The three students looked at me in stunned silence. All of a sudden, one of the two girls started crying. And we have never heard an American talk like you. One cannot help but be struck by the widespread poverty throughout Mexico. For example, one man told me that public schooling was finally going to succeed in educating the poor in the state of Guanajuato because the new governor was finally permitting parents to get involved in the public-school process.
Some people openly discuss the possibility of a violent revolution.
The Mexican people have a long tradition of authoritarian control over their lives and fortunes, stretching beyond Spanish rule all the way back to the Aztec Empire. By and large, the society has always been governed in a mercantilistic, paternalistic, welfare-state mode. Those at the bottom of the economic ladder in Mexico suffer the most from Mexico's paternalistic, regulatory system because they lack the influence and power to benefit from the political privileges. The resulting poverty causes family and cultural disruptions among the poor when young fathers go north in search of work. Those who stay are themselves unable to fulfill their full potential.