Word: az
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...good-conduct clearance from the local town hall. Other braceros, however, provided a tip. Serrano could pester officials and wait-or he could put up a few hundred pesos to bribe the "coyote," a man with unexplained but indisputable pull among town officials. Coyote Raúl Díaz readily confirmed the advice. "You pay," he said, "and you go." Serrano was bewildered and angry. "We are needed," he argued. "We are asked to go. Why should...
...made out a voucher to the director of the government-run Agrarian Bank, who in turn filled out two checks for 500.000 quetzales each to Alfonso Martínez (boss of the agrarian-reform program) and Colonel Carlos Enrique Díaz (head of the armed forces). They gave the checks back to Sierra Franco, who cashed them for blue 20-quetzal bills and grey 100-quetzal bills. He took the million, stuffed in a big canvas bag, back to Arbenz' office and turned it over to the President, Martínez and Díaz...
...thousands crowded the new streetcars to bounce on the spring-cushioned seats and enjoy the smooth, gliding ride, only a few oldtimers sighed for the cumbersome elegance of the tortugas in their heyday. Then the streetcars were used for fashionable funerals, and the wife of Dictator Porfirio Díaz had her own private streetcar, furnished with silk curtains, revolving osier seats, spittoons and magazine racks...
...Alemán pals who got strangleholds on many business activities. In March he struck hard to smash the monopoly of Mexico City oil distribution, held by pistol-packing Multimillionaire Jorge Pas-quel of Mexican-baseball-league fame. Then, in succession, he expertly dethroned Transport King Antonio Díaz Lombardo, who had made $40 million as boss of the bus lines and head of Alemán's lucrative Social Security Department, and loosened the grip of Multimillionaire Aaron Saenz on Mexico's sugar industry. Pledged to lower food prices, the President also smashed the monopolistic plays...
Porfirio Díaz, the great dictator who imposed ironhanded stability on the country in the last century, once bitterly said: "Poor Mexico: so far from God, so near the U.S." Yet it is Mexico, in part because it is so closely subject to U.S. influence, that has pioneered the way to mature independence and independent nationality in Latin America. Proud of its mestizo origins, without need either to brag or apologize for them, the country is visibly experiencing some of the creative results of having found itself. Ruiz Cortines, with the backing of the rising middle class, has already...