Mexican by birth and choice

Inside México: Do you consider yourself to be Mexican?

Denise Dresser: I define myself as Mexican. But I am not a traditional Mexican. I'm more outspoken and combative.

What I love about Mexico is the warmth, the social graces, the love of the aesthetic, family traditions, the history, enchiladas suizas, bougianvilleas, the houses of Luis Barragán. I love the way Mexicans say hello to each other.

There's a long list of what's wrong with Mexico, and the book [México: Lo que todo ciudadano quisiera (no) saber de su patria, by Denise Dresser and Jorge Volpi] tells it.

But this is still a country under construction. It's an incipient democracy.

IM: Do Mexicans think of you as Mexican?

DD: I have been called La Gringa and told that I'm not really a Mexican.

Maybe my vantage point is a bit like [Alexis] de Toqueville's [the French writer and politician who wrote Democracy in America] when he was in the United States. Since I'm something of an outsider, not 100 percent Mexican, maybe I can see the country more honestly.

I was on a political talk show and someone said, "You and your gringa ways." I got very upset. At the break the person said, "You are running ahead. Wait for Mexico to catch up to you."

I am saying, "Hurry up." Sometimes I can't sleep at night when I think of all the invisible people with their hands out, the 20 million people who live on $2 a day.

How do you create change? You yell, demand, push, suggest, and advocate.

I can't be a conformist. I have no intent in being a member of the establishment.

IM: Where do other people/countries, and particularly the United States go wrong when they look at Mexico?

DD: The US has a problem acknowledging that Mexico is many Mexicos. You have to visit the many Mexicos: Chiapas, Oaxaca, Monterrey with its vibrant, North Americanized entrepreneurial Mexico. The Sierra de Chihuahua.

And, the US needs to start thinking of Mexico as a North American country and a partner. If it did this, it would have to take Mexico seriously. The way the European Union did with Spain and Portugal. What I'm alluding to won't happen in my lifetime. But if the US wants to solve the problems between the countries it has to help Mexico grow.

IM: Should entrepreneurship be encouraged in Mexico?

DD: It's a critical task. We are a country of employees, not of entrepreneurs. There are such bureaucratic hurdles and high costs that many Mexicans would just prefer to go to work for someone. This is one of the projects and causes I support.

Being an entrepreneur is about two things: taking risks and solving problems. Mexicans aren't educated for this. We are educated to conform. To say "yes."

IM: What is the role of public intellectuals in Mexico?

DD: Public intellectuals exist in Mexico. In the US you can be a pundit, a professor, but not necessarily a public intellectual.

That said, I have a very ambivalent view of Mexican intellectuals. The fact that intellectuals are so revered is a problem. It will be better for the country when they are just another group in the society. The reverence with which Mexico underscores its intellectuals is elitist. A country in which there is a broad middle class wouldn't allow this. They don't need to be interpreted for themselves.

As the media democratizes and there are more choices of information, the preeminence of the elites will begin to fade.

IM: Do you have Mexican heroes?

DD: People whom I admire? Yes. I'm not going to talk about Madero or Juárez. But the artists and scientists. Alfonso Cuarón, Alejandro González Iñarritu, Julieta Ferro, Ricardo Legorreta, Elena Poniatowski. These are people who have gone against the grain, who are anti-heros, unorthodox.

IM: You have said that your work can feel lonely: what do you mean?

DD: If feels lonely when I say things that seem so self-evident but are so controversial to others.

There's a common Mexican phrase - you hear it everywhere - that I condemn. It's "Por lo menos - At least." When the bar is set so low, no one feels the need to change anything. How do you create participants? That's the question.

I live in a state of permanent indignation. That's how things get better in the world. I'm indignant and I don't accept that "Las cosas son como son (things are as they are)."

IM: As such an outspoken critic, do you ever worry for your safety?

DD: I'm not powerful enough to matter. What I worry about is not making a difference, of not leaving a mark.

IM: Will you keep being a professor?

DD: I will never stop teaching. It's an essential contribution to creating a more critical citizenry. My work is about the daily construction of Mexico. Of citizenship.

Denise Dresser is a professor of Political Science at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM), where she teaches comparative politics, political economy, and Mexican politics. Educated at the Colegio de México and with a Ph.D. from Princeton University, Dresser writes for Reforma and Proceso. She has published two bestselling books, Gritos y susurros: Experiencias Intempestivas de 38 Mujeres, and most recently a book of political satire entitled México: lo que todo ciudadano quisiera (no) saber de su patria, with novelist Jorge Volpi.