I recently returned from a trip to Mexico to learn about economic globalization and its effects on everyday people there. I was part of a 13-member experiential learning delegation organized by the Just Journeys program of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC), an international human-rights agency based in Cambridge, Mass. The delegation, which also included Phyllis Morales of Golden, and others from around the U.S., met with leading representatives of Mexican social movements, garment industry workers, migrant workers, and a sustainable agriculture organization, as well as a team from the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City. We also stayed overnight with Mexican families in Vicente Guerrero, a farming community in the state of Tlaxcala that has boosted productivity with sustainable agriculture.

We spent one afternoon discussing the effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on prices and wages in Mexico. Rob (our facilitator) did a great job explaining the causes and effects of the poor economic situation and, particularly, how U.S. policy is a contributing factor. I have to admit it was a struggle for me to understand the macroeconomic puzzle pieces that fit together to create the current troubling situation. However, I do completely understand going to the grocery store and making dinner!

We did a market exercise to examine the costs of staple food items in Mexico City compared to the earnings of a worker ... say a nurse. A nurse working in Mexico makes around 66 pesos per day (which is around 30 percent more than Mexico's minimum wage and the equivalent of around $6.60 USD). At the grocery store, he or she would pay 72 pesos for a whole chicken and 11 pesos for a liter of milk.That's more than a full day's work to buy a chicken and some milk! At those prices, you really can't make dinner.

I know that when Mexicans migrate to the U.S. it is because they are having difficulty making ends meet in their home communities. But this exercise - of comparing food prices, wages, and earning power - explains just why it is so hard. Migrating is a tough, but unavoidable choice that many Mexican workers make based on desperate economic conditions that are heavily influenced by U.S. policies.

I also had the privilege of spending some one-on-one time with a garment worker, Rosa, from a maquila near Puebla. Maquilas are factories, mostly foreign-owned, which import materials on a duty-free and tariff-free basis for manufacturing and then export finished products. Under NAFTA, thousands of maquilas have opened in Mexico and now account for 17 percent of Mexican employment. We spent the morning meeting with Rosa and some of her co-workers learning about their union and working conditions at the factory. Then we all had lunch together which gave me time to chat with Rosa.

Rosa is a delightful and cheerful woman, but her eyes welled up when she told me about her son who has moved to New York City with his wife and baby. Her pain of being separated from them was palpable. When I asked Rosa why her son immigrated she said it was because there was no work for him. This is a familiar story for so many families in Mexico - we heard it over and over again from the people we met with. They don't want to be apart, but are forced by economic circumstances to choose migration.

Rosa's son is doing fairly well in New York, despite being "sin papeles" - undocumented. He is an appliance store manager, and his wife works in a laundry, while a sister cares for their child. I could see in Rosa's face how much she worries for him. She says he is very concerned about the possibility of being deported. It isn't possible for him to come home for a visit because of the difficulty he would face in returning to the United States. This young man is a productive member of U.S. society, though marginalized by his lack of lawful status. He had no choice but to leave his family and home - and the pain of his absence is very deep for his mother.

After just an hour of talking with Rosa I felt a special bond with her. We hugged goodbye, and I told her to send "amor a su hijo" - love to her son - which brought tears to both of our eyes again. I wish I could wave a magic wand to change things for her son ... for all of the Mexican fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters who have journeyed north at great risk and financial and emotional cost to them and their families.

Pay attention to the effects of U.S. economic policies on Mexico! NAFTA has established trade relationships that highly advantage large transnational companies to the disadvantage of small farmers, traders, and other workers. Since NAFTA's implementation, so many people have migrated from Mexico out of economic necessity that money sent home in the form of remittances is the second highest source of income for Mexico, second only to oil.

Barack Obama has said that he would work to renegotiate NAFTA. This could be a very important start toward a remedy for economic disadvantages suffered by Mexican families.