Boom towns appeared almost overnight: Cananea, for example, in the northern state of Sonora, was a village of a hundred people in 1891; by 1906 it was a bustling mining center of some twenty-five thousand people, producing 10 percent of Mexico’s mineral output. ..…

one might be tempted to sniff out hint of condescension to Latin America. ..…

No doubt this must have influenced the decision to designate these two of the only three “partner nations” (the third is Poland) to receive “flexible lines of credit” from the IMF (that is, they receive money that doesn’t count as a loan; in the case of Mexico, $47.3 billion).  . And..…