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25 New Persp. Q. 6 (2008)

handle is hein.journals/nwpsp25 and id is 1 raw text is: VICENTE FOX CARLOS FUENTES ABRAHAM F. LOWENTHAL HUGO CHAVEZ ALVARO VARGAS LLOSA HERNANDO DE SOTO WANG JISI MUHAMMAD YUNUS JUAN SOMAVIA RODRIGO LARA MESQUITA NABIL SHAATH SHIMON PERES NATAN SHARANSKY CONDOLEEZZA RICE MOHAMAD MAHATHIR JAM ES HANSEN GEORGE PAPANDREOU Looking North Winter 2001 MEXICO CITY-The poor of Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean have long looked North for a better chance in life, braving the Florida Straits, wading across the Rio Grande or stealing through the rose gardens of suburban San Diego as prophets of a postmodern age when borders no longer hold. Now, in an historic shift from the days of anti-Yanquism, their governments and intellectual elites are looking North as well. Except for Fidel and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, who still seem enthralled by the romance of nationalist revolution, most of Latin America welcomes the integrationist vision of Mexican President Vicente Fox, a onetime salesman for that imperialist brew, Coca-Cola, as a sensible path forward for a region still weighed down by massive poverty and the backdraft of corruption. For Fox, only the rule of law, democracy and a common market with the United States will create a space free and wealthy enough to accommodate the aspirations of all Americans. The Mexican writer Carlos Monsivais once remarked that because Mexico lacks opportunity, Los Angeles has become the heart of the Mexican dream. Indeed, one- quarter of the working population of Fox's home state of Guanajuato live as migrants in the US. And a full 30 percent of all legal immigrants to the US these days, not to speak of those who cross the border illegally, come from Mexico. To bring the dream back home Fox, in effect, proposes to build a bigger house with his neighbor. But, more than anything else, bringing opportunity back to Latin America must start with ending corruption. If there is a continental denominator in the recent political upheavals across the region it is the revolt against the impunity of a corrupt political class that, with notable exceptions like Chile, has filled its pockets while leaving behind a legacy of economic stagnation and one of the world's worst maldistributions of wealth. This revolt has taken varying forms, from Fox's surprise election after 71 years of perfect dictatorship in Mexico to the sudden fall of Alberto Fujimori and his spy- master Vladimiro Montesinos in Peru to the popular rise of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela with his resonant cry against rotten elites. In this hemisphere, though, it takes two to tango. Although it was California Governor Jerry Brown who first proposed a common market with Mexico back in 1979-an ' 6WINTER 2008 6

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