The Mexican Perspective: Understanding Their Culture
The U.S.-Mexican War
Patrick Osio, Jr
(From Patrick Osio, Jr.’s The Mexican Perspective)
The U.S. decreed the ‘Manifest Destiny’ as part of its expansion west. While the words, Manifest Destiny, reverberate as a God given plan to those who will benefit from such Destiny, to those standing to lose by it the words and idea have a very different sound and meaning.
The argument that Mexico was not using much of their territory and thus it was not a big loss sounds hollow to the fact that it was nonetheless their territory. While taking a course in Mexico as a young man, a teacher on finding out that I was a U.S. born citizen asked – if you own a four-bedroom home in which you live by yourself, and I breakdown your door and come in with my friends who are moving from another state, and I beat you until you agree that I can take over two of your bedrooms because you are not using them, does it make it right? He then concluded by saying – what may be Manifest Destiny to those seeking to take from others, is imperialism to those from whom it is taken.
And of course, he was right. We can argue about how the taken territory was put to use, and the incredible difference between what the U.S. created out of those territories compared with what has (or not) taken place in much of Mexico to justify the taking, but it does not change the fact that it was taken at gunpoint. The argument that they signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo wherein Mexico ceded the land to the U.S. is repelled by the fact that it was signed ‘with a gun to the head.’
I did not feel at that time, nor do I today, that I owed an apology for the end result of what took place in 1848. I do, however, owe allegiance to the truth – and the truth is, as a Texan once put it – “we stole it from them, fair and square.”
But it should come as no surprise that Mexicans see those events in quite a different way, and the wounds do not heal in great part because U.S. historians have since the end of the conflict historialized that Mexico was at fault, and the U.S. within its rights to undertake the war.
But also in Mexico the issue was also kept alive by succeeding generations of governments – in part due to the continuing interventions starting soon after the war, and continuing through much of the 20th Century. Another reason to keep it alive was as a propaganda program calling on nationalistic pride to focus citizens against an outside enemy and to divert attention or excuse much of the government’s actions or lack thereof. As a matter of public policy during the governing years of the PRI, it was a constant to remind people of the three ‘historical enemies’ of Mexico: The Church, business and the U.S.
Pancho Villa and other revolutionaries
In the U.S. Francisco “Pancho” Villa was always depicted as a gun totting, fat bandolier across his chest, gun-totting bandido. And, always about his crossing into the U.S. to rob banks, and kill American citizens. Newspaper accounts and movies always drew this picture. But in Mexico, he was a fearless revolutionary fighter who took on full armies and cunningly was able to avoid defeat and win battle after battle. What Mexicans also say is that Villa attacked Columbus, New Mexico because the U.S. was allowing Mexican opposing troops to cross into New Mexico and from there open fire on Villas’ troops, but denied Villa the same courtesy. He figured the U.S. was on the side of the Huertistas (followers of the opposing army’s leader and assassin of Francisco Madero)
And in addition, he is remembered as the man who was chased by an invading army led by U.S. General Pershing and never caught. This went on until Pershing could not keep up anymore and retreated back across the border. Thus Villa was a folk-hero – he stood up to the invaders and bested them. Whether Villa was a good or bad man is entirely another issue. Obviously, to those who fought against him, he was a terrible man, while to those on the side for whom he fought; he was a really good man. It is the depiction of Villa in the U.S. and how along with how he is depicted, Americans depict all Mexicans that create the resentment.
Take for instance a legendary revolutionary fighter, Emiliano Zapata. Here again he is depicted more as a caricature based on the clothes he wore. He didn’t fit the stereotypical soldier in uniform and as such was not thought of too much as a soldier. But he was a brilliant military strategist using inherent skills. He fought for a cause so noble that had Americans understood, or been told, what he stood and fought for, he would have become a legendary underdog figure in the U.S. also, fighting the evil that had been done to his people. But such was not the way Mexicans were depicted then, and to a great degree still not today. So the image of yonder years still hangs over what he was all about. Thus, Americans having such derogatory ideas about him and those like him hinders their acceptance of Mexicans in general, and this shows. And when it shows, Mexican resent it.
(Read the entire chapter in the: The Mexican Perspective available for electronic download purchase – read more about the book at: http://www.hispanicvista.com/sales/book_sale.htm)
- Table of Contents
- Excerpts from the manual
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- About the Author
- Patrick Osio, Jr.
Editor of HispanicVista.com
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- E-mail: Posiojr@HispanicVista.com,
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