What I saw in Mexico in 1972 still explains the pull north

By Tom Anthony | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice

I spent three months in 1972 in the Mezquital, a high plateau about 80 miles from Mexico City, where my aunt, a Catholic missionary nun, had a convent and school. I saw desperate poverty and subsistence living and zero government investment. 

The only water well stood three-quarters of a mile from the village and necessitated trips on foot or, if you had pesos to spend, forking over to the guy with the pickup truck and water tank. The Catholic Church financed a 2-inch water pipeline from the lake on the other side of the mountain on a siphon system. This transformed life in the village.

My grandmother bought musical instruments and put them on a work-to-own agreement to the young folks of the village who formed two bands, La Juventud and Los Hermanos Oritz. The bands were hired through donations and played at the various feast days, of which there always seemed to be two per week, in villages from Neketehe to Champantango to Remedios. 

The celebrations began with launching cuetes, or rockets, as nobody had a telephone but the convent. A boy named Seferino had gone to the U.S. con espalda mojada (his words) and subsequently bought a reloj (watch), so the bands went to him to plan their itineraries.

I’m not sure how different things are today. 

Back then, a young mother would spin maguey fiber on a small top as she walked the 12 miles into Ixmiquilpan for market day, carrying her baby in a cradleboard and a further pack of goods or produce to sell, sometimes slinging a couple jars of pulque her husband had brewed to sell by the glass, or a faggot of firewood. 

She’d weave the fibers she spun into baby slings or shawls for sale. I doubt the sale of her items netted enough to recompense the burnt calories for her trip, all done barefoot, but it gave her something to which to aspire, as long as the rurales at the aduana didn’t take too much as taxes.

I’ve driven back to Mexico numerous times since (never flown) and haven’t seen too much change.

In Mexico, just over 50% of the land is held by ejidos and agrarian communities, a system of communal land.

About 5% of ejido land was sold in the 30 years after the 1992 reform, mostly land a corporation could profit from or a growing city wanted.

Ejidatarios farm their own parcels and are allowed to keep the food and profits (if any) from what they grow. 

Since most of Mexico’s cash produce is exported to the U.S., exporters largely call the price. Hired farm workers in Mexico averaged about $196 a month in 2019, roughly what a cash construction job in the U.S. pays in a day. About 13% of Mexican workers are in agriculture. Of those, 46% are paid employees, and the rest are unpaid family members or self-employed farmers.

Seemingly, the ejido system keeps a vast class of subservient and impoverished people ready to cross the border into the Promised Land. 

We need to recognize there are strong motivations.

You may have noticed how many of the little plastic labels on your food say “Mexico” these days. Mexican farm exports to the U.S. have climbed since NAFTA. Mexico sent more than $48 billion in agricultural products north in 2024, and it’s now the top buyer of American farm goods, taking about 17% of our agricultural exports.

Most Americans remain oblivious to these facts, and the export numbers ignore the millions of subsistence farmers who can’t grow enough to export. 

Our southerly neighbor appears to be a communist oligarchy or cartel in which a few very wealthy run things and the rest of the people scrape by much as they have since Hernando Cortez took down Tenochtitlan. 

In 1537, Pope Paul III prohibited enslaving Native Mexicans, but under the encomienda system Natives had to work for free in exchange for religious instruction and protection from enemies.

Now it’s the ejido system. That system certainly differs from U.S. land ownership, but in my experience it has also kept subsistence Indigenous communities resilient.

I would fully support the American public schools teaching all about the injustices in Mexico, but in my view these walkout protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement play into the hands of the Reconquista.

Denver Public Schools sued the Department of Homeland Security in 2025 to keep schools off-limits to immigration enforcement and said it would refile if agents showed up on campus.

Nobody wants their dead child to provide courtroom theater, but if the parents who lose children to overdoses on illicit Mexican drugs would band together and sue the schools for promoting sanctuary policies, it would stop.

Cartel prevalence and the related ad hoc jurisprudence have made Mexico a dangerous place outside the tourist meccas. 

Mexico’s geography and people provide potential to develop a strong middle class, a goal that increased and varied cultural and economic participation by the U.S. can achieve given a modified and safe business environment.

Tom Anthony lived in Denver’s Elyria neighborhood for 18 years, served eight of them as president of the Elyria Neighborhood Association and spent 14 fighting to put Interstate 70 underground.

Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.