Evictions Drag Mexico’s Reform Image to Quicksand

Maxine Reddy fell in love with Mexico, and Mexico broke her heart.

Thirteen years ago, the former insurance agent sold her condo in Dana Point and built a retirement home on Punta Banda, a sandy peninsula near Ensenada. But she may as well have built it on quicksand.

Maxine could not have foreseen that she’d eventually lose it all. Otherwise, she would not have convinced her brother and two friends to build there too.

To her, this place was paradise. Ocean views and harbor lights on one side; serene mountains on the other. This felt more like home than her native West Virginia.

Maxine was always anxious to get back to Baja after trips to the States. Her anticipation would swell as she approached the coast on the toll road from Tijuana.

“When I got to the top of the hill, my heart sang,” Maxine remembered. “Because I was happy to be going home.”

But Maxine had staked her assets and her sentiments on a deal that was murky from the start. Three weeks ago today, the ground fell out from under her when columns of uniformed Mexican police trotted through her neighborhood, serving eviction notices on some 300 residents, mostly American retirees.

Everybody says they should have seen it coming. After all, they had built on leased land embroiled in a complex dispute for more than a decade. Yet, Maxine says, she had been assured her home would be spared. She was shocked when she saw the police, so terribly professional, heading her way.

As if fleeing a hurricane, she had just minutes to retrieve a few items--her passport, six T-shirts, her arthritis medication and a pillow for her stiff neck. Bitter and befuddled, she drove north in her 1991 Lincoln, back to the United States, alone and crying all the way.

At 67, Maxine was suddenly homeless. She found refuge at the Lake Elsinore residence of a former neighbor from Punta Banda, one of the lucky ones who managed to avoid eviction by negotiating a new lease. Later, Maxine was allowed to return for her belongings, now stored in her friend’s garage.

In an aftermath of sleepless nights and too many cigarettes, Maxine still yearned for Mexico and its people. “I didn’t feel like an immigrant there,” she told me last week. “I felt like one of them. . . . I wanted to be as much like them as possible. I really did, because they are gracious and kind people.”

And now?

“I’m so terribly disappointed,” she said. “And truly, right at this moment, I do not want to cross the border ever again.”

Readers have urged me--even defied me at times--to write about the Punta Banda evictions, often framed like another Alamo. They challenge me to denounce the alleged abuse by the Mexican government, comparing the plight of Americans in Mexico to that of Mexicans in the United States.

Maggie Schmitt, the neighbor who gave shelter to Maxine, wonders how Mexico’s President-elect Vicente Fox can speak out when Mexican immigrants are mistreated, yet remain silent when “Americans in Baja are treated so shoddy.” That perceived unfairness, she believes, “is creating more prejudices after years of trying to tear them down.”

Sadly, she’s right. Consider this war cry from a reader: “Now that the Mexicans are throwing out the Americans who have lived in Baja for years, it’s only fair that we do the same to the illegal Mexicans here. A parting shot: The Americans should burn their [Baja] houses to the ground so no profit can be made from them.”

But there’s blame on both sides.

Americans sometimes act as if they deserve special legal treatment in foreign countries. They loudly object to the caning of a U.S. citizen in Singapore, arguing that it offends America’s civilized sense of justice. Yet, they’re blase about executing a Mexican citizen in Texas, rebuffing appeals for clemency from Mexico where capital punishment is banned.

On the other hand, it’s hard to have faith in the Mexican government when it claims that this Ensenada dispute was handled strictly according to law. Decades of corruption have corroded its credibility, at home and abroad.

That’s one thing Fox can fix. He probably can’t return these unfortunate people to their homes, just as President Clinton can’t reimburse Mexicans cheated by unscrupulous U.S. employers. But Mexico can restore its political legitimacy, so that in future conflicts both winners and losers at least believe the fight was fair.

Otherwise, resentment quickly hardens into blind nationalism.

“Sad, sad, sad. Very sad!” wrote Maxine in an open letter to the governor of Baja California. “The Punta Banda disaster has only helped build a higher border fence.”

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