Some Truths about Mexico

Extract

It is Probable that no country outside the borders of the United States has, during the past half century, been more widely and more inaccurately presented by our American writers, than the Republic of Mexico. An examination of this surfeit of material and the multiplicity of its authors’ approaches to their topic discovers our Catholic neighborland to have long proved both an irresistible lure and an enigma to the professional producers of run-of-the-mill travel volumes as well as to the more popular (i.e., lighter-weight) theorists on economics and sociology. Their enthusiastic, even florid rhetoric has been ceaselessly inspired by the color and drama of Mexico; but otherwise their persistent output rarely gives much evidence of a clear understanding of Mexican attitudes or ideals and so, of competence to fathom the true significance of this nation’s turbulent history. Since the past cannot be overlooked in any safe estimate of the future, this is a regrettable fact that could prove most detrimental to that much-desired inter-American accord which has already cost the American taxpayer some millions of dollars. There are two easily understood reasons for such lack of insight on the part of so many of our writers; this has already served to rouse the resentment and disrespect of the Mexican reader of the American press while also resulting in a sincere acceptance by Anglo-Americans of a decidedly strange mixture of misinformation and absurdly ill advised opinion for “the truth about Mexico.”