The peoples of Mexico and de United States, together, share a huge territory. We are inter-connected in a multitude of ways, yet we hardly know each other. This is so because we have such different histories. Mexicans are the descendants of the Mesoamerican and Hispanic civilizations. The Indian was fused with the European over the course of several centuries of colonial dominations that began with violence and rapid military conquest in wich the vast majority of our native peoples were bound is slavery and servitude. With this heritage, we developed very different forms of organization and social relations that those developed en United States. Something so apparent and simple as this, is difficult to understand from either side of our long border that, at ones, unites and divides us, and is the only border in the world that joins a fist wold country with a Third World conutry. We tent to se each other to stereotyps. Neither one of us undertand the other, and this lack of understanding creates mistrust and fear, adding yet and other point of tensions to our already confused world. The fact that we are neighboors is and irreversivle geographic truth; but this reallity doesn´t nesessarily have to be detrimental to our separate national interest. Being different doesn´t mean being enemies, if we can understand the factors that underlie our differences, as well as those things that we have in common VOICES OF MEXICO is and attempt to undermine those differences, it seeks to put forth Mexico´s view of itself and of the wold. Sponsored by the National Atonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) where the richness and complexity of our national reality are both analyzed and synthesized, this magazine presents variety of diferent aspects of that reality: how we see it, how we live it, and how we confront it. This means that we not always be agreement with the U. S view of some matters. In fact it´s quite likely that we won´t even agree among ourselves from time to time. We are a vast country, heterogeneous and pluralist, in which diverse points of view are voiced and respected. We won that democratic right in the world"s first great social revolution of the 20th century. That"s why we speak about voices of Mexico, because we are many and diverse in our ways of seeing the world. That"s why we speak so openly and honestly about those events and places that are undeniably a part of our reality and interests; Contadora is a good example. But aboye all else, we hope that from this diversity, this dissonant plurality, we can transmit a harmony which reflectsthe richness of our nationality. And we hope that these voices will help to make it easier for us to understand each other, to build the bonds of brotherhood and sisterhood that our two peoples so desperately need,