9/84Estimated amount of money sent home each year by Mexicans working in the U.S.: $500,000,000
6/86Amount Mexico has borrowed abroad since 1974: $97,000,000,000
Value of investments and deposits made abroad by Mexicans since 1974: $90,300,000,000
5/87Amount that Brazil and Mexico owe foreign creditors: $204,159,200,000
Amount the United States owes: $209,800,000,000
3/88Average number of attempts a Mexican makes before successfully crossing the U.S. border and landing a job: 3
10/89Portion of the trading on the Mexican stock exchange that consists of government-debt securities: 3/4
7/90Total number of hours each school day the children of the president of Mexico spend learning Japanese: 3
1/92Ratio of the average productivity of a U.S. automotive engine plant to that of a Mexican plant: 5:4
11/92Rank of The Rich Also Cry, a Mexican soap opera, among the most popular TV programs in Russia: 1
10/93Portion of the 107,000 manufacturing jobs lost in California since 1987 that went to Mexico: 1/6
3/93Chances that a patient seeking medical care in a border city in Mexico is an American citizen: 1 in 4
3/93Percentage of Mexican-Americans who say there are too many immigrants in the United States: 75
3/93Average number of operations performed each week by Joanna Corti, a Santa Fe, New Mexico, “psychic surgeon”: 15
9/93Number of Mexicans who became billionaires last year: 7
11/94Age, in years, of two sweet potatoes on display at the Potato Museum in Albuquerque, New Mexico: 3,794
Percentage of Americans who say this: 4
1/95Chances that a legal immigrant to the United States from the former Soviet Union receives welfare: 1 in 6
Percentage of American adults who are: 62
8/95Average percentage change, since NAFTA went into effect, in top executive salaries at the 26 largest U.S. firms in Mexico: +29
9/95Weeks after the peso collapsed that former Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari joined the board of Dow Jones: 4
9/95Weeks after his appointment last fall that Mexico’s former secretary of education admitted he had no college degree: 6
12/96Amount of the trade surplus the U.S. had with Mexico the year NAFTA was passed: $1,700,000,000
Estimated amount of the trade deficit the U.S. has with Mexico today: $17,200,000,000
3/96Number of the 24 Mexicans who were billionaires in 1994 who still are: 10
3/96Ratio of the likelihood that a Mexican lives in a metropolitan area to the likelihood that an American does: 1:1
5/96Rank of Mexico, South Korea, and China among the largest traders cited: 1,2,3
7/96Ratio of professional jobs available in Mexico in the 1980s to the number of Mexicans who graduated from college then: 1:4
7/96Estimated cost of sealing the U.S.-Mexican border with a replica of the Great Wall of China: $45,000,000,000
6/97Number of Mexico’s federal law-enforcement agents fired last year for violating “ethical standards”: 1,200
9/97Percentage change since the passage of NAFTA in the average hourly wage of a Mexican maquiladora worker: -30
Percentage change since then in U.S. companies’ domestic sales of products assembled in Mexico: +133
10/98Rank of General Motors, among the largest private employers in Mexico: 1
3/98Average annual percentage change in Mexico’s per capita GDP since the country’s first I.M.F. bailout in 1982: -0.3
4/98Percentage of the raw materials bought by Mexican maquiladoras last year that came from Mexican suppliers: 2.1
4/98Percentage of crimes reported in Mexico City since 1993 that have been solved: 3.7
8/98Estimated number of undocumented migrants who have died since 1993 while trying to cross the U.S.-Mexican border: 1,185
10/99Number of Vietnam-era helicopters that the U.S. donated to Mexico for drug control between 1996 and 1997: 73
Percentage of them that the U.S. agreed to take back last summer after Mexico found them defective: 100
4/99Chance that a Mexican gray wolf released into the Arizona wilderness last spring has been shot: 1 in 2
4/00Number of face masks that Mexico’s Zapatista leader Subcommandante Marcos has worn out since 1994: 5
4/00Number of the eight Zapatista demands to which the Mexican government agreed in 1996 that have yet to be met: 0
1/01Years that Mexico spent fighting a Texas death sentence given one of its citizens before his execution last fall: 9
11/01Percentage change since 1996 in the number of U.S. apprehensions of people trying to cross the Mexican border: +9
Percentage change since then in the number of U.S. border guards assigned there: +60
Percentage change since 1999 in the number of people who died on U.S. soil while crossing the border illegally: +56
3/01Number of “bonding sessions” organized by Procter & Gamble each week in Monterrey, Mexico, to encourage tampon use: 60
7/01Estimated percentage of Mexico’s thirty major newspapers that would fold without government subsidies: 90
7/01Chances that a body of water in Mexico is too contaminated to swim in: 3 in 4
2/02Percentage of oil imported by the U.S. last year that came from Persian Gulf countries: 23
11/03Cotton-subsidy reparations proposed by four African countries at the WTO’s Cancún meeting this fall: $250,000,000
1/04Rank of oil exports and money sent home by U.S. immigrants, respectively, among Mexico’s largest sources of income: 1,2
2/04Percentage of Mexicans who had a “bad” or “very bad” opinion of the United States in 2000 and 2003, respectively: 22, 58
4/04Percentage change in Mexico’s inflation-adjusted minimum wage since the implementation of NAFTA in 1994: -21
1/05Number of states, provinces, or territories of the United States, Canada, and Mexico that lack a McDonald’s: 1
4/05Percentage of U.S.-born Mexican Americans who have suffered from some psychological disorder: 48
Percentage of Mexican immigrants who have: 29
5/05Average number of Mexicans who have died each year since 2000 trying to cross to the United States: 407
9/05Number of anti-globalization protesters who were tortured last year by Mexican officials: 19
12/06Cost, in one Mexican town, of a six-hour tour “full of obstacles and persecution” across a mock U.S.-Mexico border: $14
Estimated percentage of the town’s population that has illegally crossed the real border: 90
6/06Ratio of the average manufacturing wage in the United States to that in Mexico, before NAFTA took effect in 1994: 6:1
Ratio today: 8:1
7/06Ratio of the average U.S. import of Mexican lettuce each year to the average Mexican import of U.S. lettuce: 1:1
9/06Average income of an African American today, expressed as a percentage of the average income of a white American: 74
Average income of an American child of Mexican immigrants, expressed in the same terms: 71
8/07Number of the forty-seven Mexican consulates in cities across America that have opened since 1980: 42
Amount the consulates spent last year to repatriate the bodies of Mexicans who died here: $3,800,000