‘Today, Do Something Good for Mexico’

A friend of mine thought I was getting an ovation Sunday at the Latino International Film Festival.

“And I want to thank Agustin Garza . . .” said actor Edward James Olmos, addressing a dressed-up crowd on closing night at the Egyptian Theatre.

The audience clapped. My friend looked over at me, smiled proudly and started to clap too. For a moment, I imagined myself standing up at my seat, waving and graciously accepting the people’s adulation, as celebrities do.

But I would have been easily spotted as an impostor. The real Agustin Garza--not Gurza--had friends among those in attendance. Though we’re both charming and intelligent, I’m darker and a little heavier. Plus, I didn’t do anything to deserve credit for the 10-day movie festival.

The other Agustin did. His marketing firm, Garza Group Communications of Pasadena, produced posters for the event. All I did was attend a couple movies. (So low is my celebrity status that a tired Olmos later refused, in an uncharacteristically rude way, my request to have his picture taken with my Orange County friends. When it comes to name recognition, a little vowel can make a big difference.)

I didn’t see Garza there that night, but we had already met. As a reader, he had noticed the coincidental similarities in our uncommon names and had recently sent me an e-mail. His message was addressed: Dear Tocayo.

It means namesake in Spanish. But the word has a more intimate insinuation in Mexico. Calling someone tocayo can create an instantaneous bond based on the serendipity of identical first names. It’s odd. Sometimes, you almost feel like family.

Last week, I sat down to chat with Agustin and his wife, Maria, at their tasteful, contemporary offices in one of Old Pasadena’s restored brick buildings. We discovered we had a few other things in common, too.

Our families have deep roots in northern Mexico. His grandfather, Roque Gonzalez Garza of Coahuila, the state where I was born, was a trusted ally of Pancho Villa and served briefly as interim president of Mexico during the early days of the Revolution.

At 19, my tocayo came to California to study design. He and Maria, a Cuban raised in Mexico, decided to settle here. They’ve been married 17 years and have three children.

But they’ve never lost their connections or their sense of commitment to their native country. That’s another thing we have in common. So I was intrigued when the Garzas told me of their private, pet project to make Mexico a better place.

They’ve conceived a campaign to turn the country around, one Mexican at a time. The trouble with Mexico is not the suffocating evils of smog, corruption and poverty, they argue. The problem is that Mexicans don’t talk about anything else. The Mexican people are sinking in the quicksand of their own negativity.

The Garzas propose a simple slogan as solution: Hoy di algo bueno de Mexico. “Today say something good about Mexico.”

They’ve put the line on T-shirts and on colored slips of paper they hand out to their friends. And for formal presentations, they’ve written a succinct concept summary: “Words generate action. In your conversation is the seed for engendering a productive society.”

Their project arises from the collapse of faith in Mexico. In hundreds of daily conversations, the Garzas hear the pervasive, fatalistic feeling that the country’s problems are too overwhelming, that people can’t do anything about them.

Crime. Drug trafficking. Dirty politicians.

Everywhere they hear disillusionment, defeatism, cynicism.

Complaining may be cathartic, says Maria. But it contributes nothing to society. You are what you say you are. So start talking positively.

You can say corruption is a scourge, notes Agustin, or you can discuss ways to end it. You can say you’re trapped in a room, or you can ask where’s the door.

“What if the room has no doors?” I ask.

“There’s always doors,” Maria shoots back. “Siempre hay puertas.”

Here, the cynic must ask: What’s in it for them? Their firm does work for the Mexican Ministry of Tourism and for Mexico City. But the Garzas insist their pet project is entirely altruistic.

Their goal is to get their upbeat slogan adopted by companies and public agencies throughout the country. They want to brand it into the Mexican psyche, like the saying “I Love New York” caught on here.

But is it all talk and no action? No, the Garzas envision creating a foundation to develop community programs, patterned after nonprofits in the United States. When that happens, their slogan will change:

Hoy haz algo bueno por Mexico.

Today, do something good for Mexico.

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Agustin Gurza’s column appears Tuesday. Readers can reach Gurza at (714) 966-7712 or online at agustin.gurza@latimes.com