Shortly before leaving office, Mexican President Felipe
Canderón sent to the Mexican legislature a proposal to amend the state’s
constitution by renaming the country “Mexico,” from the “United Mexican States.”
His rationale was that Mexico didn’t need “a name that emulates another country
and which none of us Mexicans uses on a day-to-day basis.” Indeed, the
emulation evinces a category mistake in that it treats what was province in an
empire, that of New Spain, as an empire.
