 Aloha and welcome, welcome to Global Connections here. I think that Hawaii, I'm your host, Carlos Juarez, and today we've got a great topic. I've brought together a couple of young leaders who are gonna join us to reflect on looking at Mexico through foreign eyes. Mexico, of course, is an important neighbor to the south of the US, part of the Asia Pacific region. We gotta sometimes remind the Asia components that there are some partners over here. But today I'm joined by two young students that are currently studying abroad in Mexico, Davin Faxter and Oliver Owen. And so let me just briefly welcome both of you. Thank you for joining me today here on Global Connections, a chance to carry out an interesting conversation. Let me ask each of you just to give us a brief introduction, tell us where you're from and you're both students in Mexico. What is it you're studying, either in Mexico or at a home institution? So starting with you, Oliver, go ahead, Oliver. Hi, I'm Oliver, thank you for having me. Yeah, I'm from Manchester, England, but I originally studied at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, and I'm here in Puebla and Woodlap, studying international relations and modern history. Excellent, thank you. And Davin, go ahead. Hey, what's going on? Yeah, once again to follow up on Oliver, thank you so much for having us, it's a huge honor. So yeah, my name is Davin. I was originally born in Guam, USA, and I've been living in different places pretty much ever since, at the moment, living in Puebla, Mexico, and studying international relations all the time. Excellent, well thank you both. And I'm glad you reminded me about Guam, because as you know, the show we're doing today here, everybody think tech Hawaii, and it helps to bridge both all of the Asia Pacific region, and I have opportunities to join you here. Often I'm in Mexico, at the moment, I'm actually in central Texas in Austin, moving, and so little out of my own comfort zone, but it also, it's always valuable, because as you all know, I've been living in Mexico several years teaching there, and both of you have, I think, give us an example, or what are some of the opportunities or challenges for international education? And what I mean by that is you have opportunities to study in other countries, to even do degrees in other places. Davin, you've got now a connection into Mexico for some time as you're pursuing this, and with you Oliver, perhaps a short term engagement, and it is obviously coming also at a very interesting time during this massive global pandemic, presenting different challenges, but let me begin just in terms of understanding, global learning, global education is obviously a wide range of things, but it includes the opportunities that today, young students like you have for mobility. Let me put it clearly, when I was a college student 40 years ago, I mean, yes, you could do a study abroad, it was rare, it wasn't easy, there was simply, it wasn't as easy as it is today, but let me ask each of you maybe, offer some initial reflections, you've now been in Mexico some time studying, obviously like students all over the world, it's increasingly online at the moment, and gradually will ease back, and yet you're still experiencing living, and basically studying in a foreign country. So just beginning with the idea, I mean, what interested you in it, and then perhaps starting with Oliver, since you've come to far this stuff, here you are in England studying in East Anglia, and suddenly you get this idea to venture off and make your way to Mexico, I mean, what sparked your interest? And then just briefly, how was the arrival? I mean, what were some initial thoughts on how it went for you coming over? I think what initially sparked the interest was, just in general interest in Mexico, interest in Mexican culture, and I guess one of my major interests academically also is the history and politics of the Latin America region, which is not really something we really get the chance to talk about or to study academically in the UK. So that was a major motivation for me to do a study abroad, but also I wanted to, I really wanted to learn the Spanish language, which was a huge, huge motivator for me. Obviously arriving here, you realize, oh, you're learning Mexican Spanish, not Spanish Spanish. So when I've, talking to a friend, or the Spanish speaking friends that I've met in university back home, they speak to me like, what is your accent? What are these words you're saying to me? But it's been, but yeah, it's been a great experience. It was initially quite a scare experience because obviously arriving during the pandemic, it's just, it's a totally different experience than you'd imagine because I mean, usually it's everything, you know, you arrive, you go into your sort of university accommodation, everything's done for you, whereas, or that's what you'd imagine, whereas because of the pandemic, I arrived and didn't have, you know, full of like permanent accommodation when I first arrived. Everything was shut down when I arrived in Mexico City. So the first, I would say, one or two months were a little bit precarious, a little bit of a weird situation. Eventually I did, I found a nice student housing company. I moved into a house with a mix of, you know, international students and other Mexicans. And I really enjoyed it. But yeah, arriving here was an interesting experience to say the least. Well, thank you for sharing that. And I can assure you, even though it may not be obvious you're developing the kind of life skills, adaptability, resiliency, dealing with uncertainty, frustrations and solving the basic needs. Because yeah, I mean, it's hard enough studying abroad under normal circumstances, culture shock and a new system. Add to that just the crisis of a pandemic. And, you know, we'll get more to talk a little moment about how Mexico has been dealing with that because like every place, it kind of, it depends, it depends on where you are, certain communities, maybe even Mexico or the federal system, the states are kind of taking a leading role in coordinating their responses. But let's continue Devin, you yourself, I mean, you mentioned earlier, you've had sort of a movement around, but what is it that prompted you to find a way to Mexico and how has yours been? I mean, you've been in Mexico a bit longer perhaps, so you've seen it from where it was pre-pandemic and now through the pandemic. So give us an update. Completely different worlds. Yeah. So I originally came to Mexico because of my mom. Actually, we were living in Ankara, Turkey prior to this and she's a diplomat. So she works in the foreign service and she got a job at the US Embassy in Mexico City. And I had just completed high school in Ankara, took a gap year, was working two jobs there and the time had come to where she needed to start her new assignment. And she basically extended the offer on to me. It was pretty much between coming to Mexico or going back to the States and starting my university career. And after giving just a general look at all the different schools that I could have went to in the States and one particular school that we had found in Mexico City, we determined that the quality of education was gonna be more or less the same, but it was significantly cheaper to study in Mexico. So plus, I mean, of course, just like the whole cultural, new cultural experience, picking up a new language. I feel like coming to Mexico is definitely the, I don't know, the more option for me, I mean, yeah, to get the most benefit out of traveling and getting to know more out of the world. And yeah, so. Right. And you've effectively, as you said earlier, you've been able to experience Mexico coming and initially studying in the pre-pandemic time and witnessing this transformation. And of course that I imagine has been dramatic. So perhaps on that, let me ask you, and you can follow up right now to continue with that, Devin. I mean, what are some takeaways? I mean, I don't know whether it's just impressions, but in terms of how it came down now more than a year ago, and like every place else, it's going through its phases, transitions, and we're hopeful that in the coming months, things are gonna look better. It's not as bad as it was at one time, but it still remains a work of progress. But share with us any of your own experiences, either. Oh, I still remember what Noam was taking it seriously, like what was it February and March after China was already looking pretty bad and there were some cases sparking up around like the Asia region. And I think like Europe had just started seeing a few cases. People in Mexico still weren't taking it very seriously. Everybody was pretty much like, oh yeah, well, you know, it's just gonna be like a common flu. People are gonna look better after about two weeks. And I remember when the media censorship and we had to go through different mediums to find like these different videos that people were taking within that state of how serious the situation was. And lots of places, entire cities looked like complete ghost towns. So when that finally came and hit Mexico, lots of people got really scared. Lots of people had to go back to their home states. And I don't want to say it changed overnight, but it was a gradual process, but you could definitely see the procedural effects of that. And yeah, I guess it wasn't until summer when you really could recognize that, yeah, it's getting pretty bad. And Mexico city got hit hard, blood blood got hit hard, different parts. I mean, it essentially engulfed the entire Republic. And one of the challenges, I mean, this is true in many places, but especially let's say a country like Mexico where you've got, how should I say? I mean, a media that is in transition and it's hard, well, bottom line is that it's hard to get good information to know accurate information sometimes. And I say that because often, let's say in the more developed world, I mean, you've got some major sources you will turn to knowing kind of where they fit in and some of them are more credible, reliable. And I'm again, speaking as an outsider here that Mexico often there's a lot of very much sensationalized and there's a tendency of course, a lot of conspiracy theories and rumors, a lot of distrust of government for good reason as it has a long history often of mismanagement, corruption and the like. So just that. And so you've been through it and you've shared the, you've seen the transition, like suddenly it's a different world as you described when people finally took it seriously. And yet by contrast, in your case, all of you came and literally arrived into a pandemic scenario, maybe from your vantage point because again, you're also different coming from the UK. Let's say a different mindset, political culture, even the way public health and healthcare in general works is a lot more, in the US, we might say socialized or at least more uniform. And I can tell you like from the United States and my own vantage point, both family in Texas and Hawaii and in California, every place is different how they handle it and what they've done. And we've seen that variation. I'm just curious if you might just say offer some thoughts, Olyon. What did you see in terms of the things that were working or that weren't working puzzles, confusion or things that you said, gosh, why don't they do it this way? Or maybe, wow, that's a different way of doing it. That seems interesting. And any thing like that you can share? It seems to me, I mean, I mean, I'm not really with the belief that England has really dealt with it very well. But there are certain things that I've found quite contradictory about Mexico's response to the pandemic. So for example, something that, I mean, when I talked to Mexicans before I arrived here, they kind of described it to me almost as if it was like the Wild West, nobody cares, some things and stuff like that. Whereas when I arrived, the thing that surprised me was that people, at least you see people in the street and the people in stores and stuff like that. People are abiding by the rules. They have the, they have the system of masks, they have the, everyone's getting the temperatures taken, everything is getting, everyone's getting hand sanitized and stuff like that. Which surprised me that people were taking it so seriously in that sense. But it was way better compared to how it was in England. In England, because I think, I don't know, people say it's this sort of, I guess Anglo-Saxon mentality of the government can't tell me what to do, stuff like that. So you go into the stores and you see parts of people not wearing masks and stuff like that. Not everywhere, obviously. There are a lot of people that are abiding by the rules. But the thing that I found contradictory is that you have this kind of thing in Mexico and yet at the same time, stuff like, for example, large social gatherings in private settings, it doesn't seem to me like there's been any sort of regulation on that. Whereas, for example, in the UK, I mean, you can get fined up to 10,000 pounds if you get caught, you know, hosting a party or something like that. And it just seems, it does seem, it just seemed a bit very contradictory, the sense that in the, I guess, the public sphere, everyone very much abides by the rules and then the strict regulations, strict codes in line, but in more private settings, which arguably could be more dangerous, large social gatherings, it doesn't even seem to be much of a taboo on it about hosting large social gatherings privately. And I just thought was the main difference that I've noticed between England and Mexico. Yeah. Interesting. And you reflect that it speaks in some ways to Mexican culture and society. Often is described as, you know, people will put on a mask or they'll have a very different identity and maybe reality within their family and close circle and to the outside world. And so what you're describing is, you know, everybody's doing their, you know, sort of, I guess their citizenship responsibility. On the other hand, it's difficult for them because they're very social and there's a lot of, you know, gatherings, you know, the social gatherings and even, you know, a public displays of affection, a lot of kissing and hugging, it's difficult to take that away. Whereas, again, maybe Latin Americans would look at the British and say, well, there's stuffy anyway. It's easy for them to just, you know, somehow stay isolated and remote. Again, that's the terrible thing to say, but the point being that, yeah, in the Latin American culture in Mexico, I mean, just the idea that people are not as independent and autonomous and family is such an important part that it means literally, you know, multi-generational and your cousins, your aunts, the whole clan and then, and so on. Let's, I mean, maybe anything that you could add to the Daven though, just in terms of things that have been, like we heard from other paradoxes, puzzles, things that either surprise you. I mean, I can't say that it surprised me because I feel like a lot of different countries were doing this, but how Mexico just kind of got caught with severely undercounting the coronavirus-related deaths. And I think the estimates were somewhere around seven times higher than what the number, what the official numbers were reporting. So, I mean, I feel like countries do this for a number of different reasons. You know, they exaggerate the numbers or they underestimate them, either to receive more aid or perhaps to prevent, to do what they can to prevent the potential collapse of certain economic industries. But to me, when I saw those numbers and I see the reality of the situation is just kind of sad. And it is. I think in Mexico, it came out a few months ago that suddenly overnight, they suddenly announced it. Oh my gosh, we've been undercounting, you know, by four or five times or so. Surprise, surprise. And many people have been saying, well, wait a minute, there are other methods, you know, just counting the, and I think that's what came out, the methodologies, counting the morgues and counting, and then that many people are dying at home, never reporting it. And so it's just, you know, there took a lot of criticism and the challenge there is they can erode a lot of legitimacy or trust in the government. If suddenly they don't handle it well. And it further erodes, again, you know, a lot of the skepticism people may have, but that is the challenge. And Mexico, again, even today remains, you know, together with Brazil and India, the US, these are the major, major players of infections and death. And, well, that continues. Now, let me move us in and maybe continue the dialogue because as students of, you know, sort of international affairs and national relations, you know, global politics and the like, you're also observers of what's happening in Mexico. And at times we've had on the show opportunities to talk about complex interdependence between the US and Mexico, of course, of major trade relations, you know, human mobility, migration and the like. And there's also this important, you know, a moment where Mexico has this leader at the moment, Manuel López Obrador, who, you know, many, even in the international arena, I've often been critical of him, a populist leader among those who was sort of strongly downplaying the COVID itself and in the early phases. But I'm wondering, you know, having your own ideas and in your case, all of you had some preconceived ideas and, you know, interest in, let's say, Mexico, then, you know, what you see and maybe is there a disconnect or do you see things on the ground or living and experiencing Mexico that, you know, dispel some of the, or that maybe make clear there are misperceptions or that they simply, you know, or can you see that those images and misperceptions, you know, those perceptions are based on, you know, reality. I don't know, just what are your impressions again, again, about maybe what's happening in Mexico, the political change but about dynamics and you've seen the end of the Trump era, which was a tense moment. We now have the new Biden administration and yet it's not as if it's the friendliest. The relations remain still pretty tense and in Mexico, again, it's a tough time. The economy has taken a suffering. The political dynamics are also in flux. There's an upcoming sort of midterm election next month and the president continues to have a majority in the Congress in both the chambers and is expected to win but that doesn't change, you know, that there are still a lot of dynamics going on. So any reflections on, again, current Mexican politics and your observations, Ali? Well, it was just interesting to come to Mexico and I guess because, yeah, I guess back home, we do have some idea of who Amlo is but it's very much packaged into the whole idea of he's, oh, it's Mexican Trump, you know? Because it's very easy to do that or, you know, Mexican Bolsonaro or something like that. Whereas, you know, obviously he's somewhat, at least for observers back home, he's somewhat contradictory in that he's this sort of populist figure but he's also a self-described, he's also a self-described left winger. I'm fairly sure he has a background in something to do with indigenous Mexican languages or something like that if I remember reading that correctly. So it's not necessarily, I guess, people back home, the image of the popular, the big, you know, macho populist leader that some people expect but it's just been, it's been interesting to me to listen to the views of different Mexicans on Amlo because from one hand you get the more, the view of Amlo is more kind of popular in international media that, you know, he's a bit of a, you know, he's a showman, he's a bit silly. You know, he had the whole thing of him shaking, you know, shaking hands and stuff like that during the height of the pandemic. And I guess it's sort of a very critical view. And then hearing all the views of an ordinary Mexican saying, yes, he has his problems, he's not, you know, he's not perfect but, you know, he's better than what we've had or so that he's, I've heard that some people could sort of perceive him to be less corrupt than sort of other more establishment proper politicians that might be linked to like Preet or something like that. So that's the thing that's been very interesting for me, just interesting for me just to see the complete contrast in views between Mexicans because there doesn't seem to be any Mexicans to me that are in the middle on Amlo. It's either you like him or you don't. It's a bit like Marmite, you know. It is and he is a polarizing figure in that respect. So, and, you know, he's appealed because he's also addressing concerns and issues that have never been on the agenda, marginalized community or at least not at the top. So, you know, he's populist in that regard. He's trying to shift everything, but others that really see him as, you know, and yet the interesting thing is the opposition, if we can call that is completely disorganized, not coherent, doesn't have a plan. It's more like they just don't like him and they bring together parties from the right, from the left, from the center, evangelicals, just this garbled-up opposition. Meanwhile, you know, he does have, again, a continued majority. But Devin, again, you've been able to see it maybe in a more slightly longer venue, both as maybe not sure how long, years in Mexico, but you've seen Amlo kind of progressing and now dealing with the pandemic. Oh, and he talks about, you know, what you see in his role, his leadership and the perception people have of him. Yeah, he gets a lot of criticism. But as far as the pandemic goes, I don't really have much to say. I mean, I can't really name a country that's been doing an amazing job at this. I mean, this is a challenge that I feel like the world has not faced too many times before. I mean, globalization has affected us to a certain extent. Maybe the last time we had to deal with something like this was the Black Plague and with everything that's going on, I find it difficult to criticize a leader for the way he conducts himself when tackling such an insane issue as a global pandemic. Of course, we can always say something, but at the end of the day, I tried to just lean more towards other cases that are going on. I mean, for example, this San Fuegos controversy, how that's affecting the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico at the moment. For anybody who's over here. Just to be clear, you're speaking of a former general, a former Mexican general, who was in the previous government, the Minister of Defense, the highest ranking official. And a couple of months back, I don't remember exactly, he was arrested in the U.S., basically detained at the LAX airport, alleged to be involved in drug smuggling, drug trafficking, corruption. Yeah, money laundering, corruption. Money laundering. And then the U.S. government under Trump at the time, before this, this would have been the end of the year, before the transition, basically handed him over to Mexico, instead of putting him on trial in the U.S., handed him over with the expectation that Mexico would pry him or, and they provided the evidence, so to speak. Well, Mexico quickly, actually the evidence that they provided was sort of put onto the internet rather quickly. A lot of text messages and things that there were said to be the evidence. And eventually the Mexican government under López O'Aloch essentially exonerated him, saying that the evidence was not sufficient. So it created a very tense moment, because again, the relationship was very complex and it comes on the heels of a whole nother context where the Mexican Congress begun to limit some of the movement of drug enforcement agents in Mexico that have been doing this for decades now, but it is a very sensitive issue. And of course, López O'Aloch is starting maybe Mexican nationalism, Mexican sort of sovereignty issues is taking that hard line. It's interesting to see how the relationships evolve because the leaders themselves reflect part of it, but then you also have a lot of relations defined more by people-to-people and let's say other parts of government. And what I mean by that is you have the leaders. Today it's López O'Aloch, today it's Joe Biden and whether they have a clique, whether they have a sort of a personal relationship can often do much to break the ice. And again, Mexico and the U.S. is a very important relationship complex on so many levels. Interesting that we've seen just in these past years with all the attention to the migration crisis, Central Americans moving through Mexico about almost two years ago, we saw under the President Trump then a lot of pressure put on Mexico to sort of try to help stop that flow and threatening the use of trade war tariffs, increase in tariffs if they didn't cooperate. So Mexico has done that effectively and sort of become in the eyes of some people maybe doing the ugly work for the U.S. stealing that border. But interesting to see, and I wonder from your vantage point, I know all of you've been there a little bit less, but I know Gavin has been there longer, but today in Mexico, the Central American migration issue continues to be a very serious one because the flows have come, the border was stopped for a while and so many Central Americans have ended up in Mexico. Some of them have chosen it. There actually are migration policies that facilitate work visas for Guatemalans, Nicaraguans and Salvadorans from Honduras in particular areas. And I'm just wondering, because now that you've been sometime in Puebla, I mean, have you seen any, I don't know, aspects of the Central American migration? And you may not see it yourself, but Gavin certainly in the last year or two when we had big waves, they were passing through the region and just greater awareness of it. Also, there's an interesting aspect because among Mexicans, and you all have opportunities to interact with, fellow students and other Mexicans, there's often a lot of discrimination towards Central Americans. There is an element of that too that puts a different angle on this. So just maybe talking about questions, like the migration crisis, the migration issue, or as you mentioned, Gavin, even sort of security policy issues between the two countries. I mean, where do you see the forces coming from? I mean, that things are pretty tense. Are they likely to stay that way? How do you see the next coming months ahead? Yeah, naturally, I think this like always going to be an insanely complicated issue and it's gonna depend on specific administrations and what they want to do about it, what's important to their policy, what's important to the values of their administrations, et cetera, and what they ultimately, what they want to do about this. In my personal experience, I saw more migrants in Mexico City than I did here in Puebla. I didn't, I don't think I saw any like of the caravans or anything like that. In Mexico City, I did see that once, but in terms of how people are treated, as they're coming through, there is definitely an inherent hypocrisy, I think. But it's not, it's not so blatant either. It's mostly whenever you'll hear comments from time to time, but I've rarely seen South Americans or Central Americans be treated a specific way in my face or around like other Mexicans that I might be with. It's more so I'm in a private setting with some other Mexicans and I might hear some comments every now and again. But it also just depends on the person, I think, and how aware they are of the issues. I can't sit here and say that all Mexicans treat Central Americans and South Americans this way or any kind of like derogatory sense, because they don't, but there are definitely some cases where kind of like, yeah, well, why do you think so negatively about certain groups of people, especially when they're just trying to seek a better life, provide for their families or escape a very dangerous situation back home? Yep. Well, no, thank you for sharing that. And listen, we're winding down now in the last minute. I mean, other just as a final takeaway, I mean, now that you're sort of settled in and become Mexicanized in the last maybe 30 seconds, any final thoughts to share about your experience, looking at Mexico through your eyes? So, I mean, I don't really have the sort of well-served experience of Mexico that Davin has and I haven't really, I haven't met migrants myself. But it's something that just seems interesting is because it's not very publicized the role of Mexico in this sort of, in this whole conundrum, in the sense of Mexico acting as the sort of enforcer of American foreign policy and America's border policy. And something that's, that even though I've not really heard much from Mexicans themselves about views towards Central Americans, that doesn't really seem to be any sort of, I guess, backlash to war, almost not backlash, but sort of backlash towards Central American migration that might exist in America. And there doesn't seem to be this sort of want to play this role enforcer that America's sort of, I guess, pushing on Mexico. But it seems to me that Mexicans feel like this is something that is being forced on their government by through stuff like sanctions and tariffs and stuff like that. Well, thank you all, I mean, for sharing this. And again, we've just scratched the surface of some of these but mainly some impressions, some takeaways from your experience work. I'm sorry, studying living in Mexico now. I want to thank both of you for joining me here today on global connections. And really that's what it's about. Just connecting the dots, each of you coming from different parts of the planet and joining me there in Puebla, Mexico. Thank you again for these reflections and wish you both well as you continue. And for the rest of us, stay tuned as we continue with more on the shows to come ahead. Aloha, thank you.