TheLoop21.com

By: Brooklyne Gipson (Add to your loop)
Thu, 04/16/2009 - 14:45

Obama traveled to Mexico Thursday, as towns like Rosarito are hurting from curtailed travel due to drug violence.

"America para los americanos," or "America for the Americans," is a popular slogan that characterizes the resentment Latin Americans hold toward the United States. While it sounds inclusive and invokes images of a common destiny, the term in Spanish translates literally to "America (the continent) for the United States," and expresses criticism that the United States has allowed the Monroe Doctrine to turn into justification for dominating the Western Hemisphere.

President Barack Obama hopes to change this attitude. (Read about his efforts to be inclusive at home.)

Obama traveled to Mexico's capital Thursday to speak with its president, Felipe Calderon, about the increase in drug-related violence in Mexico that is spilling into the United States.

The situation on the border and in Mexico City has reached a crisis level. Just hours before Obama's plane landed, more than 16 people were killed in a shootout between Mexican troops and a group of gunmen, just one example of the many gun battles Obama and Calderon hope to end — together.

The visit, which marks the first time in recent memory that a U.S. president has traveled to the dangerous capital city, also symbolizes Obama's desire to change the tide of more than 100 years of bad blood between us and our neighbor to the south.

Obama has already told CNN en Espanol he sees the United States and Mexico as partners on the issue — a novel attitude in a relationship that has been marred by the remnants of the Monroe Doctrine, a policy instituted to protect Latin America from colonization of the British.

This visit is the first in a series of appearances in Latin American countries where Obama will attempt to improve perception of the United States. The president is expected to travel to Trinidad and Tobago Friday for the Summit of the Americas.

Brooklyne Gipson is a staff writer for TheLoop21.com. She writes the Across the Afrosphere and Post-Race? blogs.