Why is New Mexico poor and what should be done about it Research Paper - 1

Why is New Mexico poor and what should be done about it - Research Paper Example Poverty is a factor that is present in nearly all corners of the world. New Mexico is one of the nations strongly affected and hit by poverty (Garcia, 2006). This country has the highest poverty levels in the world, with a 22 percent of poverty levels. According to reports, New Mexico has the highest number of children under poverty. This is the highest level in the United States of America. New Mexico belonged to the Spanish empire for over two centuries and also the independent Mexico for more than two and half decades before being conquered by the United States in the American-Mexican war, in 1846 (Melzer et al, 2011). After the United States moved to conquer this state, many of the New Mexicans looked forward to the day that it would become a state and part of the United States. This took long, more than sixty years before it became a state. By the time this state was becoming a state of the United States; other nations had already gained their statehood. This delay in acquiring statehood is one of the factors that are attributed to its high poverty levels. Despite efforts by the New Mexican leaders and residents to support their nation, there are some factors that led to the delay in the acquisition of statehood. The first factor that hampered early efforts was a common ignorance on the state and unfair suspicion about its citizens. The other states of the United States were against the acquisition of statehood of New Mexico because of the high population of the Native Americans and the Hispanics who were considered foreign in terms of language, culture and religion. The people in the other states questioned the Hispanics and the Native Americans loyalty, who had for long lived under the Mexican and Spanish rule (Melzer et al, 2011). Secondly, territorial politics hampered New Mexico’s opportunities of acquiring statehood. The government was dominated by a bunch of corrupt politicians and businessmen. After the other states realized this, they tried to prevent New Mexico from becoming state by criticizing it. According to Melzer et al (2011), this led to the delayed statehood of the nation, which later culminated to the high poverty levels within the nation. In addition, the national policies adopted hampered the nation’s progress towards attaining statehood. Most of the policies adopted within the political arena had nothing to do with the New Mexico, and this immensely affected the progress towards statehood. Another cause of the delayed statehood of New Mexico was the prolonged Indian wars, which were very costly. In addition, these wars perpetrated the region’s reputation as a region typified by violent and primitive people. While some of the United States defeated some Indian uprisings, some Native American soldiers such as Geronimo fought many United States troops till 1886. The prolonged nature of the fights consumed a lot of resources (Melzer et al, 2011). These resources would have been used in developme nt projects, which would have assisted in alleviating the present high poverty levels. By this time, New Mexico was under the claim of United States, Spain, Mexico and numerous Indian nations. The Indian-Mexican wars started as early as the end of the 16th century, when the Indians tried to go against Spanish rule. Later, the Indians came together to fight, kill, and chase Spanish colonists (Saragoza et al, 2012). The Indians continued to fight against the Spanish till when the United States army general, Kearny, promised the inhabitants of New Mexico that they would defeat the rebelling tribes once the country became a state and made part of United States. The United States forged with numerous strategies that would defeat the other Indian and Spanish tribes.