When President Vicente Fox said Mexicans should be glad they weren’t born in the United States, it was a reminder of an ugly little truth.
But they’re glad to give birth to an anchor baby over on this side of the “border.’
Aside from the U.S. economy, many Mexican citizens — especially those living in Mexico — don’t care much for the United States.
Except when they want prosperity and to avoid the civil warfare and repression that Latin America is famous for.
Mexicans often see the U.S. as full of broken families, rampant drug use and unchecked materialism that is run by a government that doesn’t hesitate to go to war or meddle in the affairs of others, a standing underscored by events in Iraq.
There’s almost the pot calling the kettle black. The irony is that many illegal aliens are joining the Marines and serving in Iraq, and are using this as a means to lobby for citizenship, which El Presidente has been happy to grant, ignoring the fact that Congress, not the President, sets laws of naturalization.
Mexicans still point with anger to the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, under which Mexico signed away about half of its territory, including what would become Texas, California and other U.S. states.
But do they point to the $15 million the American government paid the Mexican government? Do they point to the millions paid again in this stead in 1853 for a small strip that we now know as southern Arizona and far southwestern New Mexico? Do they point to the offer by the Mexican government to sell all of Baja California to the Americans for $10 million not long after? Do the point to varying estimates that the 1848 annexation area was only populated by 100,000 Mexicans at the time, or that the territory that would become the state of California only had 4,000 Mexicans? Plain words, they didn’t want it when they had it, and now that gringo has it and has made something of it, then and only then are they pulling out their “historical claim” card.
They also wonder why the U.S. would want to build a wall along the border to keep out illegal immigrants while it is so reliant on their labor.
If they hate us so much, then they ought to support the wall (really, it would be a fence, albeit one that will never get built), as to block the eyesore of the evil imperial monster to the north.
