Down Mexico Way

There are scholars who keep track of children’s rhymes, as well there should be. But all I want to do here is record one Lilly brought home from a field trip today. She and the rest of the first grade went to the Shedd Aquarium in downtown Chicago to ogle the fishes and monsters of the deep. Definitely a cool destination. Wish I'd had something like that around when I was that age, though I did see a world’s fair, but not as a school trip.

Anyway, the kids entertained themselves on the bus, as kids do. After Lilly returned for the day we headed out, and from the back seat of the car I heard:

“I don’t want to go to Mexico any more, more, more.
There’s a big fat policeman
At my door, door, door.
He grabs me by the collar
He makes me pay a dollar.
I don’t want to go to Mexico any more, more, more.”

For all I know, this could be something filtered down from some cartoon I’ve never watched, like South Park, or one I’ve seen sporadically, like The Simpsons, or any of a number of others, or some movie, or some song. I’ve missed a lot of pop culture since about 1980, and I don’t care who knows it.

I ran some of the keys words of the rhyme through Google, and no link to the mass media turned up. A couple of sites did mention it, however, including one that said it has been popular with black kids in recent years, and perhaps originated from something called “I Don’t Want to Go to Macy’s,” recorded in the 1930s. But no further information about that turned up; my source didn’t even say whether that was a mainstream song or what.

But it’s enough to know that it’s a bone fide children’s rhyme, and one I’d never heard. It contains a nugget of lore too, at least when it comes to Mexican law enforcement’s reputation for petty (or not-so-petty) corruption.