About Statistics

Mexico and Statistics

I have long been suspicious of numbers and their use to adjust reality to a desired view. When statistics are taken, at what point do they draw the line that this one makes it in the first column and this one does not? As in child care or unemployment. Mexico has some very shocking and disturbing numbers posted against it. But for the most part, they do not seem to be the normal at all. So one has to question who did the counting and how and why. Because of the natural migration of people to where the wage is higher in what was historically very recently their own land, and the statistics claiming how many have no work, it makes Mexico look like a land of total poverty and hardship. This is not so though. But unfortunately it is the information most outsiders have, and from this they form their opinions.

Who gets counted as unemployed in Mexico. The migrants with jobs across the border? They show no employment record here. And what about the vast amount of people who are self employed? Unlike America, where most have to work for a boss and be counted for taxes, many Mexicans never enter that type of system. It takes little money to live on here and the need to hold down a full time job does not appeal or apply to many. This is a family oriented nation, and not all need to work at a formal job in order to support the household, but they still are useful in many other ways. All these are counted and added up against Mexico’s record.

And of course, with statistics there are some truths in them to be found if they are not taken as the whole answer. Mexico City is the largest city in the world. And with any large city, it has terrible poverty, and all that goes along with living in an unnatural situation. And in southern Mexico people are in a transition from traditional times to modern times and frequently lost somewhere in between. But this is just certain groups of people in certain areas. What statistics do, in their full final sweep of one report covers all, is make Mexico look like it is this way everywhere. That each town has its slums and poverty and unemployed, without exception. That this is Mexico itself.

But this is not so at all. Mexico for the most part is full of towns and villages that exist very well and should be a model of what poorer people can make of their life and surroundings. There is no hunger, no rampant disease, no beggars or abandoned children. It is a natural society, and all fit in. Family oriented and taking care of itself. If only the world could see this much larger side of Mexico, instead of the one painted by statistics. And of course, there is the whole world of the well to do and well educated here, that is rarely even known about by the average person elsewhere.

Like many things America does to harm those countries it wants to dominate and oppress, statistics are used as a subtle weapon to shape the image of a country in the eyes of the world. Say Mexico, and one is suppose to think of poverty and corruption. When this is not what it is, only in limited areas, as in any country. It is the Americanization of the world that wants everyone working a full time job provided by a rich person, so all can be accounted for and benefited from by advancing those at the top. People not buckled down to this system are useless to it and only provide a living for themselves. No upwards flow of money. Just hand to mouth. They are not liked at all.

And with this image, so well publicized and pushed by America, its story is told by many who come here, already steeped in the false impressions created. They come to report on the dumps and orphanages, the big city horrors, crime and unemployment. Some not even realizing they bought into a distortion and are perpetuating it by repeating it. The lie being, that is not all of Mexico only a part. But this is the popular thing to do, so much of what Mexico really is, is lost to the world. Its strengths, its special people, its way of survival with dignity and happiness. The living close to nature, not over consuming, using what is readily available, keeping a balance that could save our earth if the greedy would do likewise.

How does one fight the image statistics leave in their trail? They are known to be the final proof in showing how it really is. But it is not really that way as a whole, so how does one bring back the reality of the rest of Mexico for the world to see it by? It is what Americans call a smear campaign, and people willingly or unknowingly promote this. Even some of the best people do, not realizing it.