Question set for Ferocious Differences by Jorge G. Castañeda

1. Why did Jorge G. Castañeda write this article? You’ll find the answer in the first few paragraphs.

Castañeda wrote this article because, during the two years after the passage of NAFTA, the US media, society and government were shocked by developments in Mexico (peso collapse, Zapatista rebellion…). Castañeda believes these events caused surprise because the US does not understand Mexico and had begun to assume that Mexico was becoming more and more like the US. Castañeda wrote this article to identify and explain the “ferocious differences” that separate Mexico and the US.

2. Summarize Humboldt’s description of inequality in Mexican society.

Alexander von Humboldt, the German writer and traveler, and perhaps the world's first Latin Americanist, made the point as early as 1802: "Mexico is the country of inequality," he wrote. "Perhaps nowhere in the world is there a more horrendous distribution of wealth, civilization, cultivation of land and population."

3. According to Castañeda what are the differences between the US and Mexico regarding class structure and “mass society”?

The US possesses a significantly large middle class that has created a “mass society” in which a large portion of the country’s population shares similar patterns of behaviors (40-hour work week) and expectations (retirement…). This stabilizes US society.

Mexico has a much smaller middle class, not large enough to be considered a “mass society”. Therefore, behaviors and expectations are much more diverse than in the US.

4. What are the three certain equalizing institutions reduced injustice and segregation in the US?

I couldn’t find three of them. Draft, public school

5. What are Mexico’s “three nations”? Write one or two sentences that describe each of the nations.

Criollo: small group of, mostly white, wealthy Mexicans who control much of Mexico’s wealth.

Mestizo: majority of the population, which is a combination of indigenous and European lineage. Impoverished.

“Republic of Indians”: “utterly destitute” indigenous minority, also know as “el Mexico profundo”

6. What does Castañeda mean by Mexico’s unpredictability?

"In Mexico nothing ever happens until it happens." The "leading indicators" available to scholars, pundits, and technocrats in the United States and elsewhere do not operate in Mexico.

7. Summarize Castañeda’s explanation Mexicans’ conception of time.

I like his statement that, “time is often not money in Mexico.” Wages are low or jobs are non-existent for the majority of Mexicans so that it does not make economic sense to be punctual.