Calderon: Mexico appreciates you

By DAVID SEDENO

DALLAS — Mexican President Felipe Calderon was sitting on the dais at a Dallas hotel last week, half-listening to a speaker, talking to Mexico’s Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa, eyeballing his watch and looking at the long list of speakers remaining before he would be introduced.

And then from the podium came a sweet melody from Dr. Maria Antonieta Gonzalez, who was born in Mexico City, came to the United States nearly 20 years ago and now works as a pediatrician in San Antonio.

Calderon looked up at Gonzalez as she sang in Spanish about the struggles of Mexican immigrants and their descendants: “I was born on the border, over here on this side ... but the mother country knows no borders because wherever a Mexican finds himself, that’s where Mexico is.”

Calderon smiled and joined in the applause from the crowd. As Gonzalez spoke about the backlash against Mexican immigrants in the United States, people clapped, nodded and dabbed their eyes with tissues.

As she wrapped up her speech, she gave Calderon a gift: a compass. The message resonated with most of the crowd and undoubtedly will reverberate in the immigration debate.

“Mr. President,” the inscription on the box read, “remember that we are in the north, but our roots and our hearts are in your hands and are in Mexico.”

The occasion of the exchange was the start of the meeting for 125 leaders of El Instituto de los Mexicanos en el Exterior — the Mexicans Abroad Institute. Joining them were Texas state legislators, Dallas and Fort Worth-area elected and appointed officials, community leaders and members of immigrant and U.S. Hispanic groups.

The meeting was only the second time in the group’s history that it has met outside of Mexico, choosing to come to North Texas for numerous reasons, perhaps.

Among them are the increased number of immigrants in the area and the business links between North Texas and Mexico.

Anti-Mexican sentiment

Maybe the meeting was in Dallas because of what many have called anti-Mexican immigrant measures in North Texas cities including Irving and Farmers Branch.

The immigration debate has been placed on the back burner during the presidential primaries. But it will surely heat up at the party conventions and in the run-up to the general election.

Calderon — who also met with Dallas business leaders about the importance of bilateral trade and investment — told the immigrant group that migration is a natural phenomenon.

He said that the majority of Mexicans are leaving their country merely to find jobs to support their families, and that economics, at its core, binds the two countries.

Mexico is the United States’ second-largest trading partner behind Canada.

“Right now, the United States has the capital and Mexico has the people to do the work,” he said.

He also mentioned Texas’ historical, cultural and prosperous business relationships with Mexico as an example of how the rest of the United States should relate to Mexico.

He said that Mexico is working to improve its social, political and economic infrastructure by fighting narcotics trafficking and corruption and by improving educational systems, healthcare and access to loans.

Mexico is thankful for the billions of dollars annually in remittances from immigrants living in the United States, Calderon said. Last year, the number was close to $24 billion.

“Mexico loves you ... Mexico appreciates you ... Mexico misses you,” he told his audience.

As many in the crowd wiped their eyes and others cheered, Calderon added a parting message: “We look forward to the day when no Mexican has to leave Mexico because of necessity or hunger.”

It will be interesting to see what that day does to the economies of both countries.

X David Sedeno is a member of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram editorial board. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.