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The relationship between Mexico and the United States is one of the most dynamic and multidimensional relationships of our time, says guest host Carlos Dávalos. He is in conversation with Dr. Lucía Melgar about the history of this relationship and key issues in the present like security and the economy as well as stories that the US media doesn’t focus on.

Throughout the conversation, Dávalos and Melgar insist that migrants have a net positive impact on the US economy and culture. Migrants pay taxes and contribute to Social Security and other benefits programs that they cannot access. “We need to change the view of what migration means, it’s not a threat,” says Dr. Melgar. 

However, as President Donald Trump takes office, migrants are already being targeted, and programs like the CBP One program were abruptly canceled, leaving thousands of migrants in limbo.

Dávalos and Melgar discuss the bilateral history of both countries beginning with the Mexican-American War in the nineteenth century and up to the 1994 trade agreement, NAFTA, which further remade the economic ties between the two countries. In 2018, that treaty was revised into the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. It will be renegotiated next year. 

Dr. Lucía Melgar is an activist for women’s rights and a distinguished cultural critic and professor of Literature and Gender Studies, whose extensive research on feminicide and violence against women in Mexico has shaped discussions on gender-based violence both nationally and internationally. With a PhD in Hispanic Literature and an MA in History from the University of Chicago, she co founded the informal organization Académicas en Acción Crítica (Academics for Critical Action) which has aimed to establish dialogues between academia and NGOs and to promote women’s rights, especially sexual and reproductive rights, and to stop machista violence, especially femicide.

Featured image by Brian Auer/Flickr.

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