Thread by @AdmiralWilhelm

@FutureOnFire @livingarchitect @spaceengineer14 Thread (1/n): A little history background is needed here because it's not taught outside of Mexico. In the 19th C migration from central Europe replaced the Spanish after 1821. Starting in the 1830s French migrants came in first, followed by Italian and German migrants...

@FutureOnFire @livingarchitect @spaceengineer14 (2/n) Latin America received migration from Central Europe too. That coincided with the industrial revolution. Mexico was invaded by the French if you recall. An Austrian prince, Maximilian was installed as Emperor in the 1860s when Mexico was already a Republic ( Benito Juárez)

@FutureOnFire @livingarchitect @spaceengineer14 (3/n) The issue is that this migration after the French left accelerated toward the late 19th century. Leaders like Gen. Porfirio Díaz who fought the French became impressed by the progress brought about by Maximilian. Like Meiji in Japan, Díaz decided Mexico would modernize too

@FutureOnFire @livingarchitect @spaceengineer14 (4/n) Díaz pushed European migration further and brought rail and mining technology. Some migrants became very wealthy industrialists, Mexico accumulated a surplus of wealth and Mexico City began to look like a wealthy European capital

@FutureOnFire @livingarchitect @spaceengineer14 (4 /n) So what's the problem? The problem is inequality often along color of skin lines. These wealthy industrialists owned over 70% of the land. Wealth was not trickling down to paraphrase Reagan. The rest of Mexico looked poor. The people questioned if independence was a sham.

@FutureOnFire @livingarchitect @spaceengineer14 (5/n) Mexicans became resentful of migrants (highlight this sentence) and tensions grew exponentially as Porfirio Díaz became a dictator. This was the cause of Mexico's Civil War, "La Revolución" in 1910~20

@FutureOnFire @livingarchitect @spaceengineer14 (6/n) During the war, President Madero (left photo, assassinated in 1913) promised single term presidential elections; the last leader at the end of the war (Carranza, right photo) re-established the revised Constitution which corrected inequalities and redistributed land.

@FutureOnFire @livingarchitect @spaceengineer14 (7/n) Note these migrants who came into Mexico before the war simply had folded into the population. Traditionally in Latin American society racial mixing is acceptable since it was promoted for 300 yrs during Spanish rule. New migrants, French, German, otherwise did the same...

@FutureOnFire @livingarchitect @spaceengineer14 (8/n) So these migrants became Mexican. People from Europe continued coming in the 20th C. Communism & Spanish Civil War drove Russian, Polish and Spanish Jews into Mexico. Even Chinese and Japanese migrants ended up in Mexico. They all became Mexicans. Americans don't know this.

@FutureOnFire @livingarchitect @spaceengineer14 (9/n) With a diverse population in the first ⅓ of the 20th C, in 1932 the Constitution was amended to make it illegal for the government to classify people by race. Mexicans were Mexicans, period. But erasing race doesn't bring equality, so inequality and resentment persisted

@FutureOnFire @livingarchitect @spaceengineer14 (10/n) Fast Fwd to the 2nd half of the 20th C, and you have Mexico, industrialized with a diverse population still w/ inequalities along color of skin. People of native origin are still marginalized. There is resentment against wealthier "Europeans."

@FutureOnFire @livingarchitect @spaceengineer14 (11/n) It doesn't take a genius to figure out where the fracture lines are. Politically, this tension needs to result in change. Another thing that Americans don't know is that post NAFTA, Mexico opened up to free trade globally. That opened the floodgates of immigration again

@FutureOnFire @livingarchitect @spaceengineer14 (12/n) While Americans talked about Narcos & made movies about Mexican drug trade, in the last 20 yrs they ignored the economic growth that Mexico experienced. Somewhat similar to the 1900s you had a population growth and immigration burst. Mexico today:

@FutureOnFire @livingarchitect @spaceengineer14 (13/n) You can't have growth like this without growing pains. Like in the 1900s inequality grew between the new 2000s bourgeoisie and the poor people, often along color lines.

It is out of this political, racial and economic strain that AMLO's party "Morena" emerged.

@FutureOnFire @livingarchitect @spaceengineer14 (14/n) I think most Mexicans would agree inequalities must be erased & AMLO rode the presidential ticket on a giant wave of support (70% popular vote! ). But AMLO's govt. quickly turned dark: via intense propaganda before /during tenure he split the population along ethnic lines

@FutureOnFire @livingarchitect @spaceengineer14 (15/n) What started as a promise for equality, turned instead into a constant vilification of anyone with a "European" background who Morena ties to industry, and the unbridled capitalism (called "Neo-Liberalism" after NAFTA) which is blamed for the oppression of the Native.

@FutureOnFire @livingarchitect @spaceengineer14 (16/n) I would call AMLO's government "Technocratic Socialist" in theory, but Nationalist Populist in execution, because AMLO has developed few solutions to the strain other than driving a wedge along ethnic lines in a Trumpian styled eternal campaign.

forbes.com/sites/nathanie…

@FutureOnFire @livingarchitect @spaceengineer14 (17/n) The ethnic component of this political division is ignored in the West, simply because Mexican history/ethnography is not known (taught) outside of Mexico. But if you immerse yourself in political discussion in the media (Twitter /Facebook) you'll see troubling fractures

@FutureOnFire @livingarchitect @spaceengineer14 (18/n) Like in the US, Mexican political debates have turned toxic, increasingly using insults with hidden or explicit racial intent. The most troubling part is the president actively engaging in dog-whistle name calling... (cont'd) letraslibres.com/mexico/politic…

@FutureOnFire @livingarchitect @spaceengineer14 (19/n) This has created an extremely corrosive discourse among the population, where racial epithets are increasingly part of the debate in the social media in both directions. This from a country where racial classification (at least by the government) is forbidden since 1932.

@FutureOnFire @livingarchitect @spaceengineer14 (20/20) So now the 2nd, 3rd, 4th generation migrant in Mexico is increasingly derided by AMLO supporters as a "Fake Mexican" if you will, who doesn't have Mexico's best interest in mind. That's not very different from the way the Trump govt regards Mexican migrants, ironically

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