Recreating Main Street: Midcentury U.S. Expatriate Soft Power in the Heart of Mexico, 1930-1980

The American Colonists of Mexico City were used as conduits of and representatives for U.S. foreign policy and U.S. corporate influence in post WWII Mexico in a reconfiguration of the Good Neighbor policy. By using soft power to attract and persuade, privileged American colonists engaged in charity work, participated in grass roots cultural diplomacy, and people-to-people exchange to shape Mexican’s perceptions of what the United States represented in opposition to the Soviet Union. U.S. American organizations such as the American Society of Mexico touted members of the American Colony as good consumers, strong cold warriors, and a group of people who readily absorbed and disseminated a brand of U.S. culture that reinforced unity and conformity to western democratic values. Likewise, the American colonists viewed themselves as having a moral obligation as U.S. Americans to spread U.S. values and influence Mexicans against communism. They believed their mission as moral secular saviors in Mexico involved “redeeming” poor Mexicans and enveloping Mexico into the economic and diplomatic orbit of the United States. Overall, this study sheds light on issues such as the nature of expatriates in mid-twentieth century Mexico, one that is not always black and white, but is more nuanced and complicated, and incorporates topics related to transnationalism, cross-cultural exchange, Cold War rhetoric, soft power, public and cultural diplomacy, and U.S. post and neo-colonialism