Meghan은 간다, Meghan ya no esta aqui

Political conversations in Spanish

Because Cande and I have spent a lot of time together our conversations get beyond simple things, although Stephanie and I have been teaching her how to say ¨I am awesome¨ in English.

I asked her about what party in Mexico she likes. Government in Mexico is actually stable, but the party system is a little weird. There has technically been more than one party, but the PRI party has controlled almost all of the government since the Revolution in the early 1900s, and it has involved much corruption. In 2000 Vicente Fox was elected and he was the first president from another party besides PRI, and Fox is a part of PAN party. For more on this sort of information, read Opening Mexico, which you can look at here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0006SHMKM/sr=8-1/qid=1148161698/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-1728682-1215846?%5Fencoding=UTF8 . It´s a very good, very informative, and very easy to read account of the current state of affairs in Mexico as well as the events leading up to the election of Fox.

Cande mentioned Bush putting soldiers at the border, and so we began to talk about immigration (on my part) and emigration (on her part). It was so nice to have this conversation with a Mexican. I said that a lot of people in the states are upset because many of the immigrants do not come to America with papers. Cande agreed that people should have papers to go and work. I mentioned that I couldn´t, and wouldn´t, just go to another country and work and live without permission. She mentioned the fact that in Mexico there is not a lot of work, and I said I understood, but said that the government in Mexico needs to be better. She wholeheartedly agreed with that. I said that if people had papers, then it´s totally fine, but America can´t have everybody. Mexico needs people, too.

Then last night I had a conversation with Pedro about politics. He thinks the PRI party is corrupted (and I agree.. they´ve been known to steal money from the country and build huge houses and put money in banks in Switzerland). He said when Fox (of the PAN party) was campaigning he promised more jobs, better police, better government, but after nearly 6 years none of that has happened. Pedro says Fox may have promised more jobs, but they´re all the States, or high up government jobs.

Pedro also asked me why we have so many shootings at schools in America. I couldn´t answer that question. The only thing I could come up with is that guns in America are legal, whereas they´re illegal in Mexico, but I told him ¨no se¨, or ¨I don´t know¨.

posted by Meghan @ 2:47 PM