This section is quite possibly the hardest one in my project presentation simply because so much information needs to be understood about NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) and its ideology in order to understand the relationship between H1N1 and the social and economic inequalities intensified because of NAFTA.  We must engage in this historical and contextual inquiry in order to avoid the immigrant scapegoating that distorts how we talk about Mexico, something that several media outlets did immediately upon learning that the Patient Zero was discovered in Mexico.

NAFTA took effect on Jan 1. 1994 to reduce tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade and investment between the countries of Canada, Mexico and the United States. Its promoters promised that jobs would be created in all three countries and consumer prices would decrease. For Mexico NAFTA has led to a dramatic rise in exports and imports, and has linked the Mexican and U.S. economies more than ever before. U.S. investment in Mexico is up, worker productivity is up, exports are up. In the following video MexicoToday highlights the positive impact that NAFTA has for Mexico and its trade partnership with the United States.

In this video, we see three people offer extremely positive reviews about the role that NAFTA has played on the economic relationship between Mexico and the U.S. However, we must ask, who are the people raving about NAFTA and what are their roles again? To recount, we have Brain Porter, Group Head of International Banking for Scotiabank; Louise Goeser, CEO of Siemens Mesoamerica; and Tom Donohue, President and CEO of the U.S Chamber of Commerce. In this short video, we have to ask the following questions: Are the statements from these powerful leaders about NAFTA truly accurate? Whose voice is missing from this discussion? 

However, Bill Bigelow, author of The Line Between US: Teaching about the Border and Mexican Immigration, argues that However in Mexico, since NAFTA, the minimum wage is down, the average manufacturing wages are down, the number of Mexicans fleeing poverty is up.” (19) The increased migration of the Mexican people to the United States is derived from the impact of Mexico’s neoliberal reforms under President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, who adapted this model of development advocated for by the United States. As a result, people who condemn the “illegal” immigration of the Mexican people ignore the reasons why the immigrants can no longer live in their own country and the policies that U.S had in doing this. 

The Meaning and Significance of Neoliberalism

Neoliberalism is a set of policies that focus on privatization, deregulation, and the advancement of the so-called “free market” over the public sector. This emphasis on free trade is the core principle of NAFTA. However, because of the ideology of free trade and deregulation,  “The border is a low wage haven, a magnet for transnational corporations looking for a cheap, non-union workforce; it is also a magnet for people throughout Mexico who can no longer survive on the land or in their former jobs. It’s a sprawling polluters’ paradise, where toxic muck flows through neighborhoods and into streams and rivers” (7) In the aftermath of NAFTA's establishment, many U.S corporations seeking laxer standards and cheaper labor pushed into Mexico and began their operations there without the same sense of accountability. 

This situation becomes especially problematic given the values of neoliberalism. As Bigelow argues, “A key aspect of this [neoliberalism] is eliminating the concept of the “the public good” and replacing it with “individual responsibility”  (20)  Neoliberalism  pressures the poorest people in a society to find solutions to their lack of health care, education, and social security all by themselves in the name of reducing government’s role- then, if they fail, labeling them “lazy" in a racialized manner, an image that media are complicit in portraying about the poor. 

Neoliberalism not only impacts the poor, but it also threatens the public health because of its philosophy. Mexican health policy expert Gustavo Leal told the CIP Americas Program that “the notorious delay in the response of the federal government can be attributed in part to the decentralization of healthcare promoted by international finance institutions such as the World Bank." Despite Mexico's greater risk of disease because of such policies, they could not immediately analyze the swine flu strains because of limited technology. Thus they had to send samples to the Canadian Health Ministry and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta for analysis at the price of a week of investigation and possible response to the outbreaks in the country. 

Globalism and Racialization: Refiguring Swine Flu into NAFTA Flu

We will look at Frantz Fanon’s key text, The Wretched of the Earth and the work of Nazeen Kane  to begin conversations of racism and globalization theory. Specifically, conceptualizing the social inequalities that are proliferating under (corporate and national) neoliberal policies like NAFTA are best enhanced with using race as a lens. From there we can better connect NAFTA back to the project's original ambitions to critically examine the racialized media narratives about the H1N1 outbreaks.  

As a reminder, Fanon's conceptualizes the role of race in the context of colonization. He states that …"it is clear that what divides this world is first and foremost what species, what race one belongs to. In the colonies the economic infrastructure is also a superstructure. The cause is effect: You are rich because you are white, you are white because you are rich. (5) In this framework, the “white man” has constructed a narrative of the inferiority of blackness (or some other racial color). However, we can see how this can be updated to fit the dynamics of globalization and how the injustices and inequalities committed under globalization are perpetuated and seemingly justified. Identity under the framework of first colonization, and now neoliberalism and capitalism, is dependent upon differentiation. Who becomes privileged and marginalized on structural levels by the economic system derives from who becomes seen as the foreign Other. In this case, the Other is deemed to be the marginalized one because of different racial features. 

As Kane states "Under 21st Century globalization, the problematic of singular deconstructions are clear. The systems of power that produced colonial formations have reformulated and, hiding behind the myth of neoliberalism, are reproducing the same inequities"(355) While the corporate crimes committed under NAFTA are economically-driven, it helps that the racial hierarchy that places the value of the Mexican worker at a much lower level helps entrench the repressive policies. 

1. The Industry of Breeding Disease
2. Smithfield’s Documentation and La Gloria: Examining NAFTA's Impact on the Relationship Between a Transnational Corporation and a Mexican Town.