He also fondly recalls touring part of New Mexico once with its powerful senator, Pete Domenici, who is one of the most vocal lawmakers on Capitol Hill regarding American policy toward border issues with Mexico.
Therefore, Garza knows firsthand what some of the emotions are when it comes to talk on the homefront about immigration.
"We're not serious yet," he says regarding the feelings of many Americans. He was referring to an economy that hires immigrant agriculture, domestic and construction workers in huge numbers, while at the same time voicing another side of the immigration debate that says the U.S. should put the brakes on the massive labor flow.
Such contradiction makes it difficult to find easy answers, and Mexican leaders are quick to point out that it certainly provides confusion to those interested only in part-time jobs,
It is a good question, and one that America itself has not yet answered.
Regarding the notorious drug trafficking problem between the two nations, the drugs "wouldn't be moving if there wasn't a $75-80 million demand in the United States," Garza candidly points out, echoing what so many others recognize.
Beyond that, the ambassador likely has plenty more to say, but not on the record.
It is, after all, part of his job to find the solutions that are needed to build bridges that make both countries more prosperous and better neighbors for one another. Garza seems dedicated to the challenge.
He is not alone in the fight.
Looking into its own mirror first, Mexico must find answers to the many questions posed about the challenge of it becoming a modern-day democracy and, equally important, a modern-day economy lifted from the depths of Third World poverty.
How does it lure more global investment?
How does it get a grip on the drug cartels?
How does it promote true democracy and empower its people?
There are suggestions.
Practicing real democracy is a start, several political observers insist.
"Congress is probably the key institution for holding the country together," said Daniel Lund, president of a demographics research firm based in Mexico City. "People tend to look at the president, and overlook the congress."
Like the United States Congress, Mexico's is made up of lawmakers representing all regions of the nation, based in the federal district of Mexico City, which, like America's Washington, D.C., is not part of any single state.
The congress was established by the 1917 Constitution of Mexico, and it consists of two houses, the Senate in the upper chamber, and the Chamber of Deputies in the lower branch. There are 31 sovereign states represented, each with more independent power than that available to American states.
"Congress since 1997 has not been dominated by one party," Lund pointed out. That is a good thing, indicating voters are becoming more involved with the issues and their representation than necessarily with tradition or political loyalty.
However, there can be no doubt that the political parties in Mexico remain powerful because they count on loyalty, whether it comes from buying it with control over who gets a job, or through ideology.
"The political parties have money, which means they are better able to protect their turf," said Carlos Elizondo Mayer-Serra, a respected political scientist with the University of Oxford, England.
Many of the parties are tied closely to specific business interests, meaning comprehensive new labor laws are needed from congress if Mexico is to be serious about any economic reforms, Elizondo said.
"Many jobs require labor union enrollment, fees, rules, and there is a need for more fair representation. Many union board members also are union leaders," he said. "Much of the hiring and firing involves family relations. Mexican law makes it difficult to fire someone, such as a non-working employee" who is loafing on the job but is protected by union membership and laws more favorable to labor parties than necessarily to reform.
The result of political hirings and providing jobs to non-workers on a large scale, such as three jobs filled for work that normally should require only one, represents much of Mexico's problem, Lund and Elizondo both said. Especially when it is government work, paid out of the state treasury.
An unfair tax structure and an uneven field with tariffs are problems, Elizondo said, and so is the tremendous concern with monopolies.
"There is a big difference between Mexico and the United States in that the United States has competition," he said. "But in Mexico, we don't compete."
Several controlling families operate the monopolies, in everything from cement to utilities, and the control goes back many years in Mexico.
"We must break the monopolies and bring in competition," Elizondo said.
Among other solutions for the nation's economy and government, he suggests better education policies, better regulation of lobbying, transparency laws to allow union books and spending to be monitored for its influence on government, and negotiating with the trade unions, he said. The negotiations should work to show them how better practices and better business will in the long run actually mean better jobs and better pay if more global investment comes to Mexico.
Much of the consensus in Mexico points to an improved economy and democracy as the critical elements to dealing with other important issues, such as those more at the heart of Americans.
Immigration into the United States naturally would slow, they argue, if good jobs allowed more Mexicans, who would rather stay at home, to put food on the table.
Americans see the influx of immigrants.
Mexico sees its own problems with the exodus, Lund said.
"It is not strictly an economic thing," he said. "At age 15 or 16, you begin to think about it. It is almost a rite of passage."
Then, when the men or the young Mexicans flee north to help their families or seek opportunity, "the money doesn't replace the person," Lund said. "The money does not replace the mother, or the money does not replace the father. Many children are being raised by their grandparents."
Because the United States still is grappling with what kind of immigration policy it wants to allow, and how far it should go to enforce it once immigrants already are established in jobs important to the American economy, there are other side effects, observers note.
For example, it is too risky in not being allowed to return, and too expensive, for the Mexican laborer to go home from a good job in the U.S. once the job might be out of season. And so, instead of returning home as many would like to do, they stay as illegal immigrants and take their chances. Also, if they miss their family, instead of visiting Mexico, they try to smuggle their family into the U.S. to join them.
That is why observers and political players on both sides of the border would like to see better, well-reasoned immigration policies developed in both nations.
The mixed signals also strike a personal note for many Mexicans, just as the steady immigration does for many unhappy Americans. Rossana Fuentes-Berain is an outspoken opinion editor for El Universal, one of Mexico's largest and most influential newspapers.
"I feel disgusted with what I hear from American lawmakers, on radio talk shows, and in the media" regarding the treatment of immigrants trying to fill vacant jobs in the U.S., she said. "Law-abiding, hard-working Mexicans who are helping your country are becoming a punching bag."
The answers are not easy.
But, just perhaps, both the United States and Mexico are at least finally asking the right questions.
Troy Turner is the editor of The Daily Times. He can be reached at P.O. Box 450, Farmington, N.M. 87499; or at tturner@daily-times.com.
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