I’m surprised they’re surprised.

I’m always surprised when U.S. press reports discover Mexicans and Mexican-Americans are different people, with different political and historical perspectives. Take these startling statistics from a Pew Global Attitudes Survey, as analyzed by Richard S. Dunham, of the Houston Chronicle.

· Only 17 percent of Mexicans think the United States influences their country in a positive way. One in five Mexicans think the U.S. influences their economy for the better.

· About half of Mexicans think of the U.S. as a partner; 31 percent consider America an enemy.

· 47 percent of Mexicans have a positive view of the United States, down from 68 percent a decade ago. Nearly half of that decline — 9 percentage points — came since last year, when an anti-immigrant backlash in America inflamed some residents of Mexico.

· Just 16 percent of Mexicans have confidence in President Bush, a former border state governor who professes great affection for Mexico.

· Among all the countries surveyed, Mexico was more skeptical of the two candidates for president than any outside the Muslim world.

· 19 percent respond favorably to Republican contender John McCain.

· Only 29 percent of Mexicans have confidence in Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama,

· Just 37 percent of Mexican citizens think that the new president will change U.S. foreign policy for the better, the survey said — one of the most pessimistic assessments in the world.

· The harshly negative Mexican perceptions of McCain are particularly surprising because the Arizona senator has consistently won a majority of Mexican-American votes in his statewide races. What’s more, he was the primary Republican sponsor of comprehensive immigration legislation that would have given illegal workers a pathway to eventual U.S. citizenship.

As a whole, the findings are a more extreme than I thought, but not all that surprising.

Given George W. Bush’s propensity for making promises that are never carried out (otherwise known as “lying”) — medical aid to Central America, for one, and the deep distrust caused by “Plan Merida” (the “war on (some) drug dealers” has never enjoyed complete support from the people, and the ham-handed approach taken by the United States Senate to “helping” Mexico has only made relations worse), Bush’s low ratings are to be expected.

When the U.S. launched its offensive against Iraq, there was a sour joke in Mexico to the effect that this country also had a lot of oil and a crappy army. Were we next? Mexican foreign policy since Benito Juarez has been grounded in non-intervention and neutrality. There was no backing, officially or on the streets, for Mexican involvement. Attempts to force Mexican diplomats at the United Nations (at the time, Mexico was on the Security Council) to give a green light for this invasion had huge political consequences here. I still remember Vicente Fox, who was bed-ridden after serious back surgery, having to go on television to assure the nation that Mexico had no intention of backing something over 95% of the populace opposed. It was a bit surreal, Fox was probably in bed, but he appeared on screen in front of a computer generated desk, sitting in his office at Los Pinos.

For whatever reason, the U.S. intervention in Iraq also kicked off a anti-Mexican and xenophobic campaign, the likes of which I’d never seen. I’ve read about it, but the Mexican-American War seems a little distant to most people north of the border. Here, it’s still very real: not that Mexican expect to re conquer the territory (in all my time in Mexico, I’ve only seen one mention of the “lost territories”, and that was from a very tiny student group that seemed to have ties to some tiny U.S. group and was somehow supporting the Zapatistas, which are more or less irrelevant in Mexican politics to begin with).

Actions speak louder than words. Even the “sane” discourse on immigration was not well received in the Republic. Abuses against Mexican nationals, coupled with things like the State of Texas’ insistence on executing criminals (Mexico sees itself as a civilized nation, and the there is very little support for a death penalty, even though the idea is floating now and again), which President Fox cited when canceling a state visit to the United States, have done nothing to improve relations.

And then there’s NAFTA. Certainly well-read people can find some overall benefits to NAFTA, but people think with their pocketbook, and their stomach. Food prices have shot up since January, and NAFTA is blamed. More than NAFTA, U.S. corporations are blamed. The “official” government line is that the food price rise is not due to NAFTA, but the “official” government was only the choice of a third of the voters in the last election. Two-thirds opted for candidates who wanted to make changes or delay implementation of the agricultural rules that are now blamed for the price hikes.

Finally, maybe it’s not noticed in the United States, but the War, Bush’s inept foreign policy, to say nothing of his domestic programs, destroyed U.S. prestige everywhere. That the U.S. depends on Mexican oil (and narcotics) but pays no attention to that fact, instead focusing on Mexico’s supposed need to sell more oil to the U.S. and “do something” about the narcotics supply, while at the same time attempting to penetrate even further into the Mexican domestic economy, are not going to make the country — and its leaders — particularly well liked.

The “explanation” of McCain’s low rating is what surprised me. Not the findings, but the assumption that because Mexican-American voters presumably thought a certain way, Mexicans will think the same way. While a lot of second, third, tenth generation Mexican-Americans are used to the absurd assumption that they’ll speak Spanish (an assumption we don’t make about other ethnic groups. No one expects me to speak German, or have much interest in German politics, just because I had some relations who spoke that language at one time), there is also the assumption that people separated politically and economically are going to share the same values, based on… ancestry?

Even if you are talking about first generation Mexican-Americans, you would assume that people who emigrated to a foreign country had some sympathy for, or were willing to accept, the values of the new country. The United States, and the borderlands in particular, are extremely conservative areas, with a strong libertarian streak. While you see the signs of cantakerousness in northern Mexico, norteños — while they tend to vote for conservatives — have the same “Mexican values” as everyone else in the country.  Mexican voters are generally not pro-military, whereas borderlands Mexican-American voters often are, or come from families with a tradition of military service.  In the U.S. “Socialist” is a dirty word… in Mexico, it’s a political platform.  Even the conservative, “family values” PAN voters support state intervention in the economy, and entitlement programs (they just have different ideas about who should be entitled, or what they should be entitled to).

Nor do “issues” that are paramount in U.S. elections play much role in Mexican politics.  A politician’s family life is almost never mentioned, and — while it is somewhat changing — religiousity only plays a small part with one PAN wing’s politics.  In Jalisco, where the governor’s generosity to the Church is a major issue, support from the Church, rather than his public piety,  was more important in his election.  Odd things like a candidate’s opinions on the theory of evolution would never even be raised.  His or her attitude on oil privatization or promises to cut or increase funding for schools, but now what they personally think.  I have no idea what Arizona’s Mexican-American voters think about John McCain, but whatever it is, probably wouldn’t even be a factor if he was running as a PAN Senate candidate in Sonora.  Or for President of the Republic.

There seems to be an assumption that Mexicans are following all the nuances of every rhetorical statement a U.S. politician makes about immigration. Of course not. No more than the U.S. press covered, say, every policy statement by Felipe Calderon before he was a candidate (or even after) was covered by the U.S. press. And, remember, in U.S. coverage of the last Mexican election, the “conventional wisdom” in the U.S. press was that Calderon was the candidate matching U.S. values. Nope, there was no reason the Mexican press would have paid particular attention to John McCain until recently. Obama receives much more coverage, just being a different sort of candidate, and because he’s assumed to be the next U.S. President. Doesn’t mean the Mexican press (or the Mexican people) see him as necessarily good for Mexico, or anything else. A large percentage of Mexicans think he’ll be worse than even Bush. One of tomorrow’s “Sunday Readings” links to article mentioning some Latin American concerns about Obama.