SAN FRANCISCO — Last week, after Mexicans elected Vicente Fox their new president, a U.S. journalist gushed: "The Cactus Wall has fallen."
In more ways than one, I'd say. For what we are witnessing in Mexico is also apparent throughout the United States. The line separating "us" from "ellos" is blurring.
Consider Mexico: Not so long ago, Mexicans would refer to citizens of the United States as norteamericanos. But then the North American Free Trade Agreement forced Mexicans to look at the map: Mexico is a North American country.
Last week, Fox appeared on U.S. television, wearing a Reaganesque grin. He urged the formation of a "common market" of Mexico and its fellow North American neighbors. He made the suggestion in English.
Fox speaks fluent English. He's not the first Mexican president to do so. But he is the first to be so unguarded. (Earlier presidents, for reasons of Mexican pride, were more cautious about speaking English in public.)
Last week, while Fox was holding an unprecedented bilingual press conference in Mexico City, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, on a swing through California, was insisting to audiences that the GOP has corazon, and Vice President Al Gore was mocking his Republican rival for promising voters only palabras.
Clearly, some change is going on--on both sides of the border. Mexico is becoming North Americanized. The United States is becoming--what shall we say?--Latinized.
Because, in centuries past, a large part of the United States was ruled by Spain, then Mexico, it is perhaps ludicrous to speak of the Latinization of the United States today as something "new." Yet, of course, it is.
England and Spain left more of their mark on the New World than any other European countries. But they were Renaissance rivals. Antagonism marked the borders that separated each culture from the other. To this day, one hears of cafeteria battles between "Hispanic" and "Anglo" high school students, proxies in a sea battle between the Spanish armada and Queen Elizabeth's navy.
But now, a change. Mexico's new president carries an English surname and is not shy about his knowledge of English. Texas, a state with a long history of friction between Tex and Mex, has a governor who is not shy about his Spanish fluency and has Mexican in-laws.
Pity the nativists on both sides of the border!
