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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | May 2005 
Fox's Office Issues An Apology
 Wire services
| | Fox at first refused to apologize for the Friday comment, saying his remark had been misinterpreted. |
Mexico City - President Vicente Fox apologized Monday for saying that Mexicans in the United States do the work that blacks won't, but many Mexicans stung by a new U.S. crackdown on illegal immigrants said Fox was just stating a fact.
Fox's spokesman, Rubén Águilar, said Fox's comments were in defense of Mexican migrants as they come under attack by new U.S. immigration measures that include a wall along the Mexico-California border, and were not meant to offend anybody.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City had raised the issue with the Mexican government. "That's a very insensitive and inappropriate way to phrase this and we would hope that (the Mexicans) would clarify the remarks," Boucher said.
Fox at first refused to apologize for the Friday comment, saying his remark had been misinterpreted. But later, in telephone conversations with Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton, two black U.S. civil rights activists, the president said he "regretted" the statement.
"The president regretted any hurt feelings his statements may have caused," the Foreign Relations Department said in a press statement. "He expressed the great respect he and his administration has for the African-American community in the United States."
Jackson replied that he was sure the president had no racist intent, and suggested the two meet to discuss joint strategies between blacks and immigrant groups in the United States, Águilar said.
Fox invited agreed to set up a visit to Mexico by Jackson, Sharpton and a group of American black leaders.
Many Mexicans didn't see the remark as offensive. Blackface comedy is still considered funny here and many people hand out nicknames based on skin color.
"The president was just telling the truth," said Celedonio González, a 35-year-old carpenter who worked illegally in Dallas for six months in 2001. "Mexicans go to the United States because they have to. Blacks want to earn better wages, and the Mexican because he is illegal takes what they pay him."
Earlier on Monday, Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton, two black U.S. civil rights activists, said Fox should apologize. "His statement had the impact of being inciting and divisive," Jackson said.
Lisa Catanzarite, a sociologist at Washington State University, disputed Fox's assertion, saying there is intense competition for lucrative working class jobs like construction and employers usually prefer to hire immigrants who don't know their rights.
"What Vicente Fox called a willingness to work ... translates into extreme exploitability," she said.
Fox made the comment Friday during a public appearance, saying: "There's no doubt that Mexican men and women full of dignity, willpower and a capacity for work are doing the work that not even blacks want to do in the United States."
Responding to the criticism during his daily news conference Monday, Águilar read a statement expressing Fox's "enormous respect for minorities, whatever their racial, ethnic or religious origin."
"The purpose (of the comment) was none other than to show the importance Mexican workers have today in the development and progress of U.S. society," Águilar said, repeating a statement that was released on Saturday.
He refused to comment further, saying only that Fox would "intensify his diplomatic efforts to protect the integrity of the Mexicans living in that country."
The dispute reflected Fox's growing frustration with U.S. immigration policy and deteriorating relations between the two nations.
Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez said the Mexican government was expected to send a diplomatic letter to the United States on Monday protesting recent measures that include requiring states to verify that people who apply for a driver's license are in the country legally and overriding environmental laws to build a barrier along the California border with Mexico.
The measures have been widely criticized in Mexico, where residents increasingly see the United States as adopting anti-migrant measures.
Even Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera, the archbishop of Mexico City, criticized U.S. immigration policy as ridiculous and defended Fox's comments, saying: "The declaration had nothing to do with racism. It is a reality in the United States that anyone can prove."
Derbez on Monday defended Fox and criticized U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza, who has angered the Mexican government in part by issuing warnings to tourists about ongoing violence here.
"What we have to make clear is that it would be best if (Garza's) opinions, which I understand are his own and not those of his government, are not expressed in a public manner," Derbez said.
Gilberto Rincón Gallardo, president of the National Council to Prevent Discrimination, said the statement was "unfortunate." But, speaking after releasing a report on racism in Mexico, he said it reflected outdated language more than a racist attitude.
Fox has championed the rights of minorities and the disabled and he led a successful campaign to amend the constitution to make discrimination a crime.
George Grayson, a Mexican expert with the College of William & Mary in Virginia, said the dispute will hurt Fox's campaign to liberalize immigration laws, adding that it shows "once again how tone deaf Mexico's president is with respect to the United States."
While Mexico has a few, isolated black communities, the population is dominated by descendants of Mexico's Spanish colonizers and its native Indians. Comments that would generally be considered openly racist in the United States generate little attention here.
One afternoon television program, Vida TV on the Televisa network, regularly features a comedian in blackface chasing actresses in skimpy outfits, while an advertisement for a small, chocolate pastry called the "negrito" the little black man shows a white boy sprouting an afro as he eats the sweet.
Victor Hugo Flores, a 30-yearold bond salesman, cringed when asked what he thought of Fox's comment.
"It was bad, but it really isn't racist," he said. "Maybe the president shouldn't have said it." |
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