I had been hoping for several comments on my post last week about whether our state’s name — New Mexico — has been a hindrance to its development and success compared to other states.
I was disappointed that I received only one response, from a very dear friend who agreed with me that the name New Mexico might have been a factor in limiting progress of “The Land of Enchantment.”
“I too have wondered if the name New Mexico has hindered our progress and development compared to neighboring states,” he said. He mentioned an incident at a Mountain West basketball tournament several years ago when fans of the University of Utah held up a sign which said “Old or new, it’s still Mexico.”
There was also a controversial t-shirt sold by Abercrombie and Fitch in the early 2000s which said “New Mexico — cleaner than the Old Mexico.” Not exactly a ringing endorsement. Another company is still offering them for sale, and if you’re interested, you can find them on the internet.
At any rate, I was hoping for more comments from my readers, but it appears I have been “silenced as a lamb” (Okay, I’ve earned the right to use a few bad puns). However, you still have time to comment and I hope you do. You can either e-mail me directly or post it on the website.
There were a couple of interesting things about the post, however. The first was that the original post only stayed up for a few hours. I had to recreate it and post it again on Sunday. Was it censorship from a Mexican anti-defamation group? And then I noticed on my website host page that the post had been viewed more than just about any other post I’ve written. The website lists what country the viewers are from and if you guessed they were from Mexico, you’d be wrong. Nope — there were 41 views from Canada. Go figure.
aero-cordero.com 
I’m sorry that I failed to post the comment rattling around in my head when your post came out. It was something to the effect that if there is a problem with the name, it is doubly so for where we live, here on the southern border squashed up against, and about to be enveloped by, (old) Mexico and west Texas.
Both southern New Mexico and west Texas are largely irrelevant to the rest of our respective states. People in Albuquerque and Santa Fe are hard pressed to identify Socorro, let alone Las Cruces. I dare say El Paso, Midland – Odessa and Lubbock are equally foreign to most residents of central and east Texas.
I’ve long mooted the idea that southern NM and west Texas should succeed from our respective states and escape our absentee and neglectful masters in Santa Fe and Austin. A new state – to include of course the Permian Basin with its oilfields – would be called… There I go blank.
I’ve yet to come up with any combination of the two state’s names that seems clever, or more to Pat’s point, marketable. ‘New Texas’, ‘Mextex’, ‘Texden’, ‘Newtex’, ‘Hot, Hot, Hot, all look and sound awful. The best I can think of (only just now as I’m writing this) is Rio Grande.- RG would be a fine state abbreviation for my address…but could we sell it?
Other, better ideas?
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Since you raised the issue again, I offer additional thoughts of mine. Wallet Hub surveys usually have the state or Albuquerque ranked low. Those make me wonder where we would be without all the help from the federal government. How well have we done on our own? I also believe that we lack pride in our state. Streets and highways littered with all kinds of trash. Laziness and lack of ambition contributes to under achievement, in my view of course. We need direction away from the lowest common denominator. Someday I’ll tell you about my very radical idea.
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How radical can it be? Let’s hear it,
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After a long chat with my American-Mexican barber, Hector we came up with another name for the new state – Southwest or South West. It is easy and has none of the baggage that RG brings with it.
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