Day 113: Mexico

[2952-0-0]

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/mx.html

Discuss.

[MaC]

I think we should dedicate this thread to Killerpollo.  I'll email him and tell him to return to the forum.

[2952-0-0]

I think we should dedicate this thread to Killerpollo.  I'll email him and tell him to return to the forum.

No. I'll yank the cable cord and shove it up your nose.





j/k

[MaC]

backwater Canadian, you use an internet cable? 

[2952-0-0]

I'll slam your head on a car door.

[Gabu]

Has way too many Mexicans in it.

[MODU]

We should convert the debt Mexico owes us into a downpayment on their country.

Nice country though . . . but needs a lot of work politically.  They have a lot of potential which they are wasting away.

[ag]

We should convert the debt Mexico owes us into a downpayment on their country.

You mean, you want us to buy back Arizona? Mexico's foreign exchange reserves are above not only the debt to the US government, but above the sum total of all dollar-denominated liabilities of the Mexican government. To sum up, US owes money to Mexico, not the other way around.

[MasterJedi]

Should have kept all of it after the war.

[opebo]

The nearest colony of the American empire.

[MaC]

Has way too many Mexicans in it.

you talking about Mexico or America

I think MODU's right though-it has potential that's being wasted away.
If Mexico was to close off their southern border, we would have significantly less illegal Mexicans in the United States.

[minionofmidas]

We should convert the debt Mexico owes us into a downpayment on their country.

You mean, you want us to buy back Arizona? Mexico's foreign exchange reserves are above not only the debt to the US government, but above the sum total of all dollar-denominated liabilities of the Mexican government. To sum up, US owes money to Mexico, not the other way around.

I wouldn't go for less than the whole of Aztlan myself. With all the gold mined out and all the silly yankees on the land etc, it's obviously worth less now, in real terms, than it was in 1848.

[DanielX]

The nearest colony of the American empire.

I wish. Sometimes it seems like Bush is Fox's toady, not the other way around.

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

Should have kept all of it after the war.

Agree.

[MasterJedi]

Should have kept all of it after the war.

Agree.

We wouldn't have a really big immigration problem because the boarder would be so much smaller.

[Frodo]

Should have kept all of it after the war.

Agree.

We wouldn't have a really big immigration problem because the boarder would be so much smaller.

Yes, and then we would be dealing with a border set in the jungle as opposed to being in the middle of a desert.  It wouldn't make it any easier to patrol. 

[ag]

Should have kept all of it after the war.

Agree.

We wouldn't have a really big immigration problem because the boarder would be so much smaller.

Yes, and then we would be dealing with a border set in the jungle as opposed to being in the middle of a desert.  It wouldn't make it any easier to patrol. 

Not counting the fact that you would have had all the 100 mln. Mexicans inside it anyway (and voting).  The ratio was even more striking back then: 15 mln. norteamericanos for 8 mln. Mexicans - they'd form, at a stroke, over a third of the population.  Hey, by now it would have been a near-majority Catholic country. It would have been a very different United States, don't you think?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Isn't illegal immigration an issue in Mexico as well? I remember reading about that, the same type of folks there as here are complaining about illegals from Central America. Mexico is much tougher on them though, apparentely almost all are deported and businesses hiring them are heavily fined.

[ag]

Isn't illegal immigration an issue in Mexico as well? I remember reading about that, the same type of folks there as here are complaining about illegals from Central America. Mexico is much tougher on them though, apparentely almost all are deported and businesses hiring them are heavily fined.

Mexico is somewhat nasty on its Southern migrants - if they catch them, they deport them, though they have few means of catching those of them who've settled.  The ones that are caught crossing the Southern border are deported (exactly as are Mexicans caught crossing the US border). You'd be surprised about the reason, though: few migrants plan to stay in Mexico, they are almost invariably in transit further North, so it is not really Mexico's problem. But Mexico is under heavy pressure from the US not to let them through. The US pressure has repeatedly affected Mexican migration laws - just last fall Mexico was forced by the US to require visas from all visiting Brazilians (which, immediately, resulted in sharp decrease in the number of Brazillians intercepted at the US border).  It was very much against Mexico's own interest, since the two countries had just spent years negotiating the visa-free travel and concluded the agreement just two years previous with great fanfare. Of course, Brazil immediately retaliated, so Mexicans have suffered the consequences of their action done in response to direct and very unsubtle US pressure.  Mexico also is very tough in issuing visas to nationals of "suspicious" (such as Arab) countries: it is widely believed that much of the Mexican visa-processing for nationals of these countries is actually done by the US.


On the other hand, when not forced to be tough by the US, Mexicans are actually quite lax about the illegal migrants. In fact, Mexico is full of these illegals that US is not worried about.  I am talking about the multitudes of illegal estadounidenses and canadienses that have formed large migrant communities in many Mexican towns.  It is true, they enter legally (since Mexico doesn't really restrict their entry), but they routinely overstay their visas, violate their migration status by working, etc.  Of course, they never bother to learn Spanish - they don't really have to, since they don't much interact with the non-anglophone locals and the government does provide them with English-language services, such as anglophone police, etc.  In years living in Mexico, I've met a lot of these illegal migrants and I never once have heard of any being deported or otherwise mistreated.  When they go home they are sometimes fined - something like 20 dollars. That's the toughest punishment they I ever heard anyone suffer.

[??????????]

Should have kept all of it after the war.

Agree.

We wouldn't have a really big immigration problem because the boarder would be so much smaller.

Yes, and then we would be dealing with a border set in the jungle as opposed to being in the middle of a desert.  It wouldn't make it any easier to patrol. 

Not counting the fact that you would have had all the 100 mln. Mexicans inside it anyway (and voting).  The ratio was even more striking back then: 15 mln. norteamericanos for 8 mln. Mexicans - they'd form, at a stroke, over a third of the population.  Hey, by now it would have been a near-majority Catholic country. It would have been a very different United States, don't you think?

Yes, much better.

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

If we'd annexed mexico the population growth would have been lower due to being in an industrialized naiton as opposed to a third world nation. Well that and we'd see a siezable element of the mexican populaiton assimilating.

[ag]

If we'd annexed mexico the population growth would have been lower due to being in an industrialized naiton as opposed to a third world nation. Well that and we'd see a siezable element of the mexican populaiton assimilating.

You forget, that for much of the period at question the population growth in the US was much higher for precisely the same reason: US was more developed, so had higher life-expectancy and lower child mortality.  The birthrates haven't gone down until some 80+ years later in the US (and another 50 years in Mexico, of course). At present, the birthrates are, roughly, the same.

So, correctly taken your argument would have implied actually more Mexican-origin population, not less.

And as for assimilation - who'd assimilate whom is a big question. You'd have, in general, a much different history. The combined state would not resemble the modern US any more than it would have resembled modern Mexico. That is, if it survived as a single state:  firstly, annexation would have required tolerating a few decades of a very nasty and bloody civil war, and, secondly, for a number of reasons I believe if the merger were to happen, the combined state would have split into three or four smaller states (US Northeast+Midwest - possibly, part of Canada by now, US South+Mexican Northeast, US West+Mexican Northwest, Mexico Proper).

By the way,  this was exactly the reason more of Mexico hasn't been annexed. The US Northerners resisted annexing more of the Northern Mexico, since that would have implied Southern domination of the Union.  And annexing the entire country was unacceptable to all, North or South: it would have implied such a dramatic change of the very nature of the US in their view, that it would have verged on Mexico annexing the US.  Even a 100 years later, US chose not to annex the much smaller Philippines for the same reason.

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

The US wouldn't have split up. We'd see the mexicans being assimilated into the mainstream US culture with of course a cultural shift from assimilating lands that were 1/3 of the US population in 1848. You also forget that the US got alot more immigration than mexico. In 1900 it was 76 million americans to 13 million mexicans. ITs really only since the mid 20th century that mexico grew so mcuh.

[ag]

The US wouldn't have split up. We'd see the mexicans being assimilated into the mainstream US culture with of course a cultural shift from assimilating lands that were 1/3 of the US population in 1848. You also forget that the US got alot more immigration than mexico. In 1900 it was 76 million americans to 13 million mexicans. ITs really only since the mid 20th century that mexico grew so mcuh.

You also forget that the US would have to go through that minor event called the Civil War in just a few more years. Annexing present-day Northern Mexico would have implied a far stronger South (that was why the members of Congress from the Northeast resisted it strongly).  Annexing, in addition, Mexican heartland would have implied that there would have been two civil wars simultaneously: even in the extremely unlikely case that Mexican guerilla would have been largely over by 1861, it would have restarted with a vengeance the day the Union troups would have been withdrawn to fight in the Civil War. 

So, the most likely consequence of the full-blown annexation would have been a) the much stronger and bigger South defeating the North, or, at least, never beeing defeated, with the Confederacy and the Union never reunifying; b) Mexican heartland splitting off once again (admittedly, in a much diminished form - but with virtually the entire population). Less likely, but still quite possibly, the much larger West (including the present-day Baja and the rest of NW Mexico) would decide that it had a perfect chance to go its own way (what makes it somewhat less likely is that the Brits would have a go at it from the North, so they'd need some protection). Yes, and Alaska, of course, would have never been bought by the US and would have gone to the Brits by the early 1900s and would have been part of Canada today. Hawaii would have probably stayed independent, or else would have been taken over by the Brits and/or the Japanese and/or the Russians (in that case it would be lost to the Japanese in 1904).

To sum up, I think the likely consequence of the annexation would have been:
 
1. The USA, including today's NE + Midatlantic + Northern Midwest - Maryland.

2. CSA, including today's South (including Texas) + Southern Midwest + Maryland + Coahuila/Nuevo Leon/Tamaulipas and parts of Chihuahua. 

3. California, all the way to the somewhat more Southerly Canadian border in the North, the CSA (Texas) border in the East and including the entire Baja, Sonora, Sinaloa, etc.

4. Rump Mexico (half or less the current size, but most of the current population)

5. Canada including modern Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Montana, etc.

6. Hawaii going its own way and never bing part of North American history.

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

The mexican states would provide extra land to provide enough "slave"(technically lsave states bu slavery doesn't take hold) to east southern fears so slavery enfds gradually.