Edgar Mendoza

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The Immigrant Narrative

A focus on the connection between East Salinas and the Tzirndaro Valley with a
personal approach

Nestled 1,200 miles away from the US-Mexico border, the Tzirndaro
Valley is located in the northern portion of the state of Michoacn. Michoacn
is located near the center of the country along the west coast. The name
Tzirndaro derives from the native P'urhpecha tongue and means swamp
land. The regions fertile land has paved the way for agriculture to become
the backbone of the local economy. Mostly rural, the countryside is dotted
with small towns and villages which center around the cities of Zamora and
Jiquilpan. This is where my native town of Chavinda is located and where
most of the research for this paper took place.
It was about 8:00pm local time and amidst a light drizzle we landed in
the Guadalajara airport. Like many times before I waited for our driver
outside customs and wandered how many people Chendo has driven to
town over the years. Nothing complements a four hour flight more than a
two hour drive across a hastily built highway and backroads of farming
towns. Chendo is an old family friend in his late fifties, he makes a living
shuttling people from town to town. We talk about the usual. Politics, sports,
our families, the town. Always the same responses, it seems as if the more
the area changes, the more it stays the same. It is with Chendo that I would

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do most of my research, driving from town to town and listening to a very

biased, but very honest, description of Tzirndaro.
We drove to Zamora the next morning. With a population of 141.627,
Zamora is without a doubt the regions biggest city. The one thing that
stands out as we approach the city is the cathedrals twin spires. At 105
meters, the towers of the Cathedral of our Lady of Guadalupe are the tallest
in Mexico. The name immediately makes me recall the legend of the Virgen
de Guadalupe. The Virgin Mary herself that appeared to a Nahuatl Indian and
asked him to build a temple for her. Her image helped unite the indigenous
population and assimilate them into the Catholic fate. Coincidentally, the hill
which was chosen for her temple happened to be the site of an Aztec earth
goddess, Tonantzin. A fact not overlooked by the Indians and certainly used
by the missionaries to their advantage. It strikes me as odd that a mere
couple of blocks from the cathedral sits another church, and another just a
few more. I asked Chendo why they need so many churches so close to each
other, he replies with a simple hay pobres y hay ricos, there are the rich
and there are the poor.
The next day we decided to make a longer trip to Jiquilpan. Jiquilpan is
most famous for being the birthplace of Mexican president Lzaro Crdenas.
Lzaro is fondly remembered as the post-revolutionary general that led the
oil expropriation of 1938. On the way to visit his city we passed by a small
town known as Villamar. Villamar, as Chendo explains, was built around the

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hacienda of a man who had been given claim to the valley by the king of
Spain himself. Today, his residence is the center of the town. The main living
quarters turned into a school and an adjacent house turned into a museum.
Further down the road one can glimpse the source of countless wealth and
human suffering that inflicted the area for decades, the abandoned sugar
mill.
At one point during the 1800s this mill sent sugar to the eastern port
of Veracruz, on burros, Chendo quips. Whenever we drive pass the mill, I
cant help but think of my own connection to the place. My great grandfather
was a foreman at the mill before the revolution broke out. Its always a
feeling of pride, but know I cant help but feel some remorse, shame even.
When I think about the privileges I had growing up I see that events that
happened over one hundred years still dictate certain social placement and
limitations.
A visit to Mexico would not be complete without a visit to my
grandfathers parcelas. As we drive across the wet, red dirt in the 1985
Datsun pick-up we see the surprising agricultural diversification that has
struck the area. Twenty years ago you would be hard pressed to find
something other than corn and wheat growing in these lands. Now theyre
covered by strawberry, onion, tomato, and berry fields. Corn and wheat are
still role players but they have taken a lesser role.

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Seeing so many varieties of crops makes me think about the

corporations funding these operations. The regions strawberry output is
among the highest in Mexico and most of these growers are contracted by
Driscoll. An American company, buying Mexican strawberries with Mexican
Pesos but selling them in American Dollars. This corporate influence leads
me to think about another story close to home.
About fifteen years ago a new crop craze swept the countryside.
Agave, the plant used to make tequila, was being sold at close as high as
$40 pesos per kilo. One of my grandparents invested in this plant, along with
half of the other growers. It takes about five to six years for agave to grow to
proper size for harvest. By the end of the second year it became clear that
the tequila distilleries had intentionally encouraged growers to overplant
agave by charging prime rates for subprime plants. Towards the end of the
fifth year, my grandfather sold the agave at a rate of $2.50 per kilo. Lucky,
some called him, most of the other growers averaged below $1.50. The
foreign born distilleries benefited from the surplus of agave and our local
bars here in America remained well stocked for two-dollar shot night.
Its not hard to draw a conclusion as to why people leave Tzirndaro for
the promise of El Norte. Its true, cartel violence has turned some parts of
Mexico into guerrilla warzones. Despite its proximity to the cartel controlled
Sierra Madre, this area has been virtually untouched by the violence. At least
that is what the locals like to tell you when you ask. If someone has been

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killed or disappeared they were probably involved with bad things, that
seems to be the narrative to explain drug related crimes in the area. If
violent crime is not an emigration factor, the state of the local economy
certainly is.
The federal minimum wage in Mexico is 67.29 pesos per day. This is
the de jure interpretation of the law, most of the people I talked to did not
know what the minimum wage was. The promise of a better salary, access to
adequate healthcare, and a better quality of life in general are the main
reasons why people in this part of the country leave for the United States.
When I came back to Salinas I decided to take a fresh approach to my
research and see the places of the community I hadnt seen. The community
of Alisal is primarily Hispanic and growing up it seemed as if someone from
our town lived on practically every block. I took the Sanborn Road exit,
parked my car in the parking lot across from Bank of America and rode the
city bus for about an hour. Seeing the different people made me think about
Adichies lecture on the dangers of a single story and made me realize some
of the biases I had been indoctrinated with.
Yes, the main reason for immigrants to come to the United States is
employment. Yes, the biggest source of employment in East Salinas is
agriculture. Driving around in the bus though, I saw the people that would
come out of the businesses, the workers, the patrons. Not all immigrants of
course but one cant help but make an assumption that anyone with Hispanic

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features has at least some cultural ties to Mexico. And the one think they all
had in common is that none of them were the same. Without thinking really
thinking about it I had set out to observe migrant workers coming back from
the fields or on their way to do grocery shopping when I realized the
hypocrisy of my subconscious expectations. I too came to this country as an
immigrant, why wasnt I expecting to meet someone like me. Someone with
a good paying job and higher education.
This moment made me realize that part of my identity was not what I
imagined it to be. It made me think about my education and my own
experience as an immigrant. Reading Anzaldas chapter, How to Tame a
Wild Tongue, I thought about my own experiences learning English. I came to
this country when I was in fifth grade and I struggled with English so much
that when our teacher asked us to write in our journals I would copy random
parts of my textbook word for word. Sadly for me, I wasnt counting on the
fact that my teacher could read and she quickly discovered my plan. I cant
remember when I learned to speak English. I remember learning new words
and I remember being promoted out of the thirty minute ESL classes we had
twice a week but I cant remember the moment when English became my
first language. I do, however, remember when my name stopped being
Mendoza and became Men-doh-za.
This subtlety I noticed while talking to various Hispanic members of the
community. Depending on the tone of the conversation, their pronunciation

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of their own name changed. This subconscious attacked on the native

Spanish names seemed to be present across all income levels in the
community, even people in our class could relate to this subconscious
switching of names. A product, no doubt of the internal struggle that the
children of migrants face. A sort of psychological borderland we live in, if you
will. Never really embracing one culture over the other but finding space to
make our own despite different but powerful pressure from both.
In my presentation I focused some of my slides in the present state of
affairs in East Salinas. The gang violence, the distrust of the police, the
alarmingly high poverty levels. I also briefly described some of the potential
dangers of American involvement in Mexico with legislation such as the
North American Free Trade Agreement. As I kept writing this essay however, I
became less and less interested in finding the cause of these problems,
perhaps its too easy to attribute blame to our selective globalization but the
most elaborate problems often have the simplest ideas at their root.
I came to believe that it is our Orientalist view of the outside world that
leads to most of the immigration problems that we are faced with today. As
long as we are unable to relate to someone that lives a mere two hour flight
away and see them as our equals, we will be unable to see the dangers of
selective globalization. As the famous Mexican president Porfirio Diaz once
said Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the United States."

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References
Anzaldua, Gloria. Borderlands: La Frontera. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1987.
Paperback.
"Los Datos Del Santuario." Santuario Diocesano De Nuestra Seora De Guadalupe Datos
Del Santuario. Diocesis De Zamora, n.d. Web. Apr.-May 2015.
<http://www.santuarioguadalupano.org.mx/datos.html>.

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INEGI. "Nmero De Habitantes. Michoacn De Ocampo." Nmero De Habitantes.
Michoacn De Ocampo. INEGI, n.d. Web. Apr.-May 2015.
<http://cuentame.inegi.org.mx/monografias/informacion/mich/poblacion/>.
REVISTA DE LA DIRECCiN DE ESTUDIOS HISTRICOS DEL INSTITUTO NACIONAL DE
ANTROPOLOGA E HISTORIA Nmero 49 Mxico. D.F. Mayo-Agosto 2001 NDICE
ENTRADA LIBRE SILVIO A. BEDINI
Knight, Alan. "Crdenas del Ro, Lzaro (18951970)." Encyclopedia of Latin American
History and Culture. Ed. Jay Kinsbruner and Erick D. Langer. 2nd ed. Vol. 2. Detroit:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 2008. 106-109. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 13 May
2015.
Baker, George, and Sean H. Goforth. "Petroleum Industry." Encyclopedia of Latin American History and
Culture. Ed. Jay Kinsbruner and Erick D. Langer. 2nd ed. Vol. 5. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2008.
212-215. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 13 May 2015.

Harrup, Anthony. "Mexico Raises Minimum Wage for 2015 by 4.2%, In Line With Inflation." World.
The Wall Street Journal, 19 Dec. 2014. Web. Apr.-May 2015. <http://www.wsj.com/articles/mexicoraises-minimum-wage-for-2015-by-4-2-in-line-with-inflation-1419049866>.
Adichie, Chimamanda N. "The Danger of a Single Story." Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie:. TED Talks,
July 2009. Web. Apr.-May 2015.
<https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story>.