December 27, 2010
But the most troubling distinction from all previous waves of American immigration is that many of these new “immigrants” say they”re reclaiming land that was stolen from them”a much different and potentially more dangerous dynamic.
I can”t decide whether American journalists are uninformed or lying”maybe it’s a 50/50 split”but they hardly ever address the seemingly important idea that Mexican immigrants seem less concerned with “becoming American” than they are with reclaiming, by sheer force of numbers, what they believe is stolen Mexican territory. The National Council of La Raza”a lobbying group for “The Race” that is frequently quoted by American journalists who wouldn”t dare call them racist”publicly pooh-poohs the idea that many Mexican immigrants are driven by Reconquista (“reconquest”) ideology, depicting it as “so far outside of the mainstream of the Latino community that we find it incredible that our critics raise it as an issue.”
A 2002 Zogby poll of 801 adults in Mexico revealed that the National Council of La Raza is either lying or they”re completely out of touch with how the Raza actually feels. Fifty-eight percent of poll respondents agreed with the statement, “the territory of the United States” Southwest rightfully belongs to Mexico.” Fifty-seven percent agreed “that Mexicans should have the right to enter the U.S. without U.S. permission.” That doesn”t quite sound like an extremist fringe. And it doesn”t stretch credulity to believe that many, if not most, of the dozen million or so Mexicans who chose to tiptoe into the U.S. without permission also agree with such statements.
What modern Reconquistadores claim to be reconquering is a mythical land called Aztlán, comprised of areas ceded by Mexico and legally purchased by the United States after the Texas Revolution and the Mexican-American War. But this was no ancient, thriving kingdom”Mexico had only claimed these territories in the early 1820s and had lost them all by the late 1840s. Although roughly the size of Western Europe, Aztlán was largely unsettled and contained only one percent or so of Mexico’s population. In 1830, only around 3,000 Mexicans lived in the massive expanse of dirt now called Texas. What is now the megalopolis called Los Angeles, modern host to millions of Mexicans, was so sparsely populated in 1846, an army of around fifty gringos conquered it. And what many would now like to pretend were indigenous “Mexicans” in the American Southwest were actually hostile Apaches who”d been perpetually at war with Mexicans.
But although it never really existed, even Aztlán was based on ethnic murder and bloodshed. The Aztecs had subjugated the Huastecs, Mixtecs, Zapotecs, Otomis, Totonacs, and Tlaxcalans. They were racial chauvinists who considered themselves “chosen people.” So following Reconquista justice, the only noble thing would be for Mexicans to renounce their imperialist Spanish blood, revert back to Aztecs, then back to all the splinter tribes the Aztecs had slaughtered and sacrificed and cannibalized, and then back to the continent’s original invaders, who then should be forced to walk barefoot over ice back to Siberia and make reparations to indigenous yeti.
Would that make everyone happy?
In the fall of 1994 I was preparing to leave Los Angeles after living there for seven years. There was a California ballot initiative seeking to eliminate free healthcare benefits for illegal aliens. I was confused why this was even an issue, because I”d been legal (if alienated) my whole life and couldn”t get free healthcare. While I was stuck at a red light at Sunset and Cahuenga, a protester walked in front of my car waving a Mexican flag at me. I was glad to be leaving California.
I hear that in California these days, you can get in trouble at school for waving or wearing an American flag.
The Democrats” prolonged wooing of Latino voters, no matter how openly hostile such voters may be to the very concept of America, is perhaps the most vile and prolonged race-based voter-registration drive I”ve ever witnessed. It’s a new “Southern Strategy,” only this time the “Southerners” are from south of the border. Democrats are enabling an extremely volatile and potentially deadly social situation merely to snag a few more million votes.
Despite what they tell you, Democrats have always made it racial. Ironically, they were big supporters of the first Mexican-American War. And they may be the unwitting facilitators of a newer and bloodier sequel.
Montezuma’s big mistake was believing the Spaniards came in peace. America’s biggest mistake may lie in assuming the same thing about La Raza.
