Mexico: Higher and Further IH.Human Geographies

IN.The Gulf and Pacific Tropics: Oil, Mountains, Beaches, and Tourists

110. Central America: Beyond Banana Republics

IO.Fragmentation and Turbulence

IP.Environments, Settlements, and Economic Activities

111. The Caribbean Islands: From Rastafari and Reggae to Baseball and Communism

IQ.General Characteristics

IR.The Greater Antilles

IS.The Lesser Antilles

Middle America (or Mesoamerica) contains Mexico, Central America, and the islands of the Caribbean Sea. Mexico is subdivided into four regions: Central Mexico, the core; Northern Mexico and the Borderlands; the Gulf Tropics; and the Pacific Tropics. Central Mexico contains Mexico City, the world’s second-largest metropolitan area with 23 million people. Mexico City is situated in a valley surrounded with mountains, and is prone to earthquakes and thermal inversions that trap the city’s dreadful air pollution.

Mexico is the world’s largest Spanish-speaking country and is the most urbanized Latin American country. Most of the population follows the Roman Catholic faith and is mestizo or Native American in ethnicity. Mexico achieved independence from Spain in 1821 and has had an unsettled political climate since then, including the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920 and later insurrections by ethnic Maya groups in southern areas of the country. Mexico is the third most important biological megadiversity country, but it is rapidly losing its tropical forests to commercial logging and agriculturally-related clearing. Agriculture exports such as sugar, coffee, and corn are highly important to Mexico. Oil comprises 10 percent of Mexico’s exports by value, but oil production is expected to peak in a few more years and end by 2030. The country is trying to diversify its economy and industrialize in preparation for that loss. NAFTA has greatly increased production of Mexican-made manufactured goods, especially from border-region maquiladoras, and Mexican trade with the United States increased 240 percent during the first decade of NAFTA.

The narrow isthmus joining North and South America is occupied by the seven nations of Central America: Belize, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. Central America was a turbulent region until the 1990s, when political conditions began improving. Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador were particularly volatile, each with a long-lasting civil war. Central American society is very stratified. Small, land-owning elites, usually of European origin, possess most of a country’s wealth and political power, ruling over large, restive populations of poor, landless tenant farmers and Native Americans. Central America is plagued with poverty and unemployment, and weapons left over from the region’s many conflicts are now used by the growing numbers of gang members in major cities. Costa Rica managed to avoid most of the problems of its neighbors by having a more ethnically homogeneous society without a large landed aristocracy. Belize also developed differently, having been a British possession until 1981. Throughout Central America, agricultural products are the chief exports, along with some textile production; manufacturing is very limited.

Cuba is the largest and most important island of the Caribbean. Cuba is a prime tourist destination despite an official U.S. ban. Cuba has been under a U.S. trade embargo since its 1959 revolution installing Fidel Castro’s communist government to power, and the country was heavily reliant upon Soviet sugar subsidies. Waves of immigrants fleeing Cuba have sought asylum in the United States. Haiti has also been a large source of immigration to the U.S., but many of them are turned away as they are fleeing economic misery at home rather than political oppression. Turbulent Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere and is supported only by meager agricultural exports. Haiti shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic, a country that has become more stable and economically diversified in recent years. The formerly British colony of Jamaica is populated mainly by descendants of African slaves, and is a major tourist destination. Puerto Rico, the easternmost island of the Greater Antilles, is a commonwealth voluntarily associated with the United States. Its residents are American citizens, but they do not pay taxes, cannot vote in U.S. elections or receive federal benefits. Manufacturing has replaced agriculture as the island’s main source of revenue. The Lesser Antilles are an archipelago of islands stretching from Puerto Rico to Venezuela. Most islands are independent, but some remain European colonies. Agriculture and tourism are the economic mainstays, along with manufacturing in Barbados and oil production in Trinidad and Tobago.

Key Terms and Concepts

209. 
     The four major subregions of Mexico are Central Mexico, Northern Mexico and the Borderlands, the Gulf Tropics, and the Pacific Tropics. Most Middle American countries have distinct core regions where national life is centered. About half of Mexico’s population resides in its core, particularly in the primate city of Mexico City. Mexico City is situated in a low valley surrounded by mountains, which sometimes results in thermal inversions across the city that trap the pollution from the city’s cars and factories. [pp. 558-561]
     

210. 
     Mexican border towns are a popular draw for Americans because the drinking age is eighteen, prostitution is legal, illicit drugs are easy to obtain, and prescription drugs are sold under the counter. These border towns are also major shipment centers for illegal drugs into the U.S. and collection points for Mexicans and Central Americans who try to enter the U.S. illegally. For legitimate economic activity, manufacturing has increased greatly in the border towns since the enactment of NAFTA and the development of maquiladoras. [p. 560]
     

211. 
     Energy maquiladoras are located along the border and are power generation plants built by American firms but located in Mexico, where pollution standards are much lower than in the U.S. They are powered by natural gas from Texas and coolant waters from Mexico, and the electricity these power plants generate is given to the U.S. electric grid. [p. 557]
     

212. 
     Mexico’s leading agricultural products are sugar, coffee, corn, citrus fruits, and cattle. Beans, squash, and chili peppers are also important. Good cropland in Mexico exists mainly on the floors and lower slopes of mountain basins with volcanic soils and on alluvial plains. Irrigated agriculture in Mexico’s dry north has expanded in recent decades, especially near the Rio Grande. Cotton and fruits and vegetables are important crops in this region. [pp. 556, 560]
     

213. 
     As of 2007, oil represented about 10 percent of Mexico’s exports by value. That was down from nearly two-thirds of export revenue in 1983. After oil strikes in the 1970s, Mexico borrowed heavily from foreign banks to finance oil production and numerous other projects. But by 1990, a glut of oil worldwide depressed prices, and by 1994 the country’s foreign debt combined with low oil prices crashed the value of the Mexican peso. Recent rises in oil prices and a restructuring and diversifying of the economy has helped Mexico’s economy get back on track, but oil production is expected to peak in 2010 and be exhausted by 2030. [p. 557]
     

214. 
     The capitals of Guatemala (Guatemala City), Honduras (Tegucigalpa), El Salvador (San Salvador), Nicaragua (Managua) and Costa Rica (San Jose) are all located in the Central American highlands. Belmopan, the capital of Belize, is in a lowland, and Panama City, the capital of Panama, is located along the Pacific coast. Agriculture, especially coffee, bananas, beef, sugarcane, and cotton, provides for most Central American exports, though there is some light manufacturing. Tourism is growing in the area, especially to Belize and Costa Rica. [pp. 561-563]
     

215. 
     The idea of a “path between the seas” has characterized the isthmus of Panama since the days of Spanish exploration, conquest, and colonization in the sixteenth century. It became an especially important link during the California gold rush of 1849, and by 1855 a railroad had been constructed linking traffic between the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. However, the railroad represented a costly break in bulk point, and the necessity for a canal was realized and begun in 1882. The rugged topography proved too much of a challenge for the French firm doing the work. The project languished until the U.S. took over the project shortly after the newly created country of Panama split from Colombia in 1903. It was completed in 1914 at a cost of $380 million dollars and many lost lives. Efforts are underway to allow for larger ships to use the canal, and, with significant funding from China. This expansion is scheduled for completion by 2014. [p. 564]
     

216. 
     The Caribbean is divided into two main areas. The Greater Antilles comprises the larger islands such as Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico. The Lesser Antilles are the smaller islands fringing the eastern edge of the Caribbean. [p. 565]
     

217. 
     The United States treats immigrants from Cuba and Haiti differently. Cuban immigrants are generally allowed into the United States as asylum seekers, escaping the communist regime of Fidel Castro (who resigned in 2008 after forty-nine years in power). Haitian immigrants, however, are often turned back as they are seen as economic refugees rather than political ones. [p. 567]
     

218. 
     Cuba is the most important Caribbean island according to the text because it is the largest both in area and population. It is also favorably located close to the United States and midway across Middle America, and has some mineral wealth, and a good climate for agriculture. [p. 568]
     

219. 
     Haiti has a very large population density but very poor infrastructure to serve that large population. Haiti’s economy is mainly based upon subsistence agriculture, as deforestation and erosion are major problems. Haiti has had a turbulent political history and generates very little revenue from exports. [pp. 568-569]
     

220. 
     Puerto Rico was an American territory until 1952, when it became a self-governing commonwealth voluntarily associated with the United States. Puerto Ricans have American citizenship and use the U.S. dollar as currency, though they cannot vote in federal elections or receive federal benefits. Referendums held in Puerto Rico have always upheld the commonwealth status of the island, though there is growing pressure for full statehood. Only a small minority has expressed desires for Puerto Rican statehood. [p. 569]
     

221. 
     The country of Trinidad and Tobago is an interesting mix of cultures and economies. Formerly a British colony with a plantation agriculture export economy, the country’s ethnic mix reflects its participation in both the slave trade and the wider British Empire. After the abolition of slavery in the early nineteenth century, large numbers of indentured workers arrived from the Indian subcontinent, and today the population of the island of Trinidad, the larger of the two, is about 40 percent black and 40 percent of Indian heritage. Its economy is based on offshore oil and natural gas, agricultural exports, and tourism. [p. 570]
     

This chapter should enable your students to…

• 
  Recognize the paradox of how a blessing of oil wealth can paralyze national economies and political systems and be rejected by the poor
  
• 
  Appreciate the challenges that rebel forces have posed to national governments and resource wealth in the region
  
• 
  Understand the liabilities of a landlocked location as suffered in this region by Bolivia and Paraguay
  
• 
  Appreciate how uneven distribution of national wealth promotes instability and hampers development
  
• 
  Understand why “saving the rain forest” is not a simple problem and how various countries and national groups see the problem differently
  
• 
  Appreciate how excessive dependence on raw materials can cause an uncontrollable cycle of economic boom and bust
  

112. 
     
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