Word: mexicanization
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...sameness of the landscape only accentuates the social and historical differences. They are most visible ethnically and, above all, economically. The wealth of the U.S. and the poverty of Mexico are usually expressed in social and political terms: development and underdevelopment, the policies of American expansionism and Mexican defensiveness. This opposition is real enough, but the true difference is more profound. It has been apparent since the birth of the two societies, when the U.S. was New England and Mexico was called New Spain...
From the beginning, Mexicans have been aware of the material and psychological differences that separate them from Americans. And from the beginning, the interpretation of these differences has ranged from blind admiration to an equally blind repulsion. During the 19th century, Mexican liberals saw American democracy, not without reason, as the archetype of modernity. This led them to adopt the American political system. Their attempt failed, in part, because Mexico for three centuries had been a Roman Catholic monarchy; neither its people nor its leaders had experienced the great spiritual, political and economic revolution with which modernity began. We wanted...
Disgracefully, many Mexican and Latin American anti-imperialists, enchanted by the ideology of a totalitarian "socialism," have forgotten their democratic origins. Thus what unites yesterday's conservatives with today's radicals is not only a just anti-imperialism, but also the authoritarian and antidemocratic temple. In the Mexican middle class, the breeding ground of our leaders, it is common to rind an amalgam of the conservative sentiments of the criollos [Mexicans of pure Spanish blood] of the 19th century with the diffuse anti-imperialist ideology of the 20th. These traditional beliefs, heirs of the criollo aristocracy...
...brightest moments in Mexican-American relations was during the Administrations of Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lázaro Cárdenas. In Mexico there were great social changes, but the U.S. Government, without concealing its occasional displeasure, respected those decisions. Contributing to this harmony was an identical view of international affairs: for both Presidents, the defense of democracy against Hitler and Mussolini was primary. The circumstances today are different, but the principles on which that good relation was founded still apply: respect for the independence of Mexico, tolerance toward the necessary and almost always healthy diversity of opinions, fidelity...
During the meeting, Chevalier stressed that expanding world trade would not by itself bring economic growth for any nation in the year ahead. He argued that, in what he called the "Mexican effect," excessive dependence on world trade had pushed many Third World nations into debt in the first place, risking their economic independence in the process. Chevalier suggested that some nations would need to protect domestic industries to encourage investment. By contrast, Board Member Tumlir argued that investment would slump alarmingly without free trade. Said he: "Investment is extremely sensitive to uncertainty, and if you create uncertainty about trade...