Guadalajara, Mexico: General Information

Mexico shares a long border, and a long history, with the United States of America. It is bounded on the north by the Rio Bravo del Norte (Rio Grande), on the east by the United States and the Gulf of Mexico, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean. The capital, largest city, and cultural heart of Mexico is Mexico City.

The United Mexican States is a Federal Republic comprised of 31 states and one federal district. The Head of State and Government for the nation is the President, who is elected by universal suffrage of all citizens aged 18 and over, to a six-year term. The president may not serve consecutive terms in office. The Government of Mexico consists in the Executive function, carried out by the elected president, a bicameral Legislature, comprised of the Federal Chamber of Deputies (500 Deputies) and the Senate (64 Senators). The highest court in Mexico is the Supreme Court.

Mexico's Constitution has provided for: a code of labor, prohibition on consecutive terms in elected office, expropriated all property of religious orders, restored communal lands to Native Americans. The unfolding of Mexico's constitutional and federal government system has been different from that of the United States. Mexico holds a long tradition of public works, public welfare and social programs, with appropriation of private industries or properties as necessary, for the purpose of preserving and protection the nation's vital national resources (oil, minerals) or infrastructures (as in the 1937 nationalization of the railway system). This tenet is part of a long standing political struggle in Mexico, to attain a balance between political freedoms and representation, stability and trust in government, and economic parity. The tradition of struggle is a feature, also, in the cultural, economic, political, and class divisions that have recurred as issues throughout the national experience.

Guadalajara

Guadalajara was founded in 1530, and moved twice, before being established at its present location in 1542. The city has taken part in the major events and conflicts that mark the history of Mexico. Guadalajara has played in important role in the development of the nation. It is near some of Mexico's most spectacular natural beauties, including Puerto Vallarta and the deep green rolling hills of the surrounding parklands.

Guadalajara's Culture

The city is a center for magnificent architecture. The ceramics and pottery produced in the area are highly prized throughout the world. Other notable art forms include blown glass, woven textiles, wrought iron, tooled leather, and unique mosaic and murals which grace the public spaces.

Cultural highlights include the "Biblioteca Iberoamericana Octavio Paz", an extensive library in the magnificent Jesuit School of Saint Thomas Aquinas, founded in 1591. International business events take place at the World Trade Center in Guadalajara. Distinctive, magnificent murals by a variety of artists abound in the city. The Palacio de Gobierno displays a spectacular portrayal of Hidalgo y Costilla, "Country and Liberty!", commemorating Mexico's War of Independence.

The fine arts abound, with theatrical, dance, and concert events at the Teatro Degollado. Artists are on exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts, and a tour of the city will reveal an architecture eclectic and unique in the world. There is a world-class Zoological Garden, the Cultural Institute, the Philharmonic Orchestra of Jalisco, and a myriad of other cultural attractions.

Language

The primary language of Mexico is Spanish, with about a dozen Native American languages also still in use, primary of those Nahuatl (the Aztec language).

Weather

Currency

Political

The political parties of Mexico are the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party), largest and most important in Mexico; and National Action Party, (PAN) the only opposition party able to challenge the PRI at a national level. The Partido de la Revolucion Democratica, a hard-left party, (PRD) is also a vigorous opposition party.

The primary trends influencing Mexico arose from the Spanish Conquest and subsequent colonization of the Native American inhabitants of Mexico. Thousands of Mexico's native people were killed outright, and their labor exploited by the Spanish conquerors. In 1512, Bartolome de Las Casas, "Apostle of the Indians" became the first priest ordained in the New World, and served as the first historian of the Aztec culture to the European world, attempting to abolish Native American slavery and exploitation in the system of encomienda. That system was a large grant of land to individual Spanish settlers, with Native American inhabitants of the land included as chattel.

The enslavement policy was abolished as a result of his strenuous efforts at persuasion (1542) and over the years, the Spanish government attempted a variety of reforms. All such efforts were ineffectual, undermined by distance from the problems and the rapacious, corrupt practices of the Spanish and, eventually French, colonial powers. The alignment of power and ethnicity was a class system for years, with Spaniards holding all positions of real power, the criolles (creoles) holding official posts but wielding only derivative authority, theocratic monopoly by the Roman Catholic institutions, leaving mestizo and Native American laborers in peonage, powerless to influence the system.

In 1810, a Mexican priest and revolutionary, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, led an armed insurrection of mestizo and Native American people in rebellion against Spanish rule, He carried a banner depicting Our Lady of Guadalupe, patron saint of Mexico, and captured with his army of desperate people, the City of Guadalajara, in Jalisco. However, on January 11, 1811, this rebellion was crushed near Guadalajara by Spanish forces. Hidalgo fled, but was captured and shot. Independence was gained, and the republic of Mexico established by 1824, and the priest was regarded as a hero, almost a saint. The state of Hidalgo was named in his honor, and September 16, the day on which he proclaimed the revolt, is celebrated as Independence Day in Mexico.

Political change arrived with the ideas of the French Revolution, which inspired the criolles and educated Mexicans in the newly forming middle class. The revolutionary French political ideas also caught fire with the vast disenfranchised laboring classes. The Napoleonic upheavals in Europe during later years provided an opportunity for armed rebellion and independence from Spain to take place, but permanent class stratifications, mixed with politics and the personal ambitions of political leaders, kept the nation from finding equilibrium.

Armed struggle, dictatorship, and cycles of revolt and repression, became the landscape of politics in Mexico for much of its history. This is exemplified in the person of Benito Pablo Juarez, President of Mexico from 1861 - 1863, and again from 1867 - 1872. He was a Native American, educated for a career in law and civil service.

During the turbulent struggles of the 19th Century, this hero of Mexico served, first, as minister of justice. He opposed the corruption of government and the abuses of General Santa Anna, and was jailed for that opposition (1853). He lived in exile in the United States, but helped lead the opposition revolt which succeeded at last in 1855. Benito Juarez instituted reforms that included reducing the civil power of the Roman Catholic church and creation and enforcement of Mexico's constitution.

He was constitutionally elected President in 1861, and in the face of economic disaster caused by warfare within the nation as well as in conflicts with the United States, suspended debt payments to foreign powers. Great Britain and Spain consented to the Juarez reform settlements, but France attempted to colonize Mexico.

The French declared Maximillian, the archduke of Austria who was connected to the French government and ruling class, as Emperor of Mexico and took Mexico City by force. President Juarez led a Government in Exile from Saltillo, in Coahuila, and ousted the French by force of arms. Following the rout of France and execution of the puppet Maximillian, Juarez served again as the duly elected President of Mexico (1867). In 1871, a political rival, Porfirio Diaz, began an unsuccessful coup d'etat, but the long burdens of leadership took their toll. President Benito Juarez died of stroke in 1872, before the end of the uprising.

When border disputes between Mexico and the United States of America had been resolved by armed conflict, and by formal treaty with financial compensation, the two nations constructed what is now referred to as the "Good Neighbor Policy." Mexico served through military and diplomatic crises as an ally of the United States. The Mexican people lost men fighting in the battles of the Second World War against fascism. Mexico was also a founding member of the United Nations. Recent free trade agreements between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico (NAFTA) may well increase the level of cross-border interaction.

Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon was elected as Mexico's President, following the assassination of his party's candidate, for whom President Zedillo had served as campaign manager. Other killings and national scandals were investigated, and a National Mediation Commission was formed to address the armed rebellion of the EZLN, a Native Zapatista insurrectionist movement arising in the Chiapas region, where grievances against governing officials, involving corruption and political, ethnic persecution, had not been investigated or redressed.

In recent elections, the traditionally predominant, governing party of leftist and anti-colonial revolution, the powerful PRI, lost gubernatorial and mayoral elections in Jalisco State and the city of Guadalajara, to the conservative National Action Party (PAN). Present trends include departure from former policies in some areas, with moves toward privatization in some industries and institutions.

The City of Guadalajara is governed by an elected Mayor, who serves as Chief Executive Officer for a single term, and an elected City Council. The present Mayor of Guadalajara is Lic. Francisco Javier Ramirez Acuna. The City of Guadalajara, Department of Public Relations, can be contacted at (3) 614-8189 or (3) 614-2976, (3) 613-4158, FAX (3) 614-7921, or write: Hidalgo 400 Zona Centro C.P. 44100, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.

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