Fostering Identities:
Mexico's Relations with Its Diaspora

Carlos González Gutiérrez

Introduction

According to the United States Census Bureau, approximately 19 million people in the United States identify themselves as of Mexican origin. Most of them are American citizens whose ancestors came from the neighboring country to the south. More than one-third (7.01 million in 1997) are first-generation immigrants who were born in Mexico. Persons of Mexican origin who live permanently in the United States can be considered members of a modern diaspora, in that they constitute "a minority ethnic group of migrant origin which maintains sentimental or material links with its land of origin."1	1
At least since the 1970s, the government of Mexico has tried to cultivate and expand long-term relations with the Mexican diaspora in the United States. In 1990, these efforts materialized in the creation of the Program for Mexican Communities Abroad, an office established in the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs to coordinate efforts by different government agencies to tighten ties with people of Mexican ancestry living abroad. Its principal mandates are to raise awareness among Mexicans around the world that the "Mexican Nation extends beyond the territory contained by its borders" and to implement international cooperation projects offered by Mexico for the benefit of its diaspora, 98.5 percent of it in the United States.2	2
Nowadays, Mexico's cooperation with the populations of Mexican origin who live north of the border consists of a wide range of projects administered through the network of forty-two consulates in the United States. Many support and promote formal education for people in the diaspora. Every summer, for example, the Mexican government sends approximately 250 Mexican teachers to help in United States schools that have a deficit of bilingual teachers; donates almost three hundred thousand books in Spanish to elementary schools and public libraries across the country; offers training courses in the United States for hundreds of bilingual teachers; supports (with materials and technical assistance) literacy programs for approximately five thousand adult immigrants in the United States who do not know how to read and write in Spanish or who wish to finish their elementary education; and sponsors campaigns to promote the enrollment of repatriated children in Mexican schools.	3
Some projects support community organization. The Mexican government, through the consular network, sponsors visits by Mexican American delegations to Mexico; arranges meetings between leaders of immigrant clubs and organizations and authorities in their states and regions of origin, both in Mexico and in the United States; organizes soccer tournaments at local, regional, and national levels in the United States in order to help establish the identity of communities and leaders; and sets up youth encounters in Mexico for Mexican American young people who were born in the United States. To foster good health, the government produces materials and conducts preventive health campaigns; promotes exchanges of health professionals between communities of origin in Mexico and receiving regions in the United States; and offers training for health professionals on idiosyncratic questions that affect immigrants' use of the health care services within their reach. To promote culture, the consuls organize activities to foster pride in the "Mexicanness" (mexican-idad) of the communities they serve, such as folklore and popular art exhibitions, information campaigns concerning Mexican civic holidays and celebrations, and art contests for children.3	4
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