Yucatan in an Era of Globalization

2000

Preface

Irving L. Webber sat in the central plaza of Mérida in late May 1975, having his three-quarter-length boots polished and reflecting on the social structure of the provincial capital and its surrounding communities. You know, he mused, Yucatán is one of the least-developed regions of Mexico, and lacks many characteristics necessary for a modern society. Pausing to relight his pipe for the third time, Webber concluded: That’s the reason I like it so much.¹

This conversation—and many others like it—grew out of an interdisciplinary field course, Yucatán Past and Present, initiated in 1973 by the Latin American Studies Program of The University of Alabama. Between 1975 and 1980 the core faculty of that project and a widening circle of Yucatecologists collaborated to publish an interdisciplinary collection of essays entitled Yucatán: A World Apart. Archaeologists, geographers, social scientists, and humanists discussed long-range perspectives and unfolding events that contributed to an interpretative analysis of a relatively isolated social laboratory at a frozen moment in time. Aware that the peninsula had never been completely removed from broader Mexican and world affairs, the authors nevertheless contended that Yucatán was a unique and separate society, even after 1961 when it was linked by highway to the mainland of central Mexico.² In the two and a half decades following the interdisciplinary publication, however, Yucatán has undergone far-reaching changes, many tied to advances in technology and international political shifts, but all linked to the evolving era of globalization. The present volume is addressed primarily to those cutting-edge changes.

Yucatán: A Land of Traditions

Mérida in 1975 was a bustling city of approximately 300,000 inhabitants, boasting some of the services and features of a modern urban center but suffering from a stagnant monocrop economy, propped up by subsidies from the Mexican government.³ Yucatán as a whole, including its capital, was defined by most observers at the time as a traditional society, one made up of a complex and often conflicting set of traditions. Small towns and villages in the eastern and southern sections of the peninsula displayed a remarkably uniform folk culture based on diet (corn, beans, squash, and chili peppers), distinctive dress for women (the huipil), family compounds (solares), and slash-and-burn agriculture plots (milpas). The population was linked by a common language (Yucatec Maya) and a set of beliefs and ceremonies rooted in pre-conquest mythology and legends.⁴ Yet the most ardent admirer of ancient influences admitted that no purely Maya culture existed in Yucatán. A new set of institutions, patterns, and symbols (European and Catholic) entered the region in the early sixteenth century and for the next four hundred years exercised varying degrees of dominance from the center of Spanish-Creole rule (Mérida) to the most remote villages of the interior.⁵ The two traditions clashed, violently at times, but eventually produced a complex set of genetic, cultural, and psychological variations, including a unique blend that can be called Yucatecan mestizo.⁶

Another long-lived economic institution—the henequen culture—emerged in the late nineteenth century. Yucatán’s dry northwestern section was converted into almost a solid field of green-spiked plants, producing fiber for the grain farms of North America and providing fabulous wealth for the owners of the henequen haciendas. Yucatán entered its golden age as palatial homes of the elite planters dotted the countryside and lined the wide Paseo de Montejo of Mérida. Throughout the henequen zone, Maya peasants were deprived of their milpas and bound to the haciendas under a highly regimented system of debt peonage. Between 1915 and 1940, peonage and the haciendas were swept away by the Mexican Revolution and agrarian reform decrees. The monocrop economy remained, however, and the former peons (now members of the collective lands, or ejidos) continued to carry out the same tasks as before under the supervision of the federal government’s Banco Rural. From 1961 to 1964 the Mexican government extended its control of the henequen industry by nationalizing Yucatán’s cordage mills and forming a single, publicly owned manufacturing firm called Cordemex. Global competition of natural fiber from Brazil and East Africa after World War I and lower-priced synthetics from the mid-1960s onward cut deeply into the market for Yucatán fiber, yet in 1975 henequen still dominated the state’s agricultural and industrial sectors.⁷

The Era of Globalization

Three decades after Irving Webber sat in the central plaza of Mérida and theorized about the nature of Yucatecan society, many of the characteristics of the traditions he described, including Maya village life and deep-rooted elements of Hispanic society with their unique Yucatecan flavor, still endure—though precariously. Other institutions and customs that seemed so well entrenched, including the henequen monocrop economy, have been swept aside by rapidly emerging national and international conditions. Major changes have taken place on the world stage since 1975, including the collapse of the Soviet Union, the rise of China, the progressive unification of Europe, and major shifts in the balance of world economic and strategic power. Far-reaching innovations have come in the field of technology—marvels in telecommunication such as e-mail, cell phones, computerized weapons, and sophisticated shipping and packaging techniques. Most Latin American nations, including Mexico, have shifted away from economic nationalism toward more open markets and hospitable investment climates. All these forces, which have led to the breakdown of traditional barriers to international trade, investment, and movement of people, have been lumped together under the heading of globalization. In the case of Mexico specifically, this has involved the weakening of the nationalistic system that grew out of the 1910 revolution with emphasis on state ownership of strategic industries, strict regulations of manufacturing and commerce, ambivalence toward foreign direct investment, and a patronal concept of land ownership that placed emphasis on communal rights.

Mexico’s 1982 debt crisis triggered a profound realignment in the nation’s economic orientation. Turning from a state-led, inward-looking development strategy, Mexico became a member of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1986 and joined the United States and Canada in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. Yucatán and its provincial society were greatly affected by these rapidly emerging national and international conditions, offering once again an opportunity for a meaningful case study, a variation on the general Mexican theme. Specifically, our research focus is the state of Yucatán, which forms the crest of the peninsula that bears its name. The peninsula also includes the state of Campeche to the southwest and Quintana Roo in the east. As in Yucatán: A World Apart, our approach is interdisciplinary and selective; we continue to view Yucatán as a useful regional microcosm of study within a larger national and global setting. Kathleen Martín and William Martín González remind us in chapter 8 that the state represents an authentic, distinct Mexico strongly rooted in its ancient Maya past and a continuing indigenous present.

From Tradition to Globalization

The idea for this book was born at the meeting of the Southeastern Council of Latin American Studies held at Myrtle Beach in the spring of 2000. At a small gathering of Yucatecaphiles, Ed Moseley observed that much had changed since the publication of Yucatan: A World Apart and that a new volume was warranted. In the following year, as potential contributors to the book were recruited, Eric Baklanoff suggested globalization as a unifying theme for the collection.

Essays in the present volume, prepared by scholars from a number of disciplines who have devoted many years to the study of Yucatán, reflect an evolving interpretation of the region. Most observers of the peninsula prior to 1975 would have found it impossible to imagine the region without the overwhelming dominance of henequen; yet what seemed an almost unchanging society was swept aside by waves of external development and pressures from within. The agro-industrial henequen complex, barely kept alive by the patronal oversight of the federal government and the ruling political party, created even greater problems with the debt crisis of 1982. A decade later it was dismantled by the neoliberal policies of the very party that had sustained it for over fifty years. Protectionism and the closed system that had for so long been a part of the framework that emerged out of the revolution were abandoned; even the most sacred part of the Constitution of 1917 (Article 27) was revised in such a way as to remove basic restrictions on land tenure, including those governing henequen ejidos. For Mexico in general and for Yucatán in particular, this process was firmly linked to rapidly emerging technology and changes within the global framework.

One specific development took place on the far eastern edge of the peninsula: in 1971 the Mexican government took the initial steps to open a major tourist resort along the virtually vacant beaches of Cancún. In the following decades the rapid growth of the Caribbean coastal resorts brought overwhelming change throughout the Yucatán Peninsula, affecting Mérida and the most remote villages.

This collection of essays does not attempt to sustain a central unified thesis about globalization in Yucatán, nor does it pretend to predict the ultimate consequences of the state’s international integration. Taking a prismatic view, the multiple perspectives given in these chapters reflect the growing complexity of Yucatán’s society and economy in a period of accelerated change.

Acknowledgments and Dedication

The editors wish to thank a number of individuals who have contributed to the ideas behind this volume. Dr. Alfredo Barrera Vásquez provided the intellectual and spiritual inspiration for many generations of scholars, including most of the contributors to this collection.⁸ He directed the labors of a team of linguists in the compilation of the Diccionario Maya Cordemex: Maya-Español, Español-Maya, a monumental work completed shortly before his death. Asael T. Hansen, who in the 1930s participated in the Carnegie Institution project on Yucatán coordinated by Robert Redfield, was later Professor of Anthropology for many years at The University of Alabama and formed a valuable link between that institution and his patria chica. Other key members of the Alabama team were Professors Paul H. Nesbitt, C. Earle Smith, Irving L. Webber, Edward D. Terry, Selwyn Hollingsworth, Richard Krause, and Michael Murphy. Joy D. Baklanoff, Jeffery Brannon, and James Callaghan, all of whom completed graduate work at Alabama, have made contributions to the field of Yucatecan studies and have worked closely with the editors of this volume for many years. Ben Fanning, an Alabama undergraduate with a double major in business and Spanish, provided the initial link with the Yucatecan maquiladora of Russell Corporation. Nancy Young, Russell’s Vice-President for Public Relations, provided data and helpful comments regarding the company’s operations in Alabama and Latin America. We are grateful to Debra Wheatley, Office Associate Senior, Department of Economics, Finance and Legal Studies, The University of Alabama, for her assistance with preparation of the manuscript.

In Yucatán we have been most fortunate to have the support and guidance of a number of knowledgeable and dedicated scholars and leaders. Luis Alfonso Ramírez, a contributor to this volume and former Director of the Centro de Investigaciones Regionales de la Universidad de Yucatán, made the facilities and materials of his research center available on a most generous basis and shared his valuable insight on the society and economy of the region. Ing. Manuel Miér y Terán, former Secretary of Planning for the state of Yucatán, offered meaningful lectures and advice, as did Professor Othón Baños. Special thanks are due to José Luis Ponce García, outstanding business leader, astute observer of Yucatecan society, and a former member of the Board of International Advisors for the College of Commerce and Business Administration of The University of Alabama, who hosted numerous delegations to Yucatán and shared his valuable insight into the complex nature of the region.

Of all the friends and colleagues, one stands out in a special way. We first met Eduardo Tello Solis in 1978 when he was Minister of Education and Cultural Affairs for the state of Yucatán. Not only did he open many doors in the scholarly and official community, including that of Governor Francisco Luna Kan, but more importantly, he shared his encyclopedic knowledge of and enduring passion for the culture and society of Yucatán. Especially memorable were his enthusiastic lectures on the music of the peninsula. Whether in a political discussion or simply on a stroll through the streets of Mérida, Don Eduardo was always available to assist in so many ways. He also opened his home and extended the friendship of his wife, Tere, and their children, Eduardo, Tere, Marta, and Beatriz. Hundreds of scholars and students have sampled Teri’s traditional dishes, such as poc chuc and papadzules, or have shared mero (grouper) roasted over an open fire at Puerto Chicxulub. The editors are pleased to dedicate this collection of essays in appreciation of Eduardo Tello.

Edward H. Moseley, co-editor of this volume, died on March 28, 2005. While he lived with cancer for seven years, Ed’s indefatigable spirit and keen sense of humor kept him engaged in the things he loved most: together with his wife, Virginia, entertaining international friends and colleagues in their home; revisiting Germany, Spain, Guatemala, and Yucatán; counseling students; and, of course, writing until the end. Next to his native Alabama, he considered Yucatán his other patria chica. He was my valued friend and colleague of many years, and all of us who knew him will miss him. It is only appropriate that we, his colleagues and contributors to this project, have decided to co-dedicate Yucatán in an Era of Globalization in his memory.

Notes

1. The late Irving Webber was Professor of Sociology at the University of Alabama and also served as department chairman for many years.

2. Edward H. Moseley and Edward D. Terry, eds., Yucatan: A World Apart (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1980).

3. Jeffery Brannon and Eric N. Baklanoff, Agrarian Reform and Public Enterprise in Mexico: The Political Economy of Yucatán’s Henequen Industry (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1987).

4. This folk culture was described in what were to become the classical works of Robert Redfield and his associates between 1930 and 1950. See Robert Redfield and Alfonso Villa Rojas, Chan Kom: A Maya Village (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1934); Robert Redfield, A Village That Chose Progress: Chan Kom Revisited (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950). For an analysis of the interpretation of Redfield and his companions as well as a survey of more recent views on the topic, see Gilbert M. Joseph, Rediscovering the Past at Mexico’s Periphery: Essays on the History of Modern Yucatán (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1986).

5. Irwin Press, Historical Dimensions of Orientations to Change in a Yucatec Peasant Community, in Anthropology and History in Yucatán, ed. Grand D. Jones (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1977), 275–88; Irving L. Webber, Social Organization and Change in Modern Yucatan, in Moseley and Terry, Yucatan, 172–201.

6. Allen Wells, Yucatán’s Gilded Age: Haciendas, Henequen, and International Harvester, 1860–1915 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1985). For a highly favorable account of the life of Maya peons on a hacienda, see Narcisa Trujillo, El Maya de las Haciendas Henequeneras, Enciclopedia Yucatanense, 2nd ed. (Mérida: Edición Oficial del Gobierno de Yucatán, 1977), 6:133–71.

7. Eric N. Baklanoff, The Diversification Quest: A Monocrop Export Economy in Transition, in Moseley and Terry, Yucatan, 202–44.

8. The late Alfredo Barrera Vásquez directed the Department of Philology and Linguistics of the Southeast Regional Center, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mérida, Yucatán. He also was Research Associate in Anthropology at The University of Alabama.

Introduction

Yucatán since the 1982 Mexican Debt Crisis

Eric N. Baklanoff

Mexico’s 1982 crisis was rooted in a huge, unsustainable external public debt, a sheltered inefficient manufacturing sector, and the dominant role of oil in the country’s export profile. Mexico’s debt problem in turn was linked closely to the systemic crisis of its public enterprises, whose number grew explosively from 84 in 1970 to 740 in 1976 and 1,155 in 1982.¹ In his first address to the Mexican Congress in December 1982, President Miguel de la Madrid (1982–88) lamented: The majority of public enterprises not only register permanent deficit, but their financial statements reflect bankruptcy.² The consolidated losses of these debt-burdened entities reached 8 percent of Mexico’s GDP, or nearly half of the national fiscal deficit.³ For Yucatán, Mexico’s debt crisis and its aftermath had profound implications: in a climate of extreme fiscal austerity, the federal government no longer could afford the luxury of subsidizing the state’s moribund agri-industrial henequen industry.

Since 1982 Mexico’s path toward globalization has been a tortuous one marked by two recessions and episodes of high inflation. The December 1994 peso crisis was followed in 1995 by a severe domestic market contraction and massive bankruptcies. Although impressive in terms of numbers of enterprises divested, Mexico’s privatization process has been flawed by political cronyism in some instances. The key energy sector—oil, natural gas, and electricity—has been neither privatized nor reformed. Still, on balance, the shift of about one thousand enterprises from the public to the private sector between 1983 and 2003 has substantially benefited Mexico.⁴ Privatization has provided revenues needed to dramatically reduce the country’s crushing external debt burden and increase spending for education and poverty alleviation. Improvements in firm performance resulting from efficiency gains have given Mexicans greater access to goods and services.

Transparency International’s 2005 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) indicates that Mexico has issues related to the rule of law. Among the 159 countries included in its survey, Mexico ranked 65th, well above Chile (21st) and Uruguay (32nd), the least corrupt in Latin America. With its 2005 CPI score of only 3.5, Mexico is placed in the company of Ghana, Peru, and Turkey—all countries perceived as having a serious corruption problem. To evaluate Mexico’s standing among countries pursuing market reform, it is useful to consult the 2006 Index of Economic Freedom. Published jointly by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal, the index established a benchmark by which to gauge a country’s prospects for economic growth. Among the 161 sovereign nations included in the index, Mexico was characterized as mostly free and ranked 60th, well below Chile (14th) and El Salvador (34th)—the most economically free in Latin America.

The World Bank’s annual survey Doing Business evaluates the business climate of 175 member countries. In the 2006 survey, the bank placed Mexico 43rd worldwide and second in Latin America (behind Chile at 23rd). Significantly, Mexico jumped nineteen places in its overall rank that year compared with 2005. The bank praised the country’s new securities law that protects minority investors, a streamlined procedure for business startups, and a graduated cut in the corporate income tax.⁵ Also on the positive side, Mexico has demonstrated notable success in penetrating the U.S. market with manufactured products as well as putting the government’s fiscal house in order.

In the presidential election of July 2, 2006, center-right candidate Felipe Calderón of the Partido de Acción Nacional (PAN, National Action Party) won by a narrow margin of 240,000. Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Calderón’s principal opponent, made it clear he would not accept any ruling from the special elections court short of an order to recount all 42 million ballots. Facing a divided and possibly hostile Congress, Calderón will have to depend on his political skill and strength as a leader, but even more on his capacity to form alliances with disaffected members of the other two parties.⁶ The president-elect, who promises to continue the free-trade policies championed by outgoing President Vicente Fox (2000–2006) and to enhance Mexico’s competitiveness, would like to open the country’s state-controlled energy sector to private investment—a policy that had been firmly rejected by leftist candidate Lopéz Obrador. For Calderón, reforming and partially privatizing Pemex, the country’s oil monopoly, would present a daunting challenge as well as an opportunity to greatly strengthen Mexico’s long-term economic prospects.⁷

This introduction provides a brief contextual framework for the book and previews the chapters. The framework highlights four salient factors that have given shape and direction to Yucatán’s economy and society since 1982: the decline and collapse of the monocrop economy, economic diversification, the Yucatán–Quintana Roo nexus, and Mérida’s emergence as a strategic city.

Henequen Malaise: The Decline and Collapse of the Monocrop Economy

By expropriating the family-owned plantations in the 1930s and nationalizing the private cordage mills in 1964, the Mexican government profoundly altered the henequen industry’s organization and incentive structure.⁸ By the mid-1970s two federal enterprises, Banco Rural (which supervised and financed the collective ejidos) and Cordemex (the nationalized multiplant cordage enterprise), dominated the state’s