Tucson, Arizona  Sunday, 17 December 2000
http://www.azstarnet.com/star/today/001217PORTILLO.html

Bertha Meneces Hernández has heard it before - a new Mexican president welcomes his paisanos back home.

"It was said before, 'Mexicanos could return home without fear of problems and paying bribes.' And for a while it changed," said the Douglas resident while waiting for a bus at the downtown Greyhound terminal.

Twelve years ago when Carlos Salinas de Gortari became president, he initiated the "Paisano" program.

It was the Mexican government's abrazo to embrace returning Mexican nationals and their American-born children.

The treatment did change - briefly.

"But then life returned to normal. The problems with entering Mexico did not go away," said Hernández, who was on her way to visit family in Guadalajara after a Christmas shopping trip in Tucson.

You have to understand her skepticism - and her hopes - that newly elected President Vicente Fox will reduce the intimidation by Mexican customs agents along the northern border.

It was tried and failed.

Today, however, a more powerful, gift-bearing Mexican is returning.

Mexicans living abroad have become a critical financial resource for Mexico.

Mexican nationals send money totaling nearly $7 billion - that's billion - with more than 90 percent coming from the United States, according to the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington, D.C., think tank.

That's about $5 billion more than what Mexicans sent in 1988 when Salinas took office.

Consider that direct foreign investment in Mexico today is about $13 billion.

Fox is no dummy.

This is one fox that will carefully guard the chicken coop.

Mexicans living in the U.S. have been depicted as sellouts.

Their children were derisively called pochos because of their failure to speak Spanish.

Mexico turned its back on Mexican expatriates and their progeny.

Fox wants to change that.

"It's good on a symbolic level, if nothing else," said UA historian and border expert Oscar Martinez.

But Fox's demand to end corruption will depend on whether he can increase wages for border agents, as well as for all law enforcement officers.

Corruption is tied to salary, said Martinez.

"One thing is to make a show of it," he said, "and another thing is to make it happen."

Change will come slowly, said 31-year-old José Hernández, no relation to Bertha. He was waiting for a bus to Ciudad Obregón, Sonora.

"The people need it," said the Los Angeles resident and U.S. citizen returning to his family's home for the first time in many years.

"It was tough for my family when they made return visits," he said.

As it is with Fox today, the expectations were high for Salinas to make deep changes.

The changes didn't come for Mexico and Salinas, who in 1994 left office in disgrace and a country in financial ruin.

Fox, a former executive of Coca-Cola in Mexico, was in Sonora and Chihuahua last week declaring that official coercion will end.

He delivered his straight-talk message to Mexican border agents and to his paisanos.

An estimated 1 million Mexicans are traveling to Mexico to be with family this Christmas.

It's a long tradition and one that has grown exponentially as the number of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans has grown in this country.

But as their numbers have increased, so have the abuses heaped upon them by Mexican officials.

Fox faces a considerable challenge.

He knows. Mexico knows it. And Mexicans living here are demanding it.

Said Bertha Hernández: "I hope they say 'Come on through, come on through,'"

* Contact Ernesto Portillo Jr. at 573-4242 or e-mail at netopjr@azstarnet.com.

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