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Mexico

country in North America

Mexico (Spanish: México), also known as the United Mexican States (UMS; Castilian: Estados Unidos Mexicanos), is a country located on the continent of North America, to the south of the United States. It is the largest Castilian-speaking country in the world.

Flag of Mexico
Anthem of Mexico
location of the Second Mexican Empire
You boys like Mexico? ~ MacIntyre Womack
In Mexico they'll probably let you go, but they'll beat you up and steal everything you've got first. ~ Hector Vázquez
Deaths remain at very, very high levels in Mexico. They haven't really dropped. The only thing that has changed is that the press doesn't talk so much about the numbers. ~ Anabel Hernandez
Mexico is not a functioning democracy. ~ John M. Ackerman
The border meant freedom, a new life, romance. And that's why I thought I should go. And start my life over on the seashores of old Mexico. ~ George Strait
The fate of Mexico... is eternal war. ~ William Tecumseh Sherman
The Mexicans are a different cup of tea. They have a heritage. At the present time they steal, they're dishonest, but they do have some concept of family life. They don't live like a bunch of dogs. ~ Richard Nixon
Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States! ~ José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori

Arranged alphabetically by author or source:
A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M · N · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W · X · Y · Z · See also · External links

Quotes

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A

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  • Between 1824 and 1867 there were fifty-two presidents in Mexico, few of whom assumed power according to any constitutionally sanctioned procedure. The consequence of this unprecedented political instability for economic institutions and incentives should be obvious. Such instability led to highly insecure property rights. It also led to a severe weakening of the Mexican state, which now had little authority and little ability to raise taxes or provide public services. Indeed, even though Santa Ana was president in Mexico, large parts of the country were not under his control, which enabled the annexation of Texas by the United States. In addition, as we just saw, the motivation behind the Mexican declaration of independence was to protect the set of economic institutions developed during the colonial period, which had made Mexico, in the words of the great German explorer and geographer of Latin America Alexander von Humbolt, “the country of inequality.” These institutions, by basing the society on the exploitation of indigenous people and the creation of monopolies, blocked the economic incentives and initiatives of the great mass of the population. As the United States began to experience the Industrial Revolution in the first half of the nineteenth century, Mexico got poorer.
    • Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Poverty, and Prosperity (2012), pp. 42-43
  • Mexico is not a functioning democracy. The United States is working under the false premise that Mexico is a functioning democracy, one where federal authorities are doing their best to strengthen public institutions and uproot rampant organized crime and corruption. It is thought that crime and corruption stem principally from broken local institutions and social decay. But we need to turn this logic on its head. The real problem is at the top, not the bottom, of the Mexican political system. And the key obstacles reside within the Mexican federal government.
  • [F]ractious country, where corruption, a fledgling rule of law and economic struggles have alienated many from political engagement.
  • We wish to foster serious and respectful dialogue to offer enlightenment at a time when society needs to hear voices calling for harmonious co-existence, a culture of legality, civil participation and united efforts to make Mexico a more just and fraternal nation where the rule of law is a guarantee for all citizens to exercise their human rights and fulfil their obligations.
    • Abelardo Alvarado Alcántara, Space for reflection on the concept ‘secular state’ in the context of human rights and the best way to guarantee authentic religious freedom: objective of International Congress on “Churches, Secular State and Society” 14 to 18 November (28 October 2005)
  • As a young student in Mexico, I had no favorite artists. I was mostly impressed by the folk art in the Mexican markets. My grandma used to take me to the markets where I was fascinated by the native crafts. The designs and patterns on blankets, baskets, pottery, jewelry, and toys were my inspiration. Later on, I learned about the Mexican muralists that painted beautiful images on the walls of public buildings. Diego Rivera, Orozco, Tamayo, and others. Being born in Mexico has made my life richer, I feel fortunate to be able to speak the beautiful Spanish language, and I feel I came to the USA with a wonderful culture.
  • Don Collier: Hey, you want to talk Mexican? Join another tank, a Mexican tank.

B

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  • Mexico is one of the most important economies in Latin America, but is no doubt better known as a cultural country with its plastic arts, monumental painters, writers, cuisine, colonial architecture and archaeological sites. All this is the heritage of humanity. But the violence and drug dealing are usually much more visible.
  • The history of Mexican-American relations has had its troubled moments, but today our peoples enrich each other in trade and culture and family ties... I've often said that family values don't stop at the Rio Grande.

C

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D

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  • When we wanted, a few years ago, a slice of Mexico, it was hinted that the Mexicans were an inferior race, that the old Castilian blood had become so weak that it would scarcely run down hill, and that Mexico needed the long, strong and beneficent arm of the Anglo-Saxon care extended over it. We said that it was necessary to its salvation, and a part of the “manifest destiny” of this Republic, to extend our arm over that dilapidated government.

E

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  • Mexico has always defended the right of its people to freely forge their destiny. It searches incessantly for new social and economic formulas within the frame of its Constitution. We hold that true development derives the impulse toward production from an equitable distribution of wealth and the satisfaction of social demands. We believe that growth without justice ends in the annulment of democracy and that freedom is only possible through equitable progress. We cannot divide the personality of man and think that we can solve his material problems without solving the problems that make up his whole composition. The instruments that man has created within the economic industrial field and his whole contemporary civilization in general in which he lives must be placed in the service of the whole man. That is why dictators attempt to divide man, to try to standardize him, and to try by compulsion to divide his very personality.
    • Luis Echeverría, June 15, 1972, as quoted in Historic Documents of 1972. Washington, DC: CQ Press.
  • Hitmen working for murderous drug gangs are turning Mexico, a top U.S. oil supplier and trade partner and a prominent emerging market economy that has scored points for political stability, into a conflict zone that is alarming Washington, tourists and foreign investors.

G

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  • For decades, Mexico has been the top source of newly arrived immigrants to the U.S., but with a recent decline in the flow of new immigrants to the U.S. from Mexico, and an increase in the number of new immigrant arrivals from China and India, Mexico may no longer be the top source of U.S. immigrants. The U.S. Census Bureau recently reported that China overtook Mexico in 2013 as the leading country for new immigrants.
  • Mexico's most lucrative natural resource are the people who leave home. Remittances help drive Mexico's economy, from paying for new home construction to schools, especially in low-income areas.
  • The Southern rebellion was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican war. Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions. We got our punishment in the most sanguinary and expensive war of modern times.
  • The biggest mass beheading in recent history caused widespread revulsion in Mexico but little surprise. Decapitations have become as commonplace in the increasingly vicious narco turf battles as stabbings are in London.

H

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  • I'm going way down south; way down to Mexico way. Alright, I'm going way down south. Way down, where I can be free.
  • Once a realm of Indian glory,
    Famed in Aztec song and story,
    Fabled by Tradition hoary
         As an earthly Paradise;
    Now a land of love romances,
    Serenades, bolero dances,
    Looks of scorn, adoring glances,
         Under burning tropic skies.
    • Fergus Hume, The Harlequin Opal (1893), vol. 1, epigraph

J

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  • The government of the republic will fulfill its duty to defend its independence, to repel foreign aggression, and accept the struggle to which it has been provoked, counting on the unanimous spirit of the Mexicans and on the fact that sooner or later the cause of rights and justice will triumph.
    • Benito Juárez, Proclamation to the Mexican people, shortly before the Battle of Puebla of 5 May 1862 (which is commemorated by the "Cinco de Mayo" celebrations).
  • Mexicans: let us now pledge all our efforts to obtain and consolidate the benefits of peace. Under its auspices, the protection of the laws and of the authorities will be sufficient for all the inhabitants of the Republic. May the people and the government respect the rights of all. Between individuals, as between nations, peace means respect for the rights of others.
    • Benito Juárez, as quoted in Global History, Volume Two : The Industrial Revolution to the Age of Globalization (2008) by Jerry Weiner, Mark Willner, George A. Hero and Bonnie-Anne Briggs, p. 175

K

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  • In 1910 Mexico had been a labyrinth of political chaos and social injustice. Centuries of inept colonial rule followed by corrupt dictatorships and foreign occupations then culminated in thirty years of one-man rule. After years of chaos, the dictator Porfirio Díaz offered stability. But in 1910 he was eighty years old and had arranged for no successor or any institutions to outlast him. There were no political parties, and he represented no ideology. Mexico was divided by different cultures, ethnic groups, and social classes, all with dramatically different needs and demands. When the country erupted into what was called the Mexican revolution that year, it was an endless series of highly destructive civil wars, most of them fought on a regional basis. There were many leaders and many armies. But this was the Mexico Hernan Cortes had found in the early sixteenth century. The Aztecs had ruled by managing a coalition of leaders from different groups. Cortes had defeated the Aztecs by dividing this coalition, gaining the loyalty of some of the leaders. That was how politics was played in Mexico.
  • Some can be bought off, and some have to be shot. That became the Mexican way. "No general can withstand a cannonade of a hundred thousand pesos," Obregon once said. By 1924 a fourth of the national budget went to paying off generals. But many other "generals," local chieftains with their bands of armed followers, were shot. Starting with the 1917 constitution, a system of government was established who primary goal was not democracy but stability. In 1928 Mexico almost slid back into revolution. Obregon ran for president without an opponent and was elected. He might have been on his way to dictatorship were it not for the artist who, while sketching him as president, took out a pistol and shot him to death. The assassin was immediately killed. It seemed the changing of presidents was forever threatening the national stability. The Mexican solution was the PNR—the National Revolutionary Party—formed in 1929. Through this institution, a qualified president could be chosen and presented to the public. For six years the president would have almost absolute power. There were only three things he could not do—give territory to a foreign power, confiscate land from indigenous people, and succeed himself as president. During World War II, in an attempt to appear more stable and democratic, the PNR changed its name to that uniquely Mexican paradox, the Institutional Revolutionary Party. This is what Mexico had become, not a democracy but an institutional revolution—the Revolution that feared revolution. The PRI bought out or killed agrarian leaders, all the while paying verbal homage to Zapata and carrying out as little land reform as possible. It bought out the labor unions until they became part of the PRI. It bought out the press, one newspaper at a time, until it completely controlled them. The PRI was not violent. It tried to co-opt. Only in those rare situations where that did not it work would it resort to killing.

L

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M

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  • I studied art there (in Mexico) in the late 1950s for two semesters before I started to write. I was in Mexico City...It was an important experience in my life…For the first time...I saw that art could make strong political and social statements. It didn't have to be only poster art or cheap propaganda; it didn't have to be slogans, it could be very deep, it could be adapted to everyday life, to everything you do in your life.

N

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  • When Trump came for the Mexicans, I did not speak out, as I was not a Mexican. When he came for the Muslims, I did not speak out, as I was not a Muslim. Then he came for me.
  • The Mexicans are a different cup of tea. They have a heritage. At the present time they steal, they're dishonest, but they do have some concept of family life. They don't live like a bunch of dogs.
    • Richard M. Nixon, tapes from 1971, as presented in "All the Philosopher King's Men" by James Warren in Harper's Magazine (February 2000).

P

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  • Mexico is a country that has a lot of energy potential. We not only have oil; we also have shale gas. But we cannot expect that a Mexican state company is the only one that can exploit the resources. Resources will continue belonging to Mexicans. They are the patrimony of the nation. But the Mexican state must find more efficient ways to exploit those resources.

S

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  • Mexico fans are trashy. Lasers, throwing garbage, puto calls.
Antonio Espera: I don't hang out with Mexicans. Mexicans got twenty thousand dollar stereos, lots of guns and every time I go into a liquor store with one, I'm afraid we're going to rob the place. Mexicans are scary motherfuckers.
  • "Combat Jack" (3 August 2008), written by David Simon and Ed Burns, Generation Kill (2008), Home Box Office.
  • I left, out of Tucson, with no destination in mind. I was running from trouble and the jail-term the Judge had in mind. And the border meant freedom, a new life, romance. And that's why I thought I should go. And start my life over on the seashores of old Mexico.

T

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  • Mexico's most powerful drug trafficker, Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman, had escaped again from one of that country’s maximum-security prisons. No one in this deeply sourced group was surprised. Nor were they particularly interested in the logistical details of the escape, although they clearly didn’t believe the version they’d heard from the Mexican government. They were convinced it was all a deal cut at some link in the system’s chain. Our breakfast minister even thought that Chapo had likely walked out the front door of the jail, and that the whole tunnel-and-motorcycle story had been staged to make the feat sound so ingenious that the government couldn’t have foreseen it, much less stopped it. Such an outlandish notion may not be surprising to anyone who knows anything about Mexico. But as someone who lived there for 10 years, and reported on the country almost twice that long, what surprised me were the men’s theories on why anyone in the Mexican government would have been interested in such a deal. Perhaps, I wondered aloud, Chapo had possessed information that could have incriminated senior Mexican officials in the drug trade and, rather than try him, they had agreed to turn a blind eye to his escape? The heads around the table shook back and forth.
  • Sinaloa became the McDonald's of the drug trade. Customers could find its products, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines, everywhere. Operations ran so smoothly that after Chapo's arrest in February 2014, many experts predicted that they’d continue to hum along without him. However, hopes ran high in the United States and Mexico that Chapo's arrest would herald a new era of trust between the two governments. The arrest was seen as a sign that Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto was serious about ending a long history of government corruption, and that Washington, after some skepticism, could trust him. Chapo's latest spectacular escape seems to have put an end to any such illusions. "I think the relationship has been set back ten years", the American agent observed. He said he had received calls from colleagues across the United States who seemed disgusted with Mexican officials. "If we can't trust them to keep Chapo in jail", he wondered, "then how can we trust them on anything?"
  • When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. But I speak to border guards and they tell us what we're getting. And it only makes common sense. It only makes common sense. They're sending us not the right people. It's coming from more than Mexico. It's coming from all over South and Latin America, and it's coming.
  • I'm not knocking immigration or immigrants, but rather am very critical of the country of Mexico for sending us people that they don't want.
  • Mexico is going to be the new China because what they're doing to us is unbelievable, although they did catch El Chapo. Good? Good? They did catch El Chapo, that's good. I mean I don't know, he better not escape a third time, you know? Those tunnels, bing, boom, right under the toilet, bing boom, right up. It's pretty amazing when you think about it, right? But anyway. I have an idea: Put him on the fourth floor this time, right? No more, no more first floors.
  • Donald was to my grandfather what the border wall as been for Donald: a vanity project funded at the expense of more worthy pursuits.
    • Mary L. Trump, Too Much And Never Enough: How My Family Created The World's Most Dangerous Man (2020), p. 194

V

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W

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  • MacIntyre Womack: You boys like Mexico?

See also

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Wikipedia
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Commons
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  •   Mexico travel guide from Wikivoyage
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