But who will I take to Prom?
I have concluded that the worst thing about being here in México is that the things that should be comforting to me - my home, the family, the familiarity of student life - aren't there. Being here is vaguely like being in high school again. I'm somewhat obligated to be home for meals, to be in bed at a reasonable hour, to let my family know where I'm going. UNINTER, unlike the Iowa State campus, is tiny. The whole place can't be more than twice as big as my high school, and has only two thousand or so students. I had originally written some trash talk about the maturity of the students here, but you know what? It's just me wanting to bitch about something. Everyone has been very nice to me. So I erased it.
Mexico has no jobs or government loans that are suited to supporting college students. That means that all of my contemporaries at UNINTER are, for the most part, from wealthy families whom they still live with. I should note that it's very common to live with one's family long after leaving school. My family's son, Fernando, is 31, and lives at home with his girlfriend Dominique. Mexicans seem to be much more family-oriented than us, and much less interested in getting out of the house as soon as possible. On an unrelated note, my family watches a great deal of TV, and I've heard reports from other foreign students about their host families being the same way.
Today was actually pretty good - I had a conference to attend on cultural contrasts which was actually more of a lecture to women that Mexican guys were going to try to cop a feel. But it let me stay here at school. I ate lunch at the restaurant here, and it was the best food I've had yet - soup, chilequila, bread, rice, a little dessert, and a whole pitcher of "agua" (which is what they call bug juice, which is what I call any drink made from a powder) - all for three dollars, or 30 pesos. I read my book for awhile afterward, and felt like an adult again. It was nice to not have anyone expect me to be anywhere again. Back to high school tomorrow, I suppose. At least I'm old enough to drink.
I also found out today that I'm living with the Mexican equivalent of Republicans. My family supports PAN - a conservative Catholic party. Great. No politics at the dinner table, then.
For reference, there are quite a few parties in Mexico. Check Wikipedia for detailed info. PAN, as you know, is a conservative party like our Republicans and the European Social Democrats; Vicente Fox belongs to this party.
PRI, the Institutional Party of the Revolution, is the largest party and somewhat hard to pin down politcally. Basically, they ran México for their own benefit for most of the 20th century. You know whenever a party has either the words "Revolution" or "Institutional" in its name, it's trouble. PRI has both.
The other major party is the PRD, the Party of Democratic Revolution. Leftists, like our Democrats. See that Revolution? Again, bad news. The PRD is a populist party, out to keep itself in power by favoring the poor (who are vastly more numerous than the rich in México). The current mayor of el Distrito Federal, Obrador (AMLO), is from PRD; you might have heard of his little struggles here and there.
There's also a Labor Party (commies) and el Partido Verde - you got it, the Greens. They're everywhere, man. And let's not forget Alternativa and Nueva Allianza, who I know nothing about. These parties are all far too small to do any damage.
One of my teachers told me today that she didn't have the slightest idea who to vote for because they were all bad choices. That's pretty much true of politics in every single nation ever, not least of all the US, but I get the feeling that it's worse here. Corruption runs so deep in México's history, I fear that it will be years before they even get to the level of dismal governance that we have. Still, at least the stagnation of PRI's rule has been broken, and they have some hope for change. The US is going to be a two-party country for a long, long time, unless something really outrageous happens.
I've secretly been hoping that the Republican Party will split in two. I have a fair amount of sympathy for Republicans of a libertarian philosophy, but absolutely none for the socially conservative Jesus freaks. It is so damn ridiculous that a party with two elements that should be totally opposed could have enough coherence to control two branches of the government (and, let's face it, they're about to claim the third). In all fairness, though, there are probably a number of libertarians mixed with socialists in the Democratic Party. Politicians are essentially not idealistic, or else they would probably fail as politicians.
I think it would be fantastic if a big hunk of the best Republicans broke off, picked up the libertarian Dems, and formed a new party. I like to pretend that the next presidential election will be so divisive for Republicans that it will force a split. I'm fairly sure that the remaining social conservative party would become irrelevant, leaving us primarily with two parties who would agree on social liberty and would balance each other out on economic policy. Ahh. It sounds utopian. I'm sure there would be problems, because there always are. But a boy can dream, eh?
Mexico has no jobs or government loans that are suited to supporting college students. That means that all of my contemporaries at UNINTER are, for the most part, from wealthy families whom they still live with. I should note that it's very common to live with one's family long after leaving school. My family's son, Fernando, is 31, and lives at home with his girlfriend Dominique. Mexicans seem to be much more family-oriented than us, and much less interested in getting out of the house as soon as possible. On an unrelated note, my family watches a great deal of TV, and I've heard reports from other foreign students about their host families being the same way.
Today was actually pretty good - I had a conference to attend on cultural contrasts which was actually more of a lecture to women that Mexican guys were going to try to cop a feel. But it let me stay here at school. I ate lunch at the restaurant here, and it was the best food I've had yet - soup, chilequila, bread, rice, a little dessert, and a whole pitcher of "agua" (which is what they call bug juice, which is what I call any drink made from a powder) - all for three dollars, or 30 pesos. I read my book for awhile afterward, and felt like an adult again. It was nice to not have anyone expect me to be anywhere again. Back to high school tomorrow, I suppose. At least I'm old enough to drink.
I also found out today that I'm living with the Mexican equivalent of Republicans. My family supports PAN - a conservative Catholic party. Great. No politics at the dinner table, then.
For reference, there are quite a few parties in Mexico. Check Wikipedia for detailed info. PAN, as you know, is a conservative party like our Republicans and the European Social Democrats; Vicente Fox belongs to this party.
PRI, the Institutional Party of the Revolution, is the largest party and somewhat hard to pin down politcally. Basically, they ran México for their own benefit for most of the 20th century. You know whenever a party has either the words "Revolution" or "Institutional" in its name, it's trouble. PRI has both.
The other major party is the PRD, the Party of Democratic Revolution. Leftists, like our Democrats. See that Revolution? Again, bad news. The PRD is a populist party, out to keep itself in power by favoring the poor (who are vastly more numerous than the rich in México). The current mayor of el Distrito Federal, Obrador (AMLO), is from PRD; you might have heard of his little struggles here and there.
There's also a Labor Party (commies) and el Partido Verde - you got it, the Greens. They're everywhere, man. And let's not forget Alternativa and Nueva Allianza, who I know nothing about. These parties are all far too small to do any damage.
One of my teachers told me today that she didn't have the slightest idea who to vote for because they were all bad choices. That's pretty much true of politics in every single nation ever, not least of all the US, but I get the feeling that it's worse here. Corruption runs so deep in México's history, I fear that it will be years before they even get to the level of dismal governance that we have. Still, at least the stagnation of PRI's rule has been broken, and they have some hope for change. The US is going to be a two-party country for a long, long time, unless something really outrageous happens.
I've secretly been hoping that the Republican Party will split in two. I have a fair amount of sympathy for Republicans of a libertarian philosophy, but absolutely none for the socially conservative Jesus freaks. It is so damn ridiculous that a party with two elements that should be totally opposed could have enough coherence to control two branches of the government (and, let's face it, they're about to claim the third). In all fairness, though, there are probably a number of libertarians mixed with socialists in the Democratic Party. Politicians are essentially not idealistic, or else they would probably fail as politicians.
I think it would be fantastic if a big hunk of the best Republicans broke off, picked up the libertarian Dems, and formed a new party. I like to pretend that the next presidential election will be so divisive for Republicans that it will force a split. I'm fairly sure that the remaining social conservative party would become irrelevant, leaving us primarily with two parties who would agree on social liberty and would balance each other out on economic policy. Ahh. It sounds utopian. I'm sure there would be problems, because there always are. But a boy can dream, eh?
posted by Cobblestopped at
3:18 PM
1 Comments:
They have political parties in Mexico? I could've sworn it was a military dictatorship, you know, like our country.
By
Anonymous, at 9/09/2005 7:07 PM
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