The thesis uses translation as a lens to understand how significant parts of the Mexican Constitution were shaped as an offspring of the U.S. Constitution. It focusses on aspects of language and translation, implicit in constitutional borrowing. From this law-and-language perspective, the Mexican constitution is viewed as a (partially) translated document. The thesis claims that this approach allows for a holistic understanding of Mexican constitutional law, i.e. one in which the whole (the written constitution) is more than the sum of its parts (the provisions it contains).