Mexico, Trust, Gradual Trust - understand-culture

The Trial Period

Article 39-A of Mexico’s Federal Labor Law allows a periodo a prueba, a trial period, in employment relationships of indefinite length or longer than 180 days. It may last no more than 30 days. For management positions and for specialized technical or professional work, it may be extended to 180 days. If the worker does not show the required skills, the employer may end the relationship without liability.

Article 39-B adds a separate relationship for initial training. It may last no more than three months, or up to six months for management and specialized technical or professional positions.

Six Months Without an Unfavorable Note

The Federal Law of Workers in the Service of the State governs employment in the federal government. Its Article 6 says that new employees do not become inamovibles, protected from dismissal, until after six months of service “sin nota desfavorable en su expediente” (without an unfavorable note in their file).

Residents of the Ejido

Article 13 of Mexico’s Agrarian Law defines the avecindados of an ejido, the residents of the land of an ejido. They are adult Mexicans who have lived on the ejido’s land for one year or more.

Residence alone is not enough. They must also be recognized as avecindados by the ejido assembly or by the competent agrarian court.

The Ladder of Offices

In some Indigenous and rural communities of Mexico, members of the community rise through a ladder of offices called the sistema de cargos. In 2005, Hilario Topete Lara described the system in Dimensión Antropológica, a journal of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).

He writes that the system was not found everywhere. The offices are ordered by rank. Terms usually last one year, or at least a short time, with no reelection. The officeholders receive no pay.

The service is costly, and it brings great prestige in the community. A person who has reached the top is considered a pasado or a principal.

Usted and Tú

In Mexican Spanish, usted is the formal word for “you.” The Diccionario del español de México, of El Colegio de México, says that it shows the respect owed to a person with whom one has no social acquaintance, and the courtesy and formality shown toward an authority or a person of different social position.

Tutear means to address someone as tú. The dictionary’s example reads: “Nos tuteamos desde jóvenes” (We have said tú to each other since we were young).

A 2026 study of educated speech in Mexico City, published in UNAM’s Anuario de Letras, calls tú the form of address of closeness, solidarity and confianza.

Same Faces for Years

In February 2025, the newspaper El Imparcial of Hermosillo wrote about the abarrotes, the small grocery stores of Mexican neighborhoods. The sociologist Alipia Avendaño Enciso described them as places where everyone knows each other and everyone talks. According to the article, seeing the same person for years means that “se genera confianza” (trust is built).

Masks

In El laberinto de la soledad, Octavio Paz describes a guarded face: “El mexicano se me aparece como un ser que se encierra y se preserva: máscara el rostro, máscara la sonrisa” (The Mexican appears to me as a being who shuts himself in and protects himself: the face a mask, the smile a mask).

Paz finds the same defense in popular speech. “El ideal de la ‘hombría’ consiste en no ‘rajarse’ nunca. Los que se ‘abren’ son cobardes” (The ideal of manliness consists in never “cracking open.” Those who “open up” are cowards). He explains rajarse as “permitir que el mundo exterior penetre en su intimidad” (to let the outside world into one’s intimacy).

The Vocabulary of Trust

Confianza means trust. It also means familiarity between people.

De confianza, a person one can rely on, or a close and intimate one.

En confianza, in private, between people who trust each other.

Agarrar confianza, to grow at ease with someone over time.

Pásale, con confianza, “come in, make yourself at home,” said to a guest.

Tomarse confianzas, to take liberties, to act with more familiarity than the relationship allows.