Neighbors Look Different When Eyes Are Opened : Journalism: The U.S. being reported ‘on the other side’ is a mythical place; will that change after the shock of the L.A. riots?

For all those who in anno Domini 1992 still resist the idea that Mexico’s destiny has been unequivocally linked to economic and political life in the United States, history holds evidence that is both painful and illustrative.

The examples are numerous, as far back as the arrival of U.S. secret agent Joel R. Poinsett on the shores of Veracruz in 1822 all the way to the artificially flavored nationalism of the 1970s, when political chic dictated that no candidate worth his ticket to the institutional pantheon ever spoke English in public--while at the same time we borrowed abroad to amortize our “Mexican miracle.”

From the negotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement to the last movie theater in Michoacan where an Arnold Schwarzenegger film is being shown, to deny the influence of the United ‘States in Mexican national life today is to deny a large part of a very complex society.

By the same token, one cannot deny a Mexican presence in the United States, either. More than 4 million Mexican-Americans exert an increasing political influence, along with the economic impact of an ever-growing migrant work force in states like California, Florida, Texas and Illinois.

From these and other facts one could safely assume that each country influences the other. The 1,900 miles of our common border and the several million people that cross it every year would even encourage us to believe that we have some understanding of our neighbors, right?

Not so, if one is to judge by--among other things--the Mexican coverage of the Los Angeles riots. From reports that “Beverly Hills was one of the hardest hit areas by the fires” to endless panegyrics about the neutrality of Latinos ( ergo Mexicans) and the rough description of the disturbances as an issue predominantly between blacks and whites, the aftermath of events in Los Angeles has left Mexican journalists sharing a startling realization with their American counterparts: We have been writing about a country we did not know.

And most distressful of all, we have been reporting a myth. For the great majority of the Mexican media, coverage of life in the United States reads more or less like a very reliable tourism itinerary: the State Department briefing room in Washington, the U.N. building in New York, Little Havana in Miami, a half-mile stretch of the Tijuana-San Ysidro border and a few well-established Mexican-American communities in Los Angeles, San Antonio and Chicago.

Unfamiliarity with the legal and political systems, financial limitations in some cases, a simple shortage of correspondents and a dependence on satellite feeds and wire services have perpetuated such extreme conceptions of the United States as a plentiful though somewhat crazy haven for the “huddled masses yearning to be free” or the capitalist root of all Latin American evils.

In witnessing the demise of communism and waging our bet on the free-market economic model, we failed to take account of what the highest plateaus of capitalism look like through the eyes of inner-city residents. When we were transcribing White House speeches about human rights in Latin America and prescriptions for truly representative governments, we forgot to consider the struggle of minorities fighting for a voice within the palace of democracy.

Writing about Latinos in the United States, we have failed to understand the significant transformation of the Hispanic population in this country. We have unwittingly omitted tensions between established Mexican-American groups and newly arrived Central and South American immigrants.

Most important, we have failed to report the tragedy that many Latinos go through in finding out that this country has not been Arcadia for a long time. As it turns out, the Los Angeles riots are not only a mirror in which other cities around the world can see themselves; on closer examination, the riots might also entail a personal message to Mexican as well as American journalists covering the other side of the border:

Perhaps if we were to widen the spectrum of coverage in bilateral issues, if we were to go beyond official sources and tell the story of ordinary people who keep both countries alive, we would be documenting an alternate history. A history that will be around after the current administrations’ policies and trade agreements are long forgotten.