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The United Mexican States (Spanish: ), generally known as Mexico (Spanish: ) is a country located in North America, bordered at the north by the United States, and at the south by Guatemala and Belize, in Central America. It is the northernmost and westernmost country in Latin America, and also the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world. The site of advanced Mesoamerican or Amerindian civilizations, the land that currently makes up Mexico existed under Spanish rule for three centuries before achieving independence early in the 19th century. The first century of independence was tumultuous, culminating in the decade-long Mexican Revolution, followed by roughly seventy years of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). A devaluation of the peso in late 1994 threw Mexico into economic turmoil, triggering the worst recession in over half a century. The nation continues to make an impressive recovery. Ongoing economic and social concerns include low real wages, underemployment for a large segment of the population, inequitable income distribution, and few advancement opportunities for the largely Amerindian population in the impoverished southern states. Elections held in July 2000 marked the first time since the 1910 Mexican Revolution that the opposition defeated the (PRI) and Vicente Fox of the National Action Party (PAN) was sworn in as President on 1 December 2000. Mexico is a powerful and influential neighbor of the United States, in terms of trade, culture, diplomacy, with a history of emigration of Mexicans into the U.S. since the early 1900's.
History For almost 3,000 years, Mexico was the site of several advanced Amerindian civilizations, the Mesoamerican cultures, such as the Olmec, the Maya and the Aztecs. The arrival of the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés defeated the Aztecs 1521, marking the beginning of the 300 year-long colonial period of Mexico as New Spain. On September 16, 1810, the independence from Spain was declared, by Miguel Hidalgo in the small town of Dolores, causing a long war that eventually led to independence in 1821 and the creation of the First Mexican Empire with Agustín de Iturbide being the first and only emperor. In 1824 the republic was proclaimed Guadalupe Victoria as its first President. During the first decades of its independence, Antonio López de Santa Anna was the strong man of Mexican politics, and on-and-off dictator. After Santa Anna revoked the federal constitution, Texas declared its independence, which they managed to obtain in 1836. The annexation of Texas by the United States created a border dispute, that woud cause the Mexican-American War. This war resulted in a Mexican defeat. In the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848 Mexico lost one third of its area to the United States. Dissatisfaction with Santa Anna's rule led to the liberal Revolution of Ayutla, beginning an era of liberal reforms, known as the Reforma. In the 1860s the country again suffered a military occupation, this time by France, seeking to establish the Hapsburg Archduke Ferdinand Maximillian of Austria as Emperor of Mexico, with support from the Catholic clergy and conservative Creoles. This Second Mexican Empire was fought off by then president of the Republic, the Zapotec Indian Benito Juárez, who managed to restore the republic in 1867. Porfirio Díaz, a republican general during the French intervention, assumed power in 1876. The period of his rule is known as the Porfiriato, which was noted by remarkable economic achievements but also by brutal oppression. The latter led to the Mexican Revolution in 1910, initially led by Francisco I. Madero. Madero was overthrown and murdered in 1913 by the reactionary general Victoriano Huerta. This caused a civil war, with such as Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata. The Revolution calmed down when the constitution of 1917 was proclaimed by Venustiano Carranza. Carranza was killed in 1920 and succeeded by Álvaro Obregón, who in turn was succeeded by Plutarco Elías Calles. In 1928 Obregón was reelected, but assassinated before he could asume power. This led Calles to found the National Revolutionary Party (PNR), which was later renamed to Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). During the next four decades, Mexico experienced impressive economic growth; some historians call this period "El Milagro Mexicano", the Mexican Miracle. This was in spite of falling foreign confidence in investment during the worldwide great depression. The assumption of mineral rights and subsequent nationalization of the oil industry into PEMEX during the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas del Río was a popular move that sparked a diplomatic crisis with those countries whose citizens had lost businesses expropriated by the Cárdenas government. Although the economy flourished, the PRI rule became increasingly more oppressive, culminating in the Tlatelolco Massacre of 1968, where 250 protesters were killed by security forces. In the 1970s discontent with the administration of Luis Echeverría brought the country on the brink of a civil war. The chronic weakness of Mexico's economy in the 1970s and 1980s included peso devaluation and price inflation, creating a strong need for tens of millions of poor Mexicans to migrate north to the United States. In 1982 the Mexican government announced that it could no longer pay its debts. The first cracks in the monopoly position of PRI began to appear in 1988, when the party had to resort to election fraud in order to prevent leftist opposition candidate Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas from winning the elections. Carlos Salinas was declared victor of the elections and embarked on a program of neoliberal reforms, culminating in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) of 1994. However, the very same day Mexico joined the NAFTA, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) began an armed rebellion against the federal government. A series of political assassination and corruption scandals further damaged Salinas' reputation. In december 1994, a month after Salinas was succeeded by Ernesto Zedillo, the December Mistake led to a new economical crisis. Democratic reforms under Zedillo caused the PRI to lose its majority in Congress in 1997. In 2000, after 71 years, the PRI lost a presidential election to Vicente Fox of the National Action Party (PAN). In 2006 Felipe Calderón (PAN) was declared winner of that year's presidential elections with a razor thin margin over Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). López Obrador however claimed the election was stolen, and pledged to create an alternative government. Government and politics
Administrative divisions There are only 2 administrative and political subdivisions in Mexico: states (estados) and municipalities (municipios). The United Mexican States is an union of 31 states and a federal district. Each state has its own constitution and congress, and its citizens elect a governor (gobernador) as well as representatives (diputados locales) to their respective state congresses. Each Mexican state is divided into municipalities, the smallest official political entity in the country, and governed by a mayor (alcalde). The following map presents the 31 Mexican states and highlights the tipical non-official geographical organization of them: The Federal District is a special political division in Mexico, where the national capital, Mexico City, is located. It enjoys more limited local rule than the nation's states: only since 1997 have its citizens been able to elect a Head of Government. It is divided into boroughs (delegaciones), each of them governed by a Borough Chief (jefe delegacional). Major cities
Economy
Demographics
Culture
Social stratification and racism Mexico boasts a wealth of regional cultures that is unique in America. Every region in the country has a distinct culture, languages, and arts that create a huge mosaic as a whole. Traditionally, Mexicans have struggled with the creation of a united identity. The issue is the main topic of "Labyrinth of Solitude" by Mexican Nobel Prize winner Octavio Paz. Mexico is a large country, therefore having many regional cultural traits. The north of Mexico, because of its historically high proportion of non-Spanish immigrants, is the least traditionally Mexican and most cosmopolitan of them all, making it a less exciting destination for foreign travelers. Central and southern Mexico is where many well-known traditions find their origin, therefore the people from this area are in a way the most traditional, but their collective personality can't be generalized. People from Puebla, for instance, are thought to be conservative and reserved, and just a few kilometers away, the people from Veracruz have the fame of being very outgoing and liberal. The México City middle classes are believed to be arriviste and prone to debt, or crime-prone if talking about the poor. The regiomontanos (from Monterrey) are thought to be cocky regardless of their social status, due to Northern prosperity. Different accents are used in almost every state in Mexico, making it fairly easy to distinguish the origin of someone by their distinct use of language. Pure pre-Hispanic Americans also known as "Native Americans, or Indians are likely to be perceived as inferior, even though this rarely reaches the level of aggressive racism. It's a rarity to see pre-Hispanic Americans in high positions. This hidden racism is latent in the use of the word "indio" as an insult for the darker skinned, which is even used between indigenous people to offend each other. Racism against those of African ancestry is said less prevalent than in the U.S., but some Mexicans of African descent have protested against negative racial stereotypes. Mexicans living in the United States, legally or illegally, are looked down upon by most middle class and high class Mexicans, since they feel they are creating a bad reputation for the rest of the Mexicans. Many terms that refer to Mexicans in the U.S.A. exist, but Chicano, (a person born in the U.S.A. of Mexican descent) or Pocho ( a person born in the U.S.A. with one parent Mexican and the other Anglo-American, and those who speak broken Spanish, or "Spanglish") are the most popular. In central and southern Mexico, these terms are used as a derogatory description. The majority of Mexican men or families that pursue a life in the U.S. come from the lowest economic stratus of society in Mexico, and have created a culture unique to them. Standard of living The standard of living in Mexico is higher than most of other countries in Latin America drawing people from places like Argentina, Brazil or Cuba to the country in search for better opportunities. With the recent economic growth, most middle and high income families live in single houses, commonly found within a walled village, called "fraccionamiento". The reason these places are the most popular among the middle and upper classes is that they offer a sense of security, since most of them are within walls and have surveillance, and living in one also provides social status, due to the infrastructure of most of these villages. Swimming pools or golf clubs, and/or some other commodities are found in these fraccionamientos. Houses inside them tend to be of higher quality, and larger than other homes, most of them with at least three or four bedrooms and even maid quarters and laundry. However, the poorer Mexicans live a harsh life. Poverty is specially poignant in the countryside. In the larger towns, hiring housekeepers or maids is not as common as in the past, but there are still many families that are willing to pay a person, generally a middle aged woman, to come help with the house chores once or twice a week. The gender roles for women in Mexico are generally strict, although this has lessened in the country's upper-classes influenced by Anglo cultural trends and some Mexican women are challenging patriarchal societal mores where males continue to practice "machismo", a major Latin American cultural norm (yet is stereotyped) of men are strong, self-reliant and aggressive. Leisure Dancing and singing are commonly part of family gatherings, bringing the old and young together, no matter what kind of music is being played, like cumbia, salsa, merengue or the more Mexican banda. Dancing is a strong part of the culture, and visitors will find that even people who were thought to be unlikely to dance, do so. Singing enjoys the same popularity and Mexicans will sing when they are depressed, in a cantina to a mariachi song, or when they are very happy. Mexicans in places like Guadalajara, Puebla, Monterrey, Mexico City, and most middle sized cities, enjoy a great variety of options for leisure. Shopping centers are a favorite among families, since there has been an increasing number of new malls that cater to people of all ages and interests. A large number of them, have multiplex cinemas, international and local restaurants, food courts, cafes, bars, bookstores and most of the international renowned clothing brands are found too. Mexicans are prone to travel within their own country, making short weekend trips to a neighbouring city or town. Broadcast media Two of the major television networks based in Mexico are Televisa and TV Azteca. Soap operas (telenovelas) are translated to many languages and seen all over the world with renown names like Verónica Castro, Lucía Méndez, Lucero, and Thalía. Even Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna from Y tu mamá también and current Zegna model have appeared in some of them. Some of their TV shows are modeled after American counterparts like Family Feud (100 Mexicanos Dijeron or "A hundred Mexicans said" in Spanish) and Que Dice la Gente, Big Brother, American Idol, Saturday Night Live and others. Nationwide news shows like Las Noticias por Adela on Televisa resemble a hybrid between Donahue and Nightline. Local news shows are modeled after American counterparts like the Eyewitness News and Action News formats. Border cities receive American television and radio stations, while satellite and cable subscription is common for the upper-classes in major cities, often watch American movies and TV shows. Sports The favorite sport remains football (soccer), while baseball is also popular, especially in the Gulf of Mexico and the border states in the NW. The season runs from March to July with playoffs held in August. The Mexican professional league is named the Liga Mexicana de Beisbol. Professional wrestling (or Lucha libre in Spanish) is a major crowd draw with national promotions such as AAA, LLL, CMLL and others. American football is practiced at the major universities like UNAM, UDLA (University of the Americas), UANL (Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León) and ITESM (Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey), and there's a strong following of the NFL in Mexico with the Steelers, Cowboys, Dolphins and Raiders being the most polular teams. Rugby is played at the amateur level throughout the country with the majority of clubs in Mexico City and others in Monterrey, Guadalajara, Celaya, Guanajuato and Oaxaca. The national sport of Mexico is Charreria. Ancient Mexicans played a ball game which still exists in Northwest Mexico (Sinaloa, the game is called Ulama), though it is not a popular sport any more. Bullfighting is also a popular sport in the country. Almost all large cities have bullrings. La Monumental in Mexico city, has the largest bullring in the world, which seats 55,000 people. Languages Compared to the other North American nations, the Mexican Constitution does not mention the existence of an "official language" just like the United States but unlike Canada, but it is mentioned in the treaty of Las Tres garantias, where Agustin de Iturbide declares the unity of all Mexicans the Spanish as the official language of Mexico. Although Spanish is considered to be the "common" language of the country, used in all sorts of documents and spoken by the majority of the population, about 7% of the population speak an American dialect. The government officially recognizes 62 American languages. Of these, Nahuatl and Maya are each spoken by 1.5 million, while others, such as Lacandon, are spoken by fewer than 100. The Mexican government has promoted and established bilingual education programs in indigenous rural communities. A few tribes, such as the Kickapoo and the Cherokee, came to the state of Coahuila in the 19th century to escape U.S. army raids and are said to maintain their language and culture to a certain extent. Although Spanish is the common language of Mexico, English is widely used in business. As a result, English language skills are much in demand and can lead to an increase in the salary offered by a company. It is also spoken along the U.S.A. border, in big cities, and in beach resorts. Also, the majority of private schools in Mexico offer bilingual education, both in Spanish and English. English is the main language spoken in U.S.A. expatriate communities such as those along the coast of Baja California, Jalisco and the town of San Miguel de Allende. With respect to other European languages brought by immigrants, the case of Chipilo, in the state of Puebla, is unique, and has been documented by several linguists such as Carolyn McKay. The immigrants that founded the city of Chipilo in 1882 came from the Veneto region in northern Italy, and thus spoke a northern variant of the Venetian dialect. While other European immigrants assimilated into the Mexican culture, the people of Chipilo retained their language. Nowadays, most of the people who live in the city of Chipilo (and many of those who have migrated to other cities) still speak the unaltered Veneto dialect spoken by their great-grandparents making the Veneto dialect an unrecognized minority language in the city of Puebla. In Huatusco and Colonia Gonzalez, Veracruz, Veneto is still heard too. A similar case is that of the Plautdietsch language, spoken by the descendants of German and Dutch Mennonite immigrants in the states of Chihuahua and Durango. Other German communities lie in Puebla, Mexico City, Sinaloa and Chiapas, with the largest German school outside of Germany being in Mexico City (Alexander von Humboldt school), these represent the large German populations where they still try to preserve the German culture and language. Other strong German communities lie in Sinaloa (Mazatlan), Nuevo Leon, Chiapas (Tapachula) and other parts of Puebla (Nueva Necaxa) where the German culture and language have been preserved to different extents. French is also heard in the state of Veracruz in the cities of Jicaltepec, San Rafael and Mentideros, where the architecture and food is also very French. These French immigrants came from Haute-Saône département in France, especially from Champlitte and Borgonge. Another important French group were the "Barcelonette's" from the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence département, who migrated specifically to Mexico to find jobs and work in merchandising and are well known in Mexico City, Puebla, and Veracruz. Another important French village in Mexico is Santa Rosalía in Baja California Sur, where French language and culture/architecture are still found. Scandinavian languages and traditions can also be heard in Chihuahua, such as Swedish and Norwegian in Nueva Escandinavia and other Scandinavian colonies in the north of the country. Russian is heard in the Baja California region of Valle de Guadalupe, thanks to the immigrants from southern Russia who settled these areas. They are the Molokans or "milk eaters", and they preserve their culture in Baja California, with the architecture in their houses and museums, they produce fine wine (Along with the large Italian community that lives near them) and their language and traditions, as well as dresses and festivities. Other Russians belong to a more recent wave of immigration from mainly Russia and Poland and the Ukraine along other Eastern Europeans, who settle mainly in Mexico City and Guadalajara. The wave of Armenians, Lebanese, Syrians and Greeks came to Mexico in the early 20th century, mainly settled in urban areas and Baja California and Sinaloa, especially Greeks in the city of Culiacan, in proximity to relatives in California, U.S. is one notable migration. The Lebanese have settled in the urban areas such as Mexico City, Guadalajara, Monterrey, and Puebla. Cornish dialect of Cornwall, England disappeared from Mexico in the state of Hidalgo in the early 20th century, especially in the cities of Pachuca and Real del Monte, but the Cornish culture still survives in the architecture, sports, food and many aspects of these cities in central Mexico. Religion Mexico is predominantly Roman Catholic (about 89% of the population). It is the nation with the second largest Catholic population, behind Brazil. Also, 6% of the population adheres to various Protestant/Restoration faiths (e.g. Latter-day Saints, Pentecostal), etc. Mexico is the nation with the second largest LDS population, 1,043,718, (a little less than 1%),just behind the USA (5,690,672). The remaining 5% of the population adhere to other religions or profess no religion. Some of the country's Catholics (notably those of indigenous background) syncretize Catholicism with various elements of Aztec or Mayan religions. The Virgin of Guadalupe has long been a symbol enshrining the major aspirations of Mexican society. According to anthropologist Eric R. Wolf, the Guadalupe symbol links family, politics, and religion; the colonial past and the independent present; and the indigenous and the Mexican. * Judaism has been practiced in Mexico for centuries. Many are descended of Jewish people who were converted forcibly to Catholicism in 1492 or earlier, and were forced to practice their religion in secret until the Inquisition was abolished in Mexico and they were free again to practice their ancestral faith openly. There are estimated to be more than 45,000-50,000 (some estimates say 60,000) Jews in Mexico today. Islam has 318,608 adherents, according to official data, and is mostly practiced by Mexicans of Arab (mainly Syrian) and Turkish descent, though there is a very small percentage of the indigenous population in Chiapas state who adhere to Islam. Mexico has a very tiny Sikh population in the country of east Indian origin. The small number of Asian ethnic groups in Baja California have introduced Hinduism and Buddhism, but their members are generally small segments of Mexico's religious profile. Education
Origin and history of the name Mexico is named after its capital city, whose name comes from the Aztec city Mexico-Tenochtitlan that preceded it. The Mexi part of the name may have been derived from Mexitli, a tribal war god whose name may have been derived from the words metztli (the moon) and xictli (navel) and may mean "navel (possibly implying 'child') of the moon", or from Mectli, a goddess known to the early wandering pre-Aztecs peoples and whose name can be translated as "navel of the maguey" or "maguey grandmother" (in several sources, it was she who first sent the ancestors of the Mexica on their trek southwards into empire and history). Mexico is the home of the people of Mexitli or Mectli (the Mexicas), co meaning "place" and ca meaning "people". Mexico can also be translated as "the place of Mectli's people near the nopal cactus." The symbol in myth of Tenochtitlan's founding, an eagle perched on a nopal cactus which arose from the lake on which the city was built, is still found on Mexico's national flag today. When the Spaniards conquered Mexico and imposed their own language (Spanish), they naturally did so according to the spelling rules of the Castilian language of the time. The Nahuatl language had a sound (like English "shop"), and this sound was written x in Spanish (e.g. Ximénez); consequently, the letter x was used to write down words like Mexitli. Meanwhile, the letter j (or, rather, the letter i when used as a consonant, since j was not yet in common usage) was used for the sound (as in "vision"), as was g before e or i. These old pronunciations of j and x are still found in Portuguese, Catalan and Ladino. Over the centuries, the pronunciation of Spanish changed. Words like Ximénez, exercicio, xabón and perplexo started to be pronounced with a (this phonetic symbol represents the sound in the word "loch"). The sound also started to be pronounced this way. The coalescence of the two phonemes into a single new one encouraged scholars to use the same letter for the sound, regardless of its origin (Spanish scholars have always tried to keep the orthography of their language faithful to the spoken tongue). It was j/g that was chosen. So, modern Spanish has ejercicio, ejército, jabón, perplejo, etc. (Another example is the old spelling of Don Quixote which is now Don Quijote. The old pronunciation is maintained in Portuguese "Quixote" and in French "Quichotte", and the English word "quixotic" maintains the spelling while pronouncing it with its English value.) In modern Spanish, x is used to represent the consonant cluster in words derived from Latin or Greek. Proper nouns and their derivatives are optionally allowed to break this rule. Thus, although xabón is now incorrect and archaic, alongside many millions of people called "Jiménez", there also are plenty called "Giménez" or "Ximénez" — a matter of personal choice and tradition. In Mexico, it has become almost a matter of national pride to maintain the x spelling in the name of the country. It is regarded as more authentic and less jarring to the reader's eye. Mexicans have tended to demand that other Spanish-speakers use this spelling, rather than following Spaniard rules, and the demand has largely been respected. The Real Academia Española states that both spellings are correct, and most dictionaries and guides recommend México first, and present Méjico as a variant. Today, even outside of the country, México is preferred over Méjico by ratios ranging from 15-to-1 (in Spain) to about 280-to-1 (in Costa Rica). Also, in the local placenames "Oaxaca" and "Xalapa" or former territories like "Texas"; in places like "Xochimilco", however, the x represents a . A cultural side-effect of the fact that Mexicans use México and Spaniards sometimes use Méjico to represent the same pronunciation is that the mere act of using the j spelling is interpreted by some as a form of colonial aggression. On the other hand, some Peninsular scholars (such as Ramón Menéndez Pidal) preferred to apply the general spelling rule, arguing that the spelling with an x could encourage non-native students of Spanish to mispronounce México as . In the Nahuatl language, from which the name originally derived, the name for Mexico is Mexihco (International Phonetic Alphabet ). Further reading A leftist view of Mexican history In depth information about life in Mexico, including culture, history, economy, language and more. Standard work by a renowned Mexican author. 20 essays, also covers cultural history Recent history since the Tlatelolco massacre of 1968 told by two journalists Geography, history and politics Culture and education Demographics Communications and transportation Travel Government Information about Mexico Mexican newspapers and news agencies gv:Mecsico nah:Mēxihco | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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