Focus 580; The Life and Times of Mexico

In this part of focus 580 we will be talking about Mexico and exploring some of its long and rich history and culture and certainly talking about the relationship between Mexico and the United States. And our guest is Earl shuras. He is a journalist lecturer novelist social critic he's the author of a number of books including under the fifth sun a novel of poncho via a book looking at Latino Americans which is entitled The Tino's a biography of the people and a number of other books he's received the National Humanities Medal and also the Mexican order of the Aztec Eagle and he is the author of a new book that certainly reflects his very longstanding interest in mexico its history and culture. The title of his book is The Life and Times of Mexico and it's published by WW Norton is out now if you'd like to look at and of course questions are welcome. The number here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We do also have a toll free line that's good anywhere that you can hear us. So it would be a long distance call that's 800 to 2 2 9 4

5 5. So again a locally 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 that's the number to use if you're here in Champaign Urbana. And we do also have a toll free line that's 800. 2 2 2 9 4 5 5 questions comments are welcome all we ask is people are brief so that we can keep the program moving and get in as many people as possible but anybody is welcome to call Mr. Shorrosh. Good morning. Thanks for talking with us. I'm glad to be there. You what you grew up. Did some of your growing up at least on the the border region between Mexico and the United States and so your interest in at least some experience with Mexico goes back really to the time that you were a kid. Yes from from the time we moved to the border from Chicago when I was about five or six I guess somewhere around there. So when you were a boy what about Mexico did you find interesting.

I think I learned very early on something out of Mexico and history and wrote in the very beginning of the book my father and I used to go across the border every Saturday from Douglas Arizona up to the end and we went there because it was during World War Two and gasoline was available in Mexico and not very available in the United States. And while he fiddled with the car and filled it up with gasoline and so on I wandered around and I became friends with an old man who sat in front of his house on Saturday mornings and we spoke in first in sort of English and then as I learned Spanish in a mix of Spanish and English and he talked about the history of Mexico and the great battle that punch Obeah had fought there and I wept and I became fascinated with Mexico and and with Bon Jovi and eventually wrote a long novel about Pennsylvania.

So it's just it's in my bones. Well it certainly you know one of the things for good or ill all that separates the United States from a lot of other countries is our youth. We do not have thousands of years of history to to think about to draw and to be shaped by. But certainly in the case of Mexico we do have a long rich history and I think one of the important points that you make is that if you're going to understand Mexico today you need to have some kind of understanding of Mexican history because everything about Mexico today is shaped by the by what happened when Europeans came and met and subjugated absorbed combined with the indigenous people in the cultures that were there when they got there. Yes United States and Mexico are different in that both indigenous populations when the Europeans arrived

in the united in what is now the United States that the people were killed there were just massacres in case of genocide. So that the indigenous people have less influence here in Mexico there were also great slaughters of people people died from the disease that was brought from Europe for which they had no resistance. And there were great killings and misuse of people. But there was also great intermarriage between the Europeans and the Mexicans and Mexicans meaning those people who lived in what is now Mexico City. Their real name is Michigan from and as God whose name was medically. So these early Mexicans or Aztecs and other indigenous peoples intermarried into a different kind

of history then evolved indigenous people of what is now Mexico Middle America were different from the people in the north. Middle America is one of the five or original civilizations in the history of the world. The middle Americans are people who learned to use the concept of zero. Long before it was used in Europe they had developed a system of alphabetic writing one of only three civilizations in the world to do that with a very sophisticated civilization. These Spaniards encountered when they entered middle America. And I should tell you that with the president of the politico Nescio knowledge Mexico and emeritus which is

a national university. We've done a book called In the language of teens which is long I'm afraid to sort of happy to biffed at least the anthology of middle American literature. It's a great great civilization and it has made an enormous difference in what's happened to Mexico in over its history and in the press. Well that's I think that here's a really important point that you make that is that that Mexican culture as it exists today is very much a process of this blending of the of the indigenous culture and European culture and that that is something that and do correct me if I'm wrong about this but that is something that is that seems to be by and large considered a plus. By people in Mexico the idea is that there is something that is special that's come as a

result of this hybrid of the two. Yes I think that that's generally the way it is. It's certainly enriched the country and the culture at the same time the mystique as its cool and misty so mean mixed in domestic stock a mixture of people at the misty Saket which is really quite wonderful that produces a person of two cultures and so on also produces a serious problem in Mexico which is interesting I think the Mexican who's missed the SO and most Mexicans as you say are has two sides one is a European side and dad came down from Spain and did indeed Creole You know the Creole side the people who are all European although they're born in Mexico and

and then it has in the Indigenous side. Because the Europeans conquered Mexico after they invaded the European side thinks of itself as superior. The indigenous side which I think is every bit the equal of the European side feels in many ways inferior in to this whole business begin very early on in very early eighteenth century when love Carroll wrote his first history of ancient Mexico. He began to speak of the ancient Mexicans. That is those people we've been talking about the Aztecs in the Maya Yes if a great civilization been in the club the kid would cut it off when the Spaniards arrived incent the current indigenous people are lazy shiftless people always say when they have a racist you who have been

Mexico now to miss the socket in which the two sides of the person are at war one side thinks of itself as better than the other side the other side annexed by saying that side is not very good. Indeed there is Wi-Fi in the Mexican soul. Terrible difficult conflict. Which at the same time as you say the strength and the beauty of Mexico. Well you do something interesting in the book as a way of structuring it paying some sort of a nod to the way that the Aztec thought about where the centers of power the important parts of the body were associated that with things like emotion and intellect and so forth you divide the book and two sections where you use that metaphor to talk about politics

history culture and so forth and just for a second if we grab onto that metaphor a little bit more and we think and this is in a lot of ways it's a it's a terrible overgeneralization but if you do think about the fact that countries and civilizations can and do have personalities how would you describe the personality of Mexico. I would say that at the risk of repeating myself say that it's conflicted. I think that the indigenous side and the European side have both produced a kind of wonderful hospitality or generosity or or both in the people. It was the style of the indigenous people and when the Europeans came they just vied with each other to show who was the most generous

the most prosperous and so on. So there is quite wonderful hospitality and friendliness in Mexico which is which I suppose is why so many tourists go to Mexico it's an awfully nice place that people are nice. There are several aspects to the personality indigenous people feel oppressed. If one has a dark skinned like in as many Indigenous people do it's very difficult to get a taxi to stop for you in Mexico City. Just just this it would be for an African American in New York. On the other hand creos come into power politically. They did that in the 1980s for time limits peace those who were in power in Mexico and now since the 80s the creos are very much in control of

Mexico. They tend to be more conservative politically and so on. So so we see this. Mixed character in these wonderful generosity that comes from both sides that the great hospitality into it then we see the results of the conflict. We see some violence in Mexico. Terrible violence toward women in Mexico just absolutely intolerable violence against women and to receive news of my cheese more arising. It's a very complex notion much use Mo has a lot to do with how the world sees one. In too much too small comes from being conquered for the most part. If you can't do anything in the outside world if you have no power at all

then you maze will be a tough guy at home. India produces a good deal of problems. A great many problems oppression is a bad business. Our guest in this part of focus 580 URL shows us he is a journalist and a writer. He's authored a novel by a bunch of Vienna as he mentioned under the fifth sun he's also done a book about American Latinos titled Latinos a biography of the people and also that collection that he put together. Ancient indigenous literature of Mexico in the language of kings and other books so you can certainly add to the library or the bookstore if you interest in sampling some of his reading and writing including this new one The Life and Times of Mexico. It's just out it's published by WW Norton. We do have a color here and other people who are listening are invited into the conversation. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5.

Here's a caller Urbana and it's Line 1. Hello good morning. I was wondering I'd read in some places that the ancient Mexicans didn't use the wheel but then again I've also seen evidence that maybe they made toys that used wheels So anyway I was wanting to know if you had any knowledge as to what what their use of the wheel might have been. Yes Brit pre-Colombian. Well I think you're quite right. There were toys that had wheels but the wheel wasn't used because there were no beasts of burden. There were no animals to go to pull carts or or whatever so so other methods were used to log when they were building pyramids and things like that that day. There were no no wheels and no wheel Burton. No it was all human labor the cow the goat and so on didn't come to Mexico on to after the invasion.

OK thank you very much. You while other questions are welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Early on in the section where you're writing about first about the indigenous cultures and then about the coming coming of the Europeans I think particularly when when you write about what happened to the to the Aztecs and you write something along the lines of you know this just shouldn't have happened this way. When you look at the fact the fact that we had this very large well-established indigenous culture with a very strong warrior tradition. And here we had this very small group of interlopers maybe their military technology was a little bit superior but they were certainly outnumbered you. One has to ask the question well what happened here. How is it that this small number of Spaniards managed to bring down this huge sprawling powerful old empire.

It is interesting that there's a theory floating around the world in a book called Guns Germs and Steel or something that says those with the three aspects that defeated the indigenous peoples. I think that's not entirely correct. What happened is that this came to Mexico he was a lawyer he had no military training and he had this small group with him. They made some mistakes in dealing with this the worst was to show him gold which that court is thinking is it conquered a country with fascinating is that the mystique of the people we call the Aztecs had control of a great deal of Mexico to America there would be sort of aspect.

Gemini as thick as it were that didn't appear until the 19th century. So who people really had conquered other peoples and took tribute from them. Cortez being a very shrewd fellow meant that plus Collins on his way to what he thought was a golden city somewhere after that terrible massacre of the plus Collinson and the destruction of their temples and so on. Cortez allied himself with them and bless Scotland for many years under the thumb of the Aztecs the people from the land and who they were glad to join Cortez here came as with his little band. And if you were in some terrifying dogs and so on he allied himself with the very large.

Nation Scala. So when he entered Mexico the first time he had that Scotlands with him he was there for a while then he committed atrocities and then was driven out of Mexico by the by the Aztecs in India didn't he returned with a vast army of people who had been under the thumb of the Aztecs of Mexico City. So he when he finally took on the great dance pic armies he outnumbered them 30 40 to one who it was who did it. Maneuvering that enabled court to defeat it. The Mexicans are brilliant political maneuvering with with a little help from smallpox. Well that I and the other thing I think is sort of interesting is that in in in addition to as part of his entourage he had a woman who served as a translator

and perhaps also an advisor whose name now in Mexico has come down to him to be synonymous with treason. Yes I'm on the internet I'm in NJ and which sort of suggest you know one wonders to what extent people in Mexico think of the fact that what happened was it was maybe not the natural order of things and something about it was you know that the span without a fifth column in the Spaniards couldn't have done what they did and somehow it was a country in some way betrayed itself. Yes I think I think that's correct. What's interesting to me about Mexico and way I've structured this book is that the history is very long and in order to help people to history and to relate the history to the moment. What I try to do is in every chapter in this book to begin with

something that happening now or happened in the recent past months or a couple of years ago and then to relate it to the history so who is forward through the history of Mexico. From where you and I have begun this morning as well America. We see what's happened in this time as well as time. If we're talking about the Mafia Here's a conversation with with a young fellow who's going to become. A doer and I'm in this my it were due to age and then he's going to become a priest in the old Maya way right now. So the money is still there. Similarly if we're going to deal with for the Ron with questions of economics.

I've spent a lot a lot of time with this with the old prostitutes of the Plaza Loreto and I don't know if you got to that point in reading through the book. But but these are old women they're nearly as old as I am. Some in their city late 50s 60s and 70s work as prostitutes and you can see the whole story of what's happened to the economy of Mexico through these ladies. They're very old indeed. And they work for very little money and their customers oddly enough are all very young indeed. These are all young men from the countryside who come to Mexico City who don't have enough money to to have a girlfriend who can barely survive and the day wages they earn if they earn money at all who certainly couldn't go to an expensive streetwalker or whatever.

Who do you see the economy of the country the suffering of the people in the countryside. Whey they come to this city what they're able to do in the city all through these what I call the respectful divas the Blofeld All right Bill. I hope that the we to look at a country with a long history used to always connect a moment to the past. Does it make sense. Oh yeah I think so very much. Well I have several colleagues here who'd like to join in the conversation so we'll just do that. Someone listening in Bloomington Illinois this morning so we'll go there first in these first in line on line four. Yeah I'm just wondering the countries that Spain conquered in Central and South America they all seem to be economically much worse off than Spain is itself. It's probably cynical to say.

You know that Spain not its main export is poverty but what the standard of living of the average Mexican compared to the standard of living of the average Spaniard. Any idea. Yes. It it sort of goes up and down there. There have been times when Spain was in economic trouble. Near the end of the Franco regime and shortly afterwards when the Spaniards were coming to Mexico because there was more opportunity etc.. Right now however I think you are exactly right Spain is just booming and Mexico suffers a terrible problem of poverty. It's all through Latin America. I think you are exactly right. It would take a long time to solve it and it's not certain that Mexico which was having a boom in the 1950s

what the Mexicans called The Age of go book on the order of its past now in has something to do with government policy no doubt and with the vast population growth in Mexico that there are 100 million or more Mexicans very difficult to find work for them to produce. Good for them. It's just it's really an awful problem. You couldn't see it. There's something in this Spanish culture that I mean all the poverty throughout South and Central America. Is it too far past the original conquerors to say it's a link to the Spanish culture it's it's something more complicated than that. Well I think that that we been talking about some of the complications that ensued from the invasion of the Americas by the Spaniards. But but it it's

it's certainly a part of the invasion and what it's left behind. But it's also at least in Mexico which is which I know best in Mexico it's been a terrible problem of population growth. Mexico is just filled with people in the 1950s in Mexico City and about one and a half million people. There are now somewhere between 26 and 29 million people in the market area around Mexico City. The other problem that's happened all through Latin America is that people have left the farms the rural areas and come to the cities. In Mexico it's been the decentralization that has all these people coming to Mexico City. We're somewhere between a fourth and a third of the entire population live in fear not prepared they don't have the skills needed to live in the city and the city doesn't have

jobs for them and so on. However rural poverty and I spent a lot of time in rural areas rural poverty is it is a nightmare just a nightmare in Mexico people living on 85 cents a day. You couldn't attribute the population growth is that because of the strong ties to the Catholic Church because it and Spain they don't seem to have that population problem yet they're as much Catholic as they are in Mexico. Well one would think so and I think when you first look at you say that the church but I talk to many Mexicans who know the country very well that my friend Annie Martinez who's one of the grand women in Mexican politics is an economist. And it's it's not the church. If it isn't the church your brightest certainly in Spain and in Italy and so on. It's it's the

culture. It's the Mexican culture. The men feel that they want to have children to show that they're very manly and it's also the rural aspect of Mexico that still exists. People are thinking that wealthy has been the number of children to work the farm that that has to do with an agricultural society and the population growth is just falling like crazy in Mexico now it's down to 1.6 at 1.7 now which is going to stabilize the population at last I think you know I think you will get past the midpoint here. And our guest is Earl shuras. His book is The Life and Times of Mexico and it is just out here. It's published by WW Norton he's journalist has also authored a novel about punch all the nonfiction book about Latinos in. United States and titled Latinos a biography of the people. And you can look at the book now it's out there in the bookstores. Questions comments are certainly

welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Let's continue here and I think we have another caller in Chicago. Why number one. Hello. Hello good morning. The way you describe the organization of your book is really fascinating and I think it would really appeal perhaps to younger readers and pull them into maybe be effectively used in high school or college courses. At least I hope so. I have a question. Thank you. You know how come I have a question that pushes your history along a little bit in the period with the pot and punch will be I am really confused about that you can imagine how much information I had about that in American history and world history here in the States. So if you could talk about. Exactly what was the purpose. Because it's my understanding that was sort of a gray area in the revolution

to push the earlier revolution along. If you could just explain that aspect of history and also what type of accommodation was occurred with the United States because I know that the men in states sent in reinforcements to hunt down punch a vehicle because they felt that that revolution was very threatening. So if you could clear up the fog of that period in Mexican history for me I'd really appreciate it. Well I'll do it as quickly as I can. This is a good question and a person could write a book about it. That's it. Anyway here's here's what happened in the nineteen hundred and ten Mexico you know into the future will be us. Who had been in the president's chair for 35 years he was clearly a dictator. What happened then is that the Mexicans are led by a man name. They are all made in an effort to unseat this man.

No reelection platform that mother was working on in various parts of Mexico. Various groups arose in support of this anti re-election campaign. It's it's called the Mexican Revolution of 1910 but it was much more a series of civil wars than a revolution. It had NO NO program no revolution has it must have and I'm not the only one who thinks that or the great Mexican historians hold that view. What happened then is that with someone like him you know it was about land he was from moral laws. He was literate he was not at all like the fellow in the movie about some pot. And in TV lead you're quite right as sort of Greer in a movement. People just wanted to take their land back and they

said they're still there I've been in those towns and talked to people and they don't have a land back in the in the north. There were two distinct groups in the northwest. There was a group which was led to essentially by schoolteachers. They were quite educated they were very anti church and very anti Catholic and they came down from the north in this sort of center north of the country punctual the poorly educated and another group of the wise men in the group was governor of to go and silence became more sophisticated over time. His group was made up of small farmers ranchers some peasants and they formed a great army. That was a great warrior. He was eventually defeated by in the end

from the northwest holding on to became president. So this is what happened in the revolution and it is very very brief. Telling it in United States was involved in various ways. It's clear that the American ambassador to Mexico a man named and relaying Wilson helped to overthrow mother and entreaty to the toward his assassination. The United States then sided with Poncho via Wilson was very much on the side. Then if the civil wars went on the United States changed in sided with the people from the northwest. A man named Scott around the world called himself the first chief. And when Wilson turned against the aide it caught on video later became very angry and he crossed into United States

at Columbus New Mexico raided Columbus New Mexico I think 1000 people were killed and that's when the United States sent Pershing and American troops into Mexico chasing after the United States during this period also landed troops on the. The coast of Mexico and there was some to do about that. So the United States played to great change in Mexico to be determined who would rule Mexico and the American presence in Mexico has been enormous economically politically socially culturally ever since. I have one final question for you. It seems like this period has pretty much set up the myth for modern Mexico and and Mexico there's so many things that's named after him and there are all but gone and I just like your opinion of that. I mean every

country has its its nest its political history how it was shaped and it seems to me that that this period in history whether it had the result that the people wanted or not it it sort of that's the norm. Yeah. Mexico has said several periods that are very important to the previous panic period. Miss America was very important. It was in the invasion and conquest. Then there was the Mexican fight for independence from which we get the go on September 16th and so on. Benito Juarez was a very important figure we got to Mexico. Changed under Benito Juarez who unfortunately led into the US. We didn't have this period of civil war or revolution so we did and then there was a brief period where the French occupied Mexico and why is finally defeated Maximin when it

was executed and so on. But it it it is this sort of foundation it's not the foundational myth but it's certainly the period of great importance in Mexico and as you say it's basic every political party that's been in power up until the year 2000 had the word revolution in its name. In 2000 a party defeated those parties with revolution in name. And we saw a change in Mexico as it moved toward democracy. Change has been very difficult for the Mexicans and I think over time over the next six 12 18 years we will see Mexico become a democratic society. Just to follow up on that just a. Give me a chance to buy the little bit more and I realize we've been we've been jumping around a lot in time yes. But but as you say in 2000 the scent

of Fox was elected president and this was that breaking the law. The power of the PRI. Yes the revolutionary instant Institutional Revolutionary Party is that right. But you're not the only institution and they had been essentially running the country since the 20s. Something Yeah I think that the party was formed a little later but it certainly came out of overgrown and and and and so on. So the party had different names over time people were always changing the way the party operated and by the 30 you see it had a powerful corporate institution Corporate just not meaning that it had a lot of corporations in it but that it's functioned like a corporation. It had military it had business people and it had unions as the three parts of the party so it's pretty hard to oppose a party that has had to close three sections.

So after this this very long long period of time in which the PRI was the ruling party here finally the first the first opposition president listen to Fox. And his party the Alliance for change as you say the first time we don't have a party that has some it has a revolution in its name. But I think a lot of people would have said that this was indeed revolutionary. The fact that he won and although some people might say that that had been coming for some time you know it sort of slowly slowly so maybe that there was some sort of inevitability about that. I'm sorry. No I was just going to I'm just going to say to invite you to talk a bit about just how how things have to to what extent things have changed as a result of Mr. Fox being elected president. Yes to changes that Fox proposed had to do with what he called modernizing the economy making it a much more conservative

in its political view that is selling off utilities and so on. Almost none of Fox's programs have been instituted. The reason for that is that the Mexican Congress is still controlled by the PR I fox news connected with the P.A. end which means bread and it's the party talks. And there was a party that was given a boost in the 1930s by the United States which wanted to see. I'm sort of opposition there. He he was a directed he ran against a very weak candidate in the rain. Really in the in the lead of something as they call it Diary somethingness who was the darling of the United States and he was on the cover of Time and so on something this was just a heritable crook and TV left great problems behind in Mexico including the

North American Free Trade Agreement which is no boon to Mexico and the farmers and so on. So it was a very weak PR I and then along came this man saying I will bring democracy to Mexico. He did in fact bring what sophisticated Mexicans now called alternation one party chains in and another one to power. Whether that alternation continue. We we don't know. I suspect that it will but there will be a period of six 12 18 years as I say of settling down the Mexican president selected for one term only for six years. So Fox is coming to the end of his term he has just been hog tied by by the Congress so his government has not been successful in two

Mexicans we'll either go back to the PRI or they will look to this third party the Democratic Revolutionary Party which is somewhat to the left of the PRI and has a very charming and interesting candidate named Lopez Obrador. So we will have to see which way the country goes. At the moment to PR I doesn't have a very interesting candidate Lopez Obrador very charming fellow in the pond which is the party that Fox belongs to. It's the sort of disrepute so my guess is it will be between. In the polls in Mexico every month as well as old stories and now the people's choice. Two years before the election there is very strong in the

countryside and so on. I think it would be extremely difficult for the elected we have a couple of other callers one trying at least one more day with county line 3. Hello Yes hello. First you jump back a few more centuries again about the Aztecs and you're talking about the indigenous people who the Aztecs demanded tribute from all the Aztecs themselves were not indigenous they came from western Mexico and one of the first actions they did when they settled in Mexico City was they married one of the local princesses and skinned her alive and work her skin and then demanded thousands the tribute they demanded was thousands of people they have their beating hearts ripped out of their chest so you can imagine why people were willing to side with Cortez. Let's jump forward again and Catholic martyr ology we read about

so many priests who were executed by the state in Mexico in the 20s or 30s for celebrating mass and for being priest can you explain why that was. Yes and I now hang out. Well thanks for the call. Yeah yeah. I think yes that's exactly what happened when and when the people arrived either from the west from Islam which might have been in the West or may very well have been what's currently to southwest United States being we stick evidence that that's probably where they were they tended to quite a beating and put off on an island where they had nothing to eat but rattlesnakes and even those people who came down became the Aztecs came from Iceland were a tough bunch.

They didn't demand tribute immediately the sacrifice of human beings to commit grew over time. After 13 25 it when when they arrived in Mexico City the other questions about the precise difficult and in some ways very difficult for Roman Catholics to deal with. Mexico was controlled to some extent by the church which had most of the money and a great deal of the land in Mexico and the priests were often very corrupt priests marry that to children and own property and so on that Mexico to independence with that was a priest and also a very good businessman and quite a dancer in it. And it made it a good time in life that the people from the

north west were very angry with the church because of what it had taken in property and in Mexico and so on. And and what you saw in the 20s and 30s was really a result of of this past in which that the anti-clerical laws in Mexico started in the 19th century and later later though it was the strongest anti-clerical law. And and that's why priests couldn't appear in their priest because being in the streets or even with their collars that turned round in the streets in Mexico. Yes churches were desecrated priests were killed there was in the 1030 what was called the priest sterile rebellion. Those were people who were very very conservative connected to the church and there was this sort of war between the government and the Pharaohs. And that's more

or less ended Mexico has come closer and closer and closer to the church now. And there are a lot of pictures in the life and times in Mexico and one of the last pictures in the book is The scent of a fox who who went to university even in Mexico City the Jesuit university thought of becoming a priest. And you see the center Fox kneeling and kissing the ring of the pope so who at the church has made a great comeback in Mexico now and and some Mexicans are unhappy and some are very. These were really at the time we have to finish. Can you in a minute. Sorry to do that to you but talk a little bit about the the future of the relationship between Mexico and the United States. Yes difficult. The United States exploits Mexico.

We shipped corn there for example that subsidized and undercut the prices of poor Mexican farmers so we were destroying Mexican agriculture. There's great tension I think that the United States must find some way to accommodate the immigration from Mexico. Great numbers of undocumented people will continue to come here because of the Mexican economic situation. We must learn that one to welcome them I think. They are very young generally great youth and energy to society that aging in the United States. We have to do something to help the Mexican economy. That's probably the only way to slow down to immigration. And in Mexico we'll have to continue to see people emigrate because there are more than a million Mexicans being born every year and Mexico

can't create anything like a million in decent jobs each year. We I'm sorry to cut in you know we're just going to have to stop the book is The Life and Times of Mexico published by WW Norton by our guest Earl. Show us Mr. Schorr thank you very much for talking. It's been great fun.