first off ive only been practicing for 6 months. ive got a mexican fender strat and i love it. the differences between a mexican and american strat is basically the hardware and were the guitar is made you may also get a better wood on the body. an american strat comes with nicer string saddles than the mexican which comes with vintage style saddles but i upgraded my with graph tech string savers and the guitar never goes out of tune. you also get better pickups but the mexican strat pickups are good i like the sound that comes out of them. overall i would say get the mexican and upgrade it when you want different sounds from it. another thing you might want to consider (which i did and now own) is a squier STANDARD ( i stress standard) strat the new models are awsome the pickups are quite average but the hardware beats whats on my fender mexican strat and youll save half the cash in pocket. with the new squiers you get the big 70s style headstock a tremelo like that which comes on a american strat for about half the money of a fender made in mexico strat. and the squier fat strats are wicked pissa hope this helps you out