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U.S. CENSUS DATA ON MEXICAN-ORIGIN POPULATION IN THE U.S.US Census Bureau (March 21, 2012)
Mexican Population
31.8 million
The number of U.S. residents of Mexican origin, according to the 2010 Census. These residents accounted for about three-quarters (63 percent) of the 50.5 million Hispanics and increased 54 percent, growing from 20.6 million in 2000 to 31.8 million in 2010. Source: The Hispanic Population: 2010 http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-04.pdf
25.5
Median age of people in the United States of Mexican origin. The total Hispanic population had a median age of 27.2 and for the total population it was 37.2. Source: 2010 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates http://factfinder2.census.gov - table S0201
Geographic Distribution
61%
Percentage of the Mexican-origin population in the United States that resided in California (11.4 million) and Texas (8.0 million) in 2010. Source: The Hispanic Population: 2010 http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-04.pdf
40
Number of states in which the Mexican-origin population represented the largest Hispanic group, according to the 2010 Census. More than half these states were in the South and West regions of the country, two in the Northeast region, and in all 12 states in the Midwest region. Source: The Hispanic Population: 2010 http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-04.pdf
Military
685,000
Number of U.S. military veterans of Mexican origin. Source: 2010 American Community survey http://factfinder2.census.gov
Education
1.5 million
Number of people of Mexican descent 25 and older with a bachelor's degree or higher. This included about 404,000 who had a graduate or professional degree. Source: 2010 American Community Survey http://factfinder2.census.gov - table S0201
Families
34.0%
Percentage of married-couple families, with own children younger than 18, among households with a householder of Mexican origin. For all households, the corresponding percentage was 20 percent. Source: 2010 American Community Survey http://factfinder2.census.gov - table S0201
4.2 people
Average size of families with a householder of Mexican origin in 2010. The average size of all families was 3.2 people.
Source: 2010 American Community Survey http://factfinder2.census.gov - table S0201
Jobs
67.8%
Percentage 16 and older of Mexican origin in the labor force. The percentage was 64 percent for the population as a whole.
Source: 2010 American Community Survey http://factfinder2.census.gov - table S0201
16.2%
Percentage of civilians employed 16 years and older of Mexican origin who worked in management, business, science and arts occupations. In addition, 27 percent worked in service occupations; 21 percent in sales and office occupations; 18 percent in natural resources, construction and maintenance occupations; and 18 percent in production, transportation and material moving occupations.
Source: 2010 American Community Survey http://factfinder2.census.gov - table S0201
Income and Wealth
$39,264
Median family income in 2010 for households with a householder of Mexican origin. For the population as a whole, the corresponding amount was $60,609.
Source: 2010 American Community Survey http://factfinder2.census.gov - table S0201
26.6%
Poverty rate in 2010 for all people of Mexican heritage. For the population as a whole, the corresponding rate was 15.3 percent.
Source: 2010 American Community Survey http://factfinder2.census.gov - table S0201
24.2%
Poverty rate in 2010 for all families of Mexican heritage. For all families, the corresponding family poverty rate was 11.3 percent.
Source: 2010 American Community Survey http://factfinder2.census.gov = table S0201
Ownership
49.2%
Percentage of householders of Mexican origin in occupied housing units who owned the home in which they lived. This compared with 65.4 percent for the population as a whole.
Source: 2010 American Community Survey http://factfinder2.census.gov - table S0201
Foreign-Born
11.7 million
Number of Mexican-born U.S. residents in 2010, representing 29 percent of the foreign-born population.
Source: 2010 American Community Survey http://factfinder2.census.gov
Language spoken at home
75.3%
Percentage of Mexican-origin people who spoke a language other than English at home; among these people, 36 percent spoke English less than "very well." Among the population as a whole, the corresponding figures were 21 percent and 9 percent, respectively.
Source: 2010 American Community Survey http://factfinder2.census.gov
Trade with Mexico
$460.6 billion
The value of total goods traded between the United States and Mexico in 2011. Mexico was our nation's third-leading trading partner, after Canada and China. The leading U.S. export commodity to Mexico in 2011 was unleaded gasoline ($11.6 billion); the leading U.S. import commodity from Mexico in 2011 was crude petroleum ($29.9 billion). Source: Foreign Trade Statistics http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/highlights/top/top1112yr.html and https://www.usatradeonline.gov/
Businesses
1.0 million
Number of firms owned by people of Mexican origin in 2007. They accounted for 45.8 percent of all Hispanic-owned firms. Mexicans led all Hispanic subgroups.
Source: Hispanic-Owned Firms: 2007 http://www.census.gov/econ/sbo/get07sof.html?11
$154.9 billion
Sales and receipts for firms owned by people of Mexican origin in 2007, 44.2 percent of all Hispanic-owned firm receipts.
Source: Hispanic-Owned Firms: 2007 http://www.census.gov/econ/sbo/get07sof.html?11
47.8%
Percentage increase in the number of businesses owned by people of Mexican origin between 2002 and 2007.
Source: Hispanic-Owned Firms: 2007 http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/business_ownership/cb10-145.html
70.5%
Percent of all Mexican-owned U.S. businesses in either California or Texas in 2007. California had the most Mexican-owned U.S. firms (36.1 percent), followed by Texas (34.4 percent) and Arizona (4.1 percent).
Source: Hispanic-Owned Firms: 2007 http://www.census.gov/econ/sbo/get07sof.html?11
16.5%
Ratio of Mexican-owned firms to all firms in Texas, which led all states. New Mexico was next (15.1 percent), followed by California (10.9 percent), Arizona (8.6 percent) and Nevada (4.9 percent).
Source: Hispanic-Owned Firms: 2007 http://www.census.gov/econ/sbo/get07sof.html?11
32.3%
Percentage of Mexican-owned U.S. firms in the construction and repair, maintenance, personal and laundry services sectors. Mexican-owned firms accounted for 5.1 percent of all U.S. businesses in these sectors.
Source: Hispanic-Owned Firms: 2007 http://www.census.gov/econ/sbo/get07sof.html?11
Mexican Food $100.4 million
Product shipment value of tamales and other Mexican food specialties (not frozen or canned) produced in the United States in 2002. Source: 2002 Economic Census http://www.census.gov/econ/census02/guide/INDRPT31.HTM
$48.9 million
Product shipment value of frozen enchiladas produced in the United States in 2002. Frozen tortilla shipments were valued even higher at $156 million. Source: 2002 Economic Census http://www.census.gov/econ/census02/guide/INDRPT31.HTM
374
Number of U.S. tortilla manufacturing establishments in 2008. The establishments that produce this unleavened flat bread employed 16,311 people. Tortillas, the principal food of the Aztecs, are known as the "bread of Mexico." One in three of these establishments were in Texas.
Source: County Business Patterns: 2008 http://www.census.gov/econ/cbp/
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Latino Population Grew 43% According to U.S. Census During 2010 - 2011
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Latino Population in U.S. at 50.4 Million By Richard Larsen---HispanicBusiness, March 24, 2011
1. Hispanics on the Rise in Rhode Island
2. Number of Hispanics Skyrockets in South
Carolina
Final population figures from the Census Bureau show that the number of Hispanics in the nation has reached 50 million, or one out of six people of the nation's population. The final census count shows a Hispanic population of 50.4 million. Overall, Hispanic population growth outpaced expectations, increasing 43.7 percent, from 35.1 million in 2000 to 50.4 million today.
In terms of numbers, California has the largest Hispanic population. The census count showed that 37.6 percent of the state's population, or 14 million people, were Hispanic. New Mexico has the greatest concentration of Hispanics, 46.3 percent of that state's population.
South Carolina posted the largest Hispanic population gain by percentage, up 147.9 percent, from 95,156 Hispanics in 2,000 to 235,894 today. The sparest region for Hispanics was Maine, where Hispanics account for only 1.3 percent, or 17,269, of the state's population. Vermont has the fewest Hispanics, 9,386, or 1.5 percent of that state's population.
The District of Columbia had the smallest percentage increase of Hispanics, 21.84 percent, from 44,957 in 2000 to 54,758 today. The states with the largest Hispanic populations were California, with 14 million; Texas, with 9.5 million; Florida, with 4.2 million; New York, with 3.4 million; and Illinois, with 2 million.
Thirty-five states had Hispanic population gains of more than 50 percent. Eight of those states saw their Hispanic population more than double: Alabama, 144.8 percent; Kentucky, 121.6 percent; Maryland, 106.5 percent; Mississippi, 105.9 percent; North Carolina, 111.1 percent; South Carolina, 147.9 percent; South Dakota, 102.9 percent; and Tennessee, 134.2 percent.
The Census Bureau also counts the population of Puerto Rico, which is 99 percent Hispanic. They totaled 3.7 million, a 2% decline since 2000.
Hispanic population tops 50 million in U.S.
The U.S. Census Bureau reports the Hispanic population has surpassed 50 million and
accounted for more than half of the 27.3-million population increase in the last decade.
• RELATED
• Census may shift political power in California to minorities and the interior
• Interactive maps: Census finds big changes in politcal districts
• 2010 census counts by state Senate district
By Stephen Ceasar stephen.ceasar@latimes.com, Los Angeles Times, March 24, 2011,
The Hispanic population in the United States grew by 43% in the last
decade, surpassing 50 million and accounting for about 1 out of 6
Americans, the Census Bureau reported Thursday.
Analysts seized on data showing that the growth was propelled by a surge in
births in the U.S., rather than immigration, pointing to a growing
generational shift in which Hispanics continue to gain political clout and,
by 2050, could make up a third of the U.S. population.
"In the adult population, many immigrants helped the increase, but the
child population is increasingly more Hispanic," said D'Vera Cohn, a senior
writer at the Pew Research Center.
In 2010, Hispanics made up 23% of people under the age 18, compared
with 17% in 2000. In California, 51% of children are Hispanic, up from 44%
in 2000. Overall, Hispanics accounted for more than half of the 27.3
million U.S. population increase since 2000.
About 75% of Hispanics live in the nine states that have long-standing
Hispanic populations — Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois,
New Mexico, New Jersey, New York and Texas.
That figure is down from 81% in 2000, indicating the population has begun
dispersing to other parts of the country, particularly in the Southeast, Cohn
said.
New Mexico has the largest percentage of Hispanic residents (46.3%),
followed by Texas and California (37.6%).
The Hispanic population more than doubled in Kentucky, Alabama,
Mississippi, Arkansas, South Carolina and North Carolina.
"This is a sign that the Hispanic population is spreading out more widely
than in the past," Cohn said. "You now see Hispanic communities in many
places that hadn't had them a decade or two ago."
The population growth among Hispanics also kept the population steady in
states that would have shown a decline or no growth, including
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Illinois and
Louisiana.
The non-Hispanic population grew at a slower pace in the last decade, at
about 5%. Within that population, those who reported their race as only
white grew by 1%.
While the population of those who reported only as white grew in number
in that time, from 196.6 million to 196.8 million, its proportion of the total
U.S. population declined to 64% from 69%.
As in the 2000 census, individuals were asked to identify their ethnic or
racial background. As guidance, the Census Bureau said the term Hispanic
refers to people who trace the origin of their parents or ancestors to Mexico,
Puerto Rico, Cuba, Spanish-speaking Central and South America countries
and other Spanish cultures.
A 2008 Census Bureau projection estimated that ethnic and racial
minorities will become the majority in the United States by 2050 and that
about 1 in 3 U.S. residents will be Hispanic by then.
"Our country is becoming racially and ethnically more diverse over time, as
is clear in the growth rates of minority populations," said Robert Groves,
director of the Census Bureau.
2010 Census Shows America's Diversity
(March 24, 2011)
To download Census Brief, click here
To download press kit, click here
Hispanic and Asian Populations Grew Fastest During the Decade
The U.S. Census Bureau released today the second in a series of 2010 Census briefs, Overview of Race and Hispanic Origin: 2010, which looks at our nation's changing racial and ethnic diversity and provides a snapshot of the racial and Hispanic origin composition of the United States.
The examination of racial and ethnic group distributions nationally shows that while the non-Hispanic white alone population is still numerically and proportionally the largest major race and ethnic group in the United States, it is also growing at the slowest rate. Conversely, the Hispanic and Asian populations have grown considerably, in part because of relatively higher levels of immigration.
Hispanic Population Growth
More than half of the growth in the total U.S. population between 2000 and 2010 was because of the increase in the Hispanic population. Between 2000 and 2010, the Hispanic population grew by 43 percent, rising from 35.3 million in 2000 to 50.5 million in 2010. The rise in the Hispanic population accounted for more than half of the 27.3 million increase in the total U.S. population. By 2010, Hispanics comprised 16 percent of the total U.S. population of 308.7 million.
The non-Hispanic population grew relatively slower over the decade at about 5 percent. Within the non- Hispanic population, the number of people who reported their race as white alone grew even slower (1 percent). While the non-Hispanic white alone population increased numerically from 194.6 million to 196.8 million over the 10-year period, its proportion of the total population declined from 69 percent to 64 percent.
Race Distribution
The overwhelming majority (97 percent) of the total U.S. population reported only one race in 2010. This group totaled 299.7 million. Of these, the largest group reported white alone (223.6 million), accounting for 72 percent of all people living in the United States. The black or African-American population totaled 38.9 million and represented 13 percent of the total population.
Approximately 14.7 million people (about 5 percent of all respondents) identified their race as Asian alone. There were 2.9 million respondents who indicated American Indian and Alaska Native alone (0.9 percent). The smallest major race group was Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone (0.5 million), which represented 0.2 percent of the total population. The remainder of respondents who reported only one race, 19.1 million people (6 percent of all respondents), were classified as "some other race" alone.
Nine million people reported more than one race in the 2010 Census and made up about 3 percent of the total population. Ninety-two percent of people who reported multiple races provided exactly two races in 2010; white and black was the largest multiple-race combination. An additional 8 percent of the two or more races population reported three races and less than 1 percent reported four or more races.
Three quarters of multiple race combinations were comprised of four groups in 2010: white and black (1.8 million), white and "some other race" (1.7 million), white and Asian (1.6 million), and white and American Indian or Alaska Native (1.4 million).
The population reporting their race as white, either alone or with at least one other race, was the largest of all the alone-or-in-combination categories (231.0 million) and represented about three-fourths of the total population. About 14 percent of the total population reported their race as black, either alone or with at least one other race, which was the second-largest of the alone-or-in-combination categories (42.0 million). There were 21.7 million people classified as some other race alone or in combination and 17.3 million people classified as Asian alone or in combination in the 2010 Census, making up 7 percent and 6 percent of the total population, respectively. The two smallest alone-or-in-combination categories were American Indian and Alaska Native (5.2 million) and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander (1.2 million), making up 2 percent and 0.4 percent of the total population, respectively.
Asian Population Growth
The Asian alone population grew faster than any other major race group between 2000 and 2010, increasing by 43 percent. The Asian alone population had the second-largest numeric change (4.4 million), growing from 10.2 million in 2000 to 14.7 million in 2010. They gained the most in share of the total population, moving up from about 4 percent in 2000 to about 5 percent in 2010.
Geographic Distribution
In the 2010 Census, just over one-third of the U.S. population reported their race and ethnicity as something other than non-Hispanic white alone (i.e. "minority"). This group increased from 86.9 million to 111.9 million between 2000 and 2010, representing a growth of 29 percent over the decade.
Geographically, particularly in the South and West, a number of areas had large proportions of the total population that was minority. Nearly half of the West's population was minority (47 percent), numbering 33.9 million. Among the states, California led the nation with the largest minority population at 22.3 million.
Between 2000 and 2010, Texas joined California, the District of Columbia, Hawaii and New Mexico in having a "majority-minority" population, where more than 50 percent of the population was part of a minority group. Among all states, Nevada's minority population increased at the highest rate, by 78 percent.
Race and Hispanic Origin Data
The Census Bureau collects race and Hispanic origin information following the U.S. Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) standards for collecting and tabulating data on race and ethnicity. In October 1997, the OMB issued the current standards, which identify five race groups: white, black or African-American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander. The Census Bureau also utilized a sixth category - "some other race." Respondents who reported only one race are shown in these six groups.
Individuals were first presented with the option to self-identify with more than one race in the 2000 Census, and this continued in the 2010 Census. People who identify with more than one race may choose to provide multiple races in response to the race question. The 2010 Census results provide new data on the size and makeup of the nation's multiracial population.
Respondents who reported more than one of the six race groups are included in the "two or more races" population. There are 57 possible combinations of the six race groups.
The Census Bureau included the "some other race" category for responses that could not be classified in any of the other race categories on the questionnaire. The vast majority of people who reported only as "some other race" were of Hispanic or Latino origin. Data on Hispanics or Latinos, who may be of any race, were obtained from a separate question on ethnicity.
Latino Population in U.S. at 50.4 Million
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U.S. Latinos Country of Origin Counts for Nation’s Top 30 Metropolitan Areas
By Mark Hugo Lopez, Associate Director, Pew Hispanic Center, and Daniel Dockterman, Research Assistant, Pew Hispanic Center, Pew Hispanic Center (May 26, 2011)
Report Materials
Complete Report Interactive Graphics Other Resources
Hispanics of Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban origin or descent remain the nation's three largest Hispanic country-of-origin groups, according to the 2010 U.S. Census. However, while the relative position of these three groups has remained unchanged since 2000, the next four Hispanic sub-groups grew faster during the decade.
Hispanics of Salvadoran origin, the fourth largest Hispanic country-of-origin group grew by 152% since 2000. The Dominican population grew by 85%, the Guatemalan population by 180% and the Colombian population by 93%. Meanwhile, the Cuban and Puerto Rican populations grow more slowly-44% and 36% respectively.
Despite their No. 1 status, Mexicans are not the dominant Hispanic origin group in many of the nation's metropolitan areas. Among the Miami metropolitan area's 1.5 million Hispanics, half are Cuban. In the New York-Northeastern New Jersey metropolitan area, 29.4% of Hispanics are of Puerto Rican origin and 19.7% are of Dominican origin. In the Washington, DC metropolitan area, Salvadorans are the largest group, comprising one-third of the area's Hispanics.
However, in many metropolitan areas, Mexican origin Hispanics are by far the dominant group among Hispanics. In Chicago, nearly eight-in-ten (79.2%) of the area's Hispanics are of Mexican origin. In the San Antonio, TX metropolitan area, Mexicans make up 91.3% of all Hispanics. And in Atlanta, GA, nearly six-in-ten (58.1%) Hispanics are of Mexican origin.
Country of origin is based on self-described family ancestry or place of birth in response to questions in the Census Bureau's American Community Survey and on the 2010 Census form. It is not necessarily the same as place of birth, nor is it indicative of immigrant or citizenship status. For example, a U.S. citizen born in Los Angeles of Mexican immigrant parents or grandparents may (or may not) identify his or her country of origin as Mexico. Likewise, some immigrants born in Mexico may identify another country as their origin depending on the place of birth of their ancestors.
The data for this report are derived from the 2010 U.S. Census and from the 2009 American Community Survey. The 2010 Census provides population counts for Hispanic origin sub-groups. The 2009 American Community Survey provides detailed geographic, demographic and economic characteristics for each sub- group.
Accompanying this report are national level profiles containing geographic, demographic and economic details for the ten largest Hispanic country of origin sub-groups-Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Salvadorans, Cubans, Dominicans, Guatemalans, Colombians, Hondurans, Ecuadorians and Peruvians. Alongside these demographic profiles is an interactive graphic ranking the ten Hispanic country of origin sub-groups on several characteristics. These profiles and the accompanying interactive graphic are based on the 2009 American Community Survey.
An interactive graphic showing country of origin sub-groups among Hispanics in the nation's 30 metropolitan areas with the largest Hispanic populations is also available. This interactive graphic is also based on the 2009 American Community Survey.
Interactive Graphics
Country of Origin Profiles Hispanic Country of Origin Groups by Metropolitan Statistical Areas
Other Resources
Ennis, Sharon R., Merarys Ríos-Vargas, and Nora G. Albert. 2011. The Hispanic Population: 2010. C2010BR-04. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau, May.
U.S. Latinos Country of Origin Counts For Nation's Top 30 Metropolitan Areas
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You May Want To Ignore Mexico
But If Americans Remain Indifferent, We’ll All Pay the Price...
By Andrés Martinez
Last Friday morning, the second most powerful man in Mexico’s government, the cabinet member leading the war against the drug cartels, died in a helicopter crash. Mexicans were stunned: Francisco Blake Mora was President Felipe Calderón’s second interior secretary to die in an air crash in three years.
North of the border, Blake’s death did not make the TV networks’ evening newscasts. A stringer for one of them in Mexico told me that unless Calderón is gunned down by the cartels in broad daylight, the network bosses aren’t interested. Saturday’s Los Angeles Times carried the news on page A-5; The Washington Post did so on page A-6. Only The New York Times, exercising sounder judgment, carried the news on the front page.
Initial indications point to an accident in the Blake case, but, for obvious reasons, the possibility of foul play is being investigated. The Mexican government has had a lot of recent success in hunting down the leaders of some of the most powerful criminal organizations on earth (a success that hasn’t translated into diminishing violence or a reduction in the flow of drugs across the border). That’s why few people, anywhere, had a longer list of resourceful enemies than Blake Mora did.
That said, even if Blake Mora had passed away in his sleep, the death of Mexico’s interior secretary would be big news. (The Spanish designation for the title, Gobernación, conveys its sweeping writ.) And I can’t help but think that the death of a similarly important Afghani or Iraqi security official would have registered more on the American media-scape.
The truth is, American media elites—not to mention the man on the street—aren’t invested, or even much interested, in the fate of Mexico. When I became the assistant editor of the New York Times editorial page, I was asked if I’d been to Israel. No, I answered, and soon found myself on a plane heading for Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza, where I’d spend a fascinating week meeting with players from all sides in a long-running saga that I’d followed for years but never experienced up close. I wasn’t going to be the lead writer on Mideast editorials, mind you, nor did we lack for deep expertise on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
No, the issue was that one couldn’t be part of the newspaper’s leadership without having a first-hand sense of a place deemed so strategically important.
Mexico, clearly, doesn’t have that status. I think it should, and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about why it doesn’t. Yes, I grew up in Mexico, but there’s a lot more to it than that. More than 40,000 people have died in Mexico since its government decided to take on drug cartels that are nourished by American consumers and armed by U.S. gun dealers. There is an almost direct causal link between Wall Street bankers doing blow or Occupy Wall Street protesters getting high and journalists and elected officials getting assassinated in Mexico. Not only is this violence undermining a democracy next door; we as Americans are responsible for much of it. At a time when the idea of socially responsible consumption has swept this country—think of the anti-sweatshop movement, the Darfur divestment campaigns, Fair Trade coffee, and so on—we take in the violence in Mexico with barely a nod.
For starters, then, the issue of our moral culpability alone should make Mexico matter to us. But, beyond that, the growing strength of these transnational criminal organizations is a threat to the rule of law north of the Rio Grande as well.
Intimidating and bribing officials might be easier in Mexico than in it is in the United States, but it would be foolish to pretend that these criminal behemoths, headquartered in Mexico but making tens of billions a year operating in our country, won’t succeed in corrupting the rule of law in any number of southwest jurisdictions.
There are also plenty of non-drug-war-related reasons why American media (and political) elites should pay more attention to Mexico. Did you know that, last year, the United States imported more oil from Mexico than it did from Saudi Arabia?
Or that this safe, reliable source of oil (second only to Canada) may soon cease being a net exporter of oil, unless it embraces needed reforms that would allow for more investment in its production capacity? Given how much time we spend in this country fretting about our dependence on oil from the Middle East, maybe we should spend a little more thinking about the North American market and Mexico’s role as a counterweight to Middle East sources.
Our lack of appreciation for Mexico cuts both ways, because we ignore the good along with the bad. And there is plenty of good. Despite rising violence, Mexico is more democratic than it has ever been.
Mexico is also the second-largest buyer of U.S. goods in the world, belying the idea of an impoverished country at the mercy of our generosity.
Brazil, China, and India get a lot of buzz among U.S. elites for their rise out of poverty, but Mexico is further along in that transformation, with a higher standard of living than those nations, a thriving middle class, and more than a decade of sound economic and financial stewardship resulting in unparalleled stability. It’s a G-20 nation that offers a phenomenal market for U.S. goods, as the executives of any number of multinationals that rely on Mexico for a healthy share of their profits (such as Procter & Gamble, Wal-Mart, and Citicorp, to name a few) will tell you—or would tell you, if the political environment weren’t currently so hostile to the idea of businesses investing abroad.
Last week, I was shepherding a delegation from Zócalo Public Square, the New America Foundation, the Aspen Institute, and the Congressional Hispanic Leadership Institute through Mexico. We met with political and economic analysts, journalists, and five of the contenders vying to be elected Mexico’s next president. Reflecting Mexico’s traditional backwater status, a majority of our delegation— including such accomplished journalists as Steve Coll (former Washington Post managing editor), Susan Glasser (editor of Foreign Policy magazine), and Franklin Foer (editor-at-large of The New Republic)—had never been to Mexico City. I asked people on the trip for their gut, one-word reaction to the place. The most interesting (if two words) might have been “public art.” I also got “world-class,” “money,” “inequality,” “traffic,” and, perhaps most fittingly, “contradictions.”
A number of us did a TV show with respected Mexican journalist Sergio Sarmiento (whose network, TV Azteca, is part of the Salinas Group, our host in Mexico City and at the Ciudad de las Ideas conference in Puebla) on the question of whether Mexico matters to the United States. (We agreed that it should matter but doesn’t—an answer at odds with the notion many Mexicans have of U.S. elites eager to micromanage their nation’s destiny.) I insisted that this would change over time (for one thing, we have a least 15 million U.S. residents who were born in Mexico), but frankly I am not so sure.
There are many reasons Mexico punches below its weight in the collective mindshare of U.S. elites. One underappreciated reason is that, despite present anxieties over drugs and immigration, Mexico has been a fairly desirable neighbor. Even after the United States annexed half of its territory, Mexico has been a peaceful, sensible neighbor for most of our shared history.
The United States has had the rare luxury, for a continental power, of not having to deploy large armies to secure its borders throughout history. Thanks to Canada and Mexico, we could behave like an island nation.
American elites, too, have had the luxury of ignoring Mexico, and proximity has bred contempt. Had our neighbor been more of a threat (imagine if Mexican terrorist suicide bombers made it a habit of crossing the border to reclaim California or Arizona), generations of our best and brightest would have been attracted to the study of Spanish and Mexico, the way they once were drawn to Russia and are now drawn to the Middle East. Meanwhile, for vast majorities of Americans, impressions of Mexico are formed by the flows of drugs and migrant workers—with maybe a stint at a Mexican beach resort. And, speaking of immigration, you may not have noticed the underreported story that the flow of immigrants has nearly ceased as the job market has constricted in this country (they really do come to work).
The story down south is decidedly mixed—one of many positive trends imperiled by rising violence and a lingering authoritarian political culture. Our delegation’s talks with leading politicians were disheartening on many topics, but heartening insofar as they seem less obsessed than ever with what the United States is or isn’t doing to Mexico.
Now we just need American elites to become a little more obsessed with what is happening south of the border. There is an imperative, and an opportunity, to start thinking more strategically about North American development and competitiveness. Mexico is an important, if underappreciated, partner for a number of positive reasons. And, if all hell breaks loose there, the United States, simply by having the power to have been a better (and less drug-ravenous) neighbor, will bear a large part of the blame. That’s another reason to start paying closer attention.
Andrés Martinez is editorial director of Zócalo Public Square and vice president of the New America Foundation.
You may want to Ignore Mexico, by Andres Martinez
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Foro de Migracion y Remesas (Powerpoint)
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PEW Latino Population Data (PowerPoint), August 2011
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