Is Mexico part of North America or Central America?

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

I think foreigners are best able to discern the various Mexican influences in the US, as Americans are unusually capable of pronouncing Spanish words, have remarkable familiarity with Mexican food and frequently vacation there, just as British people do in Spain.

If this influence is substantial, it is far stronger in the other direction. American culture is omnipresent in the typical Mexican city, which can be seen in brands of beer in "Oxxos", endless American fast food chains, the striking number of American football jerseys one sees in the streets etc. In any given ordinary Mexican family, a fair number of men who are over the age of 40 will have worked in the US at some point and just as many live in the United States today. Last, in places like Chihuahua or Monterrey, it is (was?) very common for more affluent families to shop in the US, just as Americans cross the border to buy prescription drugs. For this reason, there is a great deal of familiarity with American culture that does not exist in the same way anywhere else in Latin America.

To give more personal examples, I have a cousin whose career involves hauling migrant workers or cars from Mexico to the United States. I have another cousin who emigrated to the US and I have many distant relatives who emigrated to the US. Many of my relatives have lived in the US for a significant period of time. This is basically parallel to the Polish experience in Britain or the experience of Greeks in Germany. In the same way that these countries are "European", Mexico and the United States are North American.