Mostly, there's just boilerplate about immigration:
I’m sure you’re aware that the U.S. Department of Justice has sued the state of Arizona to overturn its immigration law, which may well be invalidated by the time this interview appears.
That’s a good intent. President Obama is committed to Hispanics and migrants. That’s a promise I had from President Bush, and six years went by and nothing happened. I don’t want to be negative, but I’m seeing the same story repeating again. It’s been two years now, and nothing has happened in relation to migration.
But then, in her not terribly well-informed way, she stumbles into asking a tough one:
What do you think Mexicans have contributed to American culture?
Oh, starting with Mexican food! The jalapeños and the tacos and the rest. I think they have contributed family values. And then we have our culture. When you were killing Indian Apaches there, we had built Mayan cities, the pyramids, Mexico City.
Great ... tacos.
Also, in the future, Mr. Fox, you'll make a better impression if you don't use the words "killing" and "pyramids" in the same sentence. You really don't want to go there.
At least Fox didn't mention how Mexico gave us our vibrant Human Signs.
I could come up with a better list than Fox's: the Spanish mission architecture style of places like Santa Barbara, the lariat and a lot of other cowboy stuff, Carlos Santana and Los Lobos, lowrider cars, the Dos Equis guy who says "Cheating is only in good taste when it involves death," and about 500 Nashville songs about vacationing in Mexico.
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The disparity in how SWPLs view Mexican immigrants and poor whites is most telling - despite their having a lot of similar tastes. Apparently, if you're a Mexican and you like souped-up muscle cars, fried food, acid-washed denim and your chubby, pregnant girlfriend to wear clothes that are two sizes too small, you're "vibrant", part of a diverse cultural vanguard, a harbinger of America fulfilling its promise of being, well, something better than what it is.
If you're white, you're trash.
There you go with the human signs again. You should write a dystopian novella where the only job available to white men is being a human sign. Call it "Dreams of My Bother" and make a million.
When you were killing Indian Apaches there, we had built Mayan cities, the pyramids, Mexico City.
PC freaking garbage. Notice that "you" refers to white Americans, "we" refers to aboriginal Mexicans. Fox is Caucasian, yet being Mexican makes him an "honorary native"? And white Americans are "fake Americans", belonging in Europe because they killed (and were killed by, but we'll forget that) Apaches.
Spaniards like Fox deserve no more credit for the Mayan pyramids than I do for Anasazi cliff dwellings ... so why does anyone let him get away with it?
Because PC thinking about Mexico is utter garbage, and very prevalent. "Spanish is a native American language; English is a foreign import. Aztecs and Spaniards are part of La Raza, white Americans are invaders." Blah blah blah.
"Spaniards like Fox deserve no more credit for the Mayan pyramids than I do for Anasazi cliff dwellings ... so why does anyone let him get away with it?"
It's even better than you think. From Wikipedia:
"Vicente Fox was born in Guanajuato on July 2, 1942, the second of nine children. His father was José Luis Fox Pont, a Mexican citizen[4] and his mother Mercedes Quesada Etxaide, was Basque from San Sebastian, Gipuzkoa, Spain. Fox's paternal grandfather was born as Joseph Louis Fuchs in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of German Catholic immigrants Louis Fuchs and Catherina Elisabetha Flach. The "Fox" surname was changed from the German "Fuchs" during the 1870s."
I'm actually related to Vicente. Fox is an Irish last name and his family stopped in Ohio before they made their way to Mexico.
Oh, starting with Mexican food! The jalapeños and the tacos and the rest.
Well, he's changed my mind.
At a public meeting, I was able to ask a question of a former Fox cabinet member, and Fox himself has made various public appearances where he could be asked questions.
The problem is that most of the other people willing to ask him questions are WeAreChange loons. Not that there's anything wrong with asking him about that topic, just that they spend more time burnishing their in-group cred and asking stupid or accusatory or open-ended questions rather than asking sane questions designed to put people on the spot.
Darwin's, that was one of the most insightful comments I've read on tis blog in a long time, most definitely including my own. Well done, sir!
As for killing Apaches, that was exactly the policy of the 19th century Mexican government, as fictionalized in Cormac MacCarthy's Blood Meridian. Not confining them to reservations -- offering a bounty for dead Apaches.
500 Nashville songs about Mexico.
Indeed, this seems to reflect a fatal attraction of working class, white males in the south and the West -- the temptation to 'go loco' a la one libertarian leaning columnist with the initials FR. Those who don't actually make the trip down there seem to end up with a 'Latina' here. The nerd/geek equivalent is having an Asian girlfriend.
Don't forget ? and the Mysterions, the Saginaw garage band that in 1966 wrote and recorded the immortal "96 Tears."
"Darwin's, that was one of the most insightful comments I've read on tis blog in a long time"
No offense to Charles, but I disagree. I don't think SWPLs view Mexican immigrants as people who
"like souped-up muscle cars, fried food, acid-washed denim and your chubby, pregnant girlfriend to wear clothes that are two sizes too small"
I think real Mexican immigrants -- the diminutive brown skinned fellow putting the water glasses out at the restaurant when they sit down; his compadres waiting for work in front of the local Home Depot -- are not what SWPLs think of when they think "Mexican immigrant". Instead, I think they visualize their Platonic form of a Mexican immigrant, which is probably something along the lines of Gael García Bernal.
He does want Whites to hate him. I've never gotten the Mexican vacation thing. I'd rather go somewhere cool. Like New Zealand, or Ireland, or Scotland. I already live in a place with a Med climate, I'd want something different.
Don't underestimate tacos.
And we haven't even mentioned mole sauce.
I'm pretty sure the Dos Equis guy is an American Jewish actor, not a Mexican.
i'm considering taking a stab at listing some of the admittedly few mexican contributions to US culture. it's not a huge list obviously, but there are a few minor things at least. contributions to world culture are pretty close to zero, but i might try that too. i'll probably post in this thread again with list of stuff.
Corn.
Thousands of years of breeding corn.
That's a big one. Corn is a huge source of calories in the world today.
The Dos Equis guy is an actor named Jonathan Goldsmith, which was changed from Jonathan "Lippe". And yes, he is Jewish.
Wikipedia on him, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Goldsmith
I think he has done a fine job in the Dos Equis commercials and plays that role perfectly.
Vincente Fox is a friend of the Bushes, so Im sure he's met Karl Rove. That equivocation he made is a Rovian dishonesty if Ive ever heard one.
If we'd have had a Pat Buchanan as president in 1992, how much better off would we be now? The Clinton's would have never have happened. There would have been no George W. Bush, and therefore there almost assuredly would have been no Obama. The border would be walled, factory and construction jobs would still be held by blacks&whites. Many jobs would still be here, and would pay high enough (H1B probably being dismantled) to be worth doing. Real estate prices would be lower, and thus homes more affordable. We'd have not had the two recent middle eastern wars because terrorists wouldn't have been able to gain entry here in the first place to make 9/11 happen. The treasury would therefore not have been bankrupted. The Bushes (and their friends like Fox) have been a disaster for America. The Bushes have hurt American more than the Clintons did. Lets make sure no more of them ever get elected by always donating to their opponents.
Via corn, Mexicans have contributed pellagra, rotten teeth, and obesity to the world.
They didn't domesticate any animals, so they didn't give us any tasty new food like the first African who figured out how to throw a goat's leg over a fire or the first Chinese who discovered bacon. Not to mention cheese.
I've been thinking a lot about pastoralist influences on society and culture -- the independence, the restless and almost entrepreneurial drive, and the desire to sweet-talk and to have lighthearted entertainment contests (rather than the high-pressure oneupsmanship of the courtiers).
I think that's one reason why the mestizo and indigenous parts of the Americas haven't contributed much to culture outside of their own little area. They had no pastoralists. The only exceptions are where Europeans and sub-Saharan Africans settled, like the US, Argentina, Brazil, and the Caribbean.
Thanks.
Plus, Fox was the winner six years straight of the El President Slam Dunk Contest.
BTW, there are errie similarities between Fox's 2007 (Revolution of Hope) and Obama's autobiographies, both stories of race, identity and inheritance.
From a Hollywood pitch angle, Fox's autobio "Revolution of Hope" comes across as a Friedman's The World is Flat meets Obama's The Audacity of Hope. Being a businessman and former Coca-Cola exec, I wonder how intentional this was to Fox's marketing effort for the book and his future aspirations as a global elite.
Fox's book covers all the globalist and PC shibboleths with a homey Mexican Catholic and Saxon Calvinist Horatio Alger upbringing on the farm narrative. Unlike Obama's tract, Fox comes across as a decent if simple fellow who worked his way up and acquired a number of real world successes.
It's worth a read despite it's simple and shallow presentation and numerous logical/factual errors.
One more good quote regarding Fox's claim about American's wiping out Apaches:
You are correct. There was some minor trade ambassadorship; however, the tribes in the SouthWest USA repelled any attempts to take their land by the Mexica tribes. It wasn't until later, using Spanish weapons and tactics, that Mexicans were able to finally conquer their historical enemies and when they did they did so with devasting results for the Ameri-Indian tribes this side of the border.
Actually, the reason there were so few Mexicans here even after they overcame the Native Americans whom had been their historical enemies was due to the Spanish custom (inherited from when the Umayyad ruled Spain [Read about the Muslim invasion and their subsequent loss of southern Europe]) of granting large tracts of land to mostly absent landowners. And Mexico mismanaged things so badly under that system that many of the few Mexicans here during that time actually left before California became a state.
The only ancestral claims on land via the tribes here in the USA (for those so uneducated as to limit property rights to merely who got where first), then that honor goes to the many Europeans that mix(ed) with the Amero-Indian tribes here. As mentioned, the tribes here warred into antiquity with the pre-Columbian tribes there, and the post-Columbian mestizos to the point that the languages, cultures, etc.. are different. The warrior Aztecs/Mexicas of which you speak buried each male's child umbilical cord as a pledge they would live the life of a warrior dedicated to killing and enslaving other tribes and whom were the predominant pre-Columbian indigenous people dominating northern Mexico at the time of the Spanish conquest led by Hernan CORTES in the early 16th century never got a foothold here due to the fierce resistance of the northerly tribes here in what we call today the United States of America. As a result, you don't find a history of Federally Recognized tribes in the USA adding Aztec/Mexica or meztizo Mexicans to their tribal rolls.
Read more: http://www.city-data.com/forum/illegal-immigration/80046-most-illegal-aliens-mexican-indian-not-7.html#ixzz0ubaCrJL6
The Dos Equis guy? How about the beer itself, lager and amber. And Pacifico and, above all, Negra Modelo. I'll give credit where credit's due. However, we can enjoy these beers without immigration. And, yes, the food is tasty if you're willing to throw carb-caution tio the wind.
And don't forget Jerry Garcia.
When you were killing Indian Apaches there, we had built Mayan cities, the pyramids, Mexico City.
The one contribution to our civilization that seems ubiquitous to all non-whites is a gleeful willingness to call us murderers, slavers, etc.
Plenty of white folks do it too, but non-whites just seem so much better at it.
I don't know about anyone else, but this ability really endears them to me.
Mexicans are knocking each other off like it was Lebanon and this guy's blabbing about some Apaches (who didn't get their names on attack helicopters for nothing) we killed over a century ago.
P.S., wonderful question about Mexican emigration, Steve. I've never seen that one before, and it's delightfully simple and vicious.
And yeah, hilarious example of how PC makes you stupid, we couldn't have written her a better bonehead question.
Corn. Thousands of years of breeding corn. That's a big one. Corn is a huge source of calories in the world today.
Wheat, oats, barley - even bigger sources of calories, less likely to cause diabetes, and all referred to as "corn" in various parts of the world. American corn is more properly called maize.
I think the other folks have it right - Mexicans have no right to lay claim to US territory simply because they happen to have more Indian ancestry than Americans do. Historically, the Indians in what is now the United States had little to do with the Indians in what is now Mexico. I'm about 5% (3/64ths) American Indian myself, and that is from peoples who actually lived in what is now the United States - specifically the Southeast and the Midwest. To the extent that there is such a thing as a moral right to a piece of land my moral right is greater than some Mayan from Chiapas (or even Tiajuana) who is 100% native.
The Indians who lived on land that is now the US already live here. They benefit none at all by the importation of their "brethren" from across the border. AT least my 4.6875% Indian blood sure as hell doesn't think so.
Here's something that puzzled me during the previous administration: Bush was the alpha dog around Tony Blair, but the lap-dog to Vicente Fox.
In Blair's case, I think it was his nature to be a suck-up, and after all he is the junior partner in the relationship. However, there is no reason a US president should have to defer to Mexico's.
Perhaps Fox was better than "W" at the latter's chosen method of dominance--assigning demeaning nicknmes. I read an interview in which Fox called Bush a "windshield cowboy," i.e., someone who drives a pick-up and pretends to be a cowboy, but is afraid of horses. AFAIK, Fox has always spoken of Bush in a dismissive, disrespectful manner. Perhaps to Bush that made him a surrogate father figure.
Yeah, they gave us the taco, but it took a white man (I'm guessing) to make the damn thing work (stand n' stuff).
What do you think Mexicans have contributed to American culture?
Hello Mr. Fox, #1: Me??
He implies that the Indian Wars were contemporaneous with the Mayan and Aztec cultures. First, what an idiot. Second, I'm glad he remembers who well the Spanish treated the natives.
"Isn't there something weird about the President of Mexico being a foot taller than the average Mexican man? What's the deal with that, anyway?"
I explained that in a comment a couple days ago. Don't you read my comments?
The illegals from Mexico, at least those up here in Northern California, aren't Mexicans. They're Mayans. Mayans are a short people like the Capoids. They are easy to distinguish from the original Tenochtitlan Mexica people - they are shorter, have sloping foreheads, and aquiline noses.
The true Mexicans (Aztecs) ate the Mayans. They had no domesticated meat animals so they ate their neighbors. So it is hardly surprising the descendants of the Mexica and the Conquistadors regard the Maya as different.
Albertosaurus
"When you were killing Indian Apaches there.."
Fox is completely off base with this one; nobody killed more Apaches, or was at war with them for a longer period of time, than the Mexicans. In fact, it was a Mexican massacre of Geronimo's entire family that turned him into the warrior he was.
Oh, starting with Mexican food! The jalapeños and the tacos and the rest.
When Im baiting SWPLs online I try to get them to explain the clear benefits of diversity/multicultural society. I always start off conceding 1) The wonders of diverse foreign cuisine. I leave 2) open for them to carry on.
Thats usually the end of the thread!
chihuahuas. don't forget chihuahuas.
"It’s been two years now, and nothing has happened in relation to migration."
There is definite migration between the US and Mexico. It's what the monarch butterflies do twice a year to their wintering grounds in the Mexican mountains.
What these bozos are talking about is illegal aliens- aliens, not immigrants, violating our border and immigration laws with impunity, setting up shop in El Norte, and partaking of the feast that Uncle Sugar lays out to the increasing, and increasingly ignored, protests of the American taxpayer.
"What do you think Mexicans have contributed to American culture?"
I'm sure the Times is going to get emails pointing out that the question itself was racist.
"Thousands of years of breeding corn."
Giving Fox and modern Mexico credit for breeding corn is a little like giving the United States credit for inventing tipis.
Well who the hell wouldn't want to kill apaches?
1. Chocolate
2. Tequila
3. The Margarita
4. Decorative elements for art deco buildings
5. Caesar salad
6. Luminarias (candles in paper bags)
Please note: all of the above can be enjoyed without large-scale demographic-changing immigration from Mexico.
EXCUSE ME, TACOS? Tacos are a TEX-MEX invention.
If we are going to brink up ancient rock groups (i.e. ? mark and the mysterians), then we must include Sam the Sham and the Pharos.
When documenting all the vibrant contributions of our neighbors al sur, how could you forget the one you brought to our attention three years ago: those ingenious home-made lethal finials?
These DIY-style decorations may not have caught on in a big way up here, but I have a feeling that they will. . .
Los Lobos really are a great band.
There's been real Mexican border influence on American music, it's a part of the mix in Texas country from Bob Wills on.
"Via corn, Mexicans have contributed pellagra"
Just to quibble: Mexicans had long figured out how to prevent pellagra by means of Nixtamalization. It was white folk who rejected it while taking the corn that caused all that pellagra.
Solomon should be fired for letting Fox get away with this crap. Not only was the Mexican government massacring Apaches at the same time the US was moving West, as many have pointed out, the Mexican government was also undertaking a brutal war in Yucatan against the Mayans that went on right into the 1950s. Indeed, the Mexican government is killing Mayans in Chiapas as we speak. American ignorance of Mexico is truly shocking.
"The true Mexicans (Aztecs) ate the Mayans."
No they didn't; Mayan civilization was far south of that of the Aztecs and "disappeared" 200 years before the Aztecs formed an empire.
No they didn't; Mayan civilization was far south of that of the Aztecs and "disappeared" 200 years before the Aztecs formed an empire.
South? Do you mean the Mayans were east of the Aztecs?
Don't know how someone would date the beginning of the Aztec Empire, but their capital was founded about 400 years after the great collapse of the Mayans. The last independent Mayan city was conquered after the Salem Witch Trials.
Gael García Bernal. - Hilarious, you can see blokes who look exactly like that in pubs all over Britain. They certainly have one thing in common with him. They've got no amerindian ancestry either.
I'm terrified by the thought of how Mexican cuisine will disappear from the U.S. should Mexicans themselves go home.
I find myself in a flop sweat trying to remember if it's tortilla on bottom, then meat, then beans, then cheese, or the other way around.
5. Caesar salad
Nope. Italian immigrant Cesare Cardini, who had a restaurant in Tijuana.
OT - Steve, I'm sure you've already got this from multiple sources, but just in case:
Wall St Journal July 22 by James Webb Diversity and the Myth of White Privilege
"America still owes a debt to its black citizens, but government programs to help all 'people of color' are unfair. They should end.
..."
Mexicans killed apaches too.
Mexican music also has helped revive accordian sales!
"Harry Baldwin said...
Perhaps Fox was better than "W" at the latter's chosen method of dominance--assigning demeaning nicknmes. I read an interview in which Fox called Bush a "windshield cowboy," i.e., someone who drives a pick-up and pretends to be a cowboy, but is afraid of horses. AFAIK, Fox has always spoken of Bush in a dismissive, disrespectful manner. Perhaps to Bush that made him a surrogate father figure."
Interesting comments ("windshield cowboy"! - I like that). The spoilt rich-boy habit of conferring nicknames on their pals is one of their traits that just makes you want to smash them in the face with a bowling ball. Do they teach that kind of preppie naming magic in Skull and Bones?
Some people have wondered if the mexican government had some terrible secret from Bush's past that they hung over his head - some awful deed he may have committed in a booze and cocaine fog during his decade long spring-break in the 70s perhaps. Of course no evidence of this exists, but his subserviance to Mexico has to make one wonder.
Although it didn't originate the idea, Mexico's beloved El Chavo perfected the craft of adults playing children.
It's an overplayed comedic device in Mexico now, but in it's heyday...
Interesting comments ("windshield cowboy"! - I like that). The spoilt rich-boy habit of conferring nicknames on their pals is one of their traits that just makes you want to smash them in the face with a bowling ball. Do they teach that kind of preppie naming magic in Skull and Bones?
It sounds more like a general dominance trait than a preppie trait to me. A friend of mine (now dead) was one of those guys who just screamed natural born leader; he always used to give everyone nicknames, and they usually stuck. Years later, tons of guys are still going by those nicknames. His origins were white trash, to put it plainly.
I find myself in a flop sweat trying to remember if it's tortilla on bottom, then meat, then beans, then cheese, or the other way around.
Bravo!
Hello:
What has Mexico contributed to World Civilzation?
1) one cannot just dismiss the Columbian exchange which is about the Spanish cultural infusions to the New World (especially New Spain/Mexico) and about the indigenous culture's infusion of its highly advanced and diverse agriculture. About 60% of our food (including beef which is corn -maize fed- has its origins in Mes-American civilizations. Chocolate, Vanilla, potatoes, sweet potatoes, tomatoes,green peppers, beans of many varieties. Also Mexico contributed to the Allied war effort during WWII through a Mexican squadron (Aguilas Aztecas), braceros working to keep agricultural production up and through hundreds of thousands of military volunteers. Hispanics/Mexicans are over represented in the Medal of Honor category and in military decorations in general. They also volunteer for the combat arms in the US Army and US Marines at a higher rate than any other ethnic group.
This is not to say Mexico is not a benighted country with all sorts of problems and yes, many of these problems are being exported to us. But as Americans we are lucky that Mexico is the worst of our neighbors; we could have had Algeria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. And by they way one canot divide "Mexicans" from Hispanic/Latinos or even "whites" because there is so much intermarriage between groups. And there is no question that Hispanics contribute YOUTH and vigor to the USA as well. One cannot only concertrate on negative factors. (
RICHARD K. MUNR0
ben tillman said...
The Dos Equis guy? How about the beer itself, lager and amber. And Pacifico and, above all, Negra Modelo. I'll give credit where credit's due. However, we can enjoy these beers without immigration. And, yes, the food is tasty if you're willing to throw carb-caution tio the wind.
And don't forget Jerry Garcia.
A German immigrant created Dos Equis. Says so right on the bottle. Jerry Garcia wasn't Mexican at all.
Next.
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