Racial comments on mothers on welfare in Mexico spark outrage

When the head of Mexico’s Welfare Department (Secretaría de Desarrollo Social) shocked everybody with a statement during a business trip to Nayarit, warning indigenous women that having more than three children will exclude them from collecting food stamps, the cries of racism across the country didn’t wait.

In her speech during her visit to the state located in the Northeast of Mexico, Rosario Robles Berlanga warned indigenous women that having more than three kids will preclude them from the program “Oportunidades.” This program provides up to $250 dollars per month to families living in poverty, and it also help their children with scholarships. Right after this statement, complaints were heard everywhere in Mexico, mostly pointing to her as a racist.

“Rosario Robles’s comments exposed the racial structure of Mexican society, something that people don’t want to recognize,” said Gaspar Rivera Salgado, Program Director of the UCLA Labor Center, based in Los Angeles. “Basically she is saying that indigenous women are ignorants who don’t know what they are doing.”

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Rivera Salgado, born in Oaxaca, is a long time US resident and holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Southern California. He’s an analyst and researcher on Oaxacan immigration to USA, a trend that reshaped the farmworker’s face in most states, mainly California.

“It is a double victimization: for being a woman and indigenous,” said Rivera Salgado. “This explains there is racism in Mexico which justifies social disparities.”

Survey shows rampant racism in Mexico

Some of the results of the 2010 survey produced by the Enadis Survey (National Survey on Discrimination), shows that 23.3 percent of the population would not share a house with somebody from another race; 54.8 percent says that people receive insults based on their skin color; and four out of ten people say some people are treated differently due to their skin color.

In addition to these findings, when it comes to Mexico’s indigenous people (around ten percent of the country’s population) matters are worst. According to the same survey: 27 percent of the population who speaks an indigenous language (more than 60 indigenous languages are spoken in Mexico), 16 of them in Oaxaca— and older than 15-years-old, doesn’t know how to read and write. Only 47.2 percent of those indigenous older than 12-years-old attend school.

These living conditions are chronic in a society that currently brags about its improving economic and business opportunities.

As a more compelling example of racism, Rivera Salgado explains that during the 2013 march and protest to Mexico City organized by the national teacher’s union, those coming from Oaxaca received the most negative comments.

“It wasn’t about their political stance, but about their look, about their skin color,” Rivera Salgado exclaimed.

Rosario Robles Berlanga, now heads up SEDESOL, Mexico’s welfare agency. Her comments on indigenous mothers might signal underlying racism in the country as a whole. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

He also explains that Oaxacan immigrants living in the USA go through the same situation: “In a recent workshop we organized, attended by around 100 youth from all over California, we asked them if they experienced racism… All of the 100 young adults responded yes, mainly in the form of derogatory jokes or slurs about their indigenous origin.”

Rosario Robles Berlanga’s ‘progressive’ past

What also got the attention about the racist comments from the head of the Mexican Welfare Department is that she’s a woman–and a woman with a past of being “progressive.”

Rosario Robles Berlanga was Mexico City’s governor (1998-2000) for the then-considered leftist political party PRD (Partido de la Revolución Democratica) a hybrid and reformist organization recycling dubious candidates from the other two main political parties, the PRI (currently in power) and the PAN.

“She is an educated person, a former college instructor and a former progressive darling of the 90s,” said Rivera Salgado. “This is serious and hurts, because she is the head of a powerful public institution.”

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After the wave of criticism, Robles Berlanga softened her stance and said no indigenous woman would be discriminated against by SEDESOL in comments made May 6th.

“I tried to say that small families live better,” said Robles Berlanga. “I said then ‘no more,’ meaning stop having so many kids, I didn’t mean our agency will stop helping families in need.”

She added that sometimes, when talking in public, “passion doesn’t allow you to be very precise.”

She also stated that she gets very concerned seeing 12-14 years old girls pregnant.

However, the damage its already done, according to Rivera Salgado and many Mexican critics.

“Such comments come from the top, from the head of an institution and most likely would bring consequences,” he said, expressing concern over

the “institutionalization” of racism.

“This is not about freedom of speech, she is a high rank officer and her political positions are related to the acting of her institution.”

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