The 2007 Miss Universe pageant, held this month in Mexico City, is now over. Miss Japan won. Congratulations, Miss Japan.
Miss U.S.A., Rachel Smith, was booed by Mexican audiences on two separate occasions. The first was on May 20th, at an outdoor venue, when each contestant wore some sort of national costume—Miss U.S.A. had on an Elvis costume, complete with guitar. The second was on the final night, May 28th.
According to an article in El Universal, Miss Mexico, Rosa Maria Ojeda, “…attributed it to the tension over migratory matters and said that she spoke with Smith to explain it to her and that [Miss Smith] perfectly understood the situation.”
El Universal’s gloss:
“Relations between Mexico and the U.S. have worsened in the past year after the border was reinforced with agents of the National Guard that have helped to erect hundreds of thousands of kilometers of fencing to keep out the illegals who attempt to cross over from Mexico.”
“Hundreds of thousands of kilometers?” That’s an enormous exaggeration of course. But the bottom line: for Mexico, one kilometer of fencing would be too much.
And get a load of this part:
“Mexicans are also bothered by the radical immigration reform proposed by the [U.S.] Senate that would make it difficult to maintain family ties, to limit to 40,000 the quantity of visas that are granted and to change the system of preferences that for four decades, [ i. e., since the Immigration Act Of 1965] has favored these [family] ties.”
There you have it. Even the Senate Sellout is not good enough, is it? As I’ve pointed out elsewhere, nothing but open borders and full benefits for all Mexicans is sufficient. As for “family ties,” Mexican families could all stay together by just staying in Mexico!
Mega-plutocrat Donald Trump is the owner of the pageant. But a Trump official downplayed these ugly incidents, explaining that it was just a protest against American policies and not Miss Smith personally.
The official did not even discount having the contest in Mexico City again. The pageant was previously held in Mexico City was in 1993—and guess what? Miss U.S.A. was booed then too!
A protest against American policies—or against America?
This sort of thing regularly happens at international soccer matches, as I’ve pointed out before. Mexican soccer fans have booed the U.S. National Anthem and even chanted “Osama.”
What’s telling is not so much that it happens—but that fact that there’s so little condemnation of it in Mexico.
In contrast, what would have happened if an American crowd watching the pageant in a U.S. city had booed Miss Mexico?
Sure, there are rude people everywhere. But part of civilized society is making clear we don’t approve of such behavior.
I recall an incident back in my small high school in Oklahoma, when I was Student Council president my senior year. We had some rude behavior at a school assembly. It was actually rather mild behavior, even by the standards of those days. Nevertheless, I was asked to write a newspaper editorial condemning it. After all, we couldn’t have the Student Council president tacitly approving of hooliganism, could we?
Some Mexican voices who condemned the booing included Marta Debayle, radio talk show hostess. Mexican columnist Tere Quezada wrote an article entitled “Los Chilangos y su deplorable educacion” in which she rebuked her fellow countrymen for booing Miss U.S.A:
…the eternal, boring, and weary litany that the U.S. stole Mexico’s territories, and all the possible pretexts….such as Yankee imperialism….that they (Americans) are responsible for all the problems of this country…are reason enough to insult whatever gringo that treads Aztec territory, even if she is a beauty pageant contestant….
And the coverage on the El Universal website was sympathetic to Miss U.S.A.
But overall, there was certainly no great outcry over it.
The administration of President Felipe Calderon wants us to amnesty illegal aliens, allow in more guest workers, and finance economic development in Mexico. But neither he nor anyone in his government criticized the booing.
It’s not the Mexican government’s job to get mixed up in a beauty pageant, you think? Well, then why were all the Miss Universe contestants invited to visit Los Piños (the Mexican White House) and to have dinner with Mexican First Lady Margarita Zavala?
Couldn’t Mrs. Calderon, who had dined with all the girls, have spoken out about it?
Shouldn’t Miss Mexico, as the host countrycontestant, have spoken up more forcefully about it?
Couldn’t some Mexican beauty pageant officials or some Mexican celebrity have spoken out about it?
Well sure, they could have, but they didn’t. They never do.
And that’s what’s particularly bothersome. Prominent Mexicans don’t seem to care about rude treatment of Americans or open anti-Americanism. But they constantly demand more and more rights for Mexicans in our country—even when they enter illegally.
If Mexican leaders want to forge a new relationship with the U.S., wouldn’t some consideration of our feelings be in order?
Are U.S.-Mexican relations just a one-way street? ■