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To see outselves as others see us…

7 April 2024

Nellie Bly, the 19th century sometime muckraker, sometime travel writer, published her “Six Months in Mexico”, in 1886, an account of her (well, duh…) six months poking around the country and the capital, exploring not just the sites, but about the “expats” of her day:

Tourists are still flocking to Mexico, many with business intentions, and the United States at present is as well represented as any other foreign country. Yankees are looked on favorably by some of the better and more educated class of Mexicans, but others still retain their old prejudices. However, one can hardly blame them, for, barring a few, the American colony is composed of what is not considered the better class of people at home. They have come down here, got positions away above their standing, and consequently feel their importance; they are more than offensive, they are insulting in their actions and language toward the natives, and endeavor to run things. The natives offer no objections to others coming here and making fortunes in their land, but they have lived their own free and easy life and they do not propose to change it, any more than we would change if a small body of Mexicans would settle in our country; and we would quickly annihilate them if they would offer us the indignities the Americans subject them to here.

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