Last week, Mexican President Felipe Calderón made his first visit to the United States, and broke a long-standing diplomatic tradition between the two countries that usually includes a presidential dinner and a speech to Congress for the visiting head of state. This time, Calderon didn’t even see President Bush. Why? In part, because of Bush’s political toxicity and the intensity of the ongoing U.S. presidential campaign. And in part for another less obvious reason: despite what people think, the Mexican right harbors a deep, historical mistrust for their northern neighbor.

The commonplace says that Mexican conservatives are enthusiastic supporters of the United States. While the Left rallies against McDonalds, the Right is often caricatured as the typical panista (the member National Action Party, Calderón’s party), a fat guy with a black hat and a Big Mac in his hand.

Yet the Mexican conservative soul has been traditionally distant, if not openly hostile, to the U.S.

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General Baduel did just that: he achieved legendary status within Chavez's administration in April of that year for thwarting an attempted coup, which both men claim the U.S. government had a hand in (though the U.S. denies this). Baduel says while the coup unfolded, American boats entered Venezuela's waters and U.S. helicopters ran routes in its airspace. He could monitor them "with the same radars the U.S. used to monitor drug trafficking." Baduel’s actions saved Chavez’s regime and kept him in power.

Five years later, Baduel turned against Chavez and his administration. He retired last year from his post as Defense Minister and shocked Venezuela by publicly denouncing Chavez's constitutional referendum, dubbing it another "coup" to consolidate his power and undermine democracy. But even out of military uniform and away from official rhetoric, Baduel still harbors suspicions about the role of the U.S. government in his country.

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Entering politics hasn’t been easy for Freddy. He’s been shot by water cannons and tear-gassed ad nauseum. Last week his mother received yet another anonymous phone call telling her that her son will die in a mysterious car crash. And on Venezolana de Televisión, the host of “La Hojilla” (“The Blade”), which President Hugo Chavez calls his favorite TV show, accused Freddy of conspiring with America’s Central Intelligence Agency to overthrow the president.

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We listen together to Super Tuesday coverage on the radio of his Ford Explorer. As American pundits ponder the possibility of the "first female president", or "the first African-American president," Nelson wonders aloud if such distinctions cause the U.S. more harm than good.

"In Venezuela," he says, "the media doesn't mention the race or origins" of its subjects, whether they’re Carnaval dancers packing clubs now, or foreign politicians running for president.

"[My students and I] don't fixate on Obama as the first black candidate….And we're really puzzled by the way Americans do,” he says. “It seems to us like a form of racism. Americans don't realize how racist they are….By always discussing race, they just perpetuate their problem."

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"Mexico faces a mental hurdle," says PostGlobal panelist Leon Krauze, when it comes to defeating the U.S. Leon greeted me here in Mexico after my too-short press visa to Venezuela expired the other day. "Football (soccer) is the only thing left that Mexico is better at than the Americans, and it devastated this country when the U.S. beat us in the 2002 World Cup."

I head to the Salon Corona, the spot to watch soccer downtown, wondering if this is the year that "Mexico's psychological anxiety of losing" will be overcome.

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He expected knee-jerk anti-Americanism from his audience -- vague calls for Mexican sovereignty. Three months ago his station, W Radio, lost Carmen Aristegui, a prominent host of what Leon calls "The Populist Left"; she accused the station of effectively censoring her. Leon, who sees himself as a pragmatic progressive, began broadcasting from the same station on a show with the same name, Hoy Por Hoy (Today for Today), but with a very different view of the U.S.

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Daniel sees the gradual process of Mexican American assimilation, coupled with mounting anti-immigrant sentiment, a U.S. recession, and renewed emphasis on border controls as drags on his consumer base's readiness to go for Bimbo bread.

Take, for example, Daniel's recent experience in Texas, where he drove around in an unmarked white van between small Mexican marts asking consumers and vendors about their intake habits. After a few hours, word got out these mysterious vans were from the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and then every mart he pulled up to next would evacuate immediately, illegal Mexicans sprinting out the door before him.

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This catches me a bit off guard. We're sitting in his cozy studio looking at the thousands of cartoons he's drawn over the years. They've morphed from rotund black and white figures in his youth to the sharp, toxic-colored panoramas of now. About one in five cartoons is about the U.S.

"I try to educate Mexicans a bit about the United States," he says, "to fight the caricature that the Left depicts of the United States as a blood-sucking vampire," he says, referring specifically to cartoonists in the socialist daily La Jornada, an ideological counterpart to his paper called Reforma - a publication that current President Felipe Calderon (no relation) once wrote for.

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I squeeze in beside a family of four and ask their opinion of the game. "Lucha Libre is a sport," they say, "it's acrobatic." They prefer it to the American version, which they say is "just entertainment." A round-faced teenage girl pipes up. Americans prefer wrestling that looks more like actual violence, she says. In the U.S., she says, "there is blood."

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PACHUCA - Few of the tiny cornfields surrounding Pachuca, the capital of the Mexican state of Hidalgo, are larger than five square acres. Most lack irrigation systems and are worked by hand -- often by the farmer’s many children -- resulting in a harvest of mini-sized maize that pulls in under US$1000 per year. The farming families here find themselves no better off, harvest after harvest. The years go by and the competition stiffens.

So the farmers make bricks, work construction jobs, and collect money from migrant relatives who move to the U.S. to keep afloat. They say they don't know much about the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), but remain certain it hasn't done them any good. Yet they blame the Mexican government, not America, for their suffering.

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Hector Salinas

Three years later, he was running drugs along the California coast, pocketing six thousand untaxed dollars per month, and sending his family at least US$800 per week. Hector says he fell deep into an underworld and ended up an unwitting witness to a murder.

That’s when he decided to escape the snares of his drug boss. He stole home to Hidalgo and met his baby boy for the first time in three years, vowing to keep him from a similar fate.

Over a long Friday afternoon, the affable Hector, now a spiky-haired office-worker in Mexico City, recounts his migration story systematically, in minute detail, as if chronicling its moments for his son’s generation. His speaks terse, matter-of-fact Spanish, his emotions always controlled. He refuses to pass judgment on any of the actors in his tale, including himself. He simply warns fellow Mexicans against rushing north, and urges them to temper their dreams of America.

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TIJUANA - This is my final post before signing off. I'm at the border separating the United States from Mexico. Over the past year, I've written 150,000 words and conversed with all of you through another 3 million or so. But standing here, at this border and at this moment, I'm at a loss for words.

Here is where video comes in handy. Watch men and women, young and old, interact with the U.S. across its border fence, and share what you're thinking.

And, finally, here are the many thank yous I owe to journalists, friends, and readers who made this project possible and worthwhile. Thank you for making this the most enlightening and exhilarating year of my life.