el crispito

As for the ethnic breakdown, 60% are mestizo (Amerindian-Spanish), 30% are Amerindian or predominantly Amerindian, 9% are white and "other" makes up the remaining 1%. According to a U.S. Consular Service survey conducted in 1999, some 441,680 gringos were living in Mexico at that time. Maybe the re-election (or some might argue, the first election) of George W. Bush caused many people to consider life south of the border, as it did for Shawn and me. In the year 2000 there seemed to be many celebrity dissidents with their bags packed, ready to leave the country if Bush were elected. Yet it seems that apart from Pierre Salinger, who did in fact move to France, such grand posturing was nothing but a lot of hot air.

Yet Americans are not the only ones full of talk and no action; although Mexico is a predominantly Catholic country (89%), only 15% of Catholics attend mass regularly. You would never know that to look at the representations of Mexico in the popular media, but that is purely an artifact of aesthetics. There may be nothing sexier than a lapsed Catholic, but the real thing makes for better stories. So much suffering, so easy to sin, all that kneeling in front of a half-naked figure of Christ - it's the stuff Hollywood dreams are made of.

In economic matters, Mexico ranks 64th among the world's economies as measured by gross domestic product (GDP) at purchasing power parity (PPP) per capita with $10,090 (USD, 2005). This puts it behind Chile (57th with $11,537) and Costa Rica (63rd with $10,316), but ahead of Uruguay (65th with $9,619), Panama (81st with $7,327) and Colombia (82nd with $7,303).

Spanish is the official language of Mexico, but 7% of the population speaks one of the 62 officially-recognized Amerindian languages. Yet curiously enough, in Chipilio, within the state of Puebla, people whose ancestors immigrated to Mexico from Italy still speak the Feltrino-Bellunese variant of the Venitian dialect.

Mexicans use 16 million hard-wired phones and 28 million cell phones. Telmex is the biggest phone company (it owns 90% of those hard-wired lines), and it is partnered with SBC Communications. As with much of Mexico's infrastructure, there are no official carrier regulations, but rather a set of private agreements among only the three largest carriers. As of 1999, there were 167 Internet Service Providers in Mexico, and nowadays you can easily get broadband service in the larger cities. They have 31 million radios receiving their 865 AM stations, 500 FM stations and 13 shortwave stations. They have 26 million televisions receiving 561 broadcast stations and 143 cable systems.

The 16,268 miles of railroad in Mexico have fallen into disuse because their private operators have gone bankrupt. Instead, most Mexicans get around by bus service, the quality of which can vary greatly from bus line to bus line and even bus to bus. Interestingly enough, the government has been privatizing ports in Mexico to increase their efficiency and help productivity, and these efforts have been so successful that they have privatized most of the airports also.

That's a good start. Obviously we'll add more facts and figures as we continue our examination of life in Mexico, but I thought it would be handy to have these basics all together in one place.