Mexico City
Mexican politicians want to change their country’s name. Congressmen have launched a campaign to drop the official appellation, the United Mexican States, and simply call the nation Mexico. The formal name was chosen at independence in 1824, partly to reflect respect for the country’s neighbor to the north, the United States of America. That fondness dwindled, however, beginning in the 1840s, when the U.S. took half of Mexico’s territory. Then America grew into a superpower, leaving many Mexicans feeling lost in its shadow. “Maybe we should just erase ‘Mexico’ and keep ‘United States,’” historian Lorenzo Meyer told The New York Times. “That’s the sad truth: We are an extension of that country.”
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