Why do Jewish Mexicans (ancestors not from Mezo America) act like they are more Mexican than Mexican Americans (ancestors are from Mezo America and born and raised in the United Sates, northern America)?
Huh? Are you suggesting everyone living in Mexico that is not indigenous is Jewish??
Moderating: I don’t think this is a reaction to any particular one of Cecil’s columns, but is more of a general question. Since there’s probably not a factual answer, I’m moving this to the IMHO forum.
Because it doesn’t matter where your ancestors were from; the only thing that matters is your own national identity. And it certainly has nothing to do with being Jewish (there have been Jews in Mexico for centuries).
How exactly do you know enough Jewish Mexicans to be able to make that kind of statement? About one Mexican in 2000 is Jewish. (In contrast, something like one or two Americans in 100 are Jewish.)
Guilt 
This OP is seriously intriguing me - I was not aware that there were that many Jewish Mexicans to begin with. What is this all about? I hope I can bump this so it gets some more replies.
In my years at The Dope, this is the most interesting OP I’ve EVER seen. It opens up new worlds to me and I cannot wait to see what falls out of this kosher pinata.
Well, I know a guy who works for a kosher food conglomerate, and he recently went down to Mexico City to supervise the opening of a matzo factory.
Which has nothing to do with anything, really, but hey, as long as we’re talking about Mexican Jews, I thought I’d share.
I call Zev’s Law on the OP!
Waiting for the standard “the exception is the norm” post that usually accompanies all of these: e.g. “I know plenty of Jewish Mexicans, and none of them act in the least bit Mexican. In fact, all the ones I know act like they’re Canadian. One I know does a mean Geddy Lee impression.”
There are Mexican Jews? Who knew? Haven’t ever heard of that before.
Seems to me that carnitas would be problematic…
How does one “act Mexican” anyway?
If I’m parsing the question correctly, my answer would be that Jewish-Mexicans are more Mexican than Mexican-Americans. A Mexican-American is fundamentally an American while a Jewish-Mexican is fundamentally a Mexican.
Though your interpretation of the OP sounds reasonable, I debate whether one can be a Mexican-American.
Mexico is already American. Mexican-Canadian perhaps, Canada is a country. Used correctly though, the terminology seems to be Continent-Continent, not country-xxx
Now we’re not only forming hyphenated ancestral links by continents but by religion-continent. That’s a sign that things are getting out of hand.
Your theory has a flaw: French-Canadians. France isn’t a continent. It’s not even as big as Texas (but then, as I’m required by law to mention once every 36 seconds: Texas is very big. So big, it was its own country for a while. :D)
But yeah, just as I’ve heard of (and am related to, and am one myself) Mexican-Americans, there are also Anglo-Americans (Anglo traditionally refers to England, though now it is American shorthand for “White”), Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans, etc.
Also, Jewish is a funny thing in sociological classification, in that it is both a religion and an ethnicity. You might recall a few countries way back in the day by the names of Israel and Judea (Judea, of course, is where we get “Jude” and “Jews” from as a name for people tracing back to those places). There is also an Israel today, largely populated by Jewish people, but it’s not relevant to the naming convention. For various reasons though, it’s less comon in my experience to hear them referred to hyphenetically, but rather to attach their nationality to “Jew”, ie: German Jews, Polish Jews, American Jews, and one exception I’ve heard of, Jewish Danes (in reference to the aided exodus of something like 8,000 of the Danish Jews into Sweden before they could be rounded up by the Nazis)
Your ‘debate’ is nothing more than a pedantic and tiresome rehashing of a purposeful confusion as to what ‘American’ means. In this context, it’s clear that ‘American’ is referring to the residents of the United States of America, and not to any continent or continental group.
Sorry but your argument is simply wrong.
Estados Unidos Mexicanos. Do you see the word America anywhere in there?
United States of America. It’s right there. It’s the only country in the world that has America in its name. People living in America are Americans the same way people living in Japan are Japanese or people living in France are French. Or people living in Mexico are Mexicans.
You don’t hear us complaining about how Mexico stole the Estados Unidos idea from us do you?
Yep. If the FRCA had lasted it might be a different argument ( and altogether more confusing ), but as it stands “American” works pretty well as a descriptor for a citizen of the USA.
ETA: But enough hijacking, let’s get back to those Jewish-Mexicans :p.
Hey, I knew a Mexican Jew, once! Well…half Jewish. And she didn’t strike me as uber-stereotypically Mexican. But I guess there have to be exceptions to the rule. Then again, I don’t think I ever saw her interacting with Mexican-Americans…maybe when she did she really upped the ante by bringing out the sombrero and Mariachi music just to prove to them that she was the real Mexican in those parts…
I really hope the OP comes back and tells us what he/she is talking about.
I have close relatives who are Mexican Jews - my aunt, who was raised Irish-American Catholic, married a Mexican Jew, converted to Judaism, and has lived in Mexico City for the last 35 years or so. Her husband’s parents emigrated from Poland to the US originally, but for some reason ended up in Mexico (they aren’t MY relatives, I’m not sure why) and lived the rest of their lives there. So their kids were born there and my cousins were born and raised in Mexico City, although none of my Mexican cousins currently live in Mexico.
I’ve found that my Mexican cousins sometimes seem to try a little harder because people don’t believe that they’re Mexican. Because they’re white. And their last name is Polish-Jewish and not Spanish. They’re very patriotic Mexicans, though, and when the eldest of them turned 18, he had to choose a citizenship and he picked Mexico, losing his American citizenship. (A few months later, Mexico changed its laws to allow dual citizenship, he reapplied for American citizenship and is now a dual citizen again.)
I’ve been told straight out by a Mexican-American friend that my cousins ARE NOT Mexicans because they aren’t Mestizos like he is - even though they, unlike he, are actually citizens of Mexico and carry Mexican passports. So it’s easy for me to imagine people of non-Mestizo backgrounds “acting” Mexican more to prove their patriotism.
But I doubt it’s because they’re Jews. That doesn’t really make any sense to me.