A Nation beyond Its Borders:
The Program for Mexican
Communities Abroad

Rodulfo Figueroa-Aramoni

Introduction

The extraordinary mobility of population between Mexico and the United States is undoubtedly one of the most significant migration phenomena of our time. Geographical proximity and historical factors have generated in both nations intricate population dynamics seldom encountered anywhere else in a world of massive demographic shifts.	1
The new world order emerging after the Cold War shows features that will define the great issues on the international agenda for the coming decades. Among these factors are the formation of regional trade and economic blocs, the resurgence of national and ethnic identities—often accompanied by the revival of xenophobic tendencies—and the massive increase of rural migration to urban environments in industrialized countries worldwide. The challenge posed by the new world order calls for states to make decisions that define their policies in the national, regional, and global spheres.	2
The Mexican state defines its nation as a cultural entity not limited by its geographic borders. In view of this pluralistic and dynamic reality, the government of Mexico considers it essential to preserve the organic unity of its nationals within and beyond its physical limits, as well as to consolidate the relationship between its citizens and the cultural institutions that embody the Mexican national will.	3
The Program for Mexican Communities Abroad, a key instrument of Mexico's foreign policy, arises from such an approach. The recent constitutional reforms, which provide that Mexican nationality is not lost as a result of obtaining a second nationality, also respond to that new approach.1 These measures aim to address the evolution of a complex and dynamic situation that calls for both daring and innovation.	4
The Mexican Community in the United States
Of the more than 29 million people that the United States census identifies as "Hispanics," 65 percent (18 million) are of Mexican origin; 11 million of them were born in the United States and 7 million were born in Mexico, of whom approximately 4.7 million are legal residents.2 According to conservative estimates, by the year 2020, the Hispanic population of the United States will be 52 million and by the year 2050, 96 million. Hispanics are projected to be a majority in the states of Texas and California by the year 2015. The current population of Mexican origin living in the United States is more or less the equivalent of 20 percent of Mexico's total population (which includes people of Mexican birth or nationality living abroad). The projected population for the year 2050 will represent 47 percent.3	5
This wide universe includes all sorts of individuals, from the undocumented worker who crossed the border yesterday, who may not be able to read his own language, to the Nobel Prize winner at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In between, there is a wide array of socioeconomic levels, regional origins, and educational backgrounds. However, it can be stated that the population pyramid has an extremely sharp profile, whose wide base is made up of disadvantaged strata with serious shortcomings and needs—the very ones that unleash the drive for migration.	. . .