In 2007, when Fouad Lakhdar came to Mexico to sell handcrafted Moroccan products, he thought it would be for six months. But he dove into life here, eventually starting a restaurant, becoming president of his local business association, getting a home mortgage, getting married to a Mexican woman, earning several advanced degrees in addition to the bachelor’s degree in philosophy he already had, becoming a registered translator (of classical and Moroccan Arabic) and a lawyer specializing in human rights, and, along the way, becoming a Mexican citizen.
“I fell in love with Mexico,” he says. It didn’t hurt that he found it easier to work and prosper here than it was in his native Morocco.
But as the years and his accomplishments in Mexico piled up, his love became tinged with sadness that, despite everything, there were parts of life in Mexico that were forever barred to him—certain derechos politicos or political rights.
“I can be the president of a business, vote, be a lawyer, and so on, but I can never be a judge or a diputado, either state or federal, and I certainly can’t be president of Mexico.” Lakhdar felt this was so unfair (and contrary to Article One of the Mexican constitution) that he wrote a 380-page book that is just being released, entitled “Mexicanos de Segunda Clase.”
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