Juan Hernandez

When President George W. Bush visits Mexican President Vicente Fox Feb. 16, he will see a familiar face in the group that greets him at Fox’s ranch in San Cristobal, Guanajuato. Juan Hernandez, appointed by Fox to head the presidential Office for Mexicans Living Abroad, introduced Fox to Bush in 1996.

Then, the two presidents were governors. Hernandez, who was teaching Mexican literature at the University of Texas, Dallas, had invited Fox to speak at the university’s new Center for U.S.-Mexico Studies. Before the speech, he and Fox called on Bush in Austin, Texas. Their meeting, which was supposed to last five minutes, went on for 45.

As he was boarding his plane back to Mexico, Fox asked Hernandez if he had any other ideas. He did: Treat the state of Guanajuato, where Fox was governor, as if it were a nation and set up an office in Texas to assist Mexican businesses in selling their products in the United States.

Fox liked the idea, and the following week, Hernandez flew to Guanajuato to create the Guanajuato Trade Office. Thus began a partnership that has evolved into a real friendship.

After the trade office was set up, Hernandez joined Fox’s campaign for the presidency, charged with keeping the candidate’s schedule. He also recruited U.S. political strategists Dick Morris, Rob Allyn and Andres Rabago of Spain, among others, to advise Fox.

Hernandez, 45, was born in Forth Worth, Texas, his mother’s native land, and was raised in his father’s native state of Guanajuato. Bilingual, he holds a double nationality. Early on, he became a teacher of many disciplines: language, guitar and poetry. He has authored and/or edited several books of bilingual poetry and recorded four albums. He is the first Mexican American appointed to a Mexican presidential cabinet.

Hernandez says that Fox will have a simple message to convey to Bush when they meet Friday: Mexico is changing. “After 71 years of one-party rule,” Hernandez says, “there is now democracy in Mexico. We treat our paisanos (countrymen) differently. Yes, we’ve been known for corruption and many other ills, but we are changing.”

The real issue, says Hernandez, is whether the United States is willing to change as well and truly look at Mexico as an equal.

Hernandez lives in Mexico City with Estela, his wife of 20 years, and their four children. He was interviewed in Los Angeles.

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Question: Tell me more about the Guanajuato Trade Office?

Answer: We opened trade offices in Dallas, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York to promote the Mexican state as a nation. Soon after, I opened a warehouse in Dallas to assist small, medium-sized and micro-companies in Guanajuato to sell their products. We taught small entrepreneurs how to export, how to ensure that their products had the required quality, and so on.

Q: Did it work?

A: We were extremely successful, so much so that Fox wants to try this approach at the national level. He wants to open distribution centers in the U.S. for all 32 Mexican states. The centers could be divided by sector, but whatever arrangement is decided upon, it should be flexible. For example, if the states of Chiapas or Veracruz want to export coffee, they could hook up with a U.S. distribution center without having to go through the Mexican bureaucracy. In time, each Mexican state could go beyond exports and develop commercial relationships with states in the U.S.

Q: Are you planning a distribution center in California?

A: Yes, one for all 32 Mexican states.

Q: Are you focused mostly on small businesses?

A: Yes. My emphasis is on micro, small and medium-sized businesses, and my job is to link up mostly with Mexicans and Mexican Americans.

Q: Might this approach benefit regions in Mexico that send immigrants to the U.S.?

A: We are thinking about some sort of certification; for instance, a label that would identify a product with an immigrant-sending region. Such an identification might entice Mexican Americans and Mexicans living in the United States to purchase from these regions. That would help develop the economies of those areas from which our paisanos [countrymen] leave to come to the U.S.

Q: Your office is also working on the protection of Mexicans living abroad?

A: We are charged with making sure that the president hears the voice of Mexicans abroad. We want to make sure that Mexicans abroad are treated with respect, as human beings. That their education and health needs are met. Immigrants should not be treated as second-class citizens of Mexico. These individuals are heroes who provide wealth to Mexico, and although we would prefer to keep them at home, if they decide to leave, we will be watching out for them.

Q: Some people would complain that it takes a lot of nerve for you, an official of a country that sends so many of its children to study here, to say that you are going to make sure that their education needs are met.

A: Though there may be limits to what we can do, when these individuals are in another country, we can surely work with the proper education authorities and find ways to help better serve our kids, meaning yours and ours.

Q: Many Mexican immigrants learn new skills while working in the U.S. You have found ways in Guanajuato to reward these people. Could you elaborate?

A: When individuals claim to have new skills, we urge them to take an examination to evaluate them, and if they pass, the state issues them a certificate of achievement, which they can use when applying for jobs in Mexico. We are aiming to do something similar in all 32 Mexican states.

Q: Remittances to Mexico from Mexicans working in the United States amount to about $6 billion annually, making them the second- or third-largest source of income for the country. Is this within your office’s purview?

A: We are trying to find new ways to multiply the effects of the money transfers. For example, Guanajuato has just relaunched the “2 for 1 program.” When a Mexican living in the U.S. wants to invest in his home state of Guanajuato, the government will match the $1 investment with an allocation of $2 for special projects in Guanajuato.

Q: As soon as Fox took office, he traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border to say that he would not tolerate abuses against Mexicans. He said Mexican customs officials caught demanding a bribe from Mexicans reentering the country would be fired and prosecuted. He asked why there were seven Mexican customs checkpoints from Laredo, Texas, to Mexico City. Was your office involved in this?

A: My job is to present to the president what Mexicans abroad are feeling and how they are living. They said it is ridiculous that when they go home to see their families, they have to pay a bribe at one checkpoint after another. After Fox’s inauguration in December, the seven checkpoints between Laredo and Mexico City were transformed into centers to assist Mexicans returning home. Some of them may be permanently closed.

Q: Are you primarily dealing with Mexican citizens who live in the U.S. or with American citizens of Mexican ancestry?

A: Of my office’s four charges, three are related to Mexican citizens who are abroad and who for years have had to live in the shadows without any direct voice to the president. The other concerns Mexican Americans who have told me they would like to participate in the new Mexico because they are excited by the Fox administration. So we are creating foundations where money can be donated for scholarships.

Q: Do you poll the attitudes of Mexicans and Mexican Americans living in the U.S.?

A: During the presidential campaign, I did, and I found that if Mexicans abroad could have voted, they would have voted for Fox.

Q: Should Mexicans living in the U.S. have the right to vote in Mexican elections?

A: Mexicans are becoming leaders in their communities, and they should continue participating where they live--in PTAs, crime-prevention programs, soccer associations and politics. If they have become U.S. citizens, they should keep both nationalities and get both passports. Now, if the individual is linked to Mexico, if this individual is sending money to Mexico and he or she is in the states for a couple of years and wants to return to Mexico, then I think he or she should have the right to participate politically in Mexico.

Q: Should Mexicans living abroad have representation in the Mexican Congress?

A: That’s an issue we are now analyzing. My job is to hear what Mexicans abroad are saying and bring that to the attention of the president. Mexicans abroad keep telling me they believe they should have representation. I don’t know if it is a majority, because most Mexicans are here to find a job and are not that interested in political matters.

Q: Inspired by the European model, Fox has said that Canada and the U.S. should establish “compensatory funds” to help Mexico improve its economy. Why should taxpayers in North America pay for Mexico’s economic development?

A: Fox did not say that a compensatory fund should be created, nor did he say that taxpayers in the U.S. should use their money to help Mexico. On the other hand, we have examples in Europe where the more developed countries helped less developed countries to grow. That creates greater wealth for everybody. It is in the best interest of the United States that Mexico does not have a minimum wage of $12 a day, while the U.S. has an average of $14 an hour [for production workers].

Q: Does Fox have a common market for North America in mind?

A: On several occasions, he has said that some type of common market might be wise. The North American Free Trade Agreement has been positive for [the U.S., Canada and Mexico], but now we need a NAFTA plus, one that includes small and medium-sized companies. Then we will see an explosion of economic growth in the immigrant-sending regions.

Q: What does Fox mean when he says there should be an “open border”?

A: Fox sees the U.S., Canada and Mexico being a region of wonderful economic opportunities in which the borders are irrelevant.

Q: In Mexico, Mexican Americans oftentimes are not treated well: How have they treated you, the first Mexican American in a Mexican cabinet?

A: Most of my life I grew up in Guanajuato, and Guanajuato is, in many ways, 16th century, and not only in its architecture. It has a resilient culture and is very Catholic. Looking blond, Anglo, was not normal; there were many who told me to go home. But you also learn to confront that, and you work on improving your Spanish to prove that you are Mexican. On the other hand, when I would come to the U.S. and talk with a little bit of a Mexican accent, people would wonder about this strange-looking foreigner. I don’t mind, I am just excited to be working for Fox.