Guest Column
Random Readings: Why most Americans still don't get Mexico
- BY KELLY ARTHUR GARRETT
- The Herald Mexico/El Universal
- 07 de mayo de 2006
The infamous mutual misunderstanding between Mexicans and Americans has been centuries in the making, but only lately has it camped out behind the headlines and in the boardrooms. You'd never know it from the self-righteous accusations flying in all directions, but the problem isn't really anybody's fault.
Rather, says Ned Crouch in his "Mexicans and Americans: Cracking the Cultural Code," there are deep-rooted cultural differences that muddy the waters. By cultural differences, he's not talking about eating midday meals at 3 p.m. or relying on speed bumps instead of stop signs. The book is about more fundamental blueprints; it's about the assumptions and shared values that underlie the visible customs and behaviors on what Crouch calls the outer circle of culture.
Americans are usually clueless about the Mexican inner circle. (The reverse is true as well, of course, but that's not the topic under discussion here.) Crouch, an American born into a diplomatic family with a long career in international business, offers the uninitiated a 256-page introduction to that inner circle.
One obstacle to any meaningful understanding is the comfortable little delusion that speaking Spanish, along with trying your best not to be an Ugly American, is enough to get the job done. "Perhaps our own hegemony lures us into thinking that differences with Mexicans can easily be glossed over," Crouch writes. "A little extra smile, a friendly slap on the back, a peppy 'hola mano' and we've conquered that ´culture thing.'"
Another stumbling block: It's a complete and not entirely welcome surprise to many Americans that they bring their own set of cultural assumptions to the party. What they see as an objective observation ("traffic would flow more smoothly if drivers respected lanes") may in reality be an imposition of their own biases.
Some will be quick to call that American arrogance, but it's natural and universal. It's also an impediment to what Crouch calls "cultural fluency." You can't appreciate another's point of view if you block access to it with your own. Like a kitten first opening its eyes, putting what you "know" on hold is the essential first step into a new world.
Crouch's three entry points into the deep structure of Mexican culture are the conceptions of time, personal space and the meaning of "yes" and "no." The latter is an exploration of the Mexican's desire to please, making "yes" the default answer even when "no" is the correct one.
This can strike an American as unnecessarily confusing, if not dishonest. But if you understand the underlying motive, you're halfway to dealing with it. You may even learn to appreciate it.
The two cultures' differing sense of space plays out in a lot of ways. Crouch uses the example of the American lying alone on a beach when a Mexican family sets up camp right next to him. The American feels his space has been invaded; the Mexicans were naturally gravitating to "where the people are."
The culturally fluent American will whip out his understanding of space concepts and react accordingly. Most, however, will get upset, maybe even stalk off in a huff. That's where the problems start.
"You're feeling violated; they're feeling discriminated against," Crouch writes. "While you're asking why they are so intrusive, they're wondering what it is about them you don't like."
So you can't lie on the beach by yourself? That's not the point. "We don't have to change our standards to please them," Crouch writes, "but we do have to get used to the idea that there are two ways of doing everything. Theirs is no worse than ours."
The Mexican approach to time gets caricatured as a tendency to put off everything until mañana. Crouch does both Mexicans and Americans a favor by going beyond that simplistic and erroneous view. His explanation doesn't lend itself to a brief summary, but it has to do with time as a circle (Mexican) versus time as an arrow (American).
Check your feelings next time you're standing in line at a bank or a ticket counter. Do you see each person standing in front of you as "an impediment to acquiring (your) target?”
Or do you think, "We are all going in the same direction. We will all get there at about the same time, so why worry?"
If nothing else, just being aware of these fundamental cultural differences will help inoculate you from the worst-case scenario. And you know what that is. It's the blow-up, the full-blown gringo wig-out, what Crouch calls "smashing pottery." Frustration at what appears to be — and, let's face it, often is — unbearable inefficiency may be human, but once you snap, you've lost. Tilt. Game over.
Fortunately, the most common Mexican response to your unseemly display is laughter, a smile at the always-amusing spectacle of somebody living up to their stereotype. But that doesn't mean they like it. "A common theme in American-Mexican conflict is our irritability," Crouch says. "Mexicans really don't understand the anger factor. They take it personally."
Crouch's foray into cultural analysis is more informed than most of what I've read in this genre, but it's subject to the same pitfalls as the rest. The most obvious is generalization. The unrelenting emphasis on shared culture leaves the impression that all Mexicans (and Americans for that matter) think and act alike. Very little importance is given to regional, ethnic and class influences on behavior and thought, not to mention the role of individual agency.
Yes, culture matters: But it's not destiny.
Another is a sort of exaggerated literalness to the cultural set pieces. For example, when Crouch writes, "Never believe the first answer you get in Mexico," we have to assume he's really just reminding us to be aware that a Mexican's first impulse is often to please rather than inform. Otherwise, it's an outrageous statement to make.
In his eagerness to assign cultural causes to Mexican phenomena, Crouch understandably ignores others. It's interesting to know that what Americans consider "uproariously overdrawn" about most Mexican soap operas and comedies can be traced to the function of masks so deeply embedded in Mexican myth. "What Mexicans call acting we call faking," Crouch writes, as though it's the final word on the subject. "For them, acting is hyperreality."
But that comes pretty close to saying that Mexican television is supposed to be bad (and trust me, it's not only foreigners who recognize just how god-awful commercial television entertainment can be in Mexico). It ignores that the Televisa-TV Azteca has sent much popular entertainment into artistic freefall. It denies that given a budget and some freedom, Mexican filmmakers create world-class material that has nothing to do with "hyperreality." Again, culture is not destiny.
Crouch tells a personal anecdote from the 1940s, meaning he's been around for a while. It seems at time he's trying to throw all of his vast knowledge into this book. When he strays from cultural analysis, or tries to shoehorn it in to where it doesn't belong, he has less to offer.
Curious observations and outright errors abound. His notion that good-natured razzing isn't heard in the workplace indicates he hasn't taken the elevator down from the executive floor often enough. The statement that "in contrast to the U.S., conflict is rarely public in Mexico" makes me wonder if he's read a newspaper lately. The assertion that the formal second person "usted" is "always capitalized" makes me wonder if he's read anything at all lately.
You'll find your own favorites along these lines. The Zapatista uprising of the "1980s"? Madero assuming the presidency in "1914?" The landmark exhibition "50 Centuries of Mexican Civilization"? The "Toltec" ruins at Teotihuacán?
But just skip that stuff. Ned Crouch may be shaky on some of the surface details but he's a helpful guide for touring the bedrock. Besides, much of the interest in a book like his is disagreeing, questioning, challenging. I found much to question and challenge, but just as much to ponder and absorb.
- My only complaint is that the eternal question about Mexican culture remains unanswered: Why are the waiters so eager to take your plate away?
- _____________________________________________
- Contact Kelly Arthur Garrett at: kelly.garrett@eluniversal.com.mx
- The Herald Mexico article at: http://www2.eluniversal.com.mx/pls/impreso/noticia.html?id_nota=31102&tabla=articulos
- Mexicans and Americans: Cracking the Cultural Code By Ned Crouch Nicholas Brealy Publishing (2004)
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