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 News from Around the Americas | July 2005 
U.S.-Mexico Stamp Controversy Deepens
 Mark Stevenson - Associated Press
| | Hundreds of people line up for hours at Mexico City's main post office on Friday, July 1, 2005, to buy Memin Pinguin stamps. The postal issue has drawn criticism from U.S. activists who say the exaggerated cartoon depiction of a black boy is racist. (Photo: Jose Luis Magana) |
Hundreds lined up at the Mexico City's main post office to buy postage stamps which U.S. critics call racist, but which Mexicans snapped up at such a rate that all 750,000 sold out Friday, two days after they hit the market.
Many expressed anger that the United States where Mexicans have long faced discrimination would dare to accuse Mexico of racist attitudes.
"They're the racists. They're worse than we are, but they just want to belittle us, like always," said businessman César Alonso Alvarado, 53, as he waited in line to buy stamps featuring the Memín Pinguín character.
Alvarado said that he started reading the comic at age 10, and denies it is racist.
People were also drawn by reports that hundreds of dollars had been bid on the Internet auction site eBay for sheets of the 6.50peso (US.060) stamps. A groan rippled through the crowd in the late afternoon Friday, when a report spread that the post office had run out of full sheets of 50 stamps, the most sought-after item.
"They're paying US120 for them in the United States," said retiree Luis Guillén, 66, when asked why he had bought several sheets. Asked about accusations of racism, he retorted, "What about all the waiters, and servants, and dumb depictions of blacks in old American movies?" By midday Friday, bidding on eBay had risen to more than US127.50 for a strip of five stamps, about 45 times their face value.
Postal employees also continued to hand-stamp sheets and envelopes with the first-day seal, two days after the stamp's June 28 debut.
Memín and the artist who draws him, Sixto Valencia, were lionized on Mexican television news programs.
Presidential spokesman Rubén Aguilar accused critics of trying "to take advantage" of the scandal to get publicity. Foreign Relations Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez called the criticisms "a total lack of respect for our culture." Stamp collector Enrique Gutiérrez, 41, waited 2 1/2 hours before he proudly came away with one sheet. "It's just a cartoon," he said, and recommended that Americans "not be so closed-minded." |
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