Peaceful Revolution Is at Home in Baja

Much is being made of the fact that Mexico’s powerful ruling party has lost a major election for the first time. It could mean a monolithic political system is becoming more democratic, and anyone interested in the stability and progress of Mexico should hope that’s the case. But just as interesting is where that defeat occurred--our neighboring state of Baja California.

The historic upset occurred when the candidate of Mexico’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) was defeated for governor by Ernesto Ruffo Appel, the nominee of the rival National Action Party (PAN). This was the first time in 60 years the PRI did not use fraud to hold on to power and accepted defeat in a major election. Apparently, President Carlos Salinas de Gortari is determined to live up to his pledge that Mexican elections will henceforth be conducted honestly.

Salinas could not have chosen a better place to put his new policy of openness and change to the test. While Baja California is not the biggest or most important state in Mexico, it is on the cutting edge of trends that the nation will face well into the 21st Century, one of several interesting distinctions it shares with its big, rich neighbor across the border.

Like Californians, residents of Baja believe their state has a distorted image in the rest of their homeland, and that the unfair image is based as much on envy as misunderstanding of what their state is really like. We don’t like it when people from other states stereotype California as nothing but Hollywood glitz and Marin County hot tubs. Baja Californians resent other Mexicans, especially Mexico City sophisticates, dismissing them as would-be gringos eager to ape the United States. It is the closeness of Baja to the United States, and the impact of U.S. citizens and culture there, that help set it apart from the rest of Mexico.

Like us, Baja Californians point with pride to the diversity of their state’s economy and they note that it is quite healthy in contrast to the rest of their country. Despite a recession in Mexico, traditional industries like tourism, agriculture and fishing remain viable in Baja. But the most important change has been the growth in Baja’s manufacturing sector, as high-tech companies set up border plants, known as maquiladoras, to produce goods for the Mexican and U.S. markets. And, like their California counterparts, business leaders in Baja are looking to the nations of the Pacific Rim for future opportunities.

Like this state, Baja is a magnet for immigrants. As in California, Baja’s rapid growth has brought as many problems as benefits. Tijuana shares smog with San Diego. Mexicali shares water-quality problems with the Imperial Valley. And not all of Baja’s new immigrants are legal.

Everyone is aware of the presence of thousands of Mexican workers in California’s fields and industries, of course. But recently Mexicans have begun debating an influx of U.S. citizens into Baja California.

The U.S. Consulate in Tijuana says more than 40,000 U.S. citizens are registered as living in Baja, and consular officials admit that number is probably low. Many of these people enter Baja on tourist visas rather than as residents, so technically they are in that country illegally. Most are retirees who have found pleasant places to live on small pensions. But many are young workers attracted by a cost of living far cheaper than in Los Angeles or San Diego, according to a recent report in the New York Times. And recent changes in Mexican law, making it easier for foreigners to lease property in Mexico, could push even more U.S. citizens south of the border looking for relatively inexpensive land and housing.

A few Mexicans are concerned about this. One minor political party, in fact, tried to make an issue of Baja’s U.S. “illegals” in the recent election. But most Baja Californians appreciate the financial benefits that U.S. citizens bring to their state, just as many Californians know that they benefit from the labor of Mexican workers up here.

Mexican nationalists will almost certainly try to make more of the issue in the future, especially in Mexico City, where the United States always seems more threatening. I expect Baja Californians will reply that chilangos, as they derisively call residents of the capital, don’t understand the way things work along the border.

For a long time, political analysts in Mexico assumed that the PRI would never allow a border state to fall to an opposition party precisely because of the fear with which the United States, and gringo influence in general, is seen in Mexico City. The fact that Salinas allowed it to happen indicates he has an open mind about the border region and its residents’ relationship with the United States.

That’s good. For if the peaceful political revolution about to begin in Baja California gets all the attention it deserves, both nations could learn a few things--like why most folks who live around here see U.S.-Mexico relations a lot differently than officials in faraway places like Mexico City and Washington, D.C.