Regaining Mexican Citizenship - Worldwide “Anti-Gringo” Sentiment Cited as Factor
El Norte Digest
New California Media, News Digest, Compiled and Edited by Marcelo Ballve, Posted: Mar 05, 2003
“El Norte” is a weekly report on news and views from the Latino press and communities. Traducción en Español
- Regaining Mexican Citizenship - Worldwide “Anti-Gringo” Sentiment Cited as Factor
- Top Columnist Lists Hispanic Politicians to Watch
- South America’s Giant Reaching Out to U.S. Brazilians
- Mexican Food Booms in Canada, sign of Closer North American Ties
The number of U.S.-based Mexicans seeking to regain their Mexican citizenship under a new law has surged because of an impending deadline, reports the San Jose, Calif.-based Nuevo Mundo Spanish language weekly.
The Mexican government set March 20 as the deadline for those who became citizens of another country to submit paperwork for regaining their Mexican citizenship and thus hold dual citizenship.
Consul Hugo Juárez said that besides protecting U.S.-based immigrants’ ability to own property, run businesses and participate politically in both countries, applicants were also attracted to dual citizenship in order to have the option of traveling as Mexicans in a world displaying increased “anti-gringo sentiments.”
“There is no rejection of a Mexican passport. If one has to travel, it’s better to do it with a Mexican passport,” he said.
Before 1998, Mexico’s Constitution prohibited Mexicans from holding multiple citizenships, and those who became U.S. citizens before that date were forced to give up their Mexican passports. U.S.-based Mexicans lobbied aggressively for a change, and succeeded five years ago. Children born in the United States to Mexican parents also can adopt dual citizenship now.
Nuevo Mundo, in the story by reporter Claudia Meléndez, said an average of 20 people per month had sought to regain their Mexican citizenship at San Jose’s Mexican consulate since 1998.
But in recent weeks, as the deadline approached, that number had jumped to an average of 20 people daily, according to the paper, which cited consular statistics. There are over 40 Mexican consulates across the United States.
Top Columnist Lists Hispanic Politicians to Watch
As both political parties gear up for 2004 presidential elections, Pilar Marrero, political editor and columnist with Los Angeles Spanish-language daily La Opinión, listed the names of national Hispanic politicians to watch in the months ahead.
In an interview with El Norte Digest, Marrero, whose award-winning column Actualidad Política, runs Mondays, said the new leaders represented the diversity and independence of the Hispanic electorate.
Marrero said four leaders were established powerbrokers: Rep. Bob Menendez, New Jersey Democrat and chairman of the House Democratic Caucus; Al Gonzales, White House counsel who is influential in picking judges and himself is a possible future U.S. Supreme Court nominee; Bill Richardson, Democrat and New Mexico governor; and Texas Rep. Silvestre Reyes, Democrat who serves on both the House Armed Services and Select Committee on Intelligence.
Marrero also mentioned Democratic Rep. Hilda Solís, who represents the San Gabriel Valley and parts of East Los Angeles, as a future leader in Washington. Marrero said Solís, first elected in 2000, has excelled in building issue-based coalitions that attain concrete goals.
Despite the preponderance of Democrats, Marrero has written about the independence of Latino voters, who will punish any party that takes them for granted. “Latinos are not one thing or the other,” she said. “At the moment of truth, people vote on the issues, or the things they care about.”
In a post-2002 elections editorial on strong Latino support for Republicans, Marrero wrote: “When they least expect it, we awaken and give a civics lesson to those who think we’re merely puppets.”
South America’s Giant Reaching Out to U.S. Brazilians
Even before he was inaugurated as president earlier this year, Luiz Inacio da Silva, known as Lula, penned a message directed at Brazilian immigrants abroad, promising to integrate them more closely into Brazil’s economy.
“The letter was kind of nice, considering the fact that he did it so soon” after being elected, said Rodney Mello, editor and publisher of Brazzil, a Los Angeles-based monthly. “Brazil is so big (170 million people), emigrants represent less than 1 percent.”
In a March 4 interview with El Norte Digest, Mello said former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso also tried connecting with overseas Brazilians— the majority of whom are in the United States— and created commissions to look at emigration.
Lula’s letter—featured on the front page of Brazil Today, a twice-monthly based in El Cerrito, Calif.— compared Brazilian emigration to Brazil’s past waves of internal migration, which brought migrants from the poor northeast to southeastern metropolises like São Paulo, where Lula settled. “When I was still a child, my family migrated… fleeing hunger and unemployment,” Lula wrote.
Economic crises in the 1980s and 1990s have increased Brazilian emigration. Lula said he would try to reduce charges for immigrants sending remittances home through the state-run bank and provide incentives so that overseas Brazilians could invest in home communities and companies.
There are roughly 1 million Brazilians in the United States, concentrated in the Boston area, Miami, New York City and California, but since many are undocumented, the number is probably a sub-estimation, said Mello.
Mexican Food Booms in Canada, Sign of Closer North American Ties
It took a while, but it seems Mexican food has finally really arrived in the far north of North America. Canada’s most multicultural city, Toronto, once a veritable desert for connoisseurs of Mexican cuisine, now boasts over 40 Mexican restaurants, reports Los Angeles-based daily La Opinión.
As recently as the late 1980s there were only three Mexican restaurants in Toronto, the paper said. But then the North American Free Trade Agreement, signed in 1994, fostered closer economic and cultural links between the two countries. Today, the Mexican population in Canada is growing at the rate of 8 percent a year, also adding to clientele.
The Spanish-language paper said that now Mexican food fans in Canada can choose between mom-and-pop taco joints and more elaborate restaurants for an executive lunch.
The article by Isabel Inclán, datelined Toronto, quoted the owner of the El Jacalito Restaurant, Antonio Romero, who said many Canadians once considered Mexican food too spicy. But he said that in Toronto, with its ethnic cuisine from India and elsewhere in Asia, people discovered that the food was not really any hotter.
Eduardo Barillas, who arrived in Toronto from Mexico in 2001 to open his high-end restaurant Latitude, was quoted as saying: “Canadians know how to enjoy a good dish… When they are done eating I tell them that it is a Mexican dish and they are surprised because it wasn’t spicy or because there was no guacamole on the table.”
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User Comments
Ani W. Morse on Mar 06, 2003 at 06:44:51 said:
I find it interesting that although many people risk their lives coming to the US for a better life, earn more here and have better jobs and more opportunities; at the first chance they bash the hand that offers those opportunities. If they are not going to be proud of what they have accomplished under the auspices of the United States and defend the United States and the way of life they wanted to be part of, perhaps when they travel abroad with their Mexican passports, they should consider opportunities elsewhere.
We reprinted an article from the San Francisco Examiner on the same topic. It was thoughtful and well-written and emphasized the economic impact of keeping Mexican citizenship and was not an inflammatory anti-US diatribe.
Ani W. Morse
Editor, La Voz Bilingual Newspaper
www.lavoznews.com
Carlos Blotnik on Mar 06, 2003 at 06:38:39 said:
“Anti-gringo sentiments”? Would you use an equally offensive term to discribe anti-Hispanic or anti-Mexican sentiments? Or is hate speech the sole domain of non-Hispanics?
-->Carlos Blotnik
Chula Vista, CA