Throughout my research, I have encountered a plethora of secondary sources concerning the negative effects NAFTA imposed upon Mexico. However, I think the three secondary sources Eating Nafta: Trade, Food Policies, and the Destruction of Mexico, Ethical Borders: NAFTA, Globalization, and Mexican Migration, and “Neoliberal Globalization, NAFTA, and Migration: Mexico’s Loss of Food and Labor Sovereignty” are the most quality options. Together, these sources reveal that NAFTA unleashed a domino effect of problems upon Mexico: the Mexican diet was altered to resemble that of an America, due to protections placed upon crops that arrived in Mexico in the form of processed foods, which ultimately lead to job loss and immigration.
Much of Mexico is in the process of or has undergone the “coca-colonization” and “dietary delocalization” of a traditional diet.
Firstly, I will analyze Eating NAFTA, which yields detailed evidence concerning the rise of processed foods within Mexico, as well as the downfall of Mexican agriculture and local businesses. As cultural anthropologist and historian Alyshia Gálvez points out, much of Mexico is in the process of or has undergone the “coca-colonization” and “dietary delocalization” of a traditional diet.* This means that a traditional, milpa based diet was replaced by one based upon ultra processed foods that lack nutrition and are manufactured by immense, agriculturally based companies such as Coca-Cola, which, importantly to note, is of American origin. Gálvez notes that this transformation yields a steep increase in calories consumed, a lack of nutrients for children and adults alike, and increased rates of obesity within Mexico.† In fact, the extreme presence of processed foods within Mexico has produced the term “Vitamina T,” a reference to the assortment of snack foods beginning with the letter “t”: tacos, tamales, tortas, tlacoyos, tlayuda, takis, etc.‡ NAFTA is the culprit for the dietary switch from one primarily based upon the milpa to one resembling that of a contemporary American. Due to the elimination of tariffs and trade barriers, processed foods were able to arrive in Mexico effortlessly.§ NAFTA enabled processed foods to flow into Mexico at considerable amounts, significantly altering the Mexican to have significant influence from the stereotypical U.S. diet and thus, greatly affecting the health of Mexicans.
The Mexican diet was so severely altered due to the U.S. domination of the agricultural market and exploitation of Mexico for trade qualities, as seen in “Neoliberal Globalization, NAFTA, and Migration” written by anthropologist Gerard Otero. Otero argues that the loss of traditional cuisine in Mexico is a direct result of dependency upon U.S. imports.¶ Following NAFTA’s ratification, there was an increasing amount of products exported to Mexico. These products were protected by NAFTA. The deal ensured their protection by blessing the products with a “phase-out period” that existed much later in the future.# Essentially, this phase-out period protected crops exported to Mexico and enabled them to dominate Mexico’s markets. One of the crops that was most protected was corn, possessing a phase-out period of 14 years.** This protection ensured the success of American corn within Mexico, usually recreated into the form of high fructose corn syrup, an essential component for processed food.
“This protection ensured the success of American corn within Mexico, usually recreated into the form of high fructose corn syrup, an essential component for processed food.”
“With an ailing economy, NAFTA was in fact a bad deal for Mexico because it could not compete with U.S. subsidies to its own businesses, thus producing job loss and migration pressures in Mexico.”
The protection that phase-out periods provided would, aside from transforming Mexican eating patterns, inevitably lead to immigration to the United States, as Bill Ong Hing examines in his book Ethical Borders. Hing claims that one intention of NAFTA was to alleviate Mexican illegal immigration into the United State, but that this backfired.** To the contrary, Hing’s work confirms the idea that NAFTA causes unemployment: “With an ailing economy, NAFTA was in fact a bad deal for Mexico because it could not compete with U.S. subsidies to its own businesses, thus producing job loss and migration pressures in Mexico.”†† Essentially, since U.S. corn was protected and inexpensive, local Mexican growers were forced out of business and into unemployment. The only option Mexicans such as these possessed was to migrate Northward, where U.S. companies would welcome immigrants such as these as a source of cheap labor with open arms, therefore exploiting Mexico.
In conclusion, these three sources reveal a domino effect that NAFTA unleashed upon Mexico. The traditional, milpa based diet of Mexico was forced into extinction by the processed foods that are popular today. This switch was due to U.S. imports, particularly corn, being protected. These imports, due to inexpensiveness, undermined Mexican growers and forced them to relocate to the United States.
Bibliography
Gálvez, Alyshia. Eating NAFTA: Trade, Food Policies, and the Destruction of Mexico. Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2018. Accessed April 15, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctv3znx6r.
Hing, Bill Ong. Ethical Borders: NAFTA, Globalization, and Mexican Migration. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2010. muse.jhu.edu/book/1294.
Otero, Gerardo. “Neoliberal Globalization, NAFTA, and Migration: Mexico’s Loss of Food and Labor Sovereignty.” Journal of Poverty, vol. 15, no. 4, Oct. 2011, pp. 384–402. EBSCOhost
- *Gálvez 2018, 32
- †Gálvez 2018, 32
- ‡Gálvez 2018, 119
- §Gálvez 2018, 3
- ¶Otero 2011, 385
- #Otero 2011, 389
- **Hing 2010, 9
- ††Hing 2010, 9