U.S. relying more on immigrants

 BY TIM JOHNSON

 CHICAGO -- In the heart of the barrio in Chicago, home to more than a half-million Mexican immigrants, real estate agent Mark Urrutia says he and his friends often ponder what would happen if the immigrant labor force stopped working.

 ``Most of the restaurants would shut down,'' Urrutia says matter-of-factly.

 The U.S. economy is increasingly dependent on Mexican immigrants, who tend to restaurant tables, toil in factories and clean hospitals, from Maine to California. They send billions of dollars back home, fueling the Mexican economy. This ``new reality'' of interdependence is dramatically shifting the way Mexico and the United States view one another, experts say. It also coincides with the warmest relations in years between the two countries, after decades of mutual suspicion.

 President Bush speaks more fondly of Mexico than of any other foreign country, and has sent signals throughout the federal bureaucracy that improved relations with the United States' southern neighbor are paramount.

 ``There's a dramatic change,'' said James Jones, a former U.S. ambassador to Mexico. ``The light bulb went on collectively.''

 On Wednesday, as the White House hosts Bush's first state visit, the president will welcome Mexican President Vicente Fox, the charismatic opposition politician who broke the back of his nation's long-ruling official party last year, breathing legitimacy into Mexico's democracy.

 Fox will address a joint session of Congress, and a glittering black-tie state dinner has become a highlight of the social season for those lucky enough to get invitations.

 ``There's a lot of elbowing going on. It's the attraction of Fox. He's taken on a bit of the entertainment star quality,'' Jones said.

 The Mexican leader's visit to the United States will culminate with a speech to The Herald's Americas Conference in Miami on Friday.

 GOOD FRIENDS

 Kindred spirits, Bush and Fox are bound by a fondness for cowboy boots, ranches and informality. Both have backgrounds in business, and appear to value pragmatism
 over ideology. They are bringing a number of once-taboo subjects to the bilateral agenda.

 ``I can't think of anything more important for our foreign policy in our hemisphere [than] to have good relations with Mexico,'' Bush recently told reporters at his Crawford, Texas, ranch. ``The history of the relationship between Mexico and the United States hasn't always been smooth. I mean, it's been pretty hostile at times. And to me, that didn't [go] to our country's benefit.''

 The new momentum in U.S.-Mexico relations coincides with a growing awareness of the potential clout of Mexican immigrants in U.S. politics and their actual influence in the economy. People of Mexican heritage, both legal and undocumented, now number 20.6 million, comprising 70 percent of the U.S. Hispanic population.

 ``For me, with my Anglo context, it's like this great awakening. `Hey, look at all these Mexicans. They are all over. They are in Waukegan and Schaumburg [Chicago suburbs],' '' said the Rev. Charles Dahm, a Dominican priest who ministers to immigrants at the St. Pius Parish in Pilsen, the heart of Chicago's Mexican community.

 The children of Mexican immigrants now make up 25 percent of the students in Chicago public schools, and the percentage is increasing a percentage point a year.

 It's not just Chicago, which has the second largest Mexican-American community in the United States after Los Angeles. It is the far reaches of America, the rural
 corners of North Carolina, the carpet-producing areas of Georgia, southeastern Muscatine County in Iowa, which is now 12 percent Mexican.

 U.S. and Mexican politicians are growing more aware of the power of these immigrants.

 ``They became very actively competed for in the 2000 presidential election,'' said Louis DeSipio, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

 POLITICAL POWER

 The number of registered Hispanic voters grew from 5.5 million in 1994 to eight million in the 2000 campaign, said Lawrence F. Gonzalez of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. ``We are in play,'' he added.

 ``What you see is an interesting bidding war between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party to win . . . the sympathy and the vote of the Mexican-American community,'' said M. Delal Baer, head of the Mexico Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington, D.C.

 That has translated into a sweeping debate on immigration reform. The White House this summer urged Congress to move to legalize the status of some three to four
 million undocumented immigrants. Although the White House has recently backed off, Fox and Bush will discuss the matter further this week, officials say.

 ``The United States is open and more receptive to thinking about immigration now than at any time in the last 20 years,'' Baer said. ``We have a real need for workers. Step into any hospital and see how many nurses are foreign-born.''

 On the Mexican side, Fox has changed the tone of discussion about his nation's emigres.

 ``In the past, Mexican emigres were looked down upon by the Mexican government. They were seen as traitors,'' said DeSipio. In contrast, Fox has called them ``heroes.''

 Immigrants in the United States are increasingly active in Mexican politics. Mexicans residing in the United States have the right to vote but must return to Mexico to do so. That may change. Mexico is considering a plan to allow emigres to vote with absentee ballots, and the Mexican campaign trail invariably reaches U.S. cities with Mexican-American communities.

 ECONOMIC FACTOR

 In praising emigres, Fox has also acknowledged that Mexicans in the United States send back between $6 billion and $8 billion a year in remittances to relatives, making these payments the third-largest source of foreign exchange in Mexico after exports of oil and tourism revenues.

 To understand how far U.S.-Mexico relations have evolved, one only needs to peer back to the early 1990s, when U.S. officials routinely scorned Mexico for its failure to fight the growing influence of cocaine cartels and to reform a virtual one-party lock on politics by the Institutional Revolutionary Party.

 Now, Mexican immigrants are courted on both sides of the Rio Grande.

 ``It's changed from a `problem' community to an `opportunity' community,'' said James Huck, assistant director of the Center for Latin American Studies at Tulane
 University.

 Significant evolution in the bilateral relationship began with the 1994 enactment of the North American Free Trade Agreement that opened up and linked the economies of Mexico, the United States and Canada. The subsequent years saw a prolonged economic boom in the United States and a voracious appetite for new workers.

 The December inauguration of Fox, a former executive with Coca-Cola who speaks colloquial English and seems to master U.S. cultural sensitivities, coincided with the election of George W. Bush, former governor of Texas who feels resonance with Hispanic culture and sees a kindred business-like spirit in Fox.

 On the eve of the state visit to Washington, curiosity about Fox runs high.

 ``There are a lot of people who want to meet Fox. He's seen in Washington as a serious fellow,'' said Sidney Weintraub, an economist and prolific author on the Mexican economy.

 XENOPHOBIA FADES

 U.S. officials are grateful that Fox has dampened decades of often-xenophobic public debate in Mexico of its seemingly colossal northern neighbor.

 ``The general consensus in Mexican political culture now is that the United States is not to be feared,'' Huck said.

 Once-taboo issues, such as energy sharing along the border and the possible extradition of accused Mexican drug traffickers to stand trial in the United States, are now openly discussed by the Bush and Fox governments.

 Serious problems still arise, though, threatening the improved relations. In July, Congress acted to block Mexican trucks from U.S. highways. The decision ``terribly
 disturbed'' Weintraub, who said: ``Congress still treats the Mexicans as a bunch of juvenile clowns.''

 Even so, in the stores and coffee shops along 18th Street in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood, immigrants remark over how their long-ignored demands are finally being heard.

 ``There's a different climate,'' said Carlos Arango, director of the Casa Aztlan community center. ``The Mexican-American community is reaching a level of importance.''

 Arango voiced ``incredible'' satisfaction that Bush urged U.S. citizens to improve their treatment of undocumented Mexicans.

 ``They're willing to walk across miles of desert to do work that some Americans won't do,'' Bush said at a news conference Aug. 24. ``And we've got to respect that, it seems to me, and treat those people with respect.''

 Omar Duque of the U.S.-Mexico Chamber of Commerce of Illinois said:``Fox is more acceptable to people here than other Mexican presidents. He speaks English. He's half Irish, which Chicagoans love. They can relate more to his vision of Mexico.''

 Some experts envisage continued momentum in the U.S.-Mexico relationship.

 ``Within 10 years, Mexico is going to surpass where Spain is today and will be considered a First World country,'' said Jones, the former ambassador. ``You'll see a lot of older Americans moving south of the border in retirement. And the younger Mexicans will move north to fill jobs.''

                                    © 2001