired."
Bias against Indians has long been more economic
than personal. Sixty percent of Indians over 12 are already unemployed
and of those who work most earn less than the minimum wage of about
$2.50 a day.
But most Mexicans say bigotry does not exist here.
Schoolchildren are drilled on the life of Benito Juarez, a Zapotec
Indian who was President of Mexico in the 19th century, and told that
his election proves all Mexicans are equal. Mexico has no affirmative
action laws. The National Commission of Human Rights has never received a
discrimination complaint and does not even have a process to handle
one.
Complicating questions of race is the mixed lineage
of most Mexicans. From the Spanish founding of Mexico, social class has
been determined by racial purity, with those born in Spain at the top,
and full-blooded Indians on the bottom. But over centuries of
intermarriage, nearly all Mexicans are considered part Indian.
"Yes, Mexicans honor their Indian roots with
statues," said Miguel Acosta, an investigator at the Mexican Academy of
Human Rights at the Autonomous National University of Mexico, "but
historic roots are not at all useful when it comes to eating or just
living today."
Mexico City has the highest concentration of Indians
in the country, yet most times they are nearly invisible, showing up
only in knots of beggars at busy intersections and among the feathered
dancers who perform for tourists. No Indians serve in the Cabinet of
President Ernesto Zedillo and only a handful are in the Congress,
although 1 in 10 Mexicans is considered Indian.
The racial insensitivity extends to blacks, although
few live in Mexico. A recent commercial on national television featured
a dark-skinned man in a white tuxedo telling viewers that at Comex, a
Mexican paint company, "they're working like niggers to offer you a
white sale."
There were no complaints about the ad "because we
don't have a racism problem -- that's the key to it all," said Marisela
Vergada, an account executive at Alazraki Agency, the large Mexican
advertising firm that produced the 20-second spot. "It is simply an
expression that everyone uses."
Such "expressions" pop up in a commercial for
packaged toast that features a black baker boasting that his skin color
gives him the expertise to recognize the right shade of toast. Aunt
Jemima pancake mix goes by the brand name "La Negrita" here.
'Racial Hierarchy'
The few blacks who live in Mexico are either
immigrants or the descendants of about 200,000 African slaves brought
here before slavery was abolished in 1829. While researching a book
about African slaves in Mexico, Colin A. Palmer, a history professor at
the graduate center of the City University of New York, said he quickly
noticed that beneath an initial friendliness "a racial hierarchy existed
in Mexico."
"It is based on skin color, with white the higher
value as opposed to those who are brown and those, God forbid, who are
black," Professor Palmer said.
Visiting Americans sometimes get a taste of the same
bigotry. Michael Waller, president of Cleveland Telecomunications
Corp., of Solon, Ohio, accompanied United States Commerce Secretary Ron
Brown on a Nafta-related business trip to Mexico a year ago. He said
Mexicans were eager to talk to an American businessman on the telephone.
But that changed when he arrived.
"It was obvious from the moment I came into the
airport and people reacted as if I had been beamed down from the
Enterprise," Mr. Waller, who is black, said. "I guess what they expected
was what they saw on TV, the Crips and the Bloods, you know, that kind
of thing."
He said that when he did not receive a single follow-up
letter, he decided to focus on multiracial Brazil, where he now has
several deals pending."
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