Many see Mexican American contributions as limited to whatever benefits the USA, the country known worldwide as the global champion of intervention. But should we pride our heritage only on tacos, arepas, and pupusas or tequila and mariachis? Should we limit our pride to the first Latin@/Chican@ astronaut or first Supreme Court judge, the first this or that?

How about taking pride —and advocating — our historic progressive contribution to the world: the Estrada Doctrine, a perspective on foreign policy first put forward by México in the 1930s. The Estrada Doctrine calls for a foreign policy based on peace, mutual respect, and nonintervention in the internal affair of other countries. 

We teach our children about peace. We hire artists to come to schools and paint Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and Martin Luther King, along with doves and smiling faces. And yet some of us, at the same time, side with war. Why participate in extending the Monroe Doctrine, an understanding of the Estrada Doctrine helps us ask, from “America para los americanos” to “the world para los americanos?”

“All wars are ugly,” as the writer Vijay Prashad reminds us, “and have a criminal aspect to them.”

Global peace depends on the security of all. No to intervention and no to war! I dedicate these thoughts to all the children of the world.