Zapata’s Legacy

Alvaro Vargas Llosa has a fascinating take on the social forces driving poor Mexicans to the United States in search of work. He tells the tale through the eyes of Emiliano Zapata, a poor landless laborer who is the grandson of the famous revolutionary. The original Zapata fought for redistribution of land to Mexico’s peasants, but the reform was corrupted by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. Writes Llosa:

What has been the consequence of a century of collectivization of the land? In the 1990s, when trade policies became more liberal, Mexico’s rural population found itself caught up in an extremely inefficient system that was undercapitalized, making it very difficult for Mexican peasants to compete with the outside world. When the government finally allowed the villagers to sell the ejidos, something they had been prevented from doing since 1917, many of them put their land on the market and left for Mexico’s cities. When the urban areas did not offer improved conditions, they migrated to the United States. “If my grandfather came back,” ponders Emiliano, “he would die of sadness.”

And such are the ways that the histories of foreign lands intertwine with ours. There’s no escaping it, it’s one world, baby. (Photo credit: Wikipedia.)