Books are unpopular in Mexico.
Despite having three times the population of Argentina, Mexico produces about 2,000 fewer titles each year. There are roughly 500 bookstores in Mexico, which translates into one for every 200,000 Mexicans, compared to a ratio of one to 35,000 in the US and one to 12,000 in Spain, according to the Mexican Booksellers Association. A recent UNESCO study revealed that Mexicans read on average just over two books per year, while Swedes finish that many every month.
The Mexican government has made great strides, reducing illiteracy to less than 8 percent, compared with around 20 percent two decades ago, placing it leagues ahead of Central American countries and even beyond Latin America's other economic powerhouse, Brazil. Yet it has had little success encouraging active reading.
Bookstores are a lot like America to most Mexicans: a foreign alien land.
But, some argue, the European countries already had a public predisposed to reading. "For the majority of Mexicans, bookstores are a completely alien place," says Jesus Anaya, editorial director at publishing house Grupo Planeta. Although more titles and lower prices would certainly appeal to current readers, he doubts they'll create new ones. "I'm not sure that waving a magic wand of fixed prices can bring this cadaver to life."
Of course this is consistent with average Mexican immigrant academic performance in the United States. Over 4 generations there is no trend of improvement in academic performance though the first generation native born descendants are an improvement over the average 8th grade educational level of the initial arrivals. America is a first world country with a highly productive and developed economy. That economy has a declining demand for low skilled manual laborers as demonstrated by a continually widening gap between the most and least skilled and as a result wages at the bottom end are not keeping up with average wage increases. The most developed economy in the world does not need immigrants who do not like books.
By Randall Parker at 2005 February 24 08:43 PM Immigration Societal DecayMexicans are not stupid. They know that thousands of legal and illegal books are free on the Web.
Of course, the simplest explanation is the best.Most Mexicans can only read very poorly, if at all.
Hey, when traveling in Mexico I remember seeing many people reading -- comic books. (Or do they call them "graphic novels" there?)
Mexicans keep telling us that they are an "indigenous" culture. We should believe them.
How many books do Americans read? In the course of my job, I had the occasion to visit many homes of various races, nationalities, religions, economic status etc. Books were rare in most homes. TV's VCR's DVD's etc. were everywhere regardless of economic status. Lower middle class homes had the biggest and most prominantly placed TV. Incidentally, my Jewish friend has not read a book in over twenty years. I would guess that a small percentage of any (group) buy and read most of the books anyway. In the golden age of 20th century literature...Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, Faulkner were avidly read by all classes of people and many popular magazines existed for the purpose of printing short stories. They were as popular as the tabloids of today, but consisted of words not pictures.
LPG
We have about 4,000 books around the house, last i looked, but we may be atypical.
We have a huge number of books as well. The difference in number of bookstores between the US and Mexico really says it all though. The difference is so large that it makes me question just how literate the "literate" are in Mexico.
Yes, but isn't the question really not whether you're reading but what?
Steve Sailer, looking at Charles Murray's Human Accomplishment, has made the point that Latin America is noticeably unproductive in producing much creative thought and accomplishment that's been long lasting.
Most books published or sold in Mexico are no doubt in Spanish. But a portion of Spanish speakers in Mexico are illiterate. Also, Mexico is in its own way diverse, and a significant number of people there speak some indigenous language, or a dialect that has developed over the years. They are also illiterate. Unfortunately for the US, this is also a class issue, and immigration to the US is largely from the lower classes, i.e. people who are more likely to be Spanish speakers but not Spanish readers or writers, or non-Spanish speakers.
The class of Mexicans descended from the Spanish are quite literate (in Spanish), as is a (much smaller) portion of the Mestizo or Indian population.
On a recent week-long visit to Puerto Vallarta, I found not one book store. Even the locals couldn't refer me to one.
Mexicans with temporary work visas for America are hard-working and honest unlike the unemployable 30million lazy, dumb and useless African-Americans with US citizenship. Americans do not appreciate the differences between Latin countries or the differences within those countries e.g between north & south Mexicans.
In Mexico people are POOR, and like someone pointed out previously in this forum, there are lots of natives who DO NOT speak Spanish as their first language. Anyway, taking into account the Spanish speakers ONLY, most people are still poor and don't have money to get a good education, nor to buy books, and people that work all day long to earn SHIT and strive to barely survive hardly have any time to read, or any desire to do so after a day of 14 hours of labour.
HOW can anyone expect for people in Mexico to read as much as people in Europe or the US or Canada, if the price of the books are roughly the same, but the per-capita income of the population is more than 3 or 4 times lower?!
People buy books in the US partly because of their obsessive-compulsive-buying disorders, and because they can't find anything else to spend their money on after they already have more TV's at home than family members. Having bookstores that sell is not indicative of how much people read, specially in the US where, as I said, people are highly inclined to buy a bunch of shit they will never use (more so than in any other nation in the world).
If we take the ratio of economical development and growth and the amount of bookstores per-capita into account, Mexico is actually better off than the US.
The US is the largest economy in the world yet it is very FAR away from being the most educated country or the one with the most readers. THIS IS AN EMBARRASSING FACT. The economy of the US is 15 times larger than that of Mexico, and yet the number of bookstores per citizen is only 5 times bigger. Most of the highly educated people in the US, are NOT from "US-origin"; an indication of this is the fact that 50% of people that enroll in PhD studies in American universities are foreigners! Needless to say: There aren't enough smart and hardworking people in the US to fill in these positions, and the success of research is greatly due to the minds and the work of foreigners.
It is an embarrassment for the richest country in the world to have the amount of stupid people it has:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE
http://youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE
http://youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE
http://youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE
http://youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE
At least third world countries can blame it on poverty derived from historical events, or from having first world countries fuck them up all the time (as IRAQ!)... But what excuse does the US have? NONE. It's an intentionally ignorant and fucked up society who has elected for two consecutive terms a right-wing fanatical, George Bush, who likes to spend money on war instead of education.
So all you WHITE TRASH AMERICANS, don't even start criticizing other countries without noticing how full of shit yours is first...
And don't get me wrong: I like the US, and there's tons of nice people here. I even feel some sort of love for this country (yet I'm originally mexican). I'm just very SAD to see how badly screwed up it is. SO SAD.
EduardoJG,
You exaggerate Mexico's poverty. The average per capita GDP in Mexico is far above the world's average. Mexico's per capita GDP is about a quarter of the US. That is pretty high. When the US per capita GDP was the same as Mexico's is today at that time a much higher percentage of Americans read books. Most Mexicans could afford to buy books if they really wanted to read them. They obviously have little interest.
Mexicans have one of the most anti-intellectual cultures I have ever come across. They lack the fundamental intellectual curiosity that is necessary to promote a culture of reading. This is perhaps why many foreigners can come to Mexico and can become very successful in Business, as many Arab and Jewish millionares have filled a void and essentially control all of Mexico, rather than the Spanish, Mestizo, or Indian population.
I will also remark that their television programs are quite superficial and lack any depth.
It seems to me that all of you stupid "americans" don't know a shit about Mexico and other countries in Latin America. First of all, as you are americans, all of us, from Canada to Brazil, ALL of us are americans too.
Secondly, maybe you the "americans" earn much more than a mexican do if you work in Mexico. Most of the population lives in a poverty situation, maybe they earn 20 dolars a week (and in their community they're rich). So, as you don't want immigrants who don't like books (maybe they can't afford them), we DO NOT WANT "AMERICANS" THAT DO NOT SPEAK SPANISH.
You americans feel the masters of the world, and you are so fucking wrong!!!! The first economy my ass, if not, ask EUROPE dork
It's a shame that some of you show your worst part to the world, affecting all of your population, as I know some "americans" that are very good people, not as you
Mexicans have very little intellectual curiousity, but prefer to be passive and victims to others. Thus they do not develop a historical or cultural conversation and improve their reasoning and logic.