State’s Latinos Cheer Fox

Mexican President Vicente Fox made good Thursday on his campaign pledge to govern his country for 118 million people--the 100 million south of the border and the 18 million of Mexican blood living in the United States.

Like any good politician tending to his constituents, Fox spent the second and last day of his California visit chatting with primary school children in San Fernando, wooing investors at a downtown Los Angeles hotel, charming thousands of migrant farm workers in the hinterland, and greeting 5,000 cheering supporters as he opened a Mexican government international trade center in Santa Ana.

Traveling with Gov. Gray Davis throughout his five-stop trek from Sacramento to Santa Ana, Fox traded on his political legitimacy as the first opposition candidate to win the Mexican presidency in 71 years. And he staked his claim to the “democracy bonus” flowing from his hard-won victory--a new willingness among Californians to treat Mexico as a mature, equal partner.

Davis, who at times seemed ignored as the 6-foot-4 Fox commanded all the attention, lavished praise on the Mexican leader, telling an audience at UCLA that Fox is a “humanist [whose] generous spirit is farsighted.”

At the university ceremony, Davis and Fox inaugurated a broadband Internet 2 link between UCLA and Mexico’s national university that will give all Mexican universities access to the vast University of California online library system.

Fox also shared personal experiences revealing the close ties between California and Mexico. After being given a sculpture done by a UCLA faculty member, Fox recalled: “I have received two gifts from UCLA. My nephew, who is 3 years old, is alive today because of help from the medical center here. Also, a child I found on the streets is back in good health thanks to treatment here. This is more of a gift for me than I could ever expect.”

Like Fox, the governor did his own bit of stumping, reminding the audience that in his inaugural address he had promised to put aside past animosities with Mexico and rebuild the relationship. After all, Davis said, 12 million of California’s 34 million people are of Mexican descent.

Mexico has become increasingly valuable to California, Davis said, having overtaken Japan as the state’s No. 1 foreign market, with exports up 43% in the past two years.

Fox arrived in downtown Santa Ana by helicopter after 6 p.m. and was brought by motorcade to the International Business Center. The center was developed in three months after the city’s mayor, Miguel A. Pulido, heard Fox wanted to open such a facility in the United States within his first 100 days in office.

The city will pay $200,000 annual rent for three years for 7,000 square feet of offices dedicated to promoting Mexican products and American exports.

Fox repeatedly called the largely immigrant audience “heroes,” repeating a mantra that sharply contrasts with the way Mexicans in the United States were once regarded in their native land. Immigrants send about $7 million a year to relatives in Mexico, the third largest source of foreign revenue.

Fox also praised the effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement and said that he hoped to build upon it through the trade center, a federal version of the state offices he established in several American cities while a state governor in Mexico.

“We must make sure we connect the world of small business in the United States with small business in Mexico; that is what this office means,” Fox said, standing at a podium outside the trade center in the city which has the largest percentage of Latinos in California.

Among those in the crowd were protesters waving placards to highlight a variety of issues. Undocumented immigrants lobbied for driver’s licenses, Americans clamored for land lost in a title dispute in Baja California, masked men showed their support for the Zapatista guerrillas and anti-immigrant factions showed their opposition to an immigration amnesty for undocumented workers.

From the podium Fox joked with those asking for driver’s licenses by saying in Spanish, “Who wants a license?” But he mostly spoke in English about trade.

Ruben Tamayo, 35, of Santa Ana said he understood about half of the speech. He said he understood why Fox spoke English: He was sharing the stage with Americans and wanted them to be comfortable.

But Tamayo, a native of Mexico, said it would have been nice if Fox had made a second set of remarks in Spanish addressed to the audience.

Nonetheless, it was a memorable moment for Tamayo and other immigrants, who have raised their hopes about the future of their native land and their role in it because of the new president.

He said no matter what language Fox had used, “This is a night I’ll remember for the rest of my life. I never thought I would live to see a Mexican president in person.”

Seventh-grader Raul Merida, 13, joined by several friends, said he hopes that Fox will help Mexicans who do not have documents to work. His uncle was deported, and he is fearful even though he is a U.S. citizen. “Mexicans do a lot for California’s economy. They deserve to get treated better,” he said.

Tijuana native Josephina Macias, 36, of Santa Ana dressed up for the occasion with the hope of getting her photograph taken with Fox. Like many women interviewed, she said Fox is very good-looking “because his intelligence shines through.”

Fox, a former Coca-Cola executive, also dazzled the Town Hall crowd in the Century Plaza Hotel with pro-business talk of a new Mexico open for trade and providing opportunities.

“We have an obligation to make sure each citizen has the opportunity to overcome poverty, that every kid has the opportunity to go as far as he desires,” Fox said, speaking in English and ignoring his prepared text. “We are making sure that we have a country where peace and tranquillity are a way of life, where corruption and impunity are eradicated and where the rule of law prevails.

In Fresno, Fox, a rancher from Guanajuato, a state that has produced many migrants, embraced immigrant agricultural workers. He promised to work to get them the right to vote by absentee ballot in 2003.

And they embraced him too.

They streamed into downtown Fresno from the farm towns of the San Joaquin Valley.

The long line to see el presidente began to form outside the city’s Exhibit Hall in the morning darkness, a familiar hour for the men and women who work the fields of America’s most productive farm belt.

Leopoldo Duenas slept until 6 a.m., put on his boots and cowboy hat and drove 55 miles from Huron, one of the poorest towns in the state.

“I am a Mexican and I am an American . . . and he has come to help the people,” Duenas said. “This is a very important visit for all the farm workers.”

If not for the shiny floors and dim lights of the fancy hall, Fox’s Fresno visit might have been mistaken for a field rally of Cesar Chavez and his campesinos. The crowd of 2,500 was composed of men in green John Deere hats and women raising the black Aztec eagle flag of the United Farm Workers, along with Mexico’s tricolors and signs that read “Amnesty Yes, the Bracero Program No.”

Davis used his introduction of Fox to announce that the California Endowment, one of the state’s largest health foundations, had pledged $50 million to develop programs to improve the health of the state’s farm workers.

Fox told them he admired their dignity and the quality and productivity of their work. If in the past they they had been made to feel like turncoats for grabbing a chance on this side of the border, Fox said he regarded them as the finest ambassadors of Mexico’s culture and work ethic.

“You are the cultural engine, the permanent ambassadors of Mexican culture,” Fox told them. “You are important, believe me, you are very important. In addition to missing you, we are very grateful to you.”

Then, like any good California politician, he returned to Los Angeles to dine with Hollywood personalities, including sultry Mexican star Salma Hayek.

Smith reported from Los Angeles; Mena and staff writer Jason Song reported from Santa Ana, and staff writer Mark Arax reported from Fresno.