Mexico's National Research Articles

Mexico's National Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders: Challenges and Good Practices

Mexico's National Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders: Challenges and Good Practices

Evaluating Different Types of Enterprise Support Programs Using Panel Firm Data: Evidence from the Mexican Manufacturing Sector

(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.)In most countries, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) make up the vast majority of firms, account for a substantial share of gross domestic product, and involve the bulk of the workforce. However, SMEs often lag behind larger firms in many performance dimensions. This lag is widely believed to result from constraints that SMEs face, including decreased access to finance, weak managerial and workforce skills, an inability to exploit scale economies in production, and imperfect information about market opportunities, new technologies, and methods of organization.In Mexico, microenterprises and SMEs make up 99 percent of firms, employ about 64 percent of the workforce, and account for more than 40 percent of GDP. Given the importance of SMEs in the economy, governments in Mexico over the past twenty years have established a wide variety of SME support programs. How effective these SME programs have been in achieving their objectives is unclear. In Mexico, impact evaluations of SME programs are rare. Most evaluations are qualitative in nature and narrow in scope, usually measuring beneficiary satisfaction with either support services or program coverage.This paper evaluates SME support programs in Mexico using a panel of firm-level data for two groups of firms-a treatment group that participated in SME programs and a control group that did not. The panel data have been created by linking SME program participation information to a large panel of annual industrial surveys (1994-2005) maintained by Mexico's National Institute of Statistics and Geography.The panel data provide an opportunity to address several issues that have plagued impact evaluations of SME programs in most countries, including Mexico. First, asking program participation questions in the firm survey allows the identification of firms that have never participated in any program and firms that have participated in different types of SME support programs such as business development services (BDS) or programs to support research and development (R&D).1 Second, the availability of multiple years of information on the characteristics and performance of participant firms-both before and after program participation-allows us to estimate the impacts of support programs that address selection biases arising from differences between the treatment and control groups in observable attributes and in unobserved heterogeneity. Our findings suggest that program participation in certain types of BDS and R&D support programs is associated with a higher value added per worker and increases in employment and exports. The positive impact associated with firm participation is strongest and most robust in the R&D support programs, which include the Sector Promotions Program (PROSEC) of the Ministry of Economy and the Fiscal Incentives and Technological Innovation (FITI) program of the National Science and Technology Council. These programs showed positive and statistically significant impacts on firm performance, ranging from increases of 9-13 percent on sales-and, in the case of PROSEC, increases of 12 percent in value added per worker and 10 percent in production per worker. Both R&D programs increased exports between 16 and 18 percent. The results also indicate that some outcomes, such as employment and value added per worker, showed positive effects only after the third or fourth year of program participation, although the effect increases as time goes on. As for BDS programs, we estimate positive effects on sales, fixed assets, and productivity measures from the National Environmental Audit Program (PNAA). We were unable to identify positive effects of this program on other outcomes or positive effects of the Comprehensive Quality and Modernization Program for Training the Industrial Workforce (CIMO-PAC).An Overview of SME Programs in MexicoThe Mexican federal government supports the development and competitiveness of Mexican firms by improving the overall business environment and through interventions to support individual firms or groups of firms, especially SMEs. …

Women in Postrevolutionary Mexico: Politics, Culture, Identity, and the Body

Women in Postrevolutionary Mexico:Politics, Culture, Identity, and the Body Eileen Mary Ford (bio) Joanne Hershfield . Imagining la Chica Moderna: Women, Nation, and Visual Culture in Mexico, 1917-1936. Durham: Duke University Press, 2008. xiv + 200 pp.; ill. ISBN 978-0-8223-4238-0 Stephanie Mitchell and Patience A. Schell, eds. The Women's Revolution in Mexico, 1910-1953. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2007. viii + 233 pp.; ill. ISBN 978-0-7425-3731-6 Jocelyn Olcott, Mary Kay Vaughan, and Gabriela Cano, eds.. Sex in Revolution: Gender, Politics, and Power in Modern Mexico. Durham: Duke University Press, 2006. x + 320 pp.; ill. ISBN 0-8223-3899-8 Stephanie J. Smith . Gender and the Mexican Revolution: Yucatán Women and the Realities of Patriarchy. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2009. xi + 257pp.; ill. ISBN 978-0-8078-3284-4 (cl); 978-0-8078-5953-7 (pb). In 2001, scholars convened at a Yale University conference titled "Las Olvidadas [the forgotten ones]: Gender and Women's History in Postrevolutionary Mexico." The conference spawned the majority of the essays in the two edited volumes under review, and since that time, several scholars have completed monograph-length studies based on their participation in the conference. Inspired by path-breaking work in the 1980s on early feminist congresses, suffrage movements, and soldaderas (female soldiers and camp followers during the Mexican Revolution), these historians have moved beyond the early project of recovering women's voices from the past and the narrower question of political rights.1 In the last decade or so, a proliferation of scholarship has not only configured women as historical subjects but also examined the relationships between women and gender, and how these categories relate to state formation, nationalism, modernity, identity, and popular culture. Historians of Mexico can now claim that these female subjects are no longer "forgotten," and that more recent histories employ the diverse methodological and thematic scopes explored at the 2001 conference. [End Page 221] Decades ago, groundbreaking work in women's history argued that the category "women" is heterogeneous and therefore differs tremendously with regard to class, race, sexual orientation, and age. Mexico's history of Spanish colonialism, a multiplicity of indigenous groups, and mestizaje (racial mixing) over the centuries complicate any discussion of women in Mexico. Moreover, men are not the only oppressors: as several authors show, women have also oppressed other women, in modern Mexico as elsewhere. While it is difficult to isolate the multiplicity of identity categories that interact with relationships of power, the scholars reviewed in this essay have taken up this task. The period of the Mexican Revolution is particularly meaningful for the study of women and gender because male revolutionary officials, eager to create a cohesive revolutionary rhetoric to promote nationalism, effectively silenced, marginalized, and stereotyped women's contributions to that narrative. Yet the very definitions of the revolution and its periodization are not easily defined. The 1910 Revolution, the first social revolution of the twentieth century, ravaged the nation's population, infrastructure, and economy, introducing a new political regime after ending thirty-four years of dictatorial rule. Historians have considered the military phase of the revolution (1910-1917) as distinct from the implementation of revolutionary reforms in subsequent decades (1920-1940). New research examines the fractured and fragile nature of revolutionary reforms, the emerging revolutionary state and the ruling party, with an eye to how women and gender fit into and altered this narrative. Similarly, women and gender historians have heeded the calls of other Mexican scholars to explore the regional nature of the revolution, demonstrating how regional histories of Mexico's revolutionary period have excluded women or failed to adequately include gender as a category of analysis. The anthology Sex in Revolution offers an engaging variety of essays on women's presence and power during and after the Mexican Revolution and the nature of gender roles and gender struggles during the first half of the twentieth century. Eleven essays are divided into four major topics: "Embodying Revolutionary Culture," "Reshaping the Domestic Sphere," "The Gendered Realm of Labor Organizing," and "Women and Revolutionary Politics." They are wide-ranging in topic and approach, including a transgendered colonel in...

Public health strategy against overweight and obesity in Mexico's National Agreement for Nutritional Health.

Overweight and obesity are major world global health challenges of the 21st century. Mexico is not an exception. Approximately 70% of the adult Mexican population has an excessive body weight. The prevalence of obesity and overweight in Mexican school children aged 5-11 is also high: one child in four is overweight. In light of the seriousness of the situation, the solutions for this problem are based on modification of the environments and change of individual habits and behaviors related to nutrition and physical activity. As a result, the Mexican government, public sector and academy established three common goals and 10 priority objectives that are expressed in the National Agreement for Nutritional Health-Strategy to Control Overweight and Obesity. The obesity problem requires interventions and policies that reside outside of the health sector domain, key aspects of this public health policy was agreement among all stakeholders on cross-cutting actions. The best examples of National Agreement's inter-sectorial action implementation is in the school setting and Code of 'Self Regulation' on Advertising of Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages to Children introduced by the food and beverage industry. The ultimate goal of this national policy is to provide the strategic plan for healthy weight and better health, by promoting healthy lifestyles focused on correct diet and physical activity in all life stages, from pregnancy and early childhood and on into adulthood by a multi stakeholder approach. Although there have been great achievements in some areas of implementation, there are still challenges to confront.

NATURAL RESOURCE DEPENDENCE IN RURAL MEXICO

<strong>T</strong>he relationship between poverty and natural resources is complex and the empirical evidence to date, mostly from studies of forest activities and poverty, is inconclusive. The main purpose of this paper is to identify empirically the effects of household characteristics and of inequality at the village level on natural resource extraction and dependence. We use data from the Mexico National Rural Household Survey (ENHRUM). Our results show that in rural Mexico natural resource extraction is predominantly an activity carried out by poor households. The same is true for dependence. There are important differences across Mexico in terms of both participation and dependence on resource income. These differences are most evident when one compares the south and north of the country. When relatively rich households participate in resource extraction their natural resource income is considerably higher than that of the poor.

Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol by Kelly Lytle Hernández (review)

Reviewed by: Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol by Kelly Lytle Hernández George T. Díaz Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol. By Kelly Lytle Hernández. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010. Pp. 328. Illustrations, map, figures, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 9780520266414, $24.95 paper.) Kelly Lytle Hernández's Migra! is an in-depth study of the United States Border Patrol, from its inception in 1924 as an agency fused specifically on migration control to its development into an organization that more broadly polices "criminal activity." (13) Rather than begin with the assumption that Border Patrol actions against "illegals" were inevitable, Hernández's book examines how the employment of local working-class Anglo men as agents early on steered the federal service towards targeting poor, dark-skinned Mexicans or "Mexican Browns."(10) Aside from shedding light on the individuals and local issues that shaped the patrol, Hernández succeeds at making Migra! a transnational story of U.S. and Mexican government policies coming together to regulate unauthorized migration across their shared border. Utilizing a wealth of previously unexamined archival material in the U.S. and Mexico, Migra! is more than just a history of the Border Patrol, but a wider consideration of how Mexicans emerged as this country's "iconic illegal aliens." (2) Texas figured prominently in the process of the "racialization and regionalization" of federal immigration law enforcement. (2) The Border Patrol's founding in 1924 came after almost sixty years of expanding immigration restrictions and growing nativist sentiment in the United States. Although laws barred the entry of prostitutes, paupers, and all Asians (to name but a few of the host of persons prohibited from legally entering the country) as late as the 1920s, Mexicans could freely migrate into the United States. Mexicans became the target of U.S. immigration law enforcement when Border Patrol officers interpreted their mandate to police unsanctioned border crossings to mean keeping excess Mexican laborers out of the country. Hernández does an excellent job of showing how the first Border Patrol agents came mostly from poor Anglo backgrounds and had a personal stake in limiting labor competition. Moreover, drawing from established regional law enforcement, the Border Patrol absorbed a substantial number of former Texas Rangers, many of whom carried their instilled suspicion of Mexicans with them to the federal level. Rather than make Migra! a simple retelling of Anglo wrongs, Hernández is keen [End Page 419] to point out Mexico's hitherto unexamined participation in U.S. migration control. U.S. immigration restrictions coincided with growing nationalism in Mexico, whose government viewed their emigrants' cheap labor as a national resource and their deportation from the United States as an indignity. Indeed, such concerns prompted Mexico to establish its own Border Patrol in 1953. Although never reaching the size of its U.S. counterpart, Mexican efforts to restrict the movement of its citizens led to bilateral collaboration between both governments and pushed unauthorized migrants to increasingly perilous methods and areas for crossing. Migra! concludes by examining the Border Patrol's development into an organization that policed drugs as well as people. In the wake of the mass deportation drive known as "Operation Wetback" in 1954, which Hernández frames as more a public relations campaign than a genuine effort to oust all unauthorized Mexican migrants, the Border Patrol sought new ways to establish itself as the federal government's most essential police force on the nation's edge. The Border Patrol's interception of smugglers bearing narcotics, in particular, expanded the organization's activities beyond immigration law enforcement to the broader mission of "crime control." (213) Aside from providing the most thorough history of the Border Patrol to date, Hernández's Migra! makes significant contributions in the fields of transnational borderlands and Mexican American studies. Well written and highly insightful, the book will serve students, scholars, and policy makers well. George T. Díaz Sam Houston State University Copyright © 2013 The Texas State Historical Association

Inclusion and its moderating effects on ideas, interests and institutions

This article examines the moderation of the Mexico's National Action Party in the context of democratization. Founded in 1939 as a confessional party, by the 1990s the PAN had moved toward the political center – retaining its Christian-Democratic identity and ideals but also making institutional appeals to the broader voting public in Mexico. This article explains the segmented process through which the PAN moderated in response to inclusionary reforms promulgated by Mexico's authoritarian regime. In some cases, those reforms merely aggravated internal tensions in the party. But other reforms repositioned the PAN vis-à-vis its competitors, Mexican civil society, and the Mexican voting public, and triggered institutional changes that enabled the PAN to build political momentum in advance of the country's 2000 democratic transition. Employing an institutional process-tracing approach, this article examines how shocks in the PAN's competitive environment reverberated inside the organization: how they affected the relative power of factions in the party, how they were mediated by existing party institutions, and how they related to the party's ideological goals. Those crucial intra-party processes, I argue, influenced whether the PAN, as an organization, responded to those exogenous shocks in terms of its competitive behavior, and conditioned how the PAN responded when it did so. The case of the PAN demonstrates that parties may respond to inclusionary reforms or other exogenous shocks in relatively uncoordinated and unsystematic manners.

In memory of professor Oleg K. Tikhomirov

We recall the personality andscientific achievements of Professor Oleg Konstantinovich Tikhomirov, wholectured for six months in Mexico. During this period he developed atheoretical basis for psychology at the Autonomous University of Puebla (UAP).In his academic work at UAP, he established historical-cultural foundations forpsychology's activity theories (ATs), which since his demise have beendistributed throughout Mexico and Latin America. Beyond his effect on thecultural traditions of psychology, Prof. Tikhomirov has had an abiding impacton the ways of thinking and has created an 'image for the world' (to use anexpression coined by A.N. Leontiev).We should begin by explaining howTikhomirov could in such a short timespan implement his work at Puebla. Thisexplanation might help the reader grasp the depth of our respect for OlegKonstantinovich. However, prior to that step, we should study the professor'srelationship with the article's authors, Luis Quintanar Rojas and his wifeYulia Solovieva. Luis Quintanar, a participant in the Master Degree program inPsychobiology at the Faculty of Psychology, National Autonomous University ofMexico, sought to continue his higher education by studying A.R. Luria'sconcepts of neuropsychology.Consequently, he applied to the SovietUnion in 1988 and was granted a scholarship to Moscow State University (MSU).During Quintanar's four years in the Soviet capital, Prof. Tsvetkova supervisedhis Ph.D. dissertation. After defending his doctoral tract, Quintanar returnedto Mexico in 1992. There he secured employment at UAP and also established aMaster's Program (MP) in Neuropsychological Diagnosis and Rehabilitation.Launched in August, 1994, the MP initially had only one teacher and researcher:Luis Quintanar himself. At that stage, the program had yet to employ otherteachers or representatives of historical-cultural psychology (HCP) or ofneuropsychology. As a result, it was forced to invite teachers from otherMexican universities or from abroad. Several local researchers were asked tocollaborate in the MP's lecturing, but none was well acquainted with HCP orwith neuropsychology. Quintanar had always planned for the program to embracegraduate students of psychology seeking an HCP orientation in general, andLuria's approach in particular. But the only way to attain this objective wasto seek financial aid from Mexico's National Counsel of Science and Technology(CONACYT). Such assistance would also attract professors from MSU to lecture onneuropsychological and psychological concepts.The neuropsychological-orientedprogram started receiving CONACYT support in 1995, with the financial aid usedby local students (who applied for government scholarships), and by foreignteachers and researchers. The first priority was to deal with topics such asneuropsychology, with Prof. L.S. Tsvetkova invited to Mexico. She arrived atPuebla with her husband in 1994 and stayed until 1996.O.K. Tikhomirov, Luis Quintanar(O.K. Tikhomirov, Luis Quintanar)Tsvetkova was primarily invited due tothe close scientific bond she had developed with Quintanar during his doctoralstudies at MSU.The latter sought her advice onsubjects beyond the MP, including the invitation from MSU of specialists ingeneral and developmental psychology. So it happened that Prof. Tsvetkovaadvised Quintanar to invite Prof. O.K. Tikhomirov to lecture in generalpsychology, and Prof. V.Ya Liaudis to teach both pedagogical and developmentaltopics. Oleg Konstantinovich had served as the 'methodological supervisor' forQuintanar's Ph.D. dissertation at MSU.The following two photographs showQuintanar defending his Ph.D. dissertation at MSU on June 5, 1992.It is important to relate thatCONACYT's financial support was secured for air tickets and salary alone. Inthe case of L.S. Tsvetkova, it authorized a two-year salary, while forTikhomirov, it only authorized a six-month salary (such types of financialsupport are at present even more difficult to attain). …

Review of Revolutionary Parks. Conservation, Social Justice, and Mexico's National Parks, 1910-1940

Review of Revolutionary Parks. Conservation, Social Justice, and Mexico's National Parks, 1910-1940

EMILY WAKILD. Revolutionary Parks: Conservation, Social Justice, and Mexico's National Parks, 1910-1940.

EMILY WAKILD. Revolutionary Parks: Conservation, Social Justice, and Mexico's National Parks, 1910-1940.

Revolutionary Parks: Conservation, Social Justice, and Mexico's National Parks, 1910–1940. By Emily Wakild. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2011. xiii+ 235 pp. Illustrations, maps, appendices, notes, bibliography, and index. Paper $26.95.

<i>Revolutionary Parks: Conservation, Social Justice, and Mexico's National Parks, 1910–1940</i>. By Emily Wakild. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2011. xiii+ 235 pp. Illustrations, maps, appendices, notes, bibliography, and index. Paper $26.95.

Revolutionary Parks: Conservation, Social Justice, and Mexico's National Parks, 1910–1940.EmilyWakild, Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2011. 234 pp.

Revolutionary Parks: Conservation, Social Justice, and Mexico's National Parks, 1910–1940.EmilyWakild, Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2011. 234 pp.

The Lepidoptera of White Sands National Monument 5: Two new species of Cochylini (Lepidoptera, Tortricidae, Tortricinae)

In 2006, 10-year studies of the moths in two park units of the U.S. National Park Service in southern New Mexico were initiated: White Sands National Monument in Otero County, New Mexico, USA; and Carlsbad Caverns National Park, in Eddy County, New Mexico, USA. Two new species of Cochylini, Eugnosta brownana Metzler &amp; Forbes and Cochylis yinyangana Metzler, are described. Adults and male and female genitalia of both species are illustrated.

Forest Conservation and Slippage: Evidence from Mexico’s National Payments for Ecosystem Services Program

We investigate a Mexican federal program that compensates landowners for forest protection. We use matched controls from the program applicant pool to establish counterfactual deforestation rates. Deforestation was reduced by 50% in enrolled parcels, but expected average clearing rates without the program were low (0.8% per year), suggesting modest total avoided deforestation benefits. We test for two types of slippage: increased deforestation on other property belonging to program recipients and increased deforestation within markets where there are high levels of program participation. We find evidence of both, with substitution impacts reducing program effectiveness in common properties by about 4% on average. <i>(JEL O13, Q24)</i>

Clinical and Pathological Characteristics, Outcome and Mutational Profiles Regarding Non–Small-Cell Lung Cancer Related to Wood-Smoke Exposure

Although smoking is the major risk factor for non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), other factors are also associated with lung carcinogenesis, such as wood-smoke exposure (WSE). This article has been aimed at suggesting that lung cancer related to cigarette smoking and lung cancer related to WSE have different clinical and genetic characteristics. A cohort of 914 lung cancer patients was prospectively studied; they had been treated at Mexico's National Cancer Institute between 2007 and 2010. The associations of WSE and cigarette smoking with clinical characteristics, mutation profile, response to chemotherapy, and epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors were analyzed, and overall survival (OS) rate was calculated. The trial was registered with ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01023828. Of the lung cancer patients studied, 95.1% were classified as coming within the NSCLC histology subtype; 58% of the patients smoked cigarettes, 35% had a background of WSE (exposure to both cigarette smoke and wood smoke was documented in 12.1% of all patients), and 19.4% patients had no smoke-exposure background. WSE was associated with NSCLC and adenocarcinoma histology, and was also more frequently associated with epidermal growth factor receptor-mutations than cigarette-smoking patients were (50.0% cf. 19.4%), whereas KRAS mutations were less common in WSE patients (6.7%) than in smokers (21%). WSE patients had a higher epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor response rate (39.7%) than smokers (18.8%). The NSCLC patient WSE group's OS was longer (22.7 months) than that for smokers (13.8 months). NSCLC patients who smoked tobacco/cigarettes differed from those having a background of WSE regarding tumor histology, mutation profile, response rate, and OS, indicating that different carcinogenic mechanisms were induced by these two types of smoke exposure.

Severity of anxiety and depression are related to a higher perception of adverse effects of antiepileptic drugs

After reviewing the negative effects of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) on general health and quality of life, the Commission on Outcome Measurement from the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) recommended incorporating reliable and valid tools in clinical essays in order to achieve a more accurate assessment of the subjective adverse effects rate and disease severity when using AEDs. PurposeThe aim of this study was to correlate the severity of adverse effects of AEDs, with the presence of anxiety and depression in patients with epilepsy. MethodsThe Spanish version of the Liverpool Adverse Events Profile (LAEP) and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) were applied on 130 consecutive outpatients with epilepsy from the epilepsy clinic at the Mexico's National Institute of Neurology and Neurosurgery. A correlation analysis was carried out to determine if the presence of depression and anxiety was related to the adverse effects of AEDs. The relation between LAEP scores with other epidemiological variables was also assessed. ResultsOur study found a positive correlation between the LAEP and the HADS scores (p=<0.01).The most common adverse effects were drowsiness (81.5% [n=106]), difficulty in concentrating (76% [n=99]), and nervousness and/or agitation (75% [n=97]). Female gender, a history of febrile seizures, persistent seizures and polytherapy were associated with a higher toxicity on LAEP. In our study, age at epilepsy onset, duration of epilepsy, type of epilepsy and patients’ age were not related to higher LAEP scores. ConclusionAdverse effects to AEDs can be related with the presence of psychiatric disorders such as anxiety and depression in patients with epilepsy.

Primary adenoid cystic carcinoma of the tracheobronchial tree: A decade-long experience at a health centre in Mexico

Background:Mexico's National Institute of Respiratory Diseases (NIRD) is a third-level national reference center. Primary adenoid cystic carcinoma (PACC) is an uncommon neoplastic disorder; hence improvements in the description of this disease are needed.Materials and Methods:This is a retrospective clinical study based on all consecutive patients with pathological diagnoses of PACC seen at the NIRD between January 1, 2000 and December 31, 2009.Results:We identified 9 cases of PACC (67% female) out of a total of 2,634 patients with lung cancer seen during the period analyzed. The mean age of those 9 patients was 41 years (IQR 36-57), and the frequency of PACC at our center was 0.3%. It is important to note that 67% of those patients had a history of smoking and that 6 of the 9 had the antecedent of previous exposure to biomass fuel smoke. Baseline arterial blood gas analyses revealed a median of 61 mmHg for pO2 and 28.5 mmHg for pCO2. Median FVC was 78%, while FEV1 was 77% with an FEV1 /FVC ratio of 78. Death occurred in 56% of cases, and the median survival time was 17 months (IQR 6-26) after the initial diagnosis.Conclusions:The frequency of tracheobronchial PACC among patients with lung cancer was similar to that previously reported (0.3%). According to our results, lung function has no specific phenotype in this disease; however, some abnormalities could be related to potential risk factors such as tobacco use and exposure to biomass fuel smoke.

Traveling from New Spain to Mexico: Mapping the Nation in Nineteenth-Century Mexico (review)

Traveling from New Spain to Mexico: Mapping the Nation in Nineteenth-Century Mexico (review)

Ayapan Echoes: Linguistic Persistence and Loss in Tabasco, Mexico

ABSTRACT Ayapaneco is an indigenous Mexican language that—according to a widely circulating story—is dying because its last two fluent speakers refuse to speak to each other. In 2006–07, their case was publicized by Mexico's National Indigenous Language Institute (INALI), picked up by several international news agencies, broadcast on television, and repeated in various media. In this article, I examine the circulation of the Ayapaneco story and its unexpected consequences for the two speakers and the town of Ayapa as well as for other interested parties.

Change in binge eating and binge eating disorder associated with migration from Mexico to the US

Exposure to Western popular culture is hypothesized to increase risk for eating disorders. This study tests this hypothesis with respect to the proposed diagnosis of Binge Eating Disorder (BED) in an epidemiological sample of people of Mexican origin in Mexico and the US. Data come from the Mexico National Comorbidity Survey, National Comorbidity Survey Replication, and National Latino and Asian American Survey (N = 2268). Diagnoses were assessed with the WMH-CIDI. Six groups were compared: Mexicans with no migrant family members, Mexicans with at least one migrant family member, Mexican return-migrants, Mexican-born migrants in the US, and two successive generations of Mexican-Americans in the US. The lifetime prevalence of BED was 1.6% in Mexico and 2.2% among Mexican-Americans. Compared with Mexicans in families with migrants, risk for BED was higher in US-born Mexican-Americans with two US-born parents (aHR = 2.58, 95% CI 1.12–5.93). This effect was attenuated by 24% (aHR = 1.97, 95% CI 0.84–4.62) with adjustment for prior-onset depressive or anxiety disorder. Adjustment for prior-onset conduct disorder increased the magnitude of association (aHR = 2.75, 95% CI 1.22–6.20). A similar pattern was observed for binge eating. Among respondents reporting binge eating, onset in the US (vs. Mexico) was not associated with prevalence of further eating disorder symptoms. Migration from Mexico to the US is associated with an increased risk for BED that may be partially attributable to non-specific influences on internalizing disorders. Among respondents reporting binge eating in either country, similar levels of further symptoms were endorsed, suggesting some cross-cultural generalizability of criteria.