Annotations for Communities: Canadians

Will the predatory Statue of Liberty, devour the Virgin of Guadalupe, or are they merely going to dance a sweaty cumbia. Will Mexico become a toxic and cultural waste dump of the US and Canada? Who will monitor the behavior of the three governments? Given the exponential increase of American trash and media culture in Mexico, what will happen to our indigenous traditions, social and cultural rituals, language, and national psyche? Will the future generations become hyphenated Mexican-Americans, brown-skinned gringos and canochis or upside-down Chicanos? And what about our northern partners? Will they slowly become Chi-Canadians, Waspbacks and Anglomalans? Whatever the answers are, NAFTA will profoundly affect our lives in many ways. Whether we like it or not, a new era has begun and the new economic and cultural topography has been designed for us. We must find our new place and role within this new federation of US republics.

Latino USA commentator Guillermo Gomez-Pena is an award-winning performance artist based in California. In 1991, he was a recipient of a MacArthur Genius Grant. Well, what do you think of NAFTA? Give us a call and leave a brief message at 1-800-535-5533.

This is news from Latino USA. I'm Maria Martin.

Today I'm pleased to announce that the governments of the United States, Mexico, and Canada-

Now that the governments of North America have agreed on labor and environmental accords to the North American Free Trade Agreement, President Clinton has named a NAFTA czar. He's William Daley, brother of current Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. It'll be his job as head of the administration's task force on NAFTA to push the free trade agreement through a still undecided Congress.

After months of protracted talks, negotiators for the United States, Canada, and Mexico have reached agreement on side accords to the North American Free Trade Agreement. But not everyone is happy with the final consensus, not labor, not environmental groups. Not even an organization called the Latino Consensus on NAFTA, a coalition of groups which generally support NAFTA. From Washington, Patricia Guadalupe has more.

The agreement reached includes oversight commissions that will monitor environmental and labor standards in Mexico, the United States, and Canada. Sanctions and fines are established for failure to obey labor and environmental laws. US trade representative Mickey Kantor called it, "A momentous pact that raises the standard of living for the three countries."

For the first time a free trade agreement covers workers' rights and the environment. This will serve as a model in the future.

But the same groups the negotiators were trying to appease are still not convinced. Labor and environmental groups attacked the agreement saying it didn't go far enough. Ron Carey is president of the Teamsters Union.

President Clinton made it very clear the protections that he would be looking at and the kinds of things that were important to him were raising the wages, protecting the environment, and providing good jobs for Americans. Well, these side agreements simply don't do that. American corporations through this agreement are encouraged more than ever to move to Mexico. So, when you look at that from our perspective and from working people in this country, what you see is that corporations get NAFTA and working people in this country get shafta.

There are even those who want a trade agreement but don't like the accords reached. One of those groups is the Latino Consensus, an Association of National Hispanic Organizations that support NAFTA. They are not happy with what the negotiators agreed to regarding the financing of border projects. The Latino Consensus wanted a bank that would not just finance border activity or just concentrate on environmental projects. The financing mechanism agreed to only addresses conditions at the border. Trade policy analysts, Mary Jo Marion of the National Council of La Raza, which is part of the consensus, said that, "This agreement was hastily put together and she doesn't feel it does enough to convince those members of Congress who remain undecided."

We have now formed a block in Congress of people that are on the fence that are part of this bill, they're saying, "If we get the NADBank or most of it, then we can vote for the free trade agreement." I don't think that the administration can afford to ignore that. I mean, they haven't got enough votes. They need to work with us and the proposal that they now have, even with the side agreements are not going to be enough.

A tough fight awaits NAFTA when Congress returns in September, especially in the House of Representatives, even in President Clinton's own Democratic Party. For Latino USA, I'm Patricia Guadalupe in Washington.

When Congress reconvenes in September, they'll be taking up the merits of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. But free trade isn't just about consumer goods, and many artists and intellectuals are talking about a parallel structure to NAFTA, one that would deal with ideas and culture. Commentator Guillermo Gómez-Peña calls it a free art agreement for cross-cultural dialogue.

Mexican and Caribbean cultures can offer the North their spiritual strength, political intelligence, and sense of humor in dealing with crisis, as well as experience in fostering personal and community relations. In exchange, North American artists and intellectuals can offer the South more fluid notions of identity and their understanding of experimentation and new technologies. US and Canadian artists of color, in particular, can offer Latin America sophisticated discourse on race and gender. Through trilingual publications, radio, video and performance collaborations, more complex notions of North American culture could be conceived. This project must take into consideration the processes of diaspora, hybridization, and borderization that our psyches, communities and countries are presently undergoing. Chicanos and other US Latinos insist that in the signing of this new trans-American contract, it is fundamental that relationships of power among participating artists, communities, and countries be addressed. The border cannot possibly mean the same to a tourist as it does to an undocumented worker. To cross the border from north to south has drastically different implications than to cross the same border from south to north. Trans-culture and hybridity have different connotations for a person of color than for an Anglo-European. People with social, racial or economic privileges are more able to physically cross borders, but they have a much harder time understanding the invisible borders of culture and race. Though painful, these differences must be articulated with valor and humor. In the conflictive history of the north-south dialogue and the multicultural debate, American and European sympathizers have often performed involuntary colonialist roles. In their desire to help, they unknowingly become ventriloquists, impresarios, flaneurs, messiahs, or cultural transvestites. These forms of benign colonialism must be discussed openly without accusing anyone. Their role in relation to us must finally be one of ongoing dialogue and a sincere sharing of power and resources. As Canadian artist Chris Creighton Kelly says, "Anglos must finally go beyond tolerance, sacrifice, and moral reward. Their commitment to cultural equity must become a way of being in the world. In exchange, we have to acknowledge their efforts, slowly bring the guard down, change the strident tone of our discourse, and begin another heroic project, that of forgiving, and therefore healing our colonial and post-colonial wounds.

Commentator Guillermo Gómez-Peña is an award-winning performance artist based in California.