Mexico is a sad case. I feel sorry for people from there until I started looking at Mexico’s history.
That nation had all kinds of things going for it. It had huge and prosperous cities during the 1600s while English colonies to the north had just been established and the people living in wattle and daub huts. Mexico is rich in natural resources and a climate perfect for year-round agriculture.
The problem is the people. That is why it is a failed state.
Mexico's problem is not it's people--it's the Mexican political/ economic culture. (I love the food and the music.) Mexicans can be great and productive when they become Americans.
I had this realization during a business trip that took me through El Paso, TX in the 1990's. El Paso is a nice, fairly typical, medium-sized U.S. city. But just across the Rio Grande, its sister city of Ciudad Juarez is a depressing Third World armpit. I realized that the land on the south bank of the Rio Grande was just fertile as on the north bank. The difference had to be culture.
For another example, look at India and Pakistan. Both were parts of British India. They both have military and civil institutions left by the Raj. Yet which one is the emerging world power and which one is the place about to fall apart? I sadly concluded that the big difference had to be Islam.