Both girls were born in a major hospital located a good 275+ miles north of the US-Mexico border so this is not a ‘suspect healthcare provider near the border’ issue.
I suspect the issue is that all NM birth certificates are bilingual–printed on the top half of the page in English and again on the bottom half of the page in Spanish. This apparently confuses people who assume because the certificate is partially in Spanish that it must not have been issued within the US.
Fwiw, all NM driver’s licenses are bilingual in English/Spanish too,
Spain/France. I know a lot about Spain and France. I speak Spanish, French, and Catalan. I’ve been to Andorra, and I know plenty about the Spanish enclaves in Morocco. But not until 15 minutes ago had I ever heard of Llivia, the Spanish (Catalan) town completely surrounded by France.
Vermont/New Hampshire: What does it for me (in addition to the Mitt Romney lived in NH and worked in Boston thing) is that New Hampshire actually has an Atlantic Ocean sea coast. Not so much of one, but it’s there. Vermont borders on lakes and rivers, but no oceans.
Kentucky/Tennessee. One state was in the Union, the other in the Confederacy. That kind of helps remind you where they are in relation to one another, and which is which.
New Mexico. I am aghast that people don’t recognize New Mexico as a state. Where do they think Roswell is?
My guess for “their” guess is Tennessee. Or maybe Nebraska among the corn fields.
I wonder if we gave average adults over 30 a map of the US, how many states would be named correctly and what common errors there would be. I also wonder if norms would vary by economic or academic levels. I know everyone in my family would get them all correct, but then again, travel - even to places like Nebraska - has been a big part of our lives. Our kids helped plan our road trips.
We have our own weaknesses. If you ask us to name Hollywood stars or Car Makes/Models - or even any category of professional sports teams we’d fail miserably. Humans retain things they use or that interest them.
A decade ago there was the Russo-Georgian War. I remember hearing on the news that Russian troops had entered Georgia. I wonder how many Americans thought that Russian troops were advancing on Atlanta?
Everywhere I have traveled in the world, people have recognized the state of Texas. They might think we all own oil wells or ride horses everywhere or know J.R. personally, but they have heard of it.
BB, I drove through that “state” and was really confused, for an embarrassingly long time, by why there were silhouettes of GW on the highway signs. Surely we were very far from Mt. Vernon…
My boys learned their states and presidents from a wooden puzzle board. Just for fun, my oldest son who was 6 or 7 years old at the time, took it a step further and wrote down numbers on the back of each state and president in the order it joined the union and took office. He’d make me turn on the kitchen timer and best his time for a new PR. Needlessly to say, they are both competitive young men
I’ve been traveling through China and have realized just how hazy my geographical sense of the country was. Interestingly Hong Kong is part of China, but you still have to go through customs, show your passport and change money. Which led me to wonder what kind of money they are using over in Macau.
Back when I was in fourth or fifth grade, my Mom was the teacher of a one room school house where I learned to draw the entire map of Europe by hand. I can still do it. I wish she’d also taught me the US map. I can generally fill one in, though I’m a bit hazy on Iowa (where my MIL is from and Ohio - which I’ve visited.)
They might think we all own oil wells or ride horses everywhere or know J.R. personally, but they have heard of it.