The Gringos Are Coming

The Director of Engineering of a huge steel plant announces that the whole department will disappear, since a joint venture with an American engineering company will be created to handle all future expansions of the Mexican steel conglomerate. The new company will be formed with American and Mexican personnel and invites the employees to join it.
The gringos arrive and work starts. The American director and the project managers are assigned parking spaces near the building. They reject them preferring to park in the general area. This initial democratic gesture surprise Mexicans.
Most gringos are liked and respected. In the first office party gringos arrive with their wives. One of them asks a secretary to dance with him and refuses to take no for an answer. Mexicans are shocked since a man with his wife present dancing with another woman is unheard of in town. Once recovered from the shock some bold Mexicans dance with some of their wives.
This party creates a new more liberal atmosphere. Interoffice sex occurs. Something also unheard of, since all females, as a rule, date only guys from other companies to avoid gossip. Some secretaries date unattached Americans.
Everything is rosy for three years until the crisis came. Inflation reaches over a hundred percent. Mexicans are every day poorer and gringos every day richer.
This fast paced novel, based on fact, provides a deep insight on the differences between Mexican and American customs and culture, as well as a detailed account of the Mexican crisis under the Lopez Portillo regime.