Rising Resentment : Mexico City: Focus of a Nation’s Ills

Bumper stickers on cars in this bustling border city read: “Chilangos Go Home.”

In Chihuahua, capital of the northern desert state, graffiti on walls plead: “God Protect Us Against Chilangos. “

To the south, in the high-plateau town of Aguascalientes, another publicly scribbled wish takes a nastier turn: “Strengthen the Fatherland, Kill a Chilango. “

From coast to coast and especially in the north, Mexicans are making verbal war on Chilangos, their slang term for residents of Mexico City. Hardly a Mexican can be found who does not have some unpleasant yarn to tell about an encounter with a visitor from the capital.

In part, the tales reflect no more than provincial resentment of city slickers. Mexicans outside the capital react to Mexico City people just as many Americans north of the border respond to the brusque and superior manner of some New Yorkers. The sniping in Mexico has a serious edge, however, for there is a growing resentment of Mexico City’s dominance of the country’s political and economic life.

‘Arrogance of Power’

“Some of the hostility just comes from stereotypes, but some of it is a defense against the arrogance of central power,” said Jose Manuel Valenzuela, a researcher at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte here.

Political and social observers caution against taking the wave of anti- Chilanguismo too seriously, but they also warn that it could get out of hand as frustration mounts over the country’s economic crisis.

A recent incident in Sonora, where an epileptic 9-year-old schoolboy was severely beaten by classmates because he was born in Mexico City, caused widespread concern. (The boy died of head injuries, though it was never clear whether the injuries resulted from the beating or from a subsequent fall because of his epileptic condition.)

‘False Self-Consciousness’

Sonora has a long history of disdain for Mexico City and its people. Jorge Ibarra, a social researcher at the Colegio de Sonora, asked recently: “Are we facing the serpent’s egg of a regional war based on contempt, arrogance and a false self-consciousness of who among us is better?”

Resentment of the capitalinos is nothing new. It predates modern Mexico. The Spanish conquerors found among the outlying Mexican tribes willing allies in fighting the Aztecs who inhabited what is now Mexico City. Harsh taxation and the practice of human sacrifice had made the Aztecs less than popular with some of their neighbors.

From colonial times on, Mexico City has soaked up resources from the states for its own aggrandizement. Fears that warriors from the poorer provinces would threaten the city helped convert Mexico’s 19th-Century crusade for independence from Spain into a civil war.

Concern over anti- Chilanguismo has even infected the current presidential campaign. Carlos Salinas de Gortari, presidential candidate of the ruling party and a shoo-in for next year’s election, was born in Mexico City but has emphasized his family ties in the northern state of Nuevo Leon, where his parents are from. As he campaigns along the border, he is sure to run as a northerner.

The word Chilango surfaced decades ago in Veracruz, a port on the Gulf of Mexico. People there derisively called visitors from Mexico City guachinangos , or red snappers, because of their pale complexions and tendency to sunburn. Guachinango eventually was corrupted into Chilango and is only one of several epithets that Mexicans apply to people from the capital city.

Chilango public behavior is the most notable irritant to outsiders. Motorists from Mexico City often take their driving habits to the countryside. In Mexico City, almost no one, if he can help it, stops at a red light. Pedestrians can safely claim little right-of-way. In places like Tijuana and Chihuahua, traffic lights mean something, and drivers often stop to let pedestrians pass.

“The best way to find out what the Chilangos are doing here is to examine the police files,” said Victor Hugo Maldonado, a reporter for the Chihuahua newspaper Novedades. “There’s always a traffic accident or a street fight involving a Chilango. “

A rancher from Aguascalientes told of how he was just pulling into a parking place when a car with a Mexico City license plate weaved in ahead of him. In Mexico City, such behavior is commonplace. In Aguascaliente, it offends a dearly held country courtliness.

The rancher, Jorge Millan, explained: “I asked him, ‘Please, this is not the way here,’ and he answered--you know how they are--’If you don’t like it, move the car yourself.’ ”

A clerk in a Chihuahua store complained that customers from Mexico City are more demanding, always ask to see almost every item in the store and then complain about quality.

“They think they know it all,” the clerk complained.

‘They’re Always Right

William Yu, who owns a cash register business in Tijuana, said: “They look on us as a little city that lacks modern things. They call us a ‘bicycle town.’ In arguments, they’re always right.”

Hector Felix (The Cat) Miranda, a Tijuana newspaper columnist, said, “It’s their arrogance that bothers me.”

It was Miranda, self-proclaimed head of the Committee to Eradicate Chilangos, who devised the “ Chilango Go Home” bumper stickers.

Mexico City residents are aware of the hostility and sometimes try to conceal their origins when they travel outside the capital. Tomas Straffon, a Mexico City dentist, said his parents registered his and his sisters’ births in other states to avoid discrimination.

“When I’m in the provinces,” he said, “I tell everyone I’m from Oaxaca, to avoid problems. People will be more open with me.”

Frequently, owners of cars from Mexico City fold back the lower portions of their license plates to hide the damning evidence of where they come from.

People from Mexico City and the rest of the country are at odds on a number of matters besides personal behavior.

Transportation Example

As the capital has burgeoned into a crowded metropolis, leaders in other cities have complained that more and more of their tax money goes toward keeping it afloat. One example often cited is that, because of subsidies, Mexico City’s extensive, modern subway system is far cheaper to ride than almost any of the rickety buses elsewhere in the country.

Tijuana businessmen estimate that for every dollar of revenue sent to the federal government in Mexico City, only 12 cents comes back.

“They take, but they don’t give back,” said Octavio Corona, who heads the National Chamber of Commerce of Tijuana.

Mexico City often exercises an octopus-like grip on public services. Until last year, for example, Tijuana residents had to travel to Mexico City to obtain a passport. Now they can go to nearby Mexicali, but getting other important permits still requires a trip to the capital.

Tijuana, like many other Mexican cities, chafes under the country’s highly centralized political system. Many border residents feel that they are subject to decisions made far away and without regard for their interests.

Over the years, Tijuana’s status as a free-trade zone has been eroded because the central government decided that the border city’s local market should offer only Mexican-made goods. As more and more imports have been barred, Tijuana has been forced to rely on Mexican products, many of which come from the capital. And the scarcity of imported goods has virtually ended Tijuana’s attraction for foreign bargain hunters.

Economic and social ties with the United States, seemingly a natural development between frontier communities, are a subject of criticism in distant Mexico City. Politicians there often take time out to warn that the border is being “denationalized” because so much trade and industry are tied to the United States.

Heberto Castillo, a leftist running for president under the banner of the Mexican Socialist Party, once wrote of Ciudad Juarez, which faces El Paso, across the Rio Grande in Texas: “Ciudad Juarez and many other cities on the border are now more American than Mexican. Their populations feel more identified with their neighbors to the north than with the south.”

Hardly anything rankles border residents more than such statements.

“This is typical of the capitalino ,” said the Chamber of Commerce’s Corona. “Somehow, it is always they who are more Mexican, more patriotic. Then they fly up to Disneyland and don’t take time to even glance at Tijuana.”

To this kind of resentment has been added a new cause of hostility: Carpetbaggers from Mexico City are going to the border to take advantage of near-boom conditions in the area.

Mexico’s recent thrust into foreign trade, which is changing the face of Tijuana, has attracted Mexico City investors to everything from shopping centers to hotels and factories. Some analysts see expressions of anti- Chilanguismo as a campaign to scare competition away from local markets.

Political strains have also contributed to regional tensions. In recent years, charges of fraud in municipal and state elections have brought protesters into the streets. Ballot-box stuffing in both Sonora and Chihuahua was said to have been orchestrated by electoral authorities imported from Mexico City, headquarters of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party.

Earlier this month, when the party named Salinas to be its presidential candidate, state governors from throughout Mexico went to the capital to wish him well.

“Why don’t they ever hold the coronation out in the states somewhere?” columnist Miranda asked. “We could use the money all these governors spend.”