mexico

"Juarez had lived and died. Yet was it a country with free speech, and the guarantee of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? A country of brilliantly muralled schools, and where even each little cold mountain village had its stone open-air stage, and the land was owned by its people free to express their native genius? A country of model farms: of hope? It was a country of slavery, where human beings were sold like cattle, and its native peoples, the Yaquis, the Papagos, the Tomasachics, exterminated through deportation, or reduced to worse than peonage, their lands in thrall or the hands of foreigners. ... All this spelt Porfirio Diaz: rurales everywhere, jefes politicos, and murder, the extirpation of liberal political institutions, the army an engine of massacre, and instrument of exile. ... Yet the banality stood: that the past was irrevocably past. And conscience had been given man to regret it only in so far as that might change the future. For man, every man, even as Mexico, must ceaselessly struggle up-ward."

"Sufragio efectivo, no reelección. / Effective suffrage, no re-election."

"I studied art there 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."

"We are dependent on the Mexicans trusting us."

"You know how Mexicans are: If they go high, we go underneath, with tunnels."

"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."

"I found this joy in Mexico. And it was pagan and human. It was in the sun, in the light, in the colors, in the voices, in their smiles, and in their fiestas. Poverty could not destroy it, invasions, revolutions, tyranny could not destroy it. It is a gift of dark people, those for whom the real life begins at night deep within themselves and where everything flowers."

"The Mexican towns we had visited, were in no manner of life different upon this frontier from those of central Mexico The impression had been of a fixed stagnancy amounting to a slow national decay; the cause, a religious enslavement of the mind, preventing educa-tion, communication, and growth, giving rise to bigotry, hypocrisy, political and social tyranny, bad faith, priestly spoliation, and, worst of all, utter degradation of labor."

"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."

"We are a sovereign nation, and we will act as such. The exercise of sovereignty implies that, in the process of negotiation, our only interest is that of Mexico and those of Mexicans."

"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, ... 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."

": And another thing, your beer tastes like piss. : We know. : Because we piss in it! : And that's not all!"

"Are you a Mexi-can or a Mexi-can't?"

": El, you really must try this. It's a puerco pibil. It's a slow roasted pork—nothing fancy, just happens to be my favorite—and I order it, with a tequila and lime, in every dive I go to in this country and honestly, that is the best it's ever been, anywhere. In fact, it's too good. It is so good that when I finish with it, I'll pay my check, walk straight into the kitchen, and shoot the cook, because that's what I do: I restore the balance to this country. And that is what I would like from you right now. Help me keep the balance by pulling the trigger. : You want me to shoot the cook? : No, I'll shoot the cook; my car's parked out back anyway. You will kill Marquez. Do you remember General Marquez? He's been paid by the Barillo Cartel to kill the President in an attempted coup d'etat. : Attempted? : No, no, no, the President will be killed, because he's that piece of good pork that needs to get balanced out. I said 'attempted' because we don't want Marquez taking power. I need you, to put the hurting, so to speak, on Marquez after he's killed the President. Savvy?"

"If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop, but will go on until we reap the fate of Mexico, which is eternal war."

"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."

"I left, out of Tucson, with no destination in mind. I was runnin' 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."

": Where are you taking us? : Mexico. : What's in Mexico? : Mexicans."

"Sweet Rosemary, and 100 proof liquor, and rice and beans."

"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."

"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."

"There [in the US] they'll deport you. In Mexico they'll probably let you go, but they'll beat you up and steal everything you've got first."

"You boys like Mexico?"

"This is damn good! Say, this is the best beer I've ever had. Actually, I'm just glad to be alive right now. I was up a few towns away... you know Saragosa? I was visiting a bar there, not unlike this one. They serve beer... not quite as good as this, but close. And I saw something you wouldn't believe. I'm sitting there see, small table all by myself at this bar. It's full of real lowlifes. I mean, not like this place here. No, I mean bad. Like they were up to no good. Anyway, I'm by myself... I like it that way. Meanwhile, things are going on... under the table kinds of things. Not too obvious but, not too secret either. So, I'm sitting there. And in walks the biggest Mexican I have ever seen. Big as shit. Just walks right in like he owns the place. And nobody knew quite what to make of him... or quite what to think. There he was and in he walked. He was dark too. I don't mean dark-skinned. No, this was different. It was if he was always walking in a shadow. I mean every step he took toward the light, just when you thought his face was about to be revealed... it wasn't. It was as if the lights dimmed, just for him."

"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."

"A fractious 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."

"Hey, you want to talk Mexican? Join another tank, a Mexican tank."

"Whereas, by the act of the Republic of Mexico, a state of war exists between that Government and the United States: Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That, for the purpose of enabling the government of the United States to prosecute said war to a speedy and successful termination, the President be, and he is hereby, authorized to employ the militia, naval, and military forces of the United States, and to call for and accept the services of any number of volunteers, not exceeding fifty thousand, who may offer their services, either as cavalry, artillery, infantry, or riflemen, to serve twelve months after they shall have arrived at the place of rendezvous, or to the end of the war, unless sooner discharged, according to the time for which they shall have been mustered into service; and that the sum of ten millions of dollars, out of any moneys in the treasury, or to come into the treasury, not otherwise appropriated, be, and the same is hereby, appropriated for the purpose of carrying the provisions of this act into effect."

"The Mexican nation is unique and indivisible."

"The nation is multicultural, based originally on its indigenous peoples, described as descendants of those inhabiting the country before colonization and that preserve their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions, or some of them."

"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."

"La Patria es Primero. / The Homeland is First."

"I did not know that Mexico had abolished slavery and that this was a key reason for the war for Texas independence."

"Good-bye — if you hear of my being stood up against a Mexican wall and shot to rags, please know that I think that a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease, or falling down the celler steps. To be a Gringo in Mexico — ah, that is euthanasia!"

"Mexicanos, al grito de guerra El acero aprestad y el bridón, Y retiemble en sus centros la tierra Al sonoro rugir del cañón."

"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."

"Stashed his trash in Ecuador, bought a good suit of clothes. Flew on up to Mexico, standin' by the shore."

"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."

"Mexico's a violent country that has been at peace over forty years. But one is conscious here, as one is in Peru, of a continuing underlying vocation of violence. One feels, indeed, that the Mexicans themselves are aware of it and determined that it shall never break out again as in the bloody time of upheaval that began four years before the First World War and that continues to dominate Mexican public life."

"Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States!"

"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."

"Patron of Mexico, and God of wars, Son of the sun, and brother of the stars."