Mexico

E

Theater and Film

As in literature and art, Mexico’s motion pictures and theater have long dealt with social themes. A leading figure in the film industry was Emilio “El Indio” Fernández, whose first movie, The Isle of Passion, appeared in 1941. Fernández’s work won several international awards.

Since the 1940s refugees from the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) have contributed significantly to the expansion and quality of motion pictures in Mexico. Among the exiles working in the country, Luis Buñuel was one of the best known. His film Los Olvidados (The Forgotten, 1950), a film about juvenile delinquents in Mexican slums, is considered a classic. Although most Mexican films have not received widespread distribution outside of Mexico, some more recent work has achieved considerable international attention. Like Water for Chocolate (1992)—a film directed and produced by Alfonso Arau and adapted from the novel of the same name written by Laura Esquivel—was a hit in the United States and became one of the most successful films in Mexican history.

Theater also has a long tradition extending back to the colonial period, including the work of Juana Inés de la Cruz. Many of Mexico’s important directors and playwrights have been supported by various groups at the National University in Mexico City (now National Autonomous University of Mexico).

F

Libraries and Museums

Mexico City is home to the country’s most important museums and libraries, due largely to the concentration of intellectual activity in the capital. Many good libraries in Mexico are found within the university system. The National Library, which houses a collection of rare documents, is affiliated with the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City. Other important libraries include the Archivo General de la Nación (National Archives), the library at the Colegio de México, and numerous government libraries connected with various ministries.

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Mexico City boasts several world-famous museums, noted not only for the quality of their collections but also for the architecture of the buildings themselves. The National Museum of Anthropology, designed by Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, exhibits a striking array of archaeological discoveries from Mexico’s pre-Columbian era. The Museum of Mexico City is an excellent source of historical and archaeological information on the capital itself. The National Museum of History, devoted to history since the Spanish conquest, is located nearby in Chapultepec Park. The Museum of Modern Art, also located in the park, contains the finest collection of Mexican painting from the 19th and 20th centuries, including the work of internationally known masters such as Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Rufino Tamayo. Shortly before his death, Tamayo donated his personal collection of European and Mexican works, as well as many of his own paintings, to the Museum of Modern Art.

V

Economy

Mexico—like Argentina, Brazil, and Chile—is a semi-industrialized country. The country is rich in industrial resources, including petroleum and several metals. Mexico’s manufacturing output increased greatly during the second half of the 20th century, and it includes many basic goods, such as steel, machinery, and petrochemicals, as well as a wide range of consumer goods. Agriculture still provides almost as many jobs as industry, however. Many farm families earn barely enough to survive, and many city dwellers are unable to find jobs.

After World War II (1939-1945), Mexico became known for its continuously growing economy. During that time, Mexico’s economy changed from a primarily agricultural one to an economy based on services and manufacturing. Beginning in the 1970s, however, the country’s economy began to stagnate as Mexico fell deeply into debt. In the late 1970s Mexico borrowed billions of dollars at extremely high interest rates in anticipation of increased oil revenues. When the oil prices dropped sharply in the early 1980s, Mexico’s oil revenues plummeted as well. This led to a large foreign debt, and the nation began to fall behind on its loan payments. Mexico soon faced a severe economic recession, forcing the government to renegotiate the nation’s foreign debt and begin instituting budget cuts and austerity programs.

The economic recession led the government to reexamine Mexico’s national economic policy, which had protected the nation’s young industries by imposing high tariffs on imported goods. These tariffs raised the price of goods imported from the United States, for example, and encouraged Mexicans to buy less expensive goods produced in Mexico. On the other hand, this policy reduced competition in the Mexican economy and induced many state-owned industries and private companies to become less efficient. The Mexican government began to replace this official protection of domestic industries with an aggressive policy of privatization, selling back government-operated and owned industries—including banks, utilities, airlines, and manufacturing companies—to the private sector. Privatization aimed to make Mexican companies and industries more efficient and competitive by allowing private owners, rather than government officials, to make decisions that would affect an industry’s profitability.

Mexico also began working to integrate its economy into the larger and much more competitive global economy. These efforts culminated in Mexico’s signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which went into effect in 1994. NAFTA is a trade pact between Canada, Mexico, and the United States that aims to foster free trade and eliminate tariffs among the three nations.

These free-trade policies were pursued aggressively in the late 1980s and early 1990s, resulting in moderate economic growth. But this growth was built upon an increasingly shaky economic foundation. Mexico allowed the peso to become overvalued in relation to the dollar in the early 1990s. This meant that the government’s official exchange rate did not accurately reflect the value of the peso. When the government devalued the peso in 1994 to more realistically reflect its worth, the value of the peso declined excessively. This prompted foreign and domestic investors to withdraw millions of dollars from the country, and Mexico’s economy went into a tailspin.

To support the peso and prevent a total economic collapse, the United States government, in conjunction with the World Bank, provided an emergency loan to Mexico in 1995. However, the economic crisis was the worst in Mexico since the global economic depression of the 1930s, and it resulted in negative economic growth in the country in 1995 and 1996. The economic crisis led to a serious decline in the standard of living for most Mexicans, as well as an increase in extreme poverty. The nation’s gross domestic product (GDP), the value of all goods and services produced domestically by a country, declined 6.2 percent from 1994 to 1995.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the Mexican economy had improved, fueled by growth in its manufacturing and mining sectors. However, Mexico’s economy remained vulnerable to external factors, especially to the economic situation in the United States, with which Mexico shares considerable trade and investment. In 2005 the GDP was $768.4 billion.

A

Labor

Due to explosive population growth, Mexico’s labor force has expanded rapidly since the 1970s. By 2005 the labor force had grown to 42.3 million people. Of these workers, 65 percent were male and 35 percent were female.

Official estimates of urban unemployment averaged about 3 percent in 2001, but most analysts believe that true rates of unemployment are much higher, and that underemployment in Mexico is significant. This situation has increased illegal immigration to the United States.

Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, the structure of the Mexican workforce underwent major changes. Manufacturing and other industries—sectors of the economy that have traditionally provided stable jobs that pay good wages—saw little growth and created few new jobs. At the same time, the number of low-paying, service sector jobs increased. In 2005, services employed 59 percent of all of Mexico’s labor force. Industry (including construction, manufacturing, mining, and power) employed 26 percent of the labor force. Agriculture (including forestry and fishing) employed about 15 percent.

Less than one-fifth of Mexico’s labor force belongs to a union, the majority of which are controlled by the government. Rather than being aggressive advocates for workers, Mexican unions have typically played a crucial role in supporting the government-dominated Institutional Revolutionary Party. In doing so, the unions have often agreed to government economic pacts to control inflation, prices, and wage increases. Mexican unions are noted for their levels of corruption and subordination to government influence. The major unions are the Mexican Federation of Labor and the National Farmers Confederation.

B

Agriculture

Much of Mexico is too dry or mountainous for agriculture; only 14 percent of the nation’s land is cultivated or used for plantations and orchards. Irrigation is required to farm in many regions. Most of the food consumed by Mexicans is raised on Mexican farms, although frequent droughts and a population that is growing faster than the amount of food produced have made Mexico dependent on agricultural imports, particularly grains and milk products.

Agriculture accounts for only a small percentage of Mexico’s GDP. Although agriculture employed one-fifth of the nation’s economically active population, it only accounted for 4 percent of the value of the GDP in 2005. This sector of the Mexican economy grew slowly during the second half of the 20th century. This was due both to the declining importance of agriculture among the labor force and to Mexico’s increasing industrialization during this period.

Many of Mexico’s agricultural workers are subsistence farmers, who produce only enough to feed their families. Although the Mexican government distributed millions of hectares of land to poor farmers between the 1920s and the 1970s, the plots were generally small and the quality of the land was often poor. In addition, many small farmers were unable to obtain the credit they needed in order to purchase the seeds, fertilizer, or equipment they required to stay in business. This led to high rates of migration from rural areas into the cities, as well as northward to the United States.

Mexican agriculture is highly productive in certain regions, especially near the capital and in the northwest. Corn and beans, the staples of the nation’s diet, are the primary food crops, and they grow best in the valleys and basins of the central plateau that surround Mexico City. Wheat is raised on irrigated land in central and northern Mexico and has replaced corn in the diet of many Mexicans. Other principal agricultural products grown for domestic consumption include barley, rice, soybeans, vegetables, and citrus fruits.

Large volumes of products such as coffee, cotton, citrus fruits, sugar, and tomatoes are grown for export, primarily to the United States. Most coffee is grown in the southern states of Chiapas and Oaxaca, cotton is cultivated mainly on irrigated land in northwest Mexico, and sugar plantations are scattered in various states, with the largest concentration in Veracruz.

The main forage and hay crops are alfalfa and sorghum. They are raised in arid regions, often with the use of irrigation, and are important to livestock farmers. Beef cattle are the most important Mexican livestock and beef is an important export. Chickens are raised throughout the country and consumed locally.

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