Book World; The Struggles South of the Border
A recent political cartoon in Mexico showed President Carlos Salinas de Gortari in his tuxedo at a New Year's Eve party, raising his glass of champagne with a big smile - while a bullet coming through a window is about to smash his goblet into a thousand pieces.</br></br>Indeed, almost everything that could go wrong has gone wrong for Salinas since the beginning of the year. A bloody Jan. 1 Zapatista guerrilla rebellion has shaken the country, unidentified gunmen have kidnapped two of Mexico's wealthiest businessmen, government-backed presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio and Tijuana police chief Jose Federico Benitez have been murdered, a wave of capital flight is straining the country's foreign reserves, and the stock market has taken a tumble.</br></br>Judith Adler Hellman's "Mexican Lives" was researched in 1991 and 1992, before the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the dramatic events that have rocked the country in recent months. Yet her in-depth interviews with 15 Mexicans from all walks of life provide a precious background that helps explain the political turmoil that would grab headlines shortly afterward.</br></br>Hellman, a professor of social and political science at York University in Toronto, tells us about the daily lives of peasants, street vendors, maids, leftist activists and business people. Most say that making a living has become harder since Mexico began its macroeconomic reforms, despite the international business community's enthusiasm about them.</br></br>We meet Adelita Sandoval, a former Tijuana factory worker who has found she can make a much better living cleaning houses in San Diego. She does that twice a week, crossing the border in her car - her nails freshly painted to make U.S. immigration inspectors believe that she is one of the thousands of middle-class Mexicans who go on one-day shopping trips to el otro lado.