(05-18) 04:00 PDT San Diego -- - Thirteen years ago, I went to Mexico City as part of a leadership program. I thought I'd make some good friends and have a few laughs, and I did. But I also had a good cry.

One day, we visited an elementary school in a poor neighborhood where I talked to three boys. I told them - in mediocre Spanish - that, 100 years earlier, when my grandfather was their age, his family migrated to the United States from the Mexican state of Chihuahua. That decision, I told them, changed the course of history for my entire family. Now, we lived in the United States. But - besides being Americans - we were still Mexicans. It was then that my eyes welled up with tears.

You can imagine Americans of Irish or Italian descent having the same reaction when they visit the cities and towns of their ancestors. Even while they love and appreciate the United States, they can still see the beauty in what was left behind.

And yet, many Americans think of Mexico in a negative way. It's the dysfunctional house on the block, the underachieving member of the family. Even with 9 percent unemployment, mortgage foreclosures, and $4-a-gallon gasoline, people on this side of the border can always feel better about their lot by looking down on Mexico.

Not that their neighbor isn't helpful in letting some Americans dodge personal responsibility for illegal immigration or an addiction to illegal drugs, as if Mexico forced them to hire a gardener or consume narcotics.

But if Americans are going to talk about Mexico, they should at least know what they're talking about. Frequenting restaurants in border towns, or hitting beaches on the Mexican Riviera during spring break, doesn't cut it. There is more to Mexico.

To get an idea of how much more, take a look at a new PBS documentary airing this month. "The Storm That Swept Mexico" is about the Mexican revolution of 1910-20, and the nation that emerged from it. For filmmaker Raymond Telles, a professor of ethnic studies at UC Berkeley, this is an intensely personal story he has wanted to tell his whole life.

His mother came from Chihuahua during the revolution. And Telles was introduced to that history as a boy.

"My grandfather would tell me stories and have me reading about the revolution when I was a kid, by the time I was about 10 years old," he told me in a recent interview.

It's a story that the 62-year-old Telles believes can offer the rest of us a sense of perspective about a country to which we're in close proximity and yet about which we know very little.

Telles noted: "A lot of Americans are so divorced from their own history, let alone the history of the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico, that they wonder: 'What's wrong with Mexico?' and 'What does it have to do with us?' "

Quite a bit actually. The film explains that, for much of the early 20th century, Mexico was seen primarily - in the words of one observer - as an "economic colony" of the United States. And U.S. officials - most notably, Ambassador to Mexico Henry Lane Wilson - were active participants in the Mexican revolution, helping shape the outcome from afar.

"The U.S. was in there, every step of the way," Telles said, "manipulating which direction the revolution was going to turn. This is important in terms of U.S. history, and it's important in terms of helping everyone understand what is going on and what has gone on between the U.S. and Mexico."

One group that certainly needs a deeper understanding of the historical relationship between the United States and Mexico is Mexican Americans. As Telles explained, it could help some of them sort through persistent questions about their identity: "There is some confusion in trying to figure out who we are. It starts with being Mexican, a blend of different cultures. Then we come to the United States and we're neither Mexican nor Anglo. We're kind of in the middle. However, if you know a little bit about the Mexican part of your history, it gives you some grounding, some feeling, and some understanding of what went on and what made us who we are."

That's a journey worth taking, no matter where your ancestors came from.

(c) 2011, Washington Post Writers Group
