As an ex-pat residing in Mexico for twenty years, I second some of the comments. Most anti-Americanism I experience stems from two sources – 1.) unacknowledged and imperialistic policies from the past, that are, incredibly, unknown of by most Americans, and 2.) abject ignorance because of an inept, corrupt, and biased education system in LA.
A couple of anecdotes to make my point: Last month a group was visiting us here and as we toured the city we drove past the Convento de Churrobusco, where the US Army under Gen. Winfield Scott finished up on the Mexican Army after a two pronged invasion from the north and east in an unprovoked war instigated by southern “Filibuster” congressional agitators looking to increase slave states. Ulysses Grant, a lieutenient at the time, called it the “most shameful act” in US history, regretting his participation in it. But many US citizens. like my friends on the bus, know nothing about this war that raped mexico and stole one half of its land from them. We forget. Mexicans don’t. The mexican-American War, while a sidebar in most US history courses, is a defining event in US-Mexican relations and perspectives even today.
The other anecdote points to a hopeful solution. Here in Mexico City, there are many Chilean political refugees from the Pinochet coup d’etat. One of them is a new member of my church here. Last month she came up to me and my wife and said, “I have a testimony for you two – my husband and I were militant Communists and atheists. Because of the 1973 American imperialist participation in the golpe de estado, I hated Americans. Nobody ever would have thought, much less myself, that I would end up, as I stand here today, a new Christian, and with American pastors whom I love. Only God can do that!”
