Growing up rich--and poor--in Mexico: while one Mexican teen attends an expensive private school, another washes windshields. Why are their lives so different?

David Nino de Rivera can't find his dog--a black Lab named Prince. So without leaving his backyard, he uses his cell phone to call Alejandro, the family chef, who is inside. In minutes Alejandro emerges smiling, with Prince by his side.

There's not much that David can't get with a phone call. If the Mexico City 13-year-old wants an after-dinner cappuccino, Alejandro brings it to him. If he and his two sisters want to shop at the mall, the chauffeur drives them in one of the family's eight cars.

Each morning before school--a $15,000-a-year private academy--David plays squash with his personal trainer. His family has a squash court, swimming pool, and tennis court.

Last summer, David's father took him to Cuba to see one of his telecommunications companies--a company that David hopes to own someday. His clothes bear the labels of Banana Republic, Armani, and Abercrombie.

"Anything like that is acceptable," says David in effortless English, tossing a stick to Prince. "I go shopping with my sister, and we'll just empty out my mom's credit card."

Life in the Streets

By the time David sits down to Alejandro's prime-rib lunch, Araseli Acevedo, 12, has already been washing windshields for five hours. At around 10 each morning, Araseli arrives at a busy intersection in Mexico City. When the traffic light turns red, she weaves between lanes of stopped cars, holding a bottle of sudsy water in one hand and a yellow sponge and rubber squeegee in the other.

As Araseli approaches, most drivers wave her away. But then one lets her wipe the windshield clean. For this he hands her a 50-centavo coin, which is worth about a nickel in the U.S. The light turns green, and Araseli bolts for the curb.

Like David, Araseli has her comida, the main meal of the day in Mexico, at around 3 p.m. She and nine other people who work the same corner--washing wind shields, selling candy, or begging--share two Styrofoam takeout trays filled with rice, beans, and a few strips of grilled beef. Sitting on the sidewalk, they wrap bits of food in tortillas, the cornmeal pancakes that Mexicans use like bread.

Araseli is a Mixtec Indian from the village of Orella in southern Mexico. She has worked since the age of 7, when she quit school.

Araseli has nine brothers and three sisters. There is no work in her village other than farming small family plots. Her father works illegally in the U.S., picking tomatoes. Although he earns less than the minimum wage, it is better than earning nothing back home.

Araseli, her mother, and her baby brother regularly make the 14-hour bus ride to the capital, where they stay for two months at a time. While Araseli washes windshields, her mother goes begging a few blocks away, the baby tied on her back with a rebozo, a traditional Indian scarf.

Araseli wears the same clothes almost every day. Her plastic sandais are torn. Her dirty fingernails show the remains of glitter polish.

She works cheerfully and, during breaks, plays with the other squeegee kids.

"I work to eat," she says.

"Otherwise, we have no money and no food."

A Widening Gap

In recent years, the gap between Mexico's rich and poor has increased dramatically. In fact, Mexico has become one of the world's most economically unequal countries.

In the past decade, thanks largely to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a pact that unites Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. in one of the world's largest free-trade zones, Mexico's economy has grown into the world's seventh largest. Glass office towers have risen in Mexico City, and elegant shopping malls have sprouted in the surrounding suburbs.

But most Mexicans haven't benefited from the nation's newfound wealth. While the richest 10 percent of Mexicans control half the nation's resources, more than half the population--some 57 million people--live in poverty, surviving on $2 or less per day.

The poorest region is the south, where most of Mexico's 13 million Indians live. After 500 years of discrimination, Indian communities have an average of 60 percent unemployment, and only 10 percent of their residents have access to doctors and hospitals.

Lack of work and falling crop prices have forced many people to abandon the countryside for Mexican cities or the U.S. An influx of job-seeking peasants has made Mexico City the world's second-largest city, with a population of 22 million.

But the government cannot provide housing and services for all of these people. As wealthy suburbs have grown, the slums and shantytowns have sprouted even faster. Tens of thousands of rural migrants (people who move to find work) live on the city's outskirts in tin and cardboard shacks, with no electricity and no water.

Mexico's middle class has also fallen on hard times recently. The effects of a financial crisis in the mid-1990s--and a downturn in the global economy after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001--are still being felt. As joblessness has risen and wages have fallen, many people who had recently made it into the middle class have slipped back into poverty.

Needed: An Education Revolution

Mexico's poverty has also affected the U.S. Every year, hundreds of thousands of Mexicans cross the border in search of work, joining the 10 million Mexicans already living in the U.S. Most of them enter illegally.

Many American industries are happy to employ hardworking Mexicans without having to pay the minimum wage or health benefits. And many Mexicans are willing to do the work, frequently earning 10 times what they'd earn in Mexico.

"Poverty is the biggest problem confronting Mexico," says Mexican President Vicente Fox. "Poverty drowns the hope and dreams of our youth." Like many Presidents before him, Fox has promised to help Mexico's poor. But so far, he has been able to accomplish little.

Lorenzo Meyer, a Mexico City historian and political analyst, says the nation needs "an education revolution" to improve workers' skills. The average Mexican adult has attended less than eight years of school. In the poor southern states, education levels are even lower.

For now, the government has no money to improve the school system. And many poor families depend on their children to work in order to help put food on the table.

But that doesn't stop Mexico's youth from holding onto their dreams. "I want everything better than I have right now," says David. "It's not good to take a step down. It's only good to take a step up."

Araseli wants to take a step up too. She thinks about the lives of the kids she sees riding by in shiny SUVs. They may be on their way to an amusement park or a restaurant, places Araseli can only imagine. She plans to have children of her own someday. "I hope," she says, "they will have a better life than I have." JS

OBJECTIVES

Students should understand:

* The increasing disparity between the lives of Mexico's rich and poor.

TEACHING STRATEGY

Inform students that the U.S. and Mexican governments are considering easing border controls. Conduct a classroom discussion by asking students: "How will the loosening of border controls affect the U.S. and Mexican economies?"

BACKGROUND

Mexico's Indian population continues to face discrimination and exclusion from the country's mainstream. A human-rights group estimates that 80 percent of Mexico's Indians live in extreme poverty. Most Indian communities lack running water and electricity. The national education system promotes teaching only in Spanish, which most Indians do not speak.

THINKING SKILLS

MAKING COMPARISONS: Compare and conrast the lives of David Nino de Rivera and Araseli Acevedo. (David lives in a spacious home, he attends a private school, and wears the latest fashions. Hardship has forced Araseli to quit school and find work washing car windows. She sometimes earns up to 5 U.S. dollars a day.)

CAUSE AND EFFECT: How has a lack of employment opportunities affected Mexico's urban and rural areas? (Peasants seeking jobs have abandoned Mexico's countryside for urban areas, where jobs are more plentiful. The mass migration to Mexican cities has challenged the national government's ability to provide housing and services for all.)

ACTIVITY

CELEBRATE HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH: Hispanic Heritage Month lasts from September 15 to October 15. The national independence days of several Latin American nations are celebrated between those dates. Divide the classroom into small groups. Have each group select a country to profile.

Words to Know

* Mixtec Indians:

The Mixtec (MEESH tehk) Indians flourished in central Mexico between 900 and 1520 A.D. About 170,000 people speak Mixtec dialects today. Most are farmers and herders.

Your Turn: THINK ABOUT IT

Describe some of the differences between David's and Araseli's lives. Are there similar contrasts between the lives of young people in the U.S.?

STANDARDS

SOCIAL STUDIES, GRADES 5-8

* People, places, and environment: How standards of living and economic opportunities vary among the people of Mexico.

* Global connections: How Mexico's trade agreements with Canada and the U.S. have increased the nation's wealth and international prestige.

RESOURCES

PRINT

* Kalman, Bobbie, Mexico--The People (Crabtree Publishing, 2001). Grades 5-8

* Sanna, Ellyn, Mexico: Facts and Figures (Mason Crest Publishers, 2002). Grades 5-8

WEB SITES

* Mexico http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/mx.html

* Mexico Photo Essay http://www.nationalgeographic.com/mexico/