Forums > General > General Forum

sqelton

Oct 29, 2003, 6:31 PM

Post #1 of 4 (885 views)

Shortcut

Mexico from 1965 to 1975

Can't Post |

I am writing a fictional story of an American family that lived in Monterrey, Mexico during these years and i need information on what Monterrey was like during those years. Also I need information on what it was like to drive from Monterrey to the border to Laredo. What the border was like during those years. Thank you for your help.

pathall

Nov 1, 2003, 4:58 PM

Post #2 of 4 (817 views)

Shortcut

Re: [sqelton] Mexico from 1965 to 1975

Can't Post | Private Reply

I stayed overnight in a hotel in Monterrey and drove the highway from Monterrey to Laredo in 1973. The hotel was clean and friendly and the highway, from what I can remember, was fairly decent. I crossed the border with my moving van and declared all my Mexican belongings with no problems. I had been living in Mexico for 3 years and was returning to Canada. The border area was very crowded with people and cars. Lots of parked cars and trucks.

Mac12

Nov 1, 2003, 5:51 PM

Post #3 of 4 (806 views)

Shortcut

Re: [sqelton] Mexico from 1965 to 1975

Can't Post | Private Reply

This might not be of much help but the book Distant Neighbors by Alan Riding will give you an idea of the politics and social issues prominent in Mexico during that period of time. "Buena suerte" with your project. Mac

Carol Schmidt

Nov 2, 2003, 12:38 AM

Post #4 of 4 (788 views)

Shortcut

Re: [sqelton] Mexico from 1965 to 1975

Can't Post | Private Reply

I was totally unaware of anything about Mexico when I crossed with my wasband at Laredo in 1970--we were on our "honeymoon" in a step van we'd converted to a camper, with a big peace sign on the back and political bumper stickers all over it. He had hair longer than mine and he did look a bit like Charlie Manson--and that's what the men at the border kept saying as we tried to get across.

For two hours Mike argued with them on how he wasn't Manson and it was just plain wrong to keep him out of Mexico because he had long hair. Finally I realized: if they'd really wanted us gone we'd have been told to leave, but since they were letting us hang around...I slipped the guy the equivalent of $5 US and we were let through, everyone suddenly smiling, except Mike who was still confused since I hadn't told him what I was going to do . They didn't give us papers, though, and we got stopped at various places and again forked over $5 each time.

I knew not a word of Spanish except what the Sanborn's insurance packet warned about, i.e., "peligro" was danger, but that didn't tell me what the fine print underneath on the traffic signs meant. Dynamiting ahead? Would the road run off a cliff? Sanborn's did say not to drive at night because of livestock on the road, but we were so delayed because of the border hassle that we had to drive until around midnight to reach Monterrey and an RV park. They wern't called that yet, I forget what they were called. Trailer parks, probably--a term that I think applied to overnight parks as well as those where people lived in trailers. It might have been a regular motel, er, auto hotel.

A hurricane had just hit Brownsville, TX and much of that area of Mexico, so it was terrifying to drive through potholes and tree limbs on the roads, expecting to hit a bull any minute. The Mexican-American women who had sold us the car insurance at Sanborn's in Laredo had told us to not stop anyplace along the road outside of an RV park or motel, or pay an all-night gas station to let us park there, because "you'll wake up dead from headhunters," especially below Acapulco.

I wasn't quite sure what we were doing in Mexico anyway, since I'd signed up for a honeymoon from Detroit to Berkeley, but Mike's version took us first from Detroit to Quebec, then Alaska, then LA, then San Antonio to meet some of my relatives, then Mexico City and back up to LA. We were in Berkeley, the city of my hippie dreams, only a hot minute, when Mike took us back on the road. We were gone four months before he insisted we stay in LA, instead of the two weeks to Berkeley I'd expected. So much for marital honesty and communication. You noticed he's a wasband.

I hated Monterrey in those few hours and one night we spent, it seemed a filthy factory town, and I was totally unprepared. Looking back, it was probably just an average Mexican big industrial city, but I was horrified. I had a lot to learn yet in my life.

I hope some of this helps.