The Seven Keys to Communicating in Mexico

An Intercultural Approach

Orlando R. Kelm, Olivia Hernandez-Pozas, David A. Victor

• Publisher: Georgetown University Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781626167230, 9781626167223
• eBook ISBN: 9781626167247
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Workplace Culture
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

How do you build successful professional connections with colleagues from Mexico? While most books focus simply on how to avoid common communication mistakes, this book leads its readers to an understanding of how to succeed and thrive within the three cultures, Mexico, the US, and Canada. Kelm, Hernandez-Pozas and Victor present a set of practical guidelines for communicating professionally with Mexicans, both in Mexico and abroad, providing many photographs as examples. The Seven Keys to Communicating in Mexico follows the model of presenting key cultural concepts used in the earlier books by Kelm and Victor on Brazil and (with Haru Yamada) on Japan. Olivia Hernandez-Pozas, Orlando Kelm, and David Victor, well-respected research professors and seasoned cross-cultural trainers for businesspeople, guide readers through Mexican culture using Victor's LESCANT Model (an acronym representing seven key cross-cultural communication areas: Language, Environment, Social Organization, Contexting, Authority, Nonverbal Behavior, and Time). Each chapter addresses one of these topics and demonstrates how to evaluate the differences among Mexican, US, and Canadian cultures. In the final chapter the authors bring all of these cultural interactions together with a sample case study about business interactions between Mexicans and North Americans. The case study includes additional observations from North American and Mexican business professionals who offer related suggestions and recommendations.

1

THE SPANISH
Language

A Beautiful Mixture That Defines Mexico

Perhaps nothing affects intercultural communication between North Americans and Mexicans more than our choice of language—the L in the LESCANT approach. Even in situations where all participants are bilingual, we still need to decide which language to use. Sometimes, this choice is forced on us when members of the team are monolingual. Other times, language choice relates to our effort to be polite. Still other times, the language we use results from an assertion of power by insisting that we use either English or Spanish to gain some advantage in negotiations. Seldom are all parties totally bilingual. Somebody is going to make a sacrifice by speaking, listening, or reading the other’s language. In other situations, when neither party has any fluency in the other language, we are forced to use interpreters and translators, which brings additional barriers to communication. It is inevitable that the use of one’s native language or the use of a local language will drastically affect intercultural communication.

When we look at Mexico and consider how language becomes an issue of intercultural communication, the first thing we note is Mexico’s proximity to the United States. A quick look at a map of the United States offers a reminder that Mexico is a gigantic part of North American history. Consider the names of US states and cities. California is indeed a hot oven. Arizona is an arid zone. Colorado is colorful. Nevada does have snow in the mountains. Montana does have beautiful mountains. Florida can be flowering. Imagine how weird it would be to call the major cities of California by their English equivalents: The Angels, Sacrament, Saint James, and Saint Joseph! It is impossible to visualize Tony Bennett singing “I Left My Heart in Saint Francis”! If it were not for Spanish, we would not be able to tell the “lost wages” joke about Las Vegas because we would call the city “the meadows.” Can you imagine if Texans in the city of “Saint Anthony” would have shouted “Remember the Poplars” instead of “Remember the Alamo”? (Even in this case, we are not always positive if álamo refers to poplars, cottonwoods, or some other type of tree.)

And it is not only place names where we can see Spanish in North American English. Our cowboys have their ranches, rodeos, lassos, corrals, and stirrups. And what would happen to Tex-Mex without the Mex? In our cantinas and cafeterias, we would have no tacos, burritos, enchiladas, quesadillas, salsa, serranos, habaneros, tomatoes, tomatillos, cilantro, or fajitas. As North Americans, we are connected with Mexico in ways that go beyond 2,000 miles of shared frontera. As we will discuss in subsequent chapters, at the end of the Mexican-American War, Mexico lost about a third of its territory. Before 1848, a gigantic part of the United States was, in fact, Mexico! Even today, officially, Mexico is part of North America. Central America begins south of the Mexican border.

According to statistics from the US Central Intelligence Agency’s World Factbook, Mexico’s population in 2016 was estimated to be 123,166,749.¹ This is the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world. The second-most-populous one is Spain, which at 48 million has only 39 percent of Mexico’s population—and we could argue that the United States has the second-highest number of Spanish speakers in the world. Additionally, based on Pew Research Center Data, between 1965 and 2015, more than 16 million Mexicans migrated to the United States.² When we consider the two countries’ historical, geographical, and linguistic ties, it is clear that Mexico and the United States share important connections. No wonder our decision to interact includes a decision about language.

Before we launch into our discussion of English versus Spanish, we also remind readers that Mexico enjoys a rich mix of ethnic groups. We will discuss the social implications of this in subsequent chapters. Here, however, as related to language, note that only 10 percent of Mexico’s population is European (per the CIA Factbook), with the vast majority being Amerindian–Spanish mestizo or Amerindian. Linguistically, the result is that Mexican Spanish enjoys a beautiful mix with indigenous languages (most related to Náhuatl and Mayan languages). It is this influence that provides us with precious gems like Tenochtitlán, Popocatépetl, Chapultepec, and Tlaquepaque. Even Spanish speakers from other parts of the world find it difficult to pronounce all the indigenous words that are part of Mexican Spanish.

We begin this chapter with a brief look at the use of English and Spanish in Mexico. We then provide a description of some of the characteristics of Mexican Spanish. We also touch on the role of other languages in Mexico, a notable difference because Mexico has far less immigration than does the United States or Canada. We conclude the chapter with recommendations on how to communicate with Mexicans, both when using English and when speaking Spanish.

THE USE OF ENGLISH AND SPANISH IN MEXICO

We often hear that English is the lingua franca of business and that the whole world conducts business in English. Although it is true that English is the world’s most common second language, it is difficult to make a blanket statement about the English-language proficiency of everyone in Mexico. The English Proficiency Index ranks Mexico forty-third out of seventy-two countries, which puts it in the low category.³ And indeed the index is lower than other Latin American countries, such as Argentina, the Dominican Republic, Spain, Uruguay, Costa Rica, and Brazil. This national average, however, is also tempered with the English proficiency of the upper-class, educated, and professional portion of the country. At these levels, many executives may exhibit higher levels of English-language proficiency. Outside these circles, however, actual proficiency drops off and the vast majority simply does not speak English.

English-language learning in Mexico is similar, in many ways, to the learning of Spanish or French in the United States. Thousands of Americans can say that they studied a foreign language at school, but relatively few claim to be fluent speakers. Similarly, many Mexicans can say that they studied English at school, with similar bilingual results. Many Mexicans are just as confident in their use of English as Americans are in their use of their high school or college Spanish.

Immigrant Speakers of Spanish in North America and Speakers of English in Mexico

There is a common joke around the world about the lack of foreign-language knowledge in the United States. We have heard this joke in many languages, and it usually goes something like this:

What do you call someone who speaks three languages?

Trilingual

What do you call someone who speaks two languages?

Bilingual

What do you call someone who speaks one language?

An American

Although this joke for the most part still represents a reality in the United States, this situation has been changing. A 2013 YouGov survey by Kate Palmer found that 25 percent of people in the United States are proficient in a second language—and 58 percent of these are fluent in Spanish, far and away beyond the next-highest language, French, at 20 percent.⁴ However, we need to consider these statistics within the context of immigration. The Pew Research Center’s statistical portrait of Hispanics in the United States indicate that among Hispanics age five years or older, 68.4 percent speak only English (or English very well). This implies that 31.6 percent is Spanish dominant, with the others having various levels of bilingual proficiency.⁵

The main difference between Mexico, on one hand, and the United States, on the other hand, is the source of fluency in one another’s language. In Mexico, almost none of those fluent in English are immigrants or the children of immigrants from English-speaking countries. By contrast, in the United States, a large number of those fluent in Spanish are either immigrants or the children of immigrants. (For 2018, the US Census Bureau estimates that 7 percent of US citizens will be first-generation immigrants from a Spanish-speaking country.⁶) By comparison, almost no one in Mexico comes from a home where English is spoken as a mother tongue. This is because just 0.34 percent of Mexicans were born in English-speaking countries.⁷ Even in Canada, where immigration from Spanish-speaking countries is relatively small, the share of Canadians speaking Spanish as a mother tongue is four times (1.2 percent) the share of Mexicans speaking English as a mother tongue.⁸

As a result, almost everyone who speaks English in Mexico has had to learn the language in a more academic fashion. As we discuss later in the chapter, this is tied to Mexico’s very low rate of immigration relative to the rest of North America. Only 0.5 percent of Mexico’s population is foreign-born (as compared with 20.7 percent in Canada and 13.9 percent in the United States).⁹ Furthermore, with regard to the United States, even beyond immigration, Spanish is an important language. Kate Palmer’s YouGov survey also found that 31 percent of Americans age eighteen and over claimed to have a “basic command” of Spanish. This was defined as “being able to have a brief conversation, order food, ask for directions.” This ought to not take away from the fact that 51 percent of Americans claimed that they did not have even a basic knowledge of another language—but for almost two-thirds (63.2 percent) of those who did have some basic language, that language was Spanish.

How Mexicans React to Nonnative and Heritage Speakers of Spanish

To explain how Mexicans react to nonnative speakers of Spanish, we need to divide these speakers into two general categories: Heritage Speakers and Nonnative Speakers. We sometimes hear the term “Heritage Speaker” used to refer to those people who have learned how to speak the immigrant language at home, in the community, and among family and friends. These Heritage Speakers often speak their second language in ways that differ notably from first-generation immigrants, and they do so without formal training. This is not limited to Spanish speakers, but because we are dealing with Mexico here, this is our focus.

The number of Heritage Speakers of Spanish is large, including children and grandchildren of first-generation immigrants. A review of the data cited above from the Pew Research Center’s Statistical Portrait of Hispanics in the United States indicates that children of immigrants represent almost 12 percent of the US population—roughly 38 million people. (To put this in perspective, the entire population of Canada is only 36.5 million.) Because 44 percent of immigrants speak Spanish at home, we can roughly estimate the number of second-generation immigrants growing up in a Spanish-speaking home at 16.72 million people, or over 5 percent of the entire US population.¹⁰ This number does not include the grandchildren, spouses, or other relatives of the original immigrants. The bottom line is that there are many Heritage Speakers of Spanish in the United States, the majority of whom have ties to Mexico.

Heritage Speakers have the advantage of high levels of general oral fluency, especially within the context of daily family life. The disadvantage, however, is that their Spanish is labeled “nonstandard,” and these individuals are often judged as being “border Spanish speakers.” The sad and brutal truth is that these speakers often suffer bias from their Mexican counterparts. There are delicate and sensitive topics that arise when these Heritage Speakers work professionally in Mexico. We recall a specific instance when a Mexican executive directly told us that he would rather be “bossed around by some monolingual English-speaking American than to be told what to do by some border pocho” (pocho is a pejorative term used among Mexicans to describe those who left Mexico and lost their culture and language).

The irony is that this same Heritage Speaker could represent a company when doing business in Peru or Chile, or any other Spanish-speaking country. There would be no negative repercussions. These issues come up only in Mexico. Our recommendation is, when sending Heritage Spanish speakers to represent your company in Mexico, check first to assess their comfort level. There may not be an issue, but there also might be. Just be aware that it is unwise to ignore potential implications. Remember, too, that not all Heritage Speakers of Spanish have ties to Mexico. There are also significant immigrant populations from other countries—for example, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and El Salvador. Still, the Pew R...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• List of Photographs
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 The Spanish Language: A Beautiful Mixture That Defines Mexico
• 2 The Mexican Environment: A Cornucopia
• 3 Mexican Social Organization: Mestizaje, Mosaic, or Melting Pot?
• 4 Mexican Contexting: The Hidden Wisdom of the Proverb
• 5 The Mexican Authority Conception: Power Is Always Personalized
• 6 Mexican Nonverbal Communication: Colorful, Bold, and Making a Statement!
• 7 The Mexican Temporal Conception: All Our Pasts Are Our Present
• 8 Case Study: When Being Bicultural Is More than Being Bilingual
• Notes
• Index
• About the Authors