Is New Mexico in the US?

New Mexico Magazine does a feature each month where state residents write in to tell their personal experiences dealing with the other 49 states, who are sometimes unaware that New Mexico is in the US.

It's not just the occasional geographically confused person. It apparently happens all the time. New Mexicans are often told they have to pay international shipping when ordering products from other US states. When someone says they are going to New Mexico, their well meaning coworkers ask about the quality of the water and whether they have their passports updated.

The stories are hilarious -- it isn't that listeners mishear and just don't pick up "new" when "New Mexico" is said, thinking the speaker is in Mexico. Even when the speaker tells them that New Mexico has been a state since 1912 and is located right between Texas and Arizona, the clerks or coworkers or nice customer service people on the phone still insist they've never heard of it and are sure it's one of the Mexican states in Old Mexico.

They are usually quite surprised at how good the speaker's English is.

Many, many stories end with the caller having to get a supervisor on the phone to confirm that New Mexico is indeed a US state with real US zip codes and English speakers. Currency is $USD.

It's not just confused service reps. Computers, most notably Amazon's ordering systems, were charging international shipping rates or requiring long, elaborate homeland security disclosure forms for New Mexico addresses in some cases, even with correct zip codes. And it was happening recently, not years ago.

One story told of the US military denying a soldier in Georgia leave to go home to New Mexico because it was a foreign destination.

What amazes me is that there are these stories every month, all ending in chuckles, with the confusion cleared up, but there are enough that people write in all the time.

Even our President talked recently about a wall along Colorado's border to keep immigrants out -- either fearful that New Mexicans, not being US citizens, posed a threat . . .  or just unaware that the entire state of New Mexico is in between the border and Colorado. Either way, . . .  well.

Advertisers love to use images of New Mexico showing giant saguaro cactuses. Which don't grow here anywhere, they are plants of the Sonoran Desert in Mexico and southern Arizona, hundreds of miles away.

That happens a lot, though -- wrong image for the wrong state in the wrong part of the US.

Friends think we have retired to palm tree studded hot desert climes, and are shocked to hear we get snow and it's cold. What's strange is that even when I post pictures, describe our mountain climate and complain about chilly conditions, some still won't let go of the idea that a visit here in January would be a lovely place to wear shorts and go to the pool.

It's all funny. The stories in New Mexico Magazine are wry and amusing, and all end with resolution.

But on another level the persistent, frequent, stubborn misperception of this state is annoying. There are few people here and it's a big place not on national radar. In many ways there's an appeal to that, living in a remote, unfamiliar, "exotic" place.

But it is a state in the US, and has been for a while. A big one. You won't need a passport to visit and you can spend US dollars here, but bring gloves and a hat if you come in winter.