prickly

There's just not much knowledge of Arizona in our country.

You think about Arizona and you think of the desert. What can the desert offer us?

Sergio Garcilaso, an international business professor at Panamerican University in Mexico City, commenting back in February in the Arizona Republic about the chasm of indifference that exists between Arizona and Mexico.

The piece made an effort to encourage economic activity between Arizona and Mexico -- and to point out to Arizonans the advantages of paying more attention to Mexico as a whole country, rather than banking on its relationship with Sonora alone:

For years, Arizona has tied its economic development with Mexico to that of neighboring Sonora, a sparsely populated state that accounts for only 2.3 percent of Mexico's 103 million people and 2.6 percent of its gross domestic product.

This would be the same state of Sonora that just boycotted their annual trade meeting with Arizona for the first time in 50 years. They did so in protest over “the country’s most retrogressive, mean-spirited and useless anti-immigrant law” -- as it was called by the Archbishop of L.A. (according to the Economist).

Noticeably, there was very little headline coverage of Mexican President Calderon's denouncement of the law in U.S. papers, even though the International press gave it full spread attention. The Guardian is just one example »

Criminalising immigration -- which is a social and economic phenomenon -- this way opens the door to intolerance, hate, discrimination and abuse in law enforcement. My government cannot and will not remain indifferent when these kinds of policies go against human rights.

-- Mexico's President Felipe Calderon