The violence in Mexico is a major concern for Americans considering a trip to the country. Secretary Clinton's own State Department has a travel alert currently in effect for Mexico. It warns U-S citizens to be extra careful and use common sense precautions. That's kept some Americans from venturing south. But many are still going to Mexico -- on business, on vacation -- or to learn Spanish. Since the 1960s, the Mexican city of Cuernavaca has been attracting Spanish language students. The World's Katy Clark recently went to Cuernavaca -- which is just south of Mexico City.
Photos: Katy Clark
Clark: It's the kind of place Americans love to visit. It's charming, colonial -- and most importantly -- a world away from Mexico's violent border towns. Harriet Guerrero's lived in the city for nearly 40 years. She told me Cuernavaca easily lives up to it's nick-name, "the city of eternal spring."
Guerrero: "This is the Las Palmas area just south of downtown, about a mile south of downtown. Look at the pretty bougainvillea. The pink and white and orange. That's typical to this part."
Clark: Guerrero and her husband run the "Cemanahuac Educational Community" in Cuernavaca. Their's is one of more than a dozen language schools here catering to foreign visitors interested in learning Spanish. By the time they founded Cemanahuac in 1974, Cuernavaca was already a magnet for Spanish language learning. Guerrero says that's thanks to a Catholic priest named Ivan Illich.
Guerrero: "In 1961 he set up a center here to train priests who were going to work in Latin America ... to make them aware of what was happening in the church in Latin America."
Clark: Illich recruited Spanish language teachers from top American universities, and many of them stayed in Cuernavaca, later breaking off to form their own schools. Illich died in 2002. By then, about 10,000 foreigners a year were coming to Cuernavaca to study Spanish - that's still the case today. And they contribute $ 20 million a year to the city's economy. Around a thousand foreigners enroll annually at the "Cemanahuac Educational Community."
Clark: The class sizes are small. often only a few pupils at a time. That's part of Cemanahuac's appeal. While in Cuernavaca, students live with local families and go on field trips to explore Mexican culture.
Paul Harle took a semester off from the University of Texas at San Antonio to study at "Cemanahuac." He says his uncle recommended it.
Harle: "He came down here in the '70s, said Cuernavaca's great place.. And it's definitely shattered all my preconceptions of Mexico ... Kind of a void... Lively culture. Great people. Couldn't ask for anything more."
Clark: Harle's unusual in that he's spending 10 weeks at Cemanahuac. Harriet Guerrero says she's had to tailor her program in recent years to meet the increasingly demanding lives of students.
Guerrero: "We like to recommend 4 weeks as a minimum. One week is nothing. We get lots of businessmen that could only get away one week... Come and go throughout the year. We will have a few university groups that come for 3 week or 12 week session. But I guess the norm is coming down to 2-3 weeks."
Harriet Guerrero
Clark: Guerrero says the type of students she sees these days is also different. It's no longer just college kids looking to improve their Spanish ... but also Americans whose jobs are changing as a result of increased Mexican migration to the U.S.
Guerrero: "There's a college that will bring a group of community leaders... Librarians, policeman... They'll have their language and also special visits set up so they can understand more what's happening in their community as well with the new Mexican people in their towns."
Clark: Guerrero says students coming to Cuernavaca nowadays seem a little less adventurous than they were in the '70s and '80s. Back then people didn't need as much structure and security.In some ways, Christopher Davile is a throw back to those times. Davile lives in Minnesota, but grew up in Texas in a Mexican immigrant family.
Davile: "I grew up hearing Spanish but not really speaking Spanish."
Clark: Since coming to Cuernavaca, Davile's been singing in a local choir and volunteering at an after-school program for kids. He says someday he'd like to teach math to spanish-speaking students back in the states. For now, though, Davile is getting a kick out of looking like a local.
Christopher Davile
Davile: "When I'm with my friends here who are mostly white Americans I'm always looked at as the shady Mexican guy who's just trying to hit on all the girls or whatever. So people are always telling me go away, go away, go away. And I'm like I'm American. I'm their friends." Katy: lots of shady Mexican guys trying to hit on American girls? "Yeah, there are actually, it's very common."
Clark: But mainly what goes on is that thousands of Americans enjoy a peaceful vacation and learn the language of their southern neighbors.
For the World, this is Katy Clark, Cuernavaca, Mexico
