Evening star., 1938-04-28
MEXICO 0RECARDED
AS SSEM|-COL0N|AL
NeighborIy Feeling Is Held
Hardly Possible Under
Circumstances.
Third OF a series.)
BY DUNCAN AIKMAN,

f7Hrd OF SerieSJ
BY DUNCAN AIKMAN,
Correspondent of the New York Post.
MEXICO CITY, April % (by maiD
--MeXico's capacity to muddy the wa
ters of our good neighbor policy in
Latin America goes back to the funda-
mentals of neighborly discord.
We and the MeXicans live next door
to each other But we don't keep
house the same way. We eat different
foods, keep different hours. raise ba-
bies differently We have different
ideas of how to have a good time and
what to do with our money. We have
different ethical standards and don't
share the same emotional excitements.
On the whole, although there are in
dlvidual exceptions, we even speak
each others languages with extraor-
dlnary infelicity
The good neighbor policy begins,
that is to say, with both us and the
MeXiCans feeling that We are living
next door to those queer foreigners"
Queer Foreigners"
Worse still, both breeds of queer
foreigners" are continually in and out
of each others houses.
Members Of Uncle Sans family are
continually going into MeXico's estab-
hShment, complaining that this and
that isn't being done as it should be,
explaining in loud and positive tones
how things should be run, taking over
large parts of the front and back yards
and the workshops to administer them
better-and collecting money for it.
A'so, whenever and wherever in Mex
ice one of these works of criticism,
admonition or reorganization is ac-
COmpllshed some American is in
varlably present to boast that he and
his race have conferred great benefac-
tons on Mexico.
Mexican visitors who have had the
run of the American establishment
have not, on the other hand, found
the nelghborly status particularly more
entiClng. Those who have come, like
the overwhelming majority have, as
unskilled laborers have found them
selves Disseminated against socially
and in the wage market. segregated in
their living conditions and not lnfre-
ouen.ly pushed around by the police
and local authorities as inferior and
undesirable intruders.
Mexicans Feel Selves Bossed.
In any case, the feeling of the
Americans that they are conferrlng
vast benefactlons on an incompetent
and unappreciatlve nation of biological
interiors, and the feeling of the Mexi-
cans that they are being bossed
around, condescended to and under
paid, if not actually cheated, for their
work and their national resources by a
horde OF unsympathetic invaders,
hardly makes for affectionate neigh
borly feeling.
The MeXicans, in fact, do not think
OF their relationship as neighborly at
all. On the contrary. l have found
during a nearly two weeks visit here
that the Mexicans have word for it.
In relation to the United States. they
call Mexico a semi colonial state.
1t is phrase you hear hissed at you
in various keys from resignation to
hostility all the way from the upper
intellectual strait at the Mexico City
foreign office down to the near-illiter-
acy levels of the Mexican labor move
ment.
SemiColonial Status.
These being some of the emotional
factors in the situation. it is fair to
predict that Mexico will never be
happy as a neighbor until she gets her
seml-colOnlal status removed.
Mexico. to put it coldly, doesn't care
two Whoops how many marines we pull
out OF Haiti on Nicaragua, or how
much our generalizations in favor of
a concord of Western Hemisphere
oemocracies impress Quito or Buenos
Aires.
What she wants is to get her own
neighborly relations with the United
States shaken down to a point where
1t Is no longer poisoned with eco
nomic penetration and the condescen-
sions Of invaders who approach her
problems with all the diplomacy of
landlords with a millionaire settle
ment worker complex.
tCopyright. 1888, by New York Evening