Annotations for Places: Mexico

This is news from Latino USA. I'm María Martin. Hearings have begun on the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico. While concurrently in Washington, Latino leaders held a national Latino seminar on NAFTA. Andres Jimenez of the University of California at Berkeley says this is the first time Latino organizations attempt to formulate a common strategy on a major national question because of NAFTA's far-reaching impact on US Latinos.

This is news from Latino USA. I'm María Martin. Hearings have begun on the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico. While concurrently in Washington, Latino leaders held a national Latino seminar on NAFTA. Andres Jimenez of the University of California at Berkeley says this is the first time Latino organizations attempt to formulate a common strategy on a major national question because of NAFTA's far-reaching impact on US Latinos.

The impact of job displacement, environmental concerns, and not just protection of spotted owls, but protection of water in the air where people live along the border.

The impact of job displacement, environmental concerns, and not just protection of spotted owls, but protection of water in the air where people live along the border.

Latino organizations, including the National Council of La Raza, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and the Puerto Rican Institute for Policy Studies have signed on to a Latino consensus position on NAFTA, which calls for parallel agreements on immigration, job retraining, the environment, and for a North American Development Bank. Other organizations, including the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, accept NAFTA as negotiated.

Latino organizations, including the National Council of La Raza, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and the Puerto Rican Institute for Policy Studies have signed on to a Latino consensus position on NAFTA, which calls for parallel agreements on immigration, job retraining, the environment, and for a North American Development Bank. Other organizations, including the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, accept NAFTA as negotiated.

Every culture has its special days, Diaz de Fiesta. Most often, they're related to a special date in history: Fiestas Patrias, Puertorriqueños celebrate El Grito de Lares on September 23rd. Dominicanos celebrate on February 27th, the Dominican Republic's independence from Haiti. In Mexico and among Mexican Americans, Cinco de Mayo is one such day of celebration, not an Independence Day, but in memory of a battle which took place in 1862. However, as producers Laura Valera and Arthur Duncan found, the historical significance of the holiday is often lost in the midst of cultural festivities. Here's their Cinco de Mayo audio essay.

Every culture has its special days, Diaz de Fiesta. Most often, they're related to a special date in history: Fiestas Patrias, Puertorriqueños celebrate El Grito de Lares on September 23rd. Dominicanos celebrate on February 27th, the Dominican Republic's independence from Haiti. In Mexico and among Mexican Americans, Cinco de Mayo is one such day of celebration, not an Independence Day, but in memory of a battle which took place in 1862. However, as producers Laura Valera and Arthur Duncan found, the historical significance of the holiday is often lost in the midst of cultural festivities. Here's their Cinco de Mayo audio essay.

You bet. There's a battle of somewhere… I forget now.

You bet. There's a battle of somewhere… I forget now.

[Transitional Drum Music]

[Transitional Drum Music]

Cinco de Mayo has to do with the French forces attempting to occupy Mexico. Essentially what it deals with is the defeat of the French forces by the liberal forces of Benito Juarez in the city of Puebla, in the state of Puebla.

Cinco de Mayo has to do with the French forces attempting to occupy Mexico. Essentially what it deals with is the defeat of the French forces by the liberal forces of Benito Juarez in the city of Puebla, in the state of Puebla.

Do you know why we celebrate Cinco de Mayo?

Do you know why we celebrate Cinco de Mayo?

All I know is it's a Mexican holiday. I don't really know what the reason is.

All I know is it's a Mexican holiday. I don't really know what the reason is.

I don't know, is it somebody's birthday?

I don't know, is it somebody's birthday?

Ah…for me, Cinco de Mayo is a pretty good… good day.

Ah…for me, Cinco de Mayo is a pretty good… good day.

A big event?

A big event?

A big Fiesta.

A big Fiesta.

That's when the Mexicans took over. They kicked the French out of Mexico!

That's when the Mexicans took over. They kicked the French out of Mexico!

Y ganamos los mexicanos.

Y ganamos los mexicanos.

The independence of Mexico.

The independence of Mexico.

From?

From?

Spain.

Spain.

And one last thing. Do you know why we celebrate Cinco de Mayo?

And one last thing. Do you know why we celebrate Cinco de Mayo?

[Transitional Music in Spanish]

[Transitional Music in Spanish]

Cinco de Mayo did not lead to the ouster of the French. It would represent a significant victory for the Mexicans because it taught them that they could create a real sense of nationalism for them, that they could defeat invading forces and the like. It was significant on the basis of… you know, sort of a moral strength that gave the Mexicanos.

Cinco de Mayo did not lead to the ouster of the French. It would represent a significant victory for the Mexicans because it taught them that they could create a real sense of nationalism for them, that they could defeat invading forces and the like. It was significant on the basis of… you know, sort of a moral strength that gave the Mexicanos.

[Transitional Mariachi Music]

[Transitional Mariachi Music]

We just know it as a celebration, as a fiesta. Aside from it being a festival event, it's an educational event because it is the time of the year that, for some reason, many of our people put our political agendas, our turf agendas aside, and realize that we are all one of a large majority of people in this hemisphere.

We just know it as a celebration, as a fiesta. Aside from it being a festival event, it's an educational event because it is the time of the year that, for some reason, many of our people put our political agendas, our turf agendas aside, and realize that we are all one of a large majority of people in this hemisphere.

Do you celebrate Cinco de Mayo?

Do you celebrate Cinco de Mayo?

Well, doesn't every Hispanic?

Well, doesn't every Hispanic?

Bueno, cuando celebramos el Cinco de Mayo vamos aquí a las fiestas que tienen en el Fiesta Garden.

Bueno, cuando celebramos el Cinco de Mayo vamos aquí a las fiestas que tienen en el Fiesta Garden.

Yes, a big party.

Yes, a big party.

Con Mariachi, es una fiesta mexicana.

Con Mariachi, es una fiesta mexicana.

Bueno… el parque.

Bueno… el parque.

The typical barbecue con unas cervecitas aquí y allá. I just have a good time with the friends and family.

The typical barbecue con unas cervecitas aquí y allá. I just have a good time with the friends and family.

The most things that I do is dance.

The most things that I do is dance.

[Corrido Music]

[Corrido Music]

During these festivals, we also realize that there are no borders.

During these festivals, we also realize that there are no borders.

[Corrido Music]

[Corrido Music]

Overnight, Latinos were an issue in Washington DC.

Where US Latinos stand on the Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico.

The jobs that are expected to be lost are the low-skilled, low-paying jobs that so many Latinos in this country hold.

Also, Afro-Cuban jazz pioneer, Mario Bauzá, and some thoughts on what's really important.

Here on top of the earth, we have everything a man can need. What more can one ask for?

All this here on Latino USA, but first: las noticias.

I'm María Hinojosa. Trade talks are now underway regarding the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico. NAFTA perhaps, as no other US economic initiative, will have a significant impact on US Latinos. With us to speak about the future of the controversial free trade agreement are three journalists who cover Washington DC politics: Sandra Marquez of the Hispanic Link News Service; freelance journalist, Zita Arocha; and José Carreño, DC Bureau chief for the Mexican daily, El Universal.

The biggest misperception in this whole thing is that even if NAFTA is a new document, in a way, it is something that is already happening at the border, as well, the people who's in Texas and California can say. Now what is going to happen? I think that there will be a lot of pressures on Mexico and the United States mostly in the environment and labor problems. Congressman Gephardt and a number of other Democratic freshmen went to Tijuana to take a look at the ecological situation there. They came out saying, "No way that way. At least the actual treaty has to be upgraded." We'll see a lot of the arguments in the next few months about it.

In fact, we've seen a lot of arguments already. Sandra, how much has the debate over NAFTA divided the Latino community in particular?

I think there's tremendous division among US Latinos on the issue of NAFTA because primarily, the jobs that are expected to be lost as a result of this agreement are the low-skilled, low-paying jobs that so many Latinos in this country hold. So, there is concern that the jobs that Latinos have are going to be exported to Mexico, but at the same time, Latinos realize that they have this intrinsic link with their Mexican kin across the border. And so, they realize there's tremendous potential that because of Latinos' bicultural skills that they can really tap into this and benefit more so than other Americans in this country.

The Latino population is also divided in terms of convenience. For instance, in Texas, there is a lot of people who's in favor of NAFTA because most of the import-export businesses are going through Texas and of course, they're getting a boost out of it. But in California, for instance, where there is a lot of Latinos in this low end of the industry, they're having a lot of problems, a lot of hesitations about it. So, I think that it is also related a lot with where are the jobs.

I think the Mexican government has realized that US Latinos can be very good promoters of this plan. And they have started a NAFIN fund, a $20 million fund for US Latino business leaders to create joint ventures with business partners in Mexico. And US Hispanic chambers of commerce here in this country have also been leading in terms of creating these trade partnerships and expose and taking people from the United States to Mexico and really helping to create these links.

There's another benefit to Latinos and I think Latinos are beginning to see this, that if the agreement leads in less immigration from Mexico to the United States…from Latin America in general to the United States, then those low-end jobs will not be taken away as easily as they would be if we continue to see hundreds of thousands of people coming across the border every year. There is some resistance on the part of some Latinos for fear that a lot of the low-end jobs will go to Mexico, but at the same time, there is also a realization that there will be benefits long term that will come from fewer immigrants coming over and you know, taking US jobs at the low end.

Thank you very much, Sandra Marquez, Zita Arocha, and José Carreño for joining us here on Latino USA.

Yo crecí en Chicago. I grew up in Chicago, but every summer, my family would pack up an overloaded station wagon and drive across the border to visit my homeland, México. I have many wonderful memories of those trips to less urban settings. That was where I came into contact with nature, driving across the mountains and deserts of México. I often think that, like me, many Latinos who return to the land of their birth or where their parents or grandparents came from do so for the joy of going back to where the simple things of life are still valued. A few years ago, Texas artist Luis Guerra moved to a village in the state of San Luis Potosí in northern México. He says he was recently reminded of why he made the move as he took a long hike in the mountains in La Sierra.

La subida es dura. It's a steep climb, but after a few hours, the walking gets easier. The valleys and peaks of this beautiful, rocky Sierra spread out before you like a solid ocean suspended in time. This is a dry land, almost a desert, yet sometimes I'll find a tiny spring in a niche of a canyon wall. Or I'll happen upon a small shrine in a lonely valley. Almost every day, I'll come across a shepherd tending his flock or I'll hear the sounds of children and discover they are gathering wild herbs like oregano or rosa de castillo. Often, early in the morning, I'll see a woman or a man driving two or three burros loaded with mountain produce heading for a nearby town or city. I make it a point not to camp close to someone's home just out of respect and so as not to use up firewood that doesn't belong to me. Firewood is scarce around here. This day as I crested a hill, I spotted a ranchito, just a little two-room house, adobe walls with a flat roof.

Smoke was rising from the chimney. I was barely 300 yards from the ranchito and it would be dark soon. It was too late to move on. It was going to be a cold night and the only firewood I could find was already cut…tú sabes, for the rancho's wood stove. Ni modo. I used the firewood. I felt guilty, but warm that night. Anyway, I would make it up to them in the morning. After breakfast, as I was packing my things, the campesino from the ranchito showed up, a barrel-chested man with strong hands, a weathered face, and a scraggly beard. "Buenos días." I walked up to him and offered to pay for the wood. He brushed my words aside. "Mira, everything you see all around you is mine. Estás en tu casa. This is your home." To him, I was already his guest and my offer to pay was almost impolite. He reached into his bag and handed me a small bundle. "My wife packed this for you," he said. It was bread, goat cheese, and jamoncillo, a homemade candy made from fresh milk. We talked for a while.

I told him I was a painter who took inspiration from the Sierra. He told of his early life as a shepherd in these same mountains and of his many years as a minor in Zacatecas. "The mines are bad luck," he said. "Es muy duro, siempre en lo oscuro… always in the dark, digging with dynamite for God knows what or for whom. Here on top of the earth, we have everything a man can need. What more can one ask for? Dios provides the earth, the sun, wind, and rain. We provide the labor." He smiled. Somehow, my pack felt especially light that whole day.

Commentator Luis Guillermo Guerra is an Austin artist who now resides in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosí. And for this week y por esta semana, this has been Latino USA, a radio journal of news and culture. Latino USA is produced and edited by María Emilia Martin; associate producer, Angelica Luévano. We had help from Karyl Wheeler in New York. Latino USA is produced at the studios of KUT in Austin, Texas. The technical producer is Walter Morgan. We want to hear from you. So, llámenos on our toll-free number, 1-800-535-5533. Major funding for Latino USA comes from the Ford Foundation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the University of Texas at Austin. The program is distributed by the Longhorn Radio Network. Y hasta la próxima. Until next time, I'm María Hinojosa for Latino USA.

Welcome this evening, César Chávez of the United Farm Workers of America.

[Clapping]

Very early in our struggle, we found that…we really couldn't beat the growers at their own game…in their own turf. And taking a page from…Gandhi and Dr. King and others, we came to the conclusion that we had to involve half of the world to beat the growers and that we could not do it through public policy. Workers are not covered by any protective laws for collective bargaining. And…those local courts will issue out injunctions like…they were going out of style. We were going to strike. But we also found out that they couldn’t really…although they're very powerful, that they really couldn't reach out to Chicago or Boston or even San Francisco or [unintelligible] or other places…across the border to Canada or Mexico. And that there, we could begin to have a more level playing field.

I'm talking now of public action or the boycott. It is a boycott… public action…that saved this union. It is the only way we've ever made any progress, is through the boycott. We've never won anything without the boycott. The boycott or a threat of the boycott. It's a terrible irony that in our day and our age, our country produces more food than what it really needs…yet the men, women, and children whose labor harvests this food often go to bed hungry. That's a terrible irony, and that's why we're here, and we ask you to join us, to join us to put a stop to that. Thank you very much.

[Clapping]

[Corrido music about César Chávez]

This is news from Latino USA. I am Maria Martin. Several congressional house members led by Democratic representative Xavier Becerra of California are calling for legislation to investigate human rights abuses by federal agencies along the US-Mexico border. From Washington, Franc Contreras reports.

Last year, the film "Like Water for Chocolate" received over 10 international awards, including one for best actress at the Tokyo Film Festival, and for Best Picture, Mexico's Ariel Award. The film is a collaboration between Esquivel and director Alfonso Arau, one of Mexico's leading filmmakers and Esquivel's husband. The novel has been published in English by Doubleday. The film is currently playing in major theaters across the country. For Latino USA, this is Beto Arkos in Boulder, Colorado.

Another sign of Tejano music's popularity is that, in the last two years, radio stations across the Southwest, California and in Mexico are changing to a Tejano music format, dropping their contemporary pop or salsa formats and switching to a Tejano style.

With its sounds of the accordion, the bass and the guitar, Tejano music came out of the Norteno style, developed along the Texas-Mexico border. This style, also called Conjunto, was born when Mexican and Mexican-American musicians borrowed the accordion from their German and Czech neighbors in Texas. Tejano roots can also be traced to the early orchestra sounds of Little Jo and La Familia and others like Sonny Ozuna from the late fifties and sixties. Tejano music of the nineties consists of rancheras, polkas, ballads, and cumbias. With influences of pop, rap country and rock.

In an old classroom in South Seattle, in the community center known as El Centro De La Raza, a transformation is taking place. Two evenings a week, kids as young as eight and as old as 20, some of them just a step away from joining a gang, are instead writing poetry. Ingrid Lobet reports that little by little, the kids and the adults who hear them are realizing the importance of what they have to say.

Outside the old school building, a dozen kids are shooting hoops as a cool night begins to fall across the city of Seattle.

Fellas, let's go.

As 6:30 approaches, the kids file into the classroom from the ball court. Others come in from elsewhere, looking tired. Whether tired or full of energy, the 15 kids in this room are here by choice. They've come because here they can put heart into words.

Ode To My Car. The exhaust blows out like the drop of oil. The black dewey night that passes, simply turn itself into a single piece of grass.

Martinez, Armando (Man) has been coming to El Centro for several months now.

Wild rivers, one drop of water that continues, grass, and then run off with my motor vehicle.

The kids' hands shoot into the air. They can't wait to comment. Their comments encourage, but also suggest certain word changes or changes in delivery. Armando's own older sister has a comment for him. I liked your poem, hijo, she says, it was really good. I like the way you read really slow.

Let's go ahead and stand up. It really helps to stand up. I'll be right here beside him.

But even the support that fills this room isn't enough for 16-year-old Glenda Arenas on her first night. When it comes time for her to read the poem she's just written, she hangs her head, her long dark hair, mostly covering her face. Her voice begins, barely audible.

Ode To The Homies. The tree, kicking it. Summer, smooth.

This first night, Glenda can't finish. Another girl comes over, stands by her, and finishes the poem.

Ode to the homie, the tree, kicking it. Summer, smooth. It's all eight-ball. Say eyes, high on weed, 44 Magnum, blow to the head, a scorched rag in the hood, the brightness and the sky showing a flag. Green, white, and red grows into multiplication, sweet and sad.

There's a little poet running around your house, no matter how small he or she is.

Roberto Maestas has directed El Centro for 20 years. He's seen a good number of the 74 children who've spent time in the workshops changed by them. Some are getting better grades, some are being invited to recite poetry at rallies and banquets.

I don't think that poetry itself is going to save the inner cities, but when a young person reads their poetry and other people appreciate their poetry, that begins to build a sense of value, a sense of worth, a sense of somebodiness.

Recently, we had an election for student council, and I didn't really think I'd make it, and I beat everybody by 10 points. It was really amazing.

15-year-old Sandra Martinez says it was in the poetry workshops that she learned to be confident enough to assume that position of leadership.

My name's Sandra Martinez and the poem I'm going to read is "Garibaldi Park in Mexico City".

Blue corazon danced on the stones, cuando la mujer was tocando las musica. On the streets, los gatos laughed, and tonight's the final night.

The poets of El Centro, known as Hope for Youth, now have a book, it's called Words Up. And the kids are getting more and more attention, some even nationally and internationally. Just recently, Hope for Youth received an invitation from the government of Chile to travel there this summer. For Latino USA, I'm Ingrid Lobet in Seattle.

A North American Free Trade Agreement has been signed by Canada, the US, and Mexico. Once it becomes law, we will be in the process of becoming the largest artificial economic community of the planet.

Negotiations between the US, Canada, and Mexico continue regarding the North American Free Trade Agreement. If the three parties should come to an agreement regarding environmental protection and labor issues, and if the US Congress approves NAFTA, free trade will be the economic order on the continent. But there are many opposing views on the impact NAFTA will have, should it become law. For performance artist and Latino USA commentator Guillermo Gomez Peña, many questions regarding the free trade agreement remain.

In terms of geography and demographics, it will be much larger than the European community or than the fashionable Pacific Rim. From the myriad possibilities of free trade agreements that could be designed and implemented, the neoliberal version we have is not exactly an enlightened one. It is based on the fallacy that the market will take care of everything. Avoiding the most basic social labor, environmental, and cultural responsibilities, there are many burning questions that remain unanswered. Given the endemic lack of political and economic symmetry between the three countries, will Mexico become, as Mexican artist Yareli Arizmendi says, the largest Indian reservation of the US? Or will it be treated as an equal by its bigger partners?

Will the predatory Statue of Liberty depower 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 Chicanadians, Waspacks 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.

Allegations of abuse by the Border Patrol, customs, and immigration agents are often heard in many Latino communities, particularly along the U.S.-Mexico border. These widespread complaints have prompted several congressional leaders to call for the creation of a commission to investigate abuses by these federal agencies. From Washington. Patricia Guadalupe has more.

Cuando yo me miraron se aceleraron y me dijeon parate

Heriberto Arambula is a Mexican national who claims he was beaten up by the US Border Patrol while riding his bicycle in El Paso, Texas.

Me agarre la bicicleta me tumba para atras y el otro esta gringo parece Bruce Lee.

They grabbed me and threw me from my bicycle. One of the officers then jumped at me. He looked like Bruce Lee. Imagine. He sunk his boot into my chest that left the mark. They didn't ask me what I was doing or explain why they were after me, nothing. Only the beating and then to the police, then to the ambulance, then to the hospital, and that's all. [Spanish dubbed over]

It is because of this and many other complaints that legislation was introduced in Congress May 20th to create an independent commission that would oversee the Border Patrol. Currently, the Border Patrol is part of the immigration and naturalization service, which immigrant advocates say is inefficient and biased since it polices itself. Democratic representative Xavier Becerra of California is the chief sponsor of the commission bill in Congress.

We believe that you need independent review and that's the big change here. It's not dramatic, but what we're saying is let's get some serious activity in here because there are people who are being abused.

Congressman Becerra adds that the problem doesn't exist only among the undocumented along the border.

We're talking about US citizens, legal permanent residents who have been abused by the INS. And we have not only eyewitness testimony and firsthand testimony of people who've come, but we have court cases where we have had judicial decisions that show that people have been abused.

Former Consul General of Mexico in El Paso, Roberto Gamboa Mascarenas investigates many cases of alleged abuse by Border Patrol agents. Most recently, the violent deaths of three undocumented workers in Arizona and Texas. He said the commission would have the power to act on claims of abuses, something he says the system is not now set up to do.

It is the most fantastic and the most positive step that has ever been taken in favor of the human rights and the civil rights of many people in the border areas, not necessarily all Mexican, whose rights have been violated continuously by agents who, again, are unchecked, uncontrolled, and not disciplined whatsoever.

In its annual report released on the same day Becerra introduced this legislation, the human rights group, America's Watch, concludes that conditions at the border have not changed. Cases of abuses have risen, not fallen. Juan Mendez is executive director of America's Watch.

There's something wrong in the way abuses are referred to the proper authorities and investigated inside these agencies, both the Border Patrol and the customs administration.

Mendez says that creating an independent commission would alleviate the fear many have of coming forward when they have claims of abuse. When reached for comment, a spokesman for the INS said they would follow whatever directive the Congress and Attorney General Janet Reno handed down. For Latino USA, I'm Patricia Guadalupe in Washington.

My own feeling, my own personal feeling is that if we work at it, that we'll be able to get a treaty that's good for the country and good for Mexico.

That's Raul Yzaguirre, president of the National Council of La Raza, commenting on the present status of the North American Free Trade Agreement. At this point, congressional approval of NAFTA is still in question. Mexico and Mexico's president, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, have a lot at stake in NAFTA's becoming a reality, as do many Hispanic entrepreneurs in this country. In Dallas, Latino business and civic leaders recently met with the Mexican president trying to counter the arguments from a certain Texas politician that NAFTA will mean major job losses. Brian Shields prepared this report.

Dallas billionaire, Ross Perot is spending millions of dollars to go on national television to stir up opposition to NAFTA, but members of the Dallas Hispanic Chamber believe the treaty will be beneficial for their businesses. During a recent visit to Dallas, Mexican president, Carlos Salinas, asserted there's no time to waste.

I have been asked, "Why NAFTA?" Because this is the only way how we will be able to compete in the world in which we live. "Why now?" Because we are late, late when other regions in the world are getting together to increase the efficiency and competitive capacity.

To my business, it would probably help it tremendously. I've been in business now for 12 years, doing business back and forth through Mexico, and we have had quite a bit of product going back and forth. The prices generally will then be lowered on some of the items that we now are paying some duties in.

Opposition to NAFTA in the United States centers on concerns that higher paying jobs north of the border will disappear to be replaced by very low wage employment in Mexico. Such arguments are coming not only from supporters of Ross Perot, but also from grassroots Hispanic groups such as San Antonio's Fuerza Unida, if you're a loss of American manufacturing jobs that now employ Latinos here. However, President Salinas insists the treaty will have the opposite effect.

NAFTA is also a wage increase agreement, because with increases in productivity, we will be able to increase wages in Mexico more than they have been growing in the past four years.

Between Ross Perot and opponents of free trade in and out of the Congress, right now, the agreement appears to be in trouble, but Jorge Haynes with Laredo's International Bank of Commerce insists the opportunity is too important to allow it to slip away.

If we should decide not to adopt NAFTA, which is something I don't want to think about, I think we will be going backwards in our relationship with Mexico rather than forwards.

NAFTA has provided fertile ground for the work of performance artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña. In the following skit, Gómez-Peña becomes a character he calls "the Aztec salesman". The Aztec salesman is a lobbyist for free trade who at first tries to sway others to enter into the free trade fever, but later has an identity crisis.

[“Tequila” background music] Bienvenidos damas y caballeros, lovers, consumers of pura vicultura, a new transcontinental breeze, ricochets from Monterrey to Manhattan, from DF to LA, we perceive the pungent smells of chile con ketchup and low-cal mole. Never before have Gringolandia—[clears throat] digo--America succumbed to the sabor of the amigo country with such eagerness and gusto. Let Frida Kahlo's monkeys run wild in your dreams. Get lost in the labyrinth of solitude of a Mexican painting. Dance yourself to sleep with the picante sounds of Guapango rap. Don't forget to wear your conceptual sombrero, güerita. Enjoy the tender, tender, magenta nipples of a ranchero diva. Don't get left behind. Don't arrive late to the Grand Tri National Fiesta. Support NAFTArt, free trade art for the klepto Mexican connoisseur.

Como debe diciendo, man, join a new vibrant Castro erotic—digo—econo-cultural ma-ma-maquiladora y de paso contribute to. Sorry. What I meant to say is you will receive a glossy 200-page catalog, certified by Televisa and the Metropolitan. You can place your mail orders debolada by simply dialing your resident-alien number. Remember, no one can like Mexi-can. No mejor dicho en Spanglish, lo echo en Mexico esta bien [clears throat] digo—[beep]. Me-me-me-Comprehend this machine. Approach your funders de ya porque Free raid, digo, free trade artist, tax-deductible, hombre.

No, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. I'm having an identity crisis on the radio studio. I don't know what I'm saying. I mean, la neta es que…I need a job, man. I mean, I can cook, translate, guide tours en Nahuatl and Arawak, do gardening, security, community outreach, got my resident-alien card, barata. My social security number is ... [“Tequila” plays]

Latino USA commentator, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, a recipient of the MacArthur Genius Award, is based in California.

Latino USA commentator, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, a recipient of the MacArthur Genius Award, is based in California. In Brownsville, Texas, a group of Chicanos and elders from Indigenous populations in the US and Mexico gathered recently for what they called the 17th Encuentro of the National Chicano Human Rights Council. The group is part of a movement which began in the 60s to help Mexican Americans reconnect with their Indigenous roots. Today, the movement is taking a new turn involving Chicanos in a spiritual reawakening foretold in ancient Indian myths, which caused them to action on human rights and the environment. From Brownsville, Lillie Rodulfo and Lucy Edwards prepared this report.

[natural sound] This weekend, council members have brought their families to camp on the grounds of the Casa de Colores. The multicultural center sits on 360 acres of prime farmland along the U.S.-Mexican border order.

[conch chell sounds] With the sound of a conch shell, a Mexican shaman, Andre Segura, calls a group to worship in a sacred dance of the Indigenous that the Aztecs have practiced for thousands of years. They also are called to reunite with the Indians of Mexico in their common struggle for equal rights. Elders like Segura say when Chicanos answer the call of the Danza, they are joining in a revival of the Indigenous spirit that is happening throughout the Americas. [Ceremony natural sounds] "This reawakening of the spiritual traditions," the elders say, "was foretold by Indian leaders centuries ago. Danzas and other Indigenous ceremonies carry a strong message of preserving the earth and all its people."

Andre Segura's Danza Conchera contains the essence of Aztec or Toltec thought in the entire worldview.

Chicano author Carlos Flores explains what happens when a Chicano worships in the sacred tradicion of the Danza.

When the Mexican-American decides to call himself a Chicano, basically what he's doing is declaring publicly that he's an Indian. In effect, what we're seeing here then is Mexican-Americans through their connection with an Indian shaman, I guess you could say, practicing the sacred.

Susana Renteria of the Austin-based PODER, People Organized in Defense of Earth and its Resources, offered passionate testimony at the conference. Her group has worked hard to focus attention on environmental racism in the Mexican-American communities in Austin.

They take toxic chemicals and inject it into Mother Earth. They inject it. It's like when you put heroin in your veins, and you're contaminating your whole blood system. That's what they're doing to Mother Earth. The water is the blood in her veins, and they're injecting these chemicals into, and they wonder why we have so much illnesses, why we have so much despair.

[meeting natural sounds] The council heard hours of testimony like this on a wide range of issues, bringing into focus everyday realities for Chicanos, such as the disproportionate number of Mexican American prisoners sentenced to die and the alarmingly high incidents of babies born in the Rio Grande Valley with incomplete or missing brains. Opata Elder Gustavo Gutierrez of Arizona, one of the founders of the council, offers this prophetic warning.

The moment that we start losing our relationship between Mother Earth and ourselves, then is when we get into all this trouble, and I think that what has happened to the people that are in power, they have the multinational corporation. They have lost their feeling about what is their relationship between the Earth, and the only thing they can think about is how to make money, and once that is the main focus, how to make money, then I feel that we're really in a lot of trouble.

[Danza natural sounds] The shaman, Andre Segura, says, "The Indigenous ceremonies that are part of every council meeting provide a spiritual foundation to unite Chicanos, as they speak out for the rights and the rights of all Indigenous."

Buscar dientro de su corazon, dientro de su-

Search your heart and soul as to how you feel about the Indigenous. The Chicano roots come from Mexico, and accepting this will unite the Chicano people.

[Singing, natual sounds] The Chicano Human Rights Council was formed in the 1980s to address the human rights violations in the southwest. The council teaches Chicanos how to document abuses that affect their community. The testimony they hear in Brownsville will be presented at international forums, such as the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. (Singing) For Latino USA, with Lucy Edwards, I'm Lily Rodulfo. (Singing)

Even now, before NAFTA's implementation, business people in Texas are actively trading with their colleagues south of the border, and if the trade agreement is going to work, it will be up to individual entrepreneurs to lead the way. It's a trail already being blazed by many Hispanic-owned businesses, such as John Montoya's. He's the president of World Dallas International, a trading services company, and for him, the rewards of the agreement are quite clear.

This is news from Latino USA. I'm Maria Martin. The future of the North American Free Trade Agreement remains in question. Since the US district judge ruled the Clinton administration may not present NAFTA for approval in Congress until its impact on the environment is determined.

This is news from Latino USA. I'm Maria Martin. The future of the North American Free Trade Agreement remains in question. Since the US district judge ruled the Clinton administration may not present NAFTA for approval in Congress until its impact on the environment is determined.

It caught some people by surprise.

It caught some people by surprise.

Judge Charles Richey's ruling was a victory for environmentalists opposed to NAFTA and a disappointing setback to its supporters like Abel Guerra of the National Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Judge Charles Richey's ruling was a victory for environmentalists opposed to NAFTA and a disappointing setback to its supporters like Abel Guerra of the National Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

We feel NAFTA provides many environmental safeguards, which are now nonexistent. The defeat of NAFTA would actually harm the environment more than these environmental groups know.

We feel NAFTA provides many environmental safeguards, which are now nonexistent. The defeat of NAFTA would actually harm the environment more than these environmental groups know.

Opponents of the present trade agreements say the court ruling validates their long-standing concerns about the treaty. Labor organizer Victor Munoz of the AFL-CIO says he's hopeful the recent court decision will lead to negotiating an entirely new trade agreement.

Opponents of the present trade agreements say the court ruling validates their long-standing concerns about the treaty. Labor organizer Victor Munoz of the AFL-CIO says he's hopeful the recent court decision will lead to negotiating an entirely new trade agreement.

If it could be renegotiated completely, I think it would give us a very good opportunity to create a much better trade agreement than the one we have right now.

If it could be renegotiated completely, I think it would give us a very good opportunity to create a much better trade agreement than the one we have right now.

The recent murder of a Roman Catholic cardinal in Guadalajara, Mexico is being linked to a gang in San Diego. Law enforcement officials say at least six members of the Calle Treinta gang were the hired killers for a Tijuana drug cartel led by the Ramon Arellano family. From San Diego, Marie Araña has more.

Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo and six other persons were accidentally killed when gunmen hired by a Tijuana drug cartel mistakenly opened fire on the cardinal's limousine. Law enforcement officials say that members of the Calle Treinta gang were hired by the Arellano brothers to kill a rival drug lord, Joaquin Chapo Guzman. Guzman was believed to be the target when Cardinal Posadas was shot last May 24th. For Latino USA, I'm Marie Araña in San Diego.

Hollywood movies and television commercials often give us quick, concise images of people and places along the US-Mexico border. Going beyond those media-made notions towards real understanding is difficult, even impossible. Without firsthand contact. In the nation's capital, there was an attempt to go beyond those media images of the border. It was part of the Smithsonian Institution's annual Festival of American Folklife. But as Franc Contreras reports from Washington, real, cultural understanding required more than a taste of border foods or the sounds of border music.

[Natural sounds of Washington D.C.] Some young guys from Mexicali were standing in a crowd between the Capitol building and the Washington Monument. They wore baggy pants, some had dark glasses, and others' headbands pulled way down low. To some people, they looked like gangsters, but they're not. They're cholos with a distinctive style of dress that comes straight from the border. Suddenly, they started speaking Spanish out loud.

Bueno, aqui pasa todo los dias la patrulla fronteriza. Que tal si sacamos la lengua?

Border patrol goes through here every day. Let's stick our tongues out at them.

[Natural sounds of Folklife Festival] Then from behind a food stamp where some beans were cooking, A guy came out wearing all white with a pointed hood clan style. [Highlight, natural sounds of Folklife Festival] It was the border patrol chasing down one of the Cholos people watching realized it was a play by a theater group from Mexicali, a border town south of California. The actors were hitting one of the main issues on the border, immigration. Their translator is Quique Aviles.

A lot of people complain that they don't understand because the show is being done in Spanish, but at the same time, that's what life is. When Latinos come here, we don't understand either. So, we were talking about that last night. It's sort of like returning the favor.

A woman walked past us, dressed like the Virgin of Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico. She went past a display where a man was making guitars by hand, past a group of muralists from El Paso who were painting an eagle, and over to a food stand where a Black woman who speaks only Spanish was serving tamales and Tecate beer, and next to her was a woman from Texas.

We're breaking a lot of preconceived ideas, a lot of biases that perhaps have been most influenced by the media.

Cynthia Vidaurri teaches at the Southwestern Borderlands Cultural Studies and Research Center in Kingsville, Texas. She says, the American Folk Life Festival in Washington is an opportunity not only for people who've never seen the border, but also for people who've come here from the border to share their cultures.

The rest of the world perceives us as what the media makes us out to be, the movies, the news, and they're really thrilled to have a chance to say, this is who we are. We are living, breathing human beings that have the same needs as you do. We just take care of those needs in a slightly different fashion.

That sounds fairly straightforward, and some people walked away from here with more understanding about the people of the borderlands, but not without some effort. At one display, Romi Frias of El Paso was trying to explain to some people from Delaware, what a low rider is, you know, a highly stylized car, usually an older model with small thin tires, maybe a mural painted on the hood and lowered about an inch from the pavement.

[Laughter] I tell people that it's really going to mess you up. You're doing about 55 and there's this monster pothole and you've got about an inch clearance. I've got a lot of friends that face that situation and unfortunately hadn't learned the hard way.

Later under a shaded area, there was a storytelling session. It was supposed to be about women on the border. An Indian woman from the Mexican side sat on the left. On the right was a white woman who works for the US Border Patrol in the middle of the two women sat a university professor. He was monopolizing the discussion. Then at another storytelling session about immigration, the professor was taking over again. Some people in the back were saying it was typical. Here's this white male, the expert, not letting the others talk. After the session, I went over to him and learned his name is Enrique Lamadrid, a man of mixed races whose family migrated to the Americas from France and Spain like many others along the border. His family goes back generations. Lamadrid says he saw many surprised people at the folk fest who learned of the amazing cultural diversity along the border.

I mean, just the amazement that you can see in people's faces when they encounter these two black women over here from the black Seminole community. They're Mexicans. So these are really complex cultural entities.

Complex, like the land where they live. The border is often characterized by clashing cultural forces. Lamadrid says People living on the border cross the international boundary daily, but it's no big deal because it's part of their daily life. And he said the people living along the 2000-mile separating line did not come to the border. It came to them. Then he mentioned a series of treaties between the US and Mexico dating back to the late 18 hundreds. It's a complex history, a balancing act, he says, because the needs of border people compete with the national needs of Washington and Mexico City, and the result of that struggle is border culture.

But culture isn't in your blood. Culture is something that you learn. Culture and identities are things that are negotiated and forged every day of our lives as we live our lives out in specific areas of the country.

Lamadrid told me about a sewer line that broke during the festival Sunday morning. Smelly dark sewer water flooded a small area around some of the exhibits. He and the other said it reminded them of some border towns where pollution has become a major problem. But on the day the sewer broke, people taking part in the American Folk life Festival this year continued their efforts to share their life's experiences as the smell and humidity surrounded them. For Latino USA, I'm Franc Contreras in Washington.

Mexican and U.S. commerce officials gathered in San Antonio, Texas, to discuss a North American Free Trade Agreement and infrastructure needs along the U.S.-Mexico border. Already without NAFTA, cross-border trade has quadrupled and the region's population nearly doubled in the last decade, taxing facilities on both sides of the border.

Domingo Gonzalez works with the Texas Center for Policy Studies in Brownsville.

If we increase industrial activity under NAFTA, all of the problems that we have now are going to increase. We hope at the very least that infrastructure is defined in a more beneficial way for us and that we don't get just bridges and more bridges and more bridges.

According to a recent poll, more than 40% of all Americans say they've never heard of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

I'm Maria Martin with news from "Latino USA."

From acclaimed director, Alfonso Arau, a sensuous portrait of love and enchantment, change and revolution.

This year, the Mexican cinema is enjoying a revival with such films as el Danzón and "Como Agua para Chocolate," "Like Water for Chocolate."

Like Water for Chocolate is a saying, un dicho, meaning that something is near the boiling point. And in her film and the haunting narrative of her novel, screenwriter and author Laura Esquivel finds the boiling point in the kitchen and in relationships between men and women.

From Boulder, Colorado, Betto Arcos prepared this report.

Tal parecía que en un extraño fenómeno de alquimia su ser se había disuelto en la salsa de las rosas, en el cuerpo de las codornices, en el vino, y en cada unos de los…

It's the essence of love, femininity, and the affirmation of human nature that Laura Esquivel conveys through a novel which evolved when the author was cooking in her home in Mexico.

Bueno, me vino mientras cocinaba por que a mi me encanta cocinar…[transition to English dub] And it came to me when I was cooking my family's recipes. I would always go back to the past and clearly remember my grandmother's kitchen and the smells and the chats. And I always thought that it would be very interesting to adapt this natural, human mechanism to literature. And in the same way that one describes how to make a recipe, be able to narrate a love story…[transition to original audio] escribe como hacer una receta poder narrar una historia de amor...

Set in a border ranch during the Mexican Revolution, "Like Water for Chocolate" is the story of Tita, the youngest of three daughters born to Mamá Elena. It is a family tradition that the youngest daughter not marry, but stay at home to care for her mother. Soon, however, Tita falls in love. But her tyrannical mother makes no exception and arranges for Tita's older sister, Rosaura, to marry Tita's love, Pedro.

Tita's sister is played by actress Yareli Arizmendi.

"Creo que tenemos pendiente una conversación, no crees? Si. Y creo que fue desde que te casaste con mi novio, empecemos por ahí si quieres."

In this scene from the film "Like Water for Chocolate," the two sisters confront each other about the family tradition Tita refuses to uphold.

"Ya no hablemos del pasado. [unintelligible) Y no voy a permitir que ustedes dos se burlen de mi."

But most of the action in "Like Water for Chocolate" centers around the kitchen. After the family cook dies, Tita takes over the kitchen responsibilities, and in her hands, every meal and dessert becomes the agent of change. Anyone who eats her food is transformed by it and sometimes in very surprising ways, according to Laura Esquivel.

Yo tengo una teoría que, a través de la comida se invierte…[transition to English dub] I have a theory that through food, gender roles are interchanged, and the man becomes the passive one and the woman the active one…[transition to original audio] a traves de la comida penetra en el otro cuerpo.

What I drew my interest more in terms of this use of recipes and cooking and all of this, this presence of it, is really the issue that's been dealt with quite a bit by the feminists, which is female space.

Raymond Williams, Professor of Latin American Literature and Coordinator of the Novel of the America Symposia at the University of Colorado in Boulder, says that Like Water for Chocolate is a novel that goes against the traditional literary point of view.

Departing from the female space of a kitchen rather than departing from, say, the great Western adventure stories that were typically kind of the male stories of the traditional novel, and I think that female space is what really drew my attention in my first reading of the novel and my first viewing of the film.

The recipes in "Like Water for Chocolate," which range from turkey mole with almonds and sesame seeds to chiles in walnut sauce, are far removed from fast food and frozen dinners. They require a lot of dedication and can take days or weeks to prepare. And in the age of microwave ovens and technology, Esquivel says, people have moved away from that which is naturally human.

Para nosotros el elaborar la cocina el carácter de una ceremonia…[transition to English dub] For us, cooking is like a ceremony and has nothing to do with the commercial. It really is a ritual, a ritual in which the family participates, and by doing so, one heightens his human quality.

Last year, the film "Like Water for Chocolate" received over 10 international awards, including one for Best Actress at the Tokyo Film Festival and for Best Picture, Mexico's Ariel Award. The film is a collaboration between Esquivel and director Alfonso Arau, one of Mexico's leading filmmakers and Esquivel's husband. The novel has been published in English by Doubleday. The film is currently playing in major theaters across the country.

For "Latino USA," this is Betto Arcos in Boulder, Colorado.

Latin jazz great Mario Bauzá died July 11 of cancer in his Manhattan home, just blocks from where I live. Mario Bauzá, an integral part of New York's Latin jazz scene, was 82 years old.

I remember this great musician sitting on a milk crate outside a bodega, surrounded by friends, drinking coffee, and enjoying the simple things of life. You would've never known it by seeing him that this small, tender, smiley man had totally revolutionized American music.

In the 1940s, he influenced popular music by innovating a new musical style which mixed popular Afro-Cuban rhythms with American jazz.

Emilio San Pedro prepared this remembrance of Latin jazz legend Mario Bauzá.

[Afro-Cuban jazz]

Mario Bauzá was first exposed to American jazz in 1926, when he visited New York. In 1930, anxious to become a part of that scene, Bauzá left his native Havana for New York, frustrated that in Cuba, Afro-Cuban music was considered merely the music of the streets, not the music of the sophisticated nightclubs, country clubs, and hotels of pre-revolutionary Havana.

Had to happen outside of Cuba before the Cuban people convinced themself what they had, themself over there. They didn't pay no attention to that. When I got big in United States, Cuba begin to move into that line of music.

[Afro-Cuban jazz]

In the 1930s, Bauzá performed with some of New York's best-known jazz musicians, like Chick Webb and Cab Calloway. In fact, in those days, Bauzá was responsible for introducing singer Ella Fitzgerald to Chick Webb, thus helping to launch her career. It was also Bauzá who gave Dizzy Gillespie his first break, with the Cab Calloway Orchestra.

During their time touring and working with Cab Calloway, Mario Bauzá and Dizzy Gillespie, along with the Afro-Cuban percussionist Chano Pozo, played around with Afro-Cuban rhythm and jazz arrangements and created something entirely new: Afro-Cuban jazz.

[Machito--Sopa de pichon]

In the early 1940s, Mario Bauzá formed the legendary band Machito and his Afro-Cubans, along with his brother-in-law, Francisco Perez, who was called Machito. Bauzá was the musical director of the band, and he composed and arranged some of the group's most memorable songs.

[Machito--Sopa de pichon]

The sensation caused by Machito and his Afro-Cubans and by other Latin musicians in the 1940s made New York the focal point of a vibrant Latin music scene.

It's the scene of the Mambo kings you know, and that's why a lot of people will say Mambo is not Cuban music or it's not Mexican music. Mambo is New York music.

Enrique Fernandez writes about Latin music for the Village Voice.

It was here that this kind of music became very hot, that it really galvanized a lot of people, that had really attracted a lot of musicians from different genres that wanted to jam with it, and that created those great encounters between Latin music practitioners and jazz practitioners, particularly Black American jazz practitioners, that brought all this stuff together that later on, generated salsa and it generated Latin jazz and a lot of other things.

[Machito--Si si no no]

Groups like Machito and his Afro-Cubans were responsible for sparking a Latin dance craze in the United States, from New York to Hollywood. Mario Bauzá's sister-in-law, Graciela Pérez, began singing with Bauzá's orchestra in 1943.

Pero jurate que la música de esta…[transition to English dub] The music made by Machito's orchestra created such a revolution that you could say people began to enjoy because dance schools sprang up to teach the mamba and the guaguanco and all that [transition back to original audio]…el guaguanco todo todo.

Graciela and Mario left Machito's band in 1976 to form their own group, Mario Bauzá and his Afro-Cuban jazz Orchestra. Achieving recognition came slowly for the new band as general audiences lost interest in the traditional Afro-Cuban jazz sounds.

But in the late 1980s, Bauzá's music experienced a resurgence in popularity. His orchestra played to packed houses in the United States, Canada, and Europe. And in the last two years, Bauzá still active and passionate about his music, recorded three albums worth of material.

Meringue, meringue from San Domingo. Cumbia's cumbia from Colombia. Afro-Cuban is Cuban. That's why I've got to keep a bunch of these Afro-Cuban rhythms. Danzón Cubano, la danza Cubano, el bolero Cubano, el cha-cha-cha Cubano, el mambo es Cubano, guaguanco Cubano, la Colombia es Cubana.So I've got to call it Afro-Cuban, yeah.

In a 1991 interview, I spoke with Mario Bauzá about his extraordinary musical output.

You've brought out these great musicians, you've helped create or created Afro-Cuban jazz, brought Latin music and Latins to Broadway.

That's it.

And you're 80 years old.

Yes.

Many people at 80 years old are sitting by the pool or in the rocking chair and whatever. You don't look like it.

You know me. It ain't going to be like that.

What else could you do at this point, what more?

I don't know. I ain't through, I ain't through. I just wanted my music to be elevated. That's why I want to record this suite now. I want to see the word, music is music. You tell me what kind of music. I like any kind of music that we're playing. And that's what I tried to do, present my music different way. Some people might don't like this, don't like that, but when they hear that, they have a right to choose for. That's what I want them to do.

[Mario Bauza--Carnegie Hall 100]

Mario Bauzá worked steadily until his death. He recently released a compact disc on the German record label Messidor called My Time is Now.

For "Latino USA," I'm Emilio San Pedro.

[Mario Bauza--Carnegie Hall 100]

They are viewed as nomads. They're viewed as people who are here to today and gone tomorrow, so it's much easier to focus FEMA funds, for example, on the severe loss that a farmer with 600 acres and millions of dollars worth of crops standing underwater. You can actually see the damage.

Bobbi Ryder is the director of the National Migrant Resource Center in Austin, Texas. The floods have left hundreds of farm workers without work in several Midwestern states. You're listening to Latino USA.

A bill now before Congress would create a commission to tackle health problems along the US-Mexico border. From Washington, Patricia Guadalupe reports.

In some counties along the border, diseases such as tuberculosis and hepatitis and even cholera, occur at rates far higher than other US communities. Congress members representing border states have proposed a commission to tackle the special health needs along the 2000-mile stretch between the US and Mexico. Legislation recently introduced would establish the US-Mexico Border Health Commission to address those concerns. Democratic representative Ron Coleman of El Paso, chairs the Congressional Border Caucus, he is proposing the legislation.

I wanted to create a health commission to coordinate and direct an all-out effort to reduce the rates of illness in the border region. Those, as I say, are oftentimes caused by poor environmental conditions, and they need to be addressed.

Coleman says that part of the problem is just plain ignorance about the border.

I would point out that in Des Moines, Iowa, we have already passed several billion dollars worth of assistance. I wonder why? Because we have been directed by FEMA to know exactly where to spend the funds in the best way possible. The president himself visited that region and yet, along the US Mexico border, we have exactly the same problem of not having clean drinking water, and there are 350,000 Americans without clean water or sewage facilities along the US-Mexico border. And yet, why isn't there a crisis there?

The proposed commission would be made up of public health officials, physicians, and other professionals from both United States and Mexico. Representative Coleman is asking Congress for close to $1 million to set up the Border Health Commission. The legislation moves onto the foreign affairs and energy and commerce committees, but no action is expected before the summer recess. For Latino USA, I'm Patricia Guadalupe in Washington.

This program is called Latino USA, but would a program by any other name, Hispanic, for instance, sound as sweet?

I consider myself a Hispanic. I don't like the term Latino.

When you say Latino, you get, I think, a warmer sense of who our people are; just a greater sense, a more comprehensive sense of culture.

What I call myself, I'm Chicano, seventh generation in this country.

I'm Puerto Rican. That's it, period.

I'm Cuban-Argentine, I'm Caribbean, and I'm South American.

And now we have this new thing, non-white Hispanics, non -- I mean, it's crazy.

I speak Spanish, but I'm not Spanish. I speak English. I'm not English, I'm Latina, I'm Hispanic, I'm Puerto Rican. I'm all of those things, just don't call me Spic.

I hate the categorizations. I really don't like them because I think that they pigeonhole us into a certain niche and we can't escape it.

It's not the most important issue facing Latinos or Hispanics or Cuban Americans, Puerto Ricans or Mexican Americans. But the questions, what do we call ourselves, and why this label rather than the other, surfaces so regularly that it's almost an inside joke among Latinos or Hispanics or whatever. It's also one of the questions studied by a group of political scientists who conducted a study of political behavior called the Latino Political Survey.

The evidence that I see from the Latino National Political Survey and every other survey that I've seen that asks people to self-identify, demonstrates, I think conclusively that most people who we might choose to identify as Latino do not choose that as their first term of identification, who identify as Puerto Rican, as Mexican, as Mexican-American, as Cuban, as Cuban-American, and many other ways.

The term Latino is just a useful term in terms of describing the fact that there are all these different groups. The question is what does it mean politically? That's the significance of the term. Now, I guess the point is, if you put it all together, is that this is a very fluid kind of situation and it's something that changes over time in the sense that it depends on what kind of movement and context you have and what the leadership's saying, and it depends also on whether you have any kind of real social movement in place that does something with these kinds of symbols.

And right now, what we were falling into is mostly Hispanic being used by kind of a middle class of professionals by default because the term was either being used by the media or, I know in the Puerto Rican case, there were many Puerto Ricans that were using a term like Hispanic professionals because being Puerto Rican identified you as someone on welfare, that kind of thing. So it was a more acceptable kind of term, and those are kind of different political reasons that many of us would advance for using these types of terms.

Well, when I think of the term Latino, it brings to mind the diversity that exists within the Latino communities. It also brings to mind the fact that individual Latinos are not unidimensional, but they're multidimensional. I consider myself a Chicano, a Mexicano, a Mexican American, a Latino, a Hispanic, all depending on where I find myself, who I find myself with.

One of the other things I think about is there is a lot of out-group marriage that is occurring within the Latino community, and not necessarily to Anglos or African-Americans, but to other Latinos. I have two cousins who are Mexican American who married to non-Mexican American Latinos. What are their children? They're half Guatemalan, half Mexican? Are they going to go around saying, well, I'm half Guatemalan, I'm half Mexican? No, they go around saying, I'm Latino. When you're walking down the street in Los Angeles and an Anglo comes to you, he doesn't say, oh, excuse me, are you Mexican? Or Salvadorian? Or Nicaraguan? They see a brown face and they say, you are Mexican. So what's happening, while we have individual past histories as a Cuban, as a Puerto Rican, as a Central American, as a Mexican, our destinies are tied together as Latinos.

Over 60% of this country's Latinos, Hispanics, or... or whatever, are of Mexican descent. And as we hear in this audio essay, in their case, the issue of labels and identity takes on a whole other dimension.

[Chicano--Rumel Fuentes and Los Pinguinos del Norte]

When I was younger, we had to be Chicana/Chicano movement.

Hispanic is such a new term that it started off as nobody knew what it meant and now they know what it means and they like it.

Well, I really don't know why they call it Hispanic because we weren't Hispanics until recently.

Mexican American is fine. Chicana is fine.

The word Hispanic, I don't like. I'd rather use the word Indo-Hispanic.

I believe Hispanic is for the people from Spain.

Something for sure. We'd rather be called Hispanics than Chicana.

And the older generation thought that this was a derogatory term.

Actually Chicana, it's a slang word. It used to be a slang word for Mexicana.

I don't know why the Mexican American keeps changing names.

[Chicano--Rumel Fuentes and Los Pinguinos del Norte]

I am not Hispano. I'm not Latin American. I am not American or Spanish surname. I am not Mexican American. I am not any of those terms, those vulgar terms that come from Washington and the bureaucrats and the functionaries, and when they try to make sense of us and they make no sense of us. I do not label myself. I'm a Chicano.

Chicano has a lot of negative definitions. Chicano, I've been told it came from Mexico when they put the Chinese in Mexico in one certain area in Durango. So they called them Chinganos. They tell me Chicano means peon, the lowest class Mexican that there is. They tell me Chicano is a militant activist from the 60s that was a true radical on the extremist side. Also, I don't like people keeping themselves at one level when anybody can advance and should not be put into a class and kept there.

So when you have to fill out a form, what do you call yourself?

I call myself Caucasian. [Laughter]

You see, I'm not into that sort of thing really because I decided that I'm no longer a Latino. No, I'm a Hispanic, I'm a Hispanic dammit, and there is a difference. You see, when I was a Latino, my name was Ricardo Salinas, but now that I'm Hispanic, it's Brigardu Salinas.

I don't see that we have an identity crisis anymore. I think that we've overcome and passed that a long time ago. We know who we are and we're proud of it.

The more time that we spend on trying to identify ourselves, I think the more time it takes away from trying to do something about bettering our lives.

And hopefully then in the future we won't have to be concerned about what we want to call ourselves.

[unintelligible] Don’t you panic, it’s the decade of the Hispanic! [unintelligible] Don’t you panic, it’s the decade of the Hispanic!

Syndicated columnist, Roger Hernandez of New Jersey has his own views on the issue of labels. Today, Hernandez tells us why he thinks we should call ourselves Hispanic rather than Latino, and why sometimes we should reject both labels.

Over the course of history, every Spanish-speaking country developed its own idiosyncrasies, its own cultural sense of self. Argentina, for instance, is largely made up of European immigrants. Neighboring Paraguay is so influenced by pre-Colombian cultures that the official languages are Spanish and Guarani, and the Dominican Republic has roots buried deeply in the soil of Africa. We're all different, so it's more precise to say Merengue is specifically Dominican music and that Cinco de Mayo is a Mexican holiday, not Hispanic, not Latino, too generic. The point is that the all-inclusive word, whether Hispanic or Latino, is often misused. Used, in other words, to cover over ignorance about who we are and how we differ from each other. But there is something else just as important. Our diversity does not erase the reality that we all do have something in common, no matter our nationality or the color of our skin or our social class.

And to talk about what we have in common, there is only one starting point; that which is Spanish, as in Spain. Language tops the list. Spanish is a common bond. Then there is culture. Why does an old church in the Peruvian Altiplano look so much like a mission church in California? You can find the answer in Andalusia. And why does a child in Santiago de Cuba know the same nursery rhymes as a child in Santiago, Chile? Listen to a child sing in Santa De Compostela, Spain and you'll hear Mambrú se fue a la guerra and arroz con leche.

Yet the word Spanish does not describe us. It is too closely tied to Spain alone. Latin and Latino lack precision. After all, the Italians and the French are Latin too. Hispanic derives from Spanish, but it's not quite the same. It suggests what we have in common without over-emphasizing it, so it leaves room for our diversity. And no, the word was not invented by the US census. The word Hispano has long existed in the Spanish language, and its English translation is Hispanic. What we all share and what no one else in the world has is being Hispanic. For Latino USA, I'm Roger Hernandez.

Commentator Roger Hernandez writes a syndicated column for the King Features Syndicate. It appears in 34 newspapers nationwide.

As representatives from the US, Canada, and Mexico prepare to enter into the final round of negotiations regarding the final form of the North American Free Trade Agreement, in San Antonio, Texas, bankers from both countries met recently to discuss infrastructure needs along the 2000-mile stretch between the United States and Mexico. Latino USA's Maria Martin prepared this report.

There is always a lot of talk about what we're going to do and when we're going to do it, what the border does need and what the border does not need.

Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and his Mexican counterpart, Mexico Secretary of Social Development Luis Colosio, touted as a strong possibility to succeed President Salinas, convened the gathering of government officials and some 400 business executives. Represented were some of the largest corporations in the US and Mexico. They came to make deals and to discuss ways to bring badly-needed infrastructure to the border area. A region which, in the last 10 years has seen a dramatic increase in population along with rising environmental pollution and deteriorating roads, bridges and sewer and water systems.

It's a development problem is what it really is. We are dealing with a border that is unique in the world, that is a linkage between the most developed country in the world and relatively poor country of which gap you'll find nowhere else. In Europe, the largest gaps are about a four to one difference. In US/Mexico it's a 10 to 1 difference.

UCLA economist, Raul Hinojosa, says the current discussion regarding financing for border infrastructure in anticipation of NAFTA presents a major challenge, since neither the government of Mexico nor this country will be able to afford the steep price tag of cleaning up and building up the border.

The real issue is how do we get the economies of North America such that there's rising living standards and environmental standards on both sides of the border? That is a concrete problem that is not going to be solved by simply reducing tariffs. That's going to have to mobilize both government and the capitalists of the private sector to get involved jointly in solving the environmental problems and solving the infrastructure and social infrastructure, physical infrastructure, housing, all of these very serious problems

As a way of dealing with those problems, the coalition of Latino organizations calling itself the Latino Consensus on NAFTA has come up with a proposal to establish a North American development bank. According to its proponents, including the National Council of La Raza and the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the so-called NAD Bank would be able to fund 20 billion dollars of infrastructure with 1 billion of startup investment. Antonio Gonzalez of the Southwest Voter Research Institute in Los Angeles was at the finance conference advocating for the development bank proposal.

This was the only viable proposal put on the table. People heard it. People saw it. The media grabbed onto it, and I think very soon the administration may indeed embrace the development bank as the kind of third pillar of his NAFTA package. First pillar being NAFTA. Second pillar being the supplementary negotiations on labor and environmental. Third pillar being the development bank or financing mechanism, and the still missing element would be the new package of current US laws to retrain and support displaced workers.

Legislation to establish a North American Development Bank has been introduced in Congress by California representative Esteban Torres. But others say the development bank may not be the best way to finance border infrastructure, that perhaps existing institutions such as the Inter-American Bank could do the job. Still another idea is to establish a border transaction fee. Economist Hinojosa, a proponent of the development bank believes this solution is not viable considering the present economic reality along the border.

These are already poor communities right now, and you're going to be taxing the trade that you're going to try to enhance, in fact, for the benefits on both sides of the border.

The next few weeks will be key for the future of the North American Free Trade Agreement. As negotiations on the treaty and supplementary agreements on labor standards and the environment continue, and as proponents and opponents of the treaty gear up for the final vote in Congress. Meanwhile, polls show many Americans haven't even heard of NAFTA and in the Latino community there's been a steady erosion in support for the treaty as concern has grown about the possibility of job losses to Mexico. Latino organizations lobbying for NAFTA have their work cut out for them. Andy Hernandez of San Antonio Southwest Voter Research Institute spent the day following the finance conference in San Antonio, planning a strategy to advocate for the Latino consensus position on NAFTA.

So, I think the way we answer is this; you don't solve the job flight problem by taking down NAFTA. You can build a NAFTA with the side agreements to protect workers' rights on both sides of the border. And frankly, what the opponents of NAFTA have not been able to answer to us and where Chicano labor is not [unintelligible]. How do things get better if NAFTA's defeated? Are we going to have fewer jobs leaving or are we going to have more political will to clean up the environment? Are we going to have any focus at all upon our populations along the border?

If NAFTA becomes the reality, it would create the world's largest free-trade zone, removing virtually all barriers to trade and investment throughout North America. From the Yukon to the Yucatan, I'm Maria Martin reporting.

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.

The musical style known as La Nueva Canción, the new song movement, was beginning in the mid sixties and for 20 years, the signature sound of Latin American music. Founded by singers Violeta Parra and Víctor Jara of Chile and Atahualpa Yupanqui in Argentina. La Nueva Canción sought to create an awareness of Latin America's Indigenous musical heritage while addressing the region's political situation. Today, as younger generations identify more with the Rock in español, or Rock in Spanish movement, La Nueva Canción has lost some of its popularity. But a group of Latin American musicians living in Madison Wisconsin, believes strongly that La Nueva Canción is still alive and well. Even as they strive for a new sound fusing musical styles. Betto Arcos prepared this profile of the musical group called Sotavento.

[Transition Music]

Founded in 1981 by a group of Latin Americans living in Madison, Wisconsin. Sotavento's early recordings focused on the legacy of the Nueva canción movement. Traditional music primarily from South American regions played on over 30 instruments, but as the group grew musically and new members replaced the old ones, their approach to music making also changed.

[Un Siete--Sotavento]

For percussionist. Orlando Cabrera, a native of Puerto Rico, the band search for a new sound helps each member bring his or her own musical background.

We get together and someone starts playing a rhythm based on some traditional music, let's say from Mexico, from Peru. This person might ask, why do you play something there? Some percussion, for example, and at least in my case, my first approach will be to play what I grew up with. The things I feel more comfortable with. So if it fits and it sounds good, then we'll just go ahead and do something.

We are a hybrid. I mean we're all kind of different flowers that are being sort of sewn together and planted together, and what comes out is a very, very different kind of flower.

[Flute music] The hybrid group always searching for its own sound is how founding member Anne Fraioli defines the music of Sotavento and in their last recording, mostly original compositions. Sotavento takes Latin American music one step ahead by blending instruments and styles to form a new one.

[Amacord--Sotavento]

Sotavento's approach to composing and playing music is the group's artistic response to a top 40 music industry that overlooks creativity and experimentation. For Francisco López, a native of Mexico, this commercial environment and the group's principles of Nueva Canción have a lot to do with Sotavento's search for a new sound.

Nueva Canción has always been alive and always been alive because there's always somebody out there that is trying to produce new stuff, and that's what Nueva Canción is all about. Somebody that is uncomfortable with situations. Say for example, the commercialization of music.

According to lead vocalist, Laura Fuentes. The fact that the group's music may be heard on a light jazz or new age radio station proves that Sotavento's music is what is happening right now and that it is not completely folkloric or passe.

[Esto Es Sencillo--Sotavento]

However, Laura Fuentes believes that Sotavento's music is not specifically designed to sell. Sharing what they feel as artists is hard.

But it's worth it. I can't see us putting on shiny clothes and high heels trying to sell somebody something that we are not, something that people seem to be more willing to buy. I'd rather challenge people to hear the beauty in something different, something new.

[El Destajo--Sotavento]

For Fuentes, a native of Chile, Sotavento is also a way of establishing a connection between an artistic musical expression and its historical background.

[El Destajo--Sotavento]

An example of this connection is a Afro Peruvian style, known as Festejo, a musical style created by a small black community in Peru as a result of the living conditions they experienced during slavery.

[El Destajo--Sotavento]

In keeping with the tradition of the new song movement, Sotavento arranged music for a poem by Cuba's Poet Laureate, Nicolás Guillén. The poem called, Guitarra is for Sotavento's and Farioli a symbol of the voice of the people.

[Guitarra--Sotavento]

Wherever people are, there's going to be a voice, and I think my guitarra represents that voice, that's music, and I think it's also saying that people have to hold on to their roots. They have to hold on to their musical traditions, because it's those traditions that are really going to allow them to express who they really are, where they really come from.

[Guitarra--Sotavento]

This summer Sotavento will perform in Milwaukee and Madison, and in the fall there will begin a tour of Spain. The recording called El Siete was released on Redwood records. For Latino USA, this is Betto Arcos, Colorado.

This is news from Latino USA. I'm Maria Martin. The struggle over the North American free trade agreement continues to intensify. Even as treaty negotiations draw to a close, supporters and opponents of NAFTA heat up the lobbying effort for votes in Congress. Among vocal opponents of NAFTA coming to Capitol Hill recently were members of Mexico's opposition Democratic Revolutionary Party. From Washington, Patricia Guadalupe reports.

While Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari has staked his political reputation on passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, Congressman Miguel Huerta of Mexico's Democratic Revolutionary Party said he had to come to Washington to tell his counterparts here that the North American Free Trade Agreement would hurt citizens of both countries.

It's not the problem that because we are opposed to Salinas, we are opposed to NAFTA. It's not... that's not the argument. We are opposed to some fundamental chapters of this NAFTA because it's bad for the citizen of the two countries. We are opposed to NAFTA because some chapters and some principles establishing the NAFTA are opposed to the interest of citizens of Mexico, of United States, and of Canada.

Since then, six Democratic senators have sent a letter to President Clinton, urging him to renegotiate the free-trade agreement. For Latino USA, I'm Patricia Guadalupe, in Washington.

US Senator Barbara Boxer of California is defending her controversial proposal to have the National Guard patrol the US-Mexico border. Boxer says her suggestion is meant to limit the backlash against legal immigration by using the troops to deter undocumented immigrants. Boxer's suggestion is being heavily criticized by many Hispanic officials in California, and another immigration-related proposal came under fire in Washington.

It's not going to accomplish anything in keeping people from crossing the border. It'll simply prevent them from wanting to come over to buy American goods.

That's California Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard reacting to Senator Diane Feinstein's proposal to charge a fee for crossing the border as a way to pay for more border patrol agents. At a hearing in Congress, some experts warn such a fee might cause even longer delays at the border and perhaps difficulties with the governments of Mexico and Canada. Larry Francis is the mayor of El Paso, Texas.

Any kind of fee will cause Mexican nationals to cross the Rio Grande illegally, worsening our problem. Over a broader view, any attempt to reduce the flow of people will have an economic impact on both countries.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service also expressed concerns about the border-crossing fee.

One of the featured musicians on Gloria Estefan's recent recording of traditional Cuban music, "Mi Tierra", is Israel Lopez. Also known as Cachao, Lopez now in his seventies, is just beginning to gain recognition for creating many of the familiar rhythms associated with styles like the mambo and el cha-cha-cha. From Miami, Emilio San Pedro prepared this musical profile.

[Transition--Cuban Music]

(Background music) In his younger days, Israel Lopez was known for his interpretation of traditional Cuban musical styles, like el son and danzón. Lopez comes from one of Cuba's oldest musical families and got his nickname, Cachao, from his grandfather, a one-time director of Havana's municipal band. Cachao recalls how after a while he and his brother, Orestes, became bored with playing the same old traditional danzónes, and created a new dance music called the mambo.

[Descarga Mambo--Israel “Cachao” Lopez]

Entonces en el año 37 entre mi Hermano y yo nos… [transition to English dub] In 1937, between my brother and I, we took care of this mambo business. We gave our traditional music, our danzón, a 180-degree turn. What we did was modernize it… [transition back to original audio] …lo que hicimos fue modernizarlo.

In the late 1950s, Cachao got a group of Cuba's top musical artists together for a set of 4:00 AM recording sessions that started after the musicians got off work at Havana's hotels and nightclubs. The group included Cachao's brother, Orestes, El Negro Vivar, Guillermo Barreto, and Alfredo León of Cuba's legendary Septeto Nacional. Cachao says he called those jam sessions descargas, literally discharges, because of the uninhibited atmosphere that surrounded those recordings.

En la descarga se presa uno libremente, cuando uno esta leyendo música no es los mismo… [transition to English dub] In the descarga you express yourself freely. When you are reading music it's just not the same. You are reading the music and so your heart can't really feel it. That's why that rhythm is so strong and everyone likes it so much… [transition to original audio] Fuerte! Y muy bien, todo el mundo encantado.

[Descarga Mambo--Israel “Cachao” Lopez]

Cachao left Cuba in 1962, but his association with the descarga, el mambo, and el danzón kept him busy in this country playing everything from small parties and weddings to concerts with top musicians like Mongo Santamaria, and Tito Puente. For young Cubans growing up in the United States, the music of Cachao and other artists has served as a link to their cultural roots.

His music has inspired me over the years and has brought solace to me and many times and has been a companion for me. Anybody who knows me will know that I carry tapes of Cachao with me in my pocket.

Actor Andy Garcia is one of those young Cubans on whom Cachao's music made a lasting impact. Garcia recently directed a documentary on the musician's life titled "Cachao...Como Su Ritmo No Hay Dos." "Like His Rhythm, There's No Other."

Cachao has been, in a sense, overlooked for his contributions musically to the world of music, world internationally. Musicians know of him and anyone say, "Oh, he's the master," but in terms of the general public, he's been really ignored. So it's important to document something, so somehow that would help bring attention to his contributions to music.

The documentary mixes concert footage with the conversation with Cachao. The concert took place last September in Miami, bringing together young and older interpreters of Cuban and Latin music in a tribute to Cachao and his descarga.

Very modest, extremely modest man. Quiet, shy.

One of the musicians who played with Cachao in that concert is violinist Alfredo Triff. He says, "The 74 year old maestro has lessons to teach young musicians that go beyond music."

He's such a modest person that in fact, I realized that he was the creator of this thing, this mambo thing. And I'll tell you what, not only me, I remember Paquito once in Brooklyn, we were playing, or in the Bronx, we were playing the Lehman College. And Paquito comes to the room and he says, Alfredo, you know that mambos, Cachao invented this thing.

Andy Garcia's documentary, "Como Su Ritmo No Hay Dos", is bringing Cachao some long-delayed recognition. And these days, Cachao is quite busy promoting the film, working on a new album, and collaborating with Gloria Estefan on her latest effort, "Mi Tierra", "My Homeland," a tribute to the popular Cuban music of the 1930s and '40s.

[No Hay Mal Que Por Bien No Venga--Gloria Estefan]

The album "Mi Tierra" has become an international hit in the few weeks since its release. The documentary, "Cachao, Como Su Ritmo No Hay Dos", has been shown at the Miami and San Francisco film festivals. Cachao also plans to go into the recording studio later this year to put together an album of danzónes.

Es baile de verdad Cubano, y se ha ido olvidado… [transition to English dub] It's the traditional Cuban dance, and it's being forgotten. Here you almost never hear a danzón. I wish the Cubans would realize that this is like the mariachi. The Mexican never forgets his mariachi. Wherever it may be, whatever star may be performing, the mariachi is there. It's a national patrimony, as the danzón should be for us and we should preserve it... [transition to original audio] …danzón…y debemos preservarlo también.

Cachao strongly believes in preserving Afro-Cuban culture and its musical traditions. He hopes to keep those traditions alive with his music. For Latino USA, I'm Emilio San Pedro.

[No Hay Mal Que Por Bien No Venga--Gloria Estefan]

A revival of traditional Mexican mariachi music is taking place across this country and many Latino youth are participating. Marcos Martinez of Radio Station, KUNM prepared this report on the Mariachi celebration held recently in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Now in its fourth year.

[Mariachi Music]

Albuquerque's Mariachi Spectacular brings together groups from throughout the southwest who bring their instruments and their devotion to the music for four days of workshops and concerts. On a Saturday afternoon, some eight mariachi groups alternate between six different stages along Main street of the New Mexico State fairgrounds. This is called Plaza Garibaldi modeled after the original Plaza Garibaldi in Mexico City where Mariachis gathered to play and find work. This year, about half the groups at Plaza Garibaldi are high school students. 17 year old Nick Watson plays with Mariachi Oro Del Sol from El Paso, Texas. He says Mariachi music is complex and fun to play

Well because it's challenging. It has more than three chords. It's basically what I think rock and roll is. And not that I'm knocking, I like rock and roll, but it's challenging. It's more challenging to play, you know, learn a lot more from it.

[Mariachi Music]

With this music, you can express your feelings more.

How?

Um, with the songs, the words and stuff, they're very powerful words.

Jennifer Luna is the leader of Mariachi Oro del Sol and shares Watson's enthusiasm. She says in her part of Texas, young people are very drawn to this style of music.

A lot of young people play in El Paso. That's mostly what there is there. The groups are younger kids. Cause over there it's in the schools they teach it to you, so it's pretty common over there.

The word mariachi comes from the French word for marriage. According to history, French people who came to Mexico in the 1800s became interested in the Mexican string bands of the time and invited them to play at French weddings. Today, mariachis typically include guitar, violin, trumpet, and the vihuela, which is a small guitar, and the guitarrón, which is a very large guitar. While they carry on traditions, youth mariachi groups like Oro Del Sol are also different from the older generation of mariachis in that they tend to be more gender balanced. Nick Watson says his mariachi group is all the better for including young women musicians.

They're good. We just picked who’s good and they're good. So we take them, it doesn't matter. Sex has nothing to do with it. If you're good, you're good, you play.

[Mariachi Music]

There's no doubt that among the young people attending this year's Mariachi Spectacular is some great future talent. Alex De Leon is a vocalist for the Mariachi Azul y Blanco from Adamson High School in Dallas. This 17 year old has already received high praise for his vocal talents.

[Mariachi Music]

People keep giving me comments, I'm good and stuff. So now I want to get better.

Young Mariachis, like De Leon have a chance to learn from more experienced mentors like Al Sandoval, who teaches music in the Albuquerque public schools and is director of Mariachi Romántico. Sandoval says, attendance at the Mariachi Spectacular workshops has tripled since last year. Sandoval says because of its expressiveness, mariachi music is a big part of Southwest Hispanic culture.

It's the most addicting music of all. I mean Southwest, it's the most addicting music. It grows on you and once it's in your blood, you'll never get it out. It's worse than the worst habit you can ever have because I mean, you grow to love it and you can never get away from it.

[Mariachi Music]

Everything about Mariachis hearkens back to Old Mexico from the ornate charro outfits and broad brimmed hats to the instruments and the old songs. But on the final night of the Mariachi Spectacular, as the teenage musicians joined the world's most famous mariachi groups on stage for a grand finale, the tradition seemed certain to continue for a long time to come. For Latino USA, I'm Marcos Martinez in Albuquerque.

A drama has been unfolding for more than two weeks now in the border town of Laredo, Texas. On July 29th, a group known as Pastors for Peace defied the US trade embargo against Cuba by taking dozens of vehicles carrying food, clothing, medicines, and other aid to Cuba across the US border. But one of those vehicles, a yellow school bus, was stopped by the customs service. Today that bus sits in a federal compound in Laredo. It's occupants refusing to leave the bus and now starting their third week of a hunger strike. From Laredo, Latino USA's Maria Martin reports.

I see a whole bunch of semis waiting in line to go to Mexico, and in the middle of all that mess, there's this little school bus and I feel sorry.

Retired Laredo social worker, Manuel Ramirez sits on a sidewalk near the border wearing binoculars. He's trying to get a better glimpse of the scene across the street, there off to the side of the Lincoln Juarez Bridge. in an enclosed lot where semi-trucks wait to be inspected by the custom service sits a yellow school bus with a sign which reads ‘End The Embargo Against Cuba’. Inside the bus, 12 people ages 22 to 86 wait out the blazing hot August days. They've refused to leave the vehicle and to take any solid food, since the bus was seized by the customs service on July 29th. Among them is Pastors for Peace leader, the Reverend Lucius Walker of Brooklyn.

We see a nation that is threatened, a nation that is not our enemy, with which we are not at war. We were asked by the churches in Cuba to take this mission on and having responded affirmatively to their request, we have come to see for ourselves the importance of what we are doing.

What the Reverend Walker and Pastors for Peace hope to accomplish by their hunger strike and their attempt to take aid materials to Cuba is to call into question this country's 32-year old prohibition against trade and travel to that island. Pamela Previt of the Customs Service says her agency tried to help the aid caravan get through the border smoothly, but that this bus clearly violated US Law.

Customs detained 29 boxes of prescription medication, four computers, and five electric typewriters, which are prohibited items according to the embargo. The group specifically claimed that it was the vehicle itself that was to be exported. And because of that customs seized the bus.

The Reverend Walker says he was actually surprised when the bus he was driving was seized. Even though the group stated they were making the trip to challenge the embargo against Cuba.

They simply were not able to stop it because this was a human wave and a vehicular wave of people who were determined that this is a law that can no longer be enforced.

The law Walker refers to is the Trading with the Enemy Act enforced by the Treasury Department. So far that government agency has not responded to a proposal from the Pastors for Peace to allow someone from the World Council of Churches to escort the yellow school bus to Havana. On the 10th day of the hunger strike, there was a rally, in Laredo to support the hunger strikers and an end to the embargo against Cuba. A microphone was passed across the fence and the strikers told the crowd they were prepared to stay indefinitely.

We are all determined to stay on the school bus until the school bus goes to Cuba.

Cuba is not perfect, the government's not perfect, but it's way better than what they have in Latin America. And I realize that…

That among the 12 people on hunger strike is 32 year old Camilo Garcia who left Cuba four years ago.

And I decided that I will do everything I can to help the revolution to survive, and I will stay in here as long as it take no matter what it take, even if it take my life. So what?

The 100 degree heat, the exhaust fumes and the liquid only fast are taking their toll on the health of the hunger strikers. Doctors brought in by the Customs Service and by Pastors for Peace are monitoring the group's health condition regularly. For Latino USA, I'm Maria Martin reporting.

This is Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture.

[Opening Theme]

I'm Maria Hinojosa. Today on Latino USA, the race is on for approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

If you are a Chicano entrepreneur in the border states, you're likely to do very well by NAFTA. If you are an industrial worker in the Northeast or in the Midwest, your company might find it advantageous to move your job to Mexico.

From East LA, an Elvis for El Pueblo. El Vez, the Mexican Elvis.

One of my favorites is [singing] ‘you ain’t nothing but a chihuahua, yappin’ all the time’. We start the show with the lighter easy songs, the familiar ones and then we hit them with the one-two punch.

That's all coming up on Latino USA, but first las noticias.

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.

With us to discuss the implications of the agreement and the future of NAFTA are three reporters who have been keeping their eyes and their ears on free trade. Richard Gonzalez of National Public Radio, Jose Carreño of the Mexican daily El Universal, and Latino USA's, Washington correspondent Patricia Guadalupe, who's also a reporter for the Hispanic Link News Service. Bienvenidos to all of you. Let's look at to what was actually agreed to in this final round. What about the side agreements and what protections do they offer for labor and the environment on all sides of the border? Richard?

I think what they offer is basically a very complicated, long, convoluted process by which a government entity, a private company, a public agency or an individual might file a complaint saying that one country is not enforcing its own labor and environmental laws. It does nothing about addressing the inadequacy of any laws, but just talks about enforcing laws that are now in the books. And so it sets up this process, if one believes that the process can work, then one thinks that these side agreements are good. If you don't think the process is going to work, then you don't think that the side agreements are any good.

Jose Carreño, from the Mexican perspective will this be good? Will this work or are these more faults in the treaty?

God, that is a great question because it is a completely untried territory, this kind of agreements that has never been done before. So as Richard say, if you believe in those, you think that they will, you hope that they will work. If you do not believe in them, you think that they won't work, but it's completely unchartered territory. There is nothing like this as far I know anywhere else.

Well, the conventional wisdom has it that US based Latinos have a lot to gain from this treaty. Is that still the case with the final version of NAFTA? Are Latinos in this country going to benefit more or less?

I think it depends on who you speak to. I mean, the Latino Consensus, a group of Latinos who want further participation in NAFTA want a treaty, but some of the final details, they don't agree with us. For instance, the financing of a development bank. They agree with the idea, but they don't like the final outcome.

I think that's a very hard question because you really don't know how much it'll benefit the population in general or not, or how much will it harm it. The truth though is that at this point there is this sort of political haggling going around and, "Okay, if you want my support, you will have to give me something."

If the question is, will Latinos in the US say benefit from NAFTA? The answer depends on who you are, where you live, and what you do. If you are a Chicano entrepreneur in the border states, you're likely to do very well by NAFTA. If you are an industrial worker in the Northeast or in the Midwest, you're probably in a situation where your company might find it advantageous to move your job to Mexico, in which case you become a loser. And because of these various circumstances, you see that the Congressional Hispanic Caucus here in Washington up on Capitol Hill is very divided on NAFTA. As one caucus member said to me, "Whenever you bring up NAFTA, you really have to watch your table manners," because people have very strong opinions pro and against inside the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

What kind of a timeline are we looking at and will it be passed or will it not be passed by Congress?

Well, if you had the vote right now, no. Absolutely not. And then there's also the discussions of what healthcare reform and all the other issues that are going up on Capitol Hill. Then the average person here wants that before the treaty. I mean, I don't think the average person has been following NAFTA as much as the press and business people are.

Look, up to now I might say, I think that has been basically inside the beltway issue.

Absolutely.

The population in general has heard only slogans both in favor or against and has sort of decided its position in base of slogans, but the population hasn't heard hard facts, not as well. The Congress itself is, I could bet that most of some of the people who are in favor and some of the people who are against doesn't even have an idea of what they're talking about.

I think what we're seeing is that we'll find the administration will be ready to send this up to the hill sometime in early October after they've sent the healthcare package up to Congress and we won't have a vote until November, maybe even as late as December. So once they send it up to The Hill in October, there's 90 days in which Congress has to act and they're really pushing to get this done by January 1st. Whether it will pass, like Patricia said, today it would not pass. But the vote is not going to be held today. It's going to be held after two or three months of a very nasty, ugly debate. And so I don't think you can place of bet either way.

Well, thank you very much, muchas gracias, for joining us on Latino USA's Reporters Roundtable. Richard Gonzalez of National Public Radio, Jose Carreño of the Mexican daily El Universal, and Latino USA's Washington correspondent Patricia Guadalupe. Muchas gracias.

[Highlight--Music--El Vez] You're pretty el vez, stand in line, make love to you baby, till next time. Cuz I'm El Vez. I spell 'H' hombre, hombre...(Cover of I'm a Man--Bo Diddley)

16 years after the death of Elvis Presley. Elvis lives in many forms. For instance, the dozens of Elvis impersonators out there, the teen Elvis, the Black Elvis, the Jewish Elvis, flying Elvis's galore. Pues, what do you think of an Elvis con salsa, or the Elvis for Aztecs? With us on Latino USA is someone who's been called, not an Elvis impersonator, but an Elvis translator. He's Robert Lopez of East Los Angeles, also known as El Vez, the Mexican Elvis. So tell me about it, Robert Lopez. Why Elvis for the Latino community?

Well, I'll tell you, there are more than dozens. There's actually thousands of Elvis impersonators. There are more Elvis impersonators than people realize. Elvis impersonators in all United States and all over different countries. So, it's like we're our own minority.

[Está Bien Mamacita--El Vez]

I would say about 15% of Elvis's impersonators are Latino. You'd be surprised because all over California and all in Illinois, there are many other Latino Elvis impersonators. But I'm the first Mexican Elvis, I take my heritage and make it part of my show.

So when and how did el espíritu, the spirit, of Elvis possess you?

[Laughter] Well, I used to curate a art gallery in Los Angeles called La Luz de Jesus we were a folk art gallery. And I curated a show all on Elvis Presley. And I had always been an Elvis fan, but all this Elvis exposure just kind of made me go over the edge. And I had met some friends and they were saying, "Well, Robert, you should go to Memphis because every year they have this Elvis tribute," which is kind of like Dia de los Muertos for Elvis. It's like a big festival of swap meets, fan clubs, Elvis impersonators galore. And so I said, "Okay, I'm going to go." I had dared myself to go to Memphis and do the show. I would say, "Okay, I'll do El Vez, the Mexican Elvis." And I wrote the songs on ... Rewrote the songs on the plane, and my main idea was to play with the boombox in front of the people waiting in front of Graceland. But as luck would have it, I got on a Elvis impersonator show, and the showrunner was so big, by the time I got back in LA it was already in the LA Times. So, El Vez, the Mexican Elvis had been born.

[Transition--Music--El Vez]

Some people have called you a cross-cultural caped crusader singing for truth, justice and the Mexican-American way. So for you, it's more than just musical entertainment, you've got a message here in the music that you're bringing.

Yeah, well, first of all, I do love Elvis and I'm the biggest Elvis fan, and you can see that when you see the show. But it's like I do try to show the cross-culture. Elvis is the American dream or part of the American dream. I mean, there's many American dreams, but Elvis was part of the American dream. But I feel that American dream, poor man, start really with nothing to become the most famous, biggest entertainment tour of all the world is not just a job for a white man. It's for a Black man. It's for a Chinese man. It's for an immigrant. It's for a Mexican. It's for a woman. It can happen to anyone. And so rather than just say, "Okay, this is a white man's dream in a white United States," I change it and I show everyone they can make it fit to their story too.

[Singing] One two three four, I'm caught in a trap, do do do do. I can't walk out, because my foots caught in this border fence, do do do do do. Why can't you see, statue of liberty, I am your homeless, tired and weary...

[Immigration Time--El Vez]

What do you think Elvis would've thought of you singing and changing the words to the songs?

Oh, he would've enjoyed it very, he'd say, "El Vez, I like your show very much." He would like it.

Some of the songs that you've changed, I just want to go through some of the names because I think that they're so wonderful. I mean, instead of Blue Suede shoes, you have ...

Huaraches azul. Instead of That's Alright Mama, Esta Bien Mamacita. One of my favorites is [singing] ‘You ain’t nothing but a chihuahua, yapping all the time’. We start the show with the lighter easy songs, the familiar ones, and then we get them with the one-two punch and get them talking about political situations, sexual situations, and rock and roll situations.

[En el Barrio--El Vez] En el barrio, people dont you understand, this child needs a helping hand, or he's going to be an angry young man one day. Take a look at you and me-

Robert Lopez, also known as El Vez, is now negotiating with the producers of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air for a possible TV sitcom. He'll also be playing Las Vegas for the first time.

From Austin, Texas, I'm Maria Martin for Latino USA.