“What Happened to Mexico City’s Food Scene?” The New York Times’ Priya Krishna asked on Monday.

Krishna visited Mexico City where she spent “four days reporting and eating … about eight tacos a day.” Locals complained about less spicy condiments, different ethnic cuisines, and expensive coffee shops.

The culprits?

“Americans,” Krishna emphatically declares.

And she’s not wrong.

As Krishna reported, the “number of temporary residents and renewals of temporary-resident cards from the United States nearly doubled, to about 24,000.”

The results are undeniable: “whole swaths of Mexico City’s food scene … have been remade in the American image.” Locals complain about New York style pizzerias, wine bars, natural wines, the list goes on.

“At some point it doesn’t matter if you are in New York or Mexico City,” Rocio Landeta, who runs a food-tour company in Mexico City, told Krishna.

Other residents called it a “form of colonization,” because “foreigners come in with these different types of foods and then Mexicans have a tendency to adopt them as well.”

Krishna goes on to suggest this change is “gentrification.”

But the word she should have used — and doesn’t — is assimilation.

Americans are not assimilating to Mexico City’s culture. Instead, they are fundamentally changing it to something it is not.

But the answer isn’t to downplay what’s happening in Mexico City by labeling it “gentrification.” The truth is far more direct: when outsiders move in without regard for local tradition and culture, they don’t assimilate — they reshape it. But cultures — like Mexicans in Mexico City — have every right to defend their way of life, customs, and even cuisine from being made into something unrecognizable.

Of course that same principle applies in America. A nation is a nation so long as its people have a shared language, culture, and way of life. Millions of aliens — both illegal and legal — don’t strengthen that national identity, they weaken it by making America less American. Assimilation to the degree necessary to preserve the American way of life is not occurring — don’t believe me? Look to Dearborn Heights, Los Angeles, or Springfield, Ohio.

Alexander Hamilton saw this threat more than two centuries ago, warning in 1802, “The safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common National sentiment; on a uniformity of principles and habits; on the exemption of the citizens from foreign bias, and prejudice; and on that love of country which will almost invariably be found to be closely connected with birth, education and family.”

Mass migration disrupts the “uniformity of principles” and severs the deep-rooted ties of tradition and shared identity that bind a republic together.

It’s happening in America — and it’s happening in Mexico City (even if the New York Times wants to downplay it as “gentrification”).

Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2