Mexico Hits Sour Note With THIS American!

This just about takes the cake for me. We know all-too-well how Vicente Fox LOVES American money, and wants nothing more than fully open borders. His government encourages their people to "go to America, prosper and send back the money!," all the while our country is growing weaker and weaker due to the border control issues.

Then I read an article in last Sunday's Atlanta Journal Constitution (known locally better as the "Al Jazeera Constitution" or the "Atlanta Journal Constipation") about the Mexican government's feelings of "Mexican-American influence" in their country. Que pasa en este pais?

According to the article, they have a little bit of trepidation about U.S. influence in their country and this truly confounds me. They damn sure don't mind sharing their Mexican influence all over the friggin' United States, and even laud it!

Here's the absurdity, in toto, for those of you who do not want to register for the AJC to read the article (check out bugmenot.com to learn how to get around this for just about every online newspaper)

Band hits sour note with Mexico
Susan Ferriss -
Cox International Correspondent
Sunday, October 9, 2005

Mexico City --- Most members of the bilingual band Kumbia Kings carry U.S. passports, but as a manager of the musicians put it, "they pretty much work, eat and breathe Mexico." So when the Tex-Mex group appeared on a nationally televised Mexican talk show last month --- with a guitar emblazoned with the colors and symbols of Mexico's national flag --- they thought it would be clear the guitar was a gesture of pride in their Mexican heritage.

Wrong.

Since that fateful mid-September appearance, bass guitarist A.B. Quintanilla III, brother of the late singer Selena, and the rest of the Kings have been answering to news reports here that the Mexican government took offense at the guitar.

Somebody in the bowels of an obscure sub-agency called the Department of Civic Promotion saw the Kings play on television and decided the guitar violated Mexico's law on protection of national symbols.

Not only that, an agency spokesman confirmed someone in this same department concluded the guitar violated two international treaties, including something called the Treaty of Paris on trademark protection.

The violation could result in a letter of complaint from Mexico to the U.S. State Department, or a fine levied against the band.

"Wow . . . really?" is all band assistant Bert Trevino could say at first when he was reached at his McAllen, Texas, home and informed that the band had struck a sour note with the bureaucracy. "A.B. loves Mexico, man. He didn't do it to disrespect anybody," a dumbfounded Trevino added.

The Kumbia Kings are developing a huge following among Latinos in the United States and in Latin America, where they travel this weekend to play in Bolivia. Next week they are scheduled to play at least three sold-out shows in Mexico City.

Unwittingly, the band also seems to have wandered into the thorny divide between officialdom in Mexico City and the culture of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans who live in the United States.

Some Mexican officials have trouble coming to terms with mounting U.S. influence in Mexico, including that of Mexican-Americans. (well, isn't that a coincidence? we have a HUGE problem coming to terms with the mounting Mexican influence in the U.S.!!!)

"You must always keep in mind we have a hate-love relationship with the United States. We want the business, but there is resentment, too," said Rossana Fuentes, who has explored the U.S.-Mexico relationship as deputy director of Foreign Affairs magazine in Spanish.

She called the flap over the flag on the guitar "stupid." "Who's minding the shop over there? What kind of a priority is that?" she asked of the Secretariat of Government.

In another example of discomfort, Mexico's Congress voted this year to allow potentially hundreds of thousands of Mexicans abroad --- in the United States, mainly --- to vote in the July 2006 presidential election. But the Congress and elections officials also barred candidates from campaigning or giving interviews on foreign soil.

Presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador chose to cancel an appearance in Los Angeles rather than risk being fined or disqualified for making a campaign-related stop abroad.

The Kumbia Kings also drew heat recently when they played at a rally in Coahuila state for a gubernatorial candidate from Mexico's National Action Party. The opposing Institutional Revolutionary Party filed a complaint with election officials that the Kings had broken a law prohibiting foreigners from involvement in politics.

"We're just trying to make a living. We're not for anyone in politics," said David "Chocolate" Martinez, the Kings' road manager.

The Kings have been hired to play at other political events for other political parties in Mexico, he said, but won't do it again.

The Mexican government has taken on Mexican artists, too, for alleged abuse of national symbols. Pop star Luis Miguel was told to remove a flag design from a CD cover, and a mariachi singer was fined $45 last year for muffing the national anthem at a soccer game. A Mexican poet could face jail because he's been accused of violating the honor of the flag for writing a poem about cleaning up urine with it.

Quintanilla has decided to remove the flag symbols from his guitar, but band members still can't understand how anyone would think what they were doing was an offense.

"We're proud of where our ancestors came from," manager Martinez said in a phone interview in Mexico City before departing for Bolivia. "When A.B. puts something on his guitar, he puts something on it that is dear to him."

Okay, am I the only one who thinks this is even slightly hypocritical? They are worried about U.S., or "American" influence intertwining with their own Mexican national culture? Who in the hell are they to even judge that, when it seems that every time we try to do some thing to enforce the laws of OUR country and protect our borders, we're called racist bigots, and Mexico threatens us with their Army's presence at our borders? Hell, after reading this article, I'm ready to go join the Minuteman Project myself! What gall!

Or in other words, "No puedo creer que grande son los cojones del gobierno de Mexico!"

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