cover image The Mexicans: A Personal Portrait of a People

The Mexicans: A Personal Portrait of a People

Patrick Oster. William Morrow & Company, $19.95 (334pp) ISBN 978-0-688-08193-5

Former Mexico City bureau chief for the Knight-Ridder newspaper chain, Oster strings together breezy stories of 20 Mexicansa cross-section of societyto illustrate the complexities of Mexico today. From Agustin, an honest cop, we learn that many Mexican police use torture as their number-one crime-solving technique. From the tale of Julio Scherer Garcia, a leading newspaper editor, we learn how kidnapping and intimidating phone calls stifle freedom of the press. Moving from Mexico City discos to remote Indian towns, we meet a doctor committed to helping poor patients despite his meager income, a struggling housemaid, a homosexual teacher wary of prejudice in a land of machismo, a TV comedian, a maverick politician, a herbal healer, environmentalists battling scavengers who live off a garbage dump. Oster, whose legally adopted son is a native Mexican, explains that illegal adoption is the norm, with bribery to grease the system's wheels. This revealing report points up many endemic or hidden problems in modern Mexico. (Mar.)