The Monterrey Spirit

Monterrey, Mexico is my home. The people of Monterrey are called regiomontanos, a demonym formed from regio (“royal”) and monte (“mountain”). Monterrey was named in honor of a Count of Monterrey (Spain), but the city’s name is appropriate for a place surrounded by mountains.

Over the course of many generations, a spirit emerged in Monterrey and is known to Mexicans generally as a Monterrey personality type. Indeed, regiomontanos are stereotyped elsewhere in Mexico as codos, a colloquial label of excessive frugality—penny-pinchers.¹

The Monterrey spirit is a spirit I admire, celebrate, and try to sustain.

The Monterrey spirit is a shared set of ideas, beliefs, norms about life, work, trade, entrepreneurship, and authority. It speaks to what is worth pursuing in life, to what a regiomontano can and should aspire to become. The set is not fully written or expressed anywhere, but it comes alive through conversation with regiomontanos. When they speak about what it means to be from Monterrey, one realizes how they see themselves as part of a story. I call the set that emerges the Monterrey Spirit.

As part of my studies at George Mason University, I have conducted dozens of in-depth interviews with self-identified regiomontanos. I have learned about how they see their place in the story of the city and how they expect other regiomontanos to do so as well. In each conversation, the participant guided me through his or her thoughts as though I were being guided through a museum.

Some of the participants were born and raised in Monterrey, some from well-established industrial families. Others were migrants, from elsewhere in Mexico or from foreign nations, but who identify as belonging to the Monterrey story. Most of them call themselves regiomontanos and adopt the Monterrey spirit as their own. A majority of my participants relate to one another in some way, either professionally or personally. All of them had much to say about their relationship to the city itself.

One participant moved in 2006 from Mexico City to Monterrey. He told me:

I really grew to love the city. I like the way people here think, and I identify more with their way of thinking than with the way people think in other places. I’m very fond of Monterrey. I’ve done everything I could to contribute to the well-being of society here, among young people and among business leaders. And that’s it. As far as I’m concerned, I hope I can die here and that society will be better by then. (A)

Spirit: Meanings, Values, Behavior and Transmission

I have studied with Virgil Storr of George Mason University, who calls to his fellow economists: “Economists ought to be looking at the spirits that animate markets.” The word animate comes from anima, a living thing, and suggests motivation (animus). Storr argues that “markets are animated by one or more culturally derived economic spirits which shape the economic calculations and behavior of the actors who inhabit them.”Following Max Weber, Storr says that “every market is animated by particular economic spirits.”²

I follow Weber and Storr in saying “spirit” rather than “culture.” A spirit suggests a being or personality, which can motivate others when encountered. We can learn about spirits through stories in conversation. Tamotsu Shibutani argued that a spirit (culture) “is not a static entity but a continuing process; norms are creatively reaffirmed from day to day in social interaction . . . a product of communication.”³ Consider the following cycle:

Caroline Wigren also uses “spirit” in a work on the enterprising and networking culture of a region in southern Sweden, The Spirit of Gnösjo.⁴ Wigren relies on Anthony Giddens, who defines values as “ideas held by human individuals or groups about what is desirable, proper, good or bad.”⁵ We may bring Adam Smith to the matter: The individual is motivated by sympathy, which involves sentiments shared with another being. The spirit is that other being, which provides motivation as well as validation and criticism.

Culture is something we make through conduct, conversation, and enterprise. The Monterrey spirit can also be thought of as embodied by institutions, firms, and families. Consider the following quotation from a participant that linked the meaning of wealth generation with the meaning of social well-being:

In a society like this—where family businesses and families grow from one generation to the next—there is first a need to build wealth for the family. But there is also a concern for benefiting society. For example, I don’t know whether you knew this, but the idea behind INFONAVIT (national workers’ housing fund and mortgage agency) originated here in Monterrey, at the brewery owned by Garza Sada. He began providing homes for his workers before INFONAVIT existed, and the government later adopted the idea. The same is true of Clínica Nova (medical services), which was also established by the brewery before the Mexican Social Security Institute existed.

So there is an entire ecosystem in which business owners and entrepreneurs generate wealth, development, and growth, but also have a sense of social responsibility . . . they want their workers to be well. The Tecnológico de Monterrey (private university) was founded to train skilled workers for the region’s industrial companies. It became the country’s most important academic institution, but it was founded here precisely to meet a local need: to train the workforce required by local businesses. There is an entire ecosystem involving business owners, workers, working conditions. It is an ecosystem that developed in a favorable way and helped Monterrey become one of Mexico’s most important cities. Since I was young, I was immersed in this ecosystem. (B)

The quotation expresses a key idea: Wealth generation in Monterrey has been socially oriented. In B’s view, the idea was exemplified in the initiatives for privately funded workers’ housing, medical services, and a university. The spirit is not limited to a pursuit of honest income. It is deeply concerned with the use one makes of that income. It is concerned with the distribution of resources, not merely the accumulation of resources. The interviewee was raised within the network of institutions he calls an “ecosystem,” and he finds agreeable the idea that wealth generation should be socially oriented.

J. G. A. Pocock said that in Adam Smith’s time “a commercial humanism had been not unsuccessfully constructed.”⁶ Monterrey recovered the spirit of commercial humanism.

In the interviews, I find consistent patterns of meaning for facets of economic life. I will discuss three: work, money, and entrepreneurship.

The Monterrey Spirit and Economic Life

Work

“Monterrey is a city where a strong and exemplary work ethic has developed” (C). Hard work and industriousness have long formed part of the cultural image associated with regiomontanos.⁷

Another interviewee hinted at comparison to other regions: “Because here—with the harsh climate—you have to work, save, plan ahead, and think about the future. So there is a clear difference, especially between northern Mexico and the central and southern regions. There are many reasons for it, but the difference is clear” (D).

Another reflected on how hard work is thought of in Monterrey, and how it is shared with newcomers:

It’s as if people know that coming here means you have to work hard. I mean, industriousness is contagious—not only among those who were born here, but also among those who come here. It’s a little like a Mexican who throws trash on the street in Mexico but stops doing it when he crosses into the United States. It’s the same person: over there, you don’t litter; here, you do. The person hasn’t changed. I think something similar happens when people come to Monterrey and say, “I have to work hard. It doesn’t matter what I used to do. If I work hard, I’ll do well.” I’ve worked in industry for thirty-five years, and I’ve had many coworkers from all over the country. They all think the same way: In Monterrey, you have to work hard. (E)

The Monterrey spirit includes a meaning to work: “Work—work is how people provide for themselves. You have to work, you have to pay the bills, right? But it is also a means of personal growth and development” (F). Different participants shared the view that work, hard work, is for personal fulfillment and that necessarily involves service to society:

I try to live by the idea that professional life—where, obviously, we all need to do well and distinguish ourselves, because that is how we create value—is also an excuse for transforming society. The excuse is: work. Work, yes. And it’s not that anyone instilled this in me or explicitly told me. I see it in my grandfather, who built a successful business, and I see it in my father and my uncles. Some may do better than others, but they keep going. Above all, there is a responsibility toward their employees—to make sure they are doing well. (G)

Money

An interviewee admitted: “People call regios “codos” because there is an underlying austerity and prudence. It is not that they are penny-pinchers. People from Monterrey spend—and know how to spend well—but they are generally austere and prudent: they save and invest” (B).

Another confessed: “There is indeed a stereotype that people from Monterrey are hardworking, that we are codos, that we are not big spenders like chilangos (people from Mexico City) or tapatíos (people from Guadalajara). It is true” (H).

The important question for regiomontanos about money is whether it is spent well. One participant (I) summarized the principle: “To me, taking care of money means spending it well and establishing priorities” (I). Money commands care because it represents the effort required to obtain it. He rejected the charge of stinginess by connecting thrift with work: “We do not like to squander money because we know what it costs us to earn it.”

Another (J) shared a lesson from his childhood. His grandfather was an important and famous industrialist, and his father no less successful. He recalled what his grandfather taught all his children and grandchildren: “It is not your money; it is a legacy. . . . Your job is to honor everyone who worked before you to create opportunities.” Accumulation, in this view, activates duties to predecessors, descendants, employees, and future enterprises.

Other interviewees expressed concern about more modern trends. K described a movement from humility and stewardship towards a newer attitude about money. K recalled an older generation for whom “what mattered more was what you were than what you had.” K contrasted this with a contemporary concern for “displaying wealth through parties, travel, fancy cars, and other visible goods.” K recalls his childhood, being a member of one of the wealthiest families of the city:

My two grandfathers were part of the most lucrative businesses in the city at the time: the brewery and the glass factory, yet they did not even have air conditioning in their homes. There was considerable austerity. They had three or four suits, two pairs of shoes, and kept their automobiles for ten years—and cars are better today than they were then. Vacations for them meant traveling within Mexico: Guanajuato, Saltillo, or a relative’s ranch. The nightlife and excess one sees now did not exist.

The recent cultural shifts are seen as threats to tradition: “Social competition has increasingly become about . . . where you go on vacation, what car you drive, or what brand of shoes you wear. I feel that this threatens what our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents grew up with” (G).

Entrepreneurship

Participants mentioned entrepreneurship as a key concept to the regiomontano identity. For them, starting a business and trying to innovate are part of work life. Entrepreneurship is seen as a natural result of the city’s conditions. B, who began selling tacos and hamburgers as a teenager, calls this an entrepreneurial “DNA”:

The regio has an entrepreneurial DNA. In my view, it comes from the difficulties of the region—its geography and adverse climate. Those conditions give people the impulse to modify their environment, to create things, to create comfort, and to have a little more. (B)

Beyond B’s hypothesis, which requires further historical analysis, the relevant point is his moral narrative: Monterrey is imagined as a place (almost unique in B’s mind) where the environment does not provide enough and must be transformed through work and innovation. Entrepreneurship is a refusal to accept existing circumstances as final.

Another (L) describes this inclination:

I never wanted to be an entrepreneur. But when I could not find the job I wanted, I said, ‘Well, then I am going to have to create it myself.’ . . . I realized that if I wanted to do what I truly cared about, I needed to start something connected to it. That is how the company I work in today began. (L)

L’s story presents entrepreneurship as a natural response to poor options. When the labor market did not offer the kind of work he wanted, he refused to treat those circumstances as fixed and instead attempted to create an alternative for himself. That response is related to L’s cultural upbringing. As L explained, “When the icons of your city are entrepreneurs who managed to do things on their own, those values become established there. . . . In Monterrey, the heroes are the Garzas and the Zambranos.”

Growing up in a city whose most prominent figures are remembered as builders of firms makes entrepreneurial action a familiar and admired response to constraint. L’s experience therefore suggests that the entrepreneurial ideal of the Monterrey spirit consists in a sense of agency: the disposition to respond to an unsatisfactory situation by trying to build something new.

Another (M) made a comment on how the attempt alone has social value:

Taking the initiative to start your own business is very well regarded in Monterrey. It does not matter only whether you succeed or fail. In this city, starting something and trying . . . only that, is applauded. (M)

The Monterrey spirit includes the idea that an entrepreneur who fails at least demonstrates initiative, audacity, and a willingness to leave a habitual position. In the words of one participant (M), the entrepreneur embodies a more general regio virtue: “the courage to leave one’s comfort zone.”

In several interviews, participants mentioned that the reason to start a business is not solely to make honest income. It is, as N said, “the ability to create work for other people.” N, who is developing a business alongside his regular employment, described the hiring of his first employee as the moment when the project would acquire its full significance:

My dream is to have my own business and earn money, but I also feel a responsibility to generate employment. I will feel truly regio when I can say: ‘I have a business, and I have given someone a job.’ (N)

The Sources of the Monterrey Spirit

Where did the shared patterns of meanings come from? Interviewees themselves provide hints.

The “harsh climate” mentioned by (D) is just part of the story. As one participant explained: “Monterrey was born far from the capital, so it largely had to fend for itself.”But Monterrey was not commercially isolated. During the nineteenth century, Monterrey became a trade nexus between northern Mexico and the Gulf ports of Matamoros and Tampico. After the border with the United States moved south to the Rio Grande in 1848, commerce with Texas became even more relevant. Trade during the American Civil War, the accumulation of commercial capital, and the arrival of the railroads in the 1880s were essential to transform Monterrey from a commercial town to an industrial city.

Immigration mattered as well: merchants, craftsmen, professionals, and workers arrived from elsewhere in Mexico, the United States, and Europe. As an interviewee noted, “Industry developed with foreign technology . . . beer, steel, glass, cement—all of that was brought from elsewhere. Contact with Americans and Europeans was what allowed Monterrey to develop differently from other cities” (H).

Monterrey historians resist explanations for the city’s development based on any single source. The city’s industrial and cultural developments resulted from changes in the border, trade, migration, transportation, and politics.⁸

The Monterrey Spirit is a set of cultural traits shared by people. It is not surprising that interviewees point to focal figures, industrialists that were key in the emergence and diffusion of culture:

Something happened: a group of families did something, and a series of circumstances led, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, to the creation of companies and institutions that gave rise to the work culture of Monterrey in which I grew up. (L)

L is not alone in thinking that industrialists and their families played an important role in giving rise to a specific culture. Consider Edgardo Reyes Salcido’s 2010 biography of Isaac Garza. In Reyes Salcido’s view, Isaac Garza “is the greatest businessman of the twentieth century, the creator and driving force behind the Monterrey spirit, its business values, and the great Mexican industries of the region.”⁹

In my view, Reyes Salcido goes too far in attributing the Monterrey spirit to a single man. Isaac Garza may be understood as a focal figure: a particularly visible embodiment of ideas and practices that came to be associated with Monterrey, and belongs with other industrialists, entrepreneurs, workers, families, teachers, religious leaders, and institutions that participated in the process. Nor should the explanation stop with individuals. The great industrialists can be considered not as creators of the Spirit, but as focal figures around whom a complex process became visible.

Conclusion

I have interviewed diverse regiomontanos, men and women, business owners and employees, historians, academics, recent graduates, and retired individuals. Here I have shared their thoughts about work, money, and entrepreneurship. Also, in the interviews, they express their sensibilities about family and social networks, local pride, authority, government, legacy, and other concepts. The city of Monterrey is animated by a spirit that is well-rounded and worthy of admiration.