The People of Mexico

The People of Mexico

(In my view)



In the Spanish-speaking world, Mexico is the most populous country. Has approximately 150 million people and contrary to popular belief, almost three-quarters of the population lives in urban areas. For most of the people of Mexico, Spanish is the official language, but the indigenous Indian languages that far predate the conquistadors are still spoken by a third of the population. The Nahuatl of the Aztec or the tongue of the Mayans, as well as others such as Mixtec, Otomi, Trascan and Zapotec remain an echo of Mexico's rich past.
Mexican Spanish is atypical in significant ways from the Castilian Spanish of the mother country, I can myself testify to that because I was born in Buenos Aires (Argentina) and attended school and lived there until I was 25 years old before migrating to Los Angeles (Calif. USA), and one my majors in college was Castilian Spanish. You will recognize many frequently used words either through their resemblance to English or because the words themselves, such as rodeo, canyon and corral, have been absorbed into the American spoken language. Most of the five million Mexican Indians retain their own ancient tongue while still speaking Spanish.
If your command of Spanish is limited, don't worry! In the tourists areas, English is very common, and even a small "tourist" Spanish vocabulary will help you greatly, and in Mexico they have established a tremendous school system, one of the new requariments is to take English as a second language and is learned from the first grade so the end result is that most of the younger generation speak reasonably good English. If you venture into the country, off the beaten path, a tour guide or translator is advisable, but if do not have one of them, there is no need for you to be concerned about it, because you will realize that everybody, (and I mean everybody) will be most eager to help you and to translate for you. There are at least 50 different dialects spoken in Mexico, and some of them vary widely from the average American Spanish education. In spite of the urbanization of the populace, small-town life as it existed for centuries is still easy to find. In many villages, like El Quelite (one of my favorites), El Fuerte, Copala, La Noria, etc, etc, you will find a central square, surrounded by a few stores and government buildings and, of course, an open-air marketplace. Nearly 75 percent of all Mexicans now live in cities or towns. In Mexico, there are now eight cities with population over 500,000. Mexico City presently boasts over 20 million people.
Education is currently mandatory for ages 5 through 15, and that age will lower to 3 by 2010. As of 2005, Mexican children had almost an 80% enrollment rate. There are roughly 19 million primary and 6 million secondary school students in the Mexican system, and higher education boasts 2.4 million students as of 2005.
Mexico’s peoples way of life includes many old traditions from their Indian past and the Spanish colonial period. Mexico changed quite rapidly during the 1900’s. Life in the cities became quite similar to that of the U.S., however many Mexican villagers still follow the older ways of life. Today, many households consist of an average of five or six people. In many homes, several generations of the same family still live together. This country still hold the family concept, you can perceive it every day, virtually everywhere, Markets, Plazas, Malecones, you will see whole families strolling together as one, that, I’m very sorry to say, system of life, most of the so called big countries of the world regrettably have lost, please remember this is (in my view) . Women now have jobs outside the home and the girls living on farms will work the fields as will the boys, whereas the city boys will have part-time jobs while in school.
The people of Mexico, maybe more so than any other Latin American culture countries, are very sensitive to people from the Unites States calling themselves “Americans”. Mexicans consider themselves Americans, “Estados Unidos Mexicanos de Norte America” therefore, is important that Americans refer to themselves as Americans from the United States or “Estados Unidos Americanos”. A fact that has to be remembered is that Mexico, like USA and Canada are part of North America, and the Mexicans are vey proud of it, as they should be. I have a saying about these beautiful people. ‘They are very proud people (as they should be) and they do the best they can with what they have, and unfortunately, most of them do not have much’’. They are exceptionally artistic people as you can see by the stunning architecture buildings, plazas and monuments, extraordinary expressions of art abound every where in Mexico, they are very passionate about it their artistic expressions, from their Monuments and statues that are plentiful throughout the country, to the murals that you can find all over the place, most of them are exquisite works of art and manifestation of pride of their heritage, depicting, (most of them), the violent past history of this swollen with pride nation.
I can not draw to a close without saying, that we have been traveling Mexico for the past 30 years, and we never stumble upon any “bandidos” the Police and the Army are nothing else but ready to provide a hand and well-mannered, and the people as a whole are the nicest, most helpful and friendly people anywhere in this beautiful world of ours. Like the campground’s night watchman (Sr. Vicente), that insisted in going with me in the middle of the day (remember he is NIGHT WATCHMAN) to find a mechanic friend of his, that he could recommend to fix something on my Jeep and insisted in doing so disregarding that was his time to go to sleep, after being up all night, or the waiter of our favorite restaurant (Sr Pilar) that on his day off, knowing that we were looking for a house to buy, took us all over Mazatlan to find something for us as an act of good deed (no compensation). Or the real state agent, (Angelica Gonzalez) that has turned into our very best friend here, and she has officially became our adopted daughter now, or the man that chopped out a very, very old tree in his front yard, so we could have room for our motor home under it, and refused and got affronted when I offered a compensation for it. These are very few samples of courteousness, friendliness and integrity of these peoples’ hearts that we have encountered traveling in Mexico. Now remember, all these things are…… in my view only…., what can I tell you I’m partial to this beautiful country and it people!