04/04/2015 San Quintin

when you get paid wages that let you starve while you work ... Is this is not what happens...

clarlk wrote:
when you get paid wages that let you starve while you work ... this is not what happens...

??

It's perfectly clear that isn't meant what you didn't want to say..

(2-300 indigenous) Not sure if "indigenous" fits this crowd.

I shopped in a couple of markets close by. I believe I saw more indigenous racial influemce than Mestizos in the area and few if any Gueros. The indigenous are of course shorter and they clustered apart even though they were the majority attending the "rally". The guy with the bullhorn was a light-skinned Mestizo. The young men with the signs sure looked to be Tzotzil or Tzeltal, from Chiapas.

Because the sign bearers were less than 100 meters from the "rally" it is reasonable to assume the two were connected, vamos a ver.

iguana07 wrote:
(2-300 indigenous) Not sure if "indigenous" fits this crowd.

Mex wanted to say they were not gringos. There aren't too many indigenous people in Baja, which is probably a good news for everybody else.

There are tens of thousands of indigenous now señor Almot. Maneadero, Colonet, Colonia Guerrero, San Quintin, Vizcaino, and Cd Constitucion. Vizcaino has more than seventy old school buses hauling them from labor encampments to the fields. Truck drivers collect $50 pesos each from each migrant and one truck may have a hundred little people squeezed into it. A life's savings to get to the fields in Baja California from Oaxaca or Guerrero. Goddamned Canadians own many farms north of San Quintin, and haul a box of tomatoes or cucumbers to Canada and you folks up there know how embarrassingly cheap fruit and vegetables cost in Canada. I saw a ninety-thousand dollar BMW with Ontario plates waiting at the gate of a berry farm a couple of days ago as I passed by. Gringos are to blame as well, including snotty rich Mexicanos.

While some folks watch monster truck events on TV and belch beer suds I may be talking to an indigenous at mercado sotres, or in front of my doctor's office. It helps me to measure the pulse of la republica. In Vizcaino I purchase everything I can from sidewalk vendors. Fruit, vegetables, fish, you name it. The vendors are all indigenous. I barter gently if at all.

It is positively amazing...

A 100,000 dollar motorhome eases it's way down the street. The occupants have blinders on. They don't see you or anyone else. Nose to nose you can give a little wave and they look right through you. Obviously you are part of the exhibit and they are coming to Mexico despite the Mexicans. You really have to see and experience this to believe it. And horrible as it sounds it is not just a tiny percentage of seniors in extremely expensive rigs that act this way. I've got many many days, weeks and months of sitting in the enramada of the mother of my son-in-law Jesus, and the same thing happens. It's not that they don't look straight at you, but as the rig crawls across a tope they ignore a small friendly wave and sometimes scowl. As far as I'm concerned that breed of American can stay home. Why do folks in less opulent rigs act normal? I put on an act for the ten or so Mexican diners in the enramada a few years ago. I explained what I was about to do, and they all grinned. About a half hour or so, here comes a huge KOUNTRY KOACH. What? A hundred grand? Sure enough the woman looked straight through me, I stick my thumbs in my ears and blew her a regulation Bronx Cheer. She scowled so hard her face must have been near to cracking and falling off. The diners went nuts. One poor old gent coughed and hacked while sipping a cerveza. I got slapped on the back, and received ear-to-ear smiles and a wipe of a tear. How depressing...

Didn't want to say this but in Sn Quintin, I gave the raised clenched fist "Andele!" to the group of sign bearers and they responded with cheers and whistles.

Sorry for confusion. To me "indigenous" is a synonym of "aboriginal" - like Cochimi, Pai-Pai etc. Less than 2% of local population, I believe.

Many Tarahumara were taken to Baja to work in the fields in the last two years. However, no one is forcing them to do the work at gunpoint. Many of the people who manage these demonstrations are professional agitators paid for by politicians in upcoming local elections. Same thing is happening here in Monterrey. Funny the things people will do for a free box lunch, a tee shirt and a day without work.

Conditions aren't much better for illegals working in the fields in the U.S. and they live in deplorable conditions. There kids are yanked out of school with every season change and sent somewhere else.

OTOH, I've never seen anyone complain about paying for cheap produce or offer to pay double so that the workers could have higher wages. Maybe all the ex-pats in Mexico will stop eating fresh produce for the next year in protest.

qtla9111 wrote:

OTOH, I've never seen anyone complain about paying for cheap produce or offer to pay double so that the workers could have higher wages. Maybe all the ex-pats in Mexico will stop eating fresh produce for the next year in protest.

There are always choices, but Americans and Canadians are too short-sighted and indifferent to their own future. This is why our own economy has been shrinking for the last 15-20 years. I always check for alternatives before buying something that is not made in Canada or US - not fresh produce, of course, here we don't have choice if it doesn't grow in our area. If expats in Mexico were given a choice to buy from growers that don't use slave labor, I'm sure some people would opt to pay more. But this a pure hypothesizing, Mexico is what it is.