Stop calling Biden's meeting with Mexico and Canada the 'Three Amigos' summit, critics say
It's been dubbed the "Three Amigos" summit. And not everyone likes that name.
President Joe Biden will meet with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador at the White House Thursday for the for the first North American Leaders' Summit since former President Barack Obama was in office.
The leaders will discuss the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, immigration and economic growth, with a goal toward reaffirming the countries’ “strong ties and integration while also charting a new path for collaboration.”
The meetings occurred once a year on a semi-regular basis beginning in 2005 under the name Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, according to the Council on Hemispheric Affairs. The last was held in 2016, the year former President Donald Trump, who had a complex history with the countries' leaders, was elected president.
Advocates aren't opposed to the meeting resuming this year, but many are opposed to the nickname. Here's why some consider it offensive.
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Where did the name come from?
Former Canadian Prime Minister (1993-2003) Jean Chretien claimed responsibility for the nicknaming the summit the "Three Amigos," according to CTV News, though he never hosted NALS.
The first summit would not occur until four years after Chretien used the nickname — borrowed the name from the 1986 movie "The Three Amigos" starring Chevy Chase, Steve Martin and Martin Short — to illustrate the relationship between the U.S., Mexico and Canada in 2001.
A comedy about three out-of-work actors forced to play real-life bandits against a gang of outlaws terrorizing a Mexican village, the film is full of tropes associated with Mexican culture, including sombreros, machismo and broken Spanish.
"It played to just about every negative Mexican stereotype that exists," Lorrie Goldstein, a columnist for the Toronto Sun, told Paste BN about the movie.
'Racist and offensive'
People have questioned the usage of the "Three Amigos" for years.
Jaime Fuller of The Washington Post wrote in a 2014 article that "The phrase 'the Three Amigos' must die" in reference to NALS.
In 2017, a National City, California council member wrote to the San Diego Tribune to admonish former Mayor Ron Morrison and two other colleagues for calling themselves the "Three Amigos" publicly and privately.
"I personally asked him not to refer to me and my colleagues this way in a private meeting in 2012, as it is racist and offensive," the council member wrote.
Nora López, president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, told Paste BN that it's inappropriate to associate the NALS meeting and its attendees with the movie's themes.
"The Mexicans were all either ignorant and (damsels) in distress, or they were some kind of cartel-like bad thugs. There was no in-between. They were either one or the other," López said. "And here you have these three white guys dressed in mariachi outfits and setup as coming to save the day."
"For me, it's hard to disassociate the term the 'Three Amigos' from that movie. To hear it being used in this context ... I'm just dumbfounded by it," she added.
Others have taken to social media to object to the nickname for NALS. "First, our political leaders are not pals," one Twitter user posted Tuesday. "Second, the lazy reference to a 1986 movie title doesn't resonate with anyone born since about 1970."
Another user tweeted Saturday:
"What kind of name is the "The Three Amigos" summit?? It sounds racist & an appropriation of Mexican culture. Like a fast food chain."
How media has promoted the 'Three Amigos'
The phrase is commonly used in news media to describe assorted trios in the political realm.
In 2005, CBS News published a story about the NALS meeting between former Presidents George W. Bush, Vicente Fox of Mexico and former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin titled "'Three Amigos' Pledge Cooperation."
In a 2014 article, The Washington Post listed over 20 past incidents dating back to the late 1980s where the name was used.
The term "three amigos" is not only reserved for the meeting of North American leaders. It's been used to describe a number of small political alliances, such as a group of senators led by late Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain who once spread American idealism around the world.
The moniker was also applied to the trio of Trump envoys — European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland, former Energy Secretary Rick Perry and former U.S. special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker — who tried to convince Ukrainian officials to open an investigation into then-Sen. Joe Biden and other Democrats, which in part led to Trump's first impeachment trial in 2020.
'Trying to be cheeky'
Though he has used it in the past, Goldstein said a change is overdue.
"I think in the context of a political summit of the leaders of the U.S., Mexico and Canada in 2021, we should simply call it what it is — the North American Leaders' Summit, particularly given modern day sensibilities about cultural appropriation and stereotyping," Goldstein said. "It just strikes me as an anachronism we should probably dispense with because times have changed."
López said referring to the summit by its proper name is "more accurate and more of what the summit is about."
"The 'Three Amigos' phrase to me really trivializes the seriousness of what these countries are trying to do. I get that they're trying to be cheeky about it, but the thing of trying to appropriate certain phrases like this ... is really disrespectful at the end of the day," López said.
Contributing: The Associated Press
Reach out to Chelsey Cox on Twitter at @therealco.