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Is "reconquista" for
real? Are there really ethnic separatist movements in the United States
today?
Some people scoff at the whole
idea, confident that all immigrants will assimilate, and
don’t want to turn the U.S. into the country from whence
they came.
Others write off any talk about reconquista as a right-wing anti-immigrant fantasy.
More people are waking up, however,
to see that there is more afoot than simply the isolated
rantings of some radical professors (which is certainly part of it.)
Some rather concrete incidents are
helping to wake people up. Such as the raising of the Mexican flag at the Montebello High School. Or the signs borne by
marchers in pro-illegal alien demonstrations, signs that read "If you think I’m illegal because I’m a
Mexican learn the true history because I’m in my homeland", "This
is stolen land", "Stolen Continent" and "We
are indigenous! The only owners of this continent."
Contributor
Allan
Wall
Allan Wall recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq. He currently resides in Mexico, where he has lived since 1991. He can be reached via e-mail at allan39@prodigy.net.mx [go to Wall index] |
The sheer arrogance and hubris of
anti-American irredentists is alerting more and more
Americans to the fact that, yes, there are people within
our borders who don’t want to be part of the U.S., who
think they have a better claim on the land than we do,
and who aren’t too secretive about it.
But, what did we expect? You import millions of people from Mexico, the only country with an irredentist claim on the U.S.A . Then you encourage them not to assimilate. And, when
they break your immigration law, you give them an amnesty. Our leaders invited this, and promoted it.
There really are irredentist/revanchist
sentiments in among Mexicans in the U.S.A., and this is
bound to grow and get worse. It will make Canada’s
Quebec problem look trivial by comparison.
Nevertheless, there is not, as some
people imagine, one reconquista movement. All
these revanchists/irredentists are not marching lockstep
on the same sheet of music. On the contrary, the various
Chicano/Mexican/Hispanic/Latino/reconquista/
Aztlan activists are indeed in agreement that that their
people (variously defined) are an oppressed nationality
that needs liberation. But there are different currents
with distinct ideologies. All would break up the U.S. or
transform it, but they represent contradictory, even
competing, visions of the future.
In fact, Mexico should realize that
stirring up things in the U.S. could be
counterproductive. Several of these irredentist currents
are just as much threat to Mexican sovereignty as they are to ours!
Let’s consider some of the basic
separationist movements.
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"Reconquista" specifically calls for formal return of Mexico’s
lost territories (what we call the U.S. Southwest)
to Mexico.
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The classic argument for reconquista was spelled out 25 years ago. In 1982,
Mexican columnist Carlos Loret de Mola visited Los
Angeles, California. He was intrigued by the burgeoning
Mexican community there (which was much smaller than
today’s). Loret de Mola saw beyond the situation, and
overcoming the traditional Mexican embarrassment over
emigration, saw it as an opportunity for reconquest.
In his Excelsior column entitled The Great Invasion: Mexico Recovers Its Own, Loret de Mola exulted that
"A peaceful mass of people, hardworking, carries out
slowly and patiently an unstoppable invasion…You cannot
give me a similar example of such a large migratory wave
by an ant-like multitude, stubborn, unarmed, and carried
on in the face of the most powerful and best-armed
nation on earth. They have marked social and family
characteristics, agility for adapting to the environment
and for conquering a great region, once primitive and
virgin, that belonged to our fatherland, and we lost it.
But it seems to be slowly returning to the jurisdiction
of Mexico without the firing of a single shot, nor
requiring the least diplomatic action, by means of a steady,
spontaneous, and uninterrupted occupation….The territory
lost in the 19th century by a Mexico torn by internal
strife and under centralist dictatorships led by
paranoid chiefs, like Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, seems to be restoring
itself through a humble people who go on settling various zones that
once were ours on the old maps….Land, under any concept of possession,
ends up in the hands of those who deserve it.
What Loret
de Mola spells out here is a re-conquest of the U.S.
Southwest by demography. Other Mexican writers have
expressed similar sentiments, more recently Elena Poniatowska, who while visiting Venezuela in
2001, was quoted by a newspaper there
"The Mexican writer Elena Poniatowska affirmed today
that Mexico is presently recovering the territories lost
in the past to the United States, thanks to emigration.
‘The people of the poor, the lice-ridden and the cucarachas are advancing in the United States, a
country that wants to speak Spanish because 33.4 million
Hispanics impose their culture’ affirmed Poniatowska …"" El
Imparcial" (July 3rd, 2001),
In Mexico,
it’s writers and journalists who promote reconquista.
Mexican politicians rarely mention it.
What the
Mexican government does, however, is encourage and
foster illegal immigration in various ways, and
encourage Mexicans in the U.S., even dual citizens and
Mexican-Americans, to identify with Mexico, not the U.S.
Mexican government activity is not limited to the
Southwest. Mexican consulates will meddle just as readily outside the Southwest as
in it.
A formal
annexation of the Southwest by Mexico is not
implausible, but another option would be a form of condominium, in which the U.S. and Mexico share
sovereignty. The U.S. would be responsible for
maintaining the territory, Mexico would control the
immigration policy, most of the people would be loyal to Mexico, and the U.S. would foot the bill.
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The "Aztlan" irredentist movement was cooked up north of the
border by Chicano activists in the ferment of the 1960s. Many people suppose that reconquista and Aztlan movement are synonyms,
but they are not
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Aztlan was
the homeland of the Aztec people, but there’s no
consensus over where Aztlan was. In Mexico, they do not
refer to the U.S. Southwest as Aztlan. Prominent Mexican
archaeologist Eduardo Matos Moctezuma believes Aztlan was in
Central Mexico (far from the Southwest) and the state of
Nayarit (Pacific Coast) includes Aztlan on its state coat of arms believing that Aztlan was in Nayarit.
My Mexican wife never heard of the Aztlan / Southwest
identification until I told her about it.
Chicano
activists say that Aztlan was in the U.S. Southwest.
They may be right about that part. Linguistically you
could make a case for it. There are various Indian
tribes in the region, including the Comanche, Shoshone
and Hopi, who speak languages of the greater Uto-Aztecan
language family. Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs,
was also a branch of that family. (For the perspective
of Comanche David Yeagley on the matter, read here).
Even so,
that’s a flimsy reason to lay claim to the region. In
the first place, all Mexicans are not descended from the
Aztecs. In the second place, just because a person’s
ancestors lived or passed through a region, doesn’t give
his descendents title over it.
The
principal (though not only) organization teaching the
Aztlan doctrine is MEChA, acronym for Movimiento Estudiantil de
Chicanos de Aztlan.
This
organization exists and has received tax dollars on
university campuses and high schools in the
Southwest—and even outside the region.
MEChA has
gained notoriety in recent years, as its first
generation has come of age politically. California
politicos Antonio Villaraigosa and Cruz Bustamante were MEChistas during their college
days, and have publicly refused to repudiate their
connection.
Defenders of
MEChA claim that it is not irredentist; it’s just a
pro-Chicano organization. Yet, its philosophical
statement presents it as an organization "founded on
the principles of self-determination for the liberation
of our people…" See the infamous
Plan Espiritual de Aztlán
In the spirit of a new people that is conscious not
only of its proud historical heritage but also of the
brutal "gringo" invasion of our territories, we, the Chicano inhabitants and civilizers of the northern
land of Aztlán from whence came our forefathers,
reclaiming the land of their birth and consecrating the
determination of our people of the sun, declare that the call of our blood is our power, our
responsibility, and our inevitable destiny.
We are free and sovereign to determine those tasks
which are justly called for by our house, our land, the
sweat of our brows, and by our hearts. Aztlán belongs to
those who plant the seeds, water the fields, and gather
the crops and not to the foreign Europeans. We do not
recognize capricious frontiers on the bronze continent
Before the world, before all of North America, before
all our brothers in the bronze continent, we are a
nation, we are a union of free pueblos, we are Aztlán.
This has never been repudiated. Why not?
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Another break-up American
proposal that has surfaced in recent years is that
of the Republica del Norte, which is distinct
from both Reconquista and Aztlan.
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This scheme is the brainchild of
University of New Mexico Chicano Studies Professor Charles Truxillo, who calls it an
inevitability.
Professor Truxillo doesn’t want
Mexico to reconquer the Southwest. He does want the
Southwest to secede from the U.S. He also predicts that
the northern states of Mexico will secede from Mexico.
Then the ex-U.S. southwest and the ex-northern Mexico
will together form the Republica del Norte (republic of
the North), with its capital at Los Angeles.
Truxillo
foresees these changes happening peacefully, through
demographic and political reasons. In 2000, he predicted
it would come about by 2080. "I may not live to see
the Hispanic homeland, but by the end of the century my
students' kids will live in it, sovereign and free." To further the development of the new republic, Truxillo
is developing a "cadre of intellectuals" to work
out the details in the plan.[ Southwest shall secede from U.S., prof predicts, by Frank Zoretich, Albuquerque Tribune,
January 31, 2000]
Truxillo also predicts that eastern
Mexico will also secede to form the "Mayan Republic".
So in Truxillo’s scenario, not only will Mexico not gain
territory, but it will actually wind up considerably
smaller than it is now.
Here’s a map of Professor Truxillo’s prediction .You might
file it away to refer to in 2080!
Truxillo foresees more breaking up
throughout the continent: Quebec breaking off from Canada and the U.S. breaking up into various
pieces. Truxillo envisions Mexico breaking up into three
pieces: the northern part, that will join the Republica
del Norte, the eastern part, which will secede and be
called Mayaland, and central Mexico, which will remain part of Mexico.
Another interesting point. Remember
the outcry about Samuel Huntington? Well, Truxillo agrees with
Huntington, and, like others, views the conflict between
Mexico and the U.S. being continuation of the conflict
between Elizabethan England and Spain of the Spanish Armada days.
The Mexica movement doesn’t fit
into any of the previous categories I have mentioned.
They’re not into the Aztlan stuff, they don’t support
the Republica del Norte. And they don’t want Mexico to
reconquer the U.S. Southwest, because they don’t like
Mexico either.
The Mexica claim to speak for all
the indigenous people of North America—from Alaska to Panama—whom they refer to as the "Nican Tlaca" and the continent as Anahuac.
The movement’s leader is Olin
Tezcatlipoca (born Leo Guerra, but he wanted a more indigenous-sounding
name). This movement rejects the labels "Hixpanic" and Latino as being European based.
This movement does not recognize
any borders on the North American continent, and they
reject the legitimacy of any of the 10 governments on the
continent, including the U.S. and Mexico. They consider
all of them to be European transplants and thus illegitimate.
"We
totally reject all illegal European colonial squatter
occupation borders on our continent" say the Mexica,
and "No European borders on our continent".
Another quote: "We are not illegals anywhere on our
continent. Europeans are illegals everywhere on our
continent." "Europeans can call themselves
‘Canadian’ or ‘American’ but they are still trespassing
on our continent."
The reject the legitimacy of the
Mexican government as being white-ruled, calling
Mexico’s leaders "Mexico City Criollos [White people]"
The Mexica movement exhorts readers of its website to
"remember that Mexico, ‘Central America’ and ‘South
America’ are still controlled by whites (European
descent people). And don’t tell us to go back where we
came from, this whole continent is where we came from,
Europeans came from Europe, so if you want to disrespect
us, you should go back where you came from and take your
white supremacy there."
And, unlike some other protestors,
you don’t see Mexica demonstrators brandishing posters
of Che Guevara—they reject Guevara as being too European.
The Mexica solution is to work to
develop indigenous consciousness. By indigenous they
mean descendents of the people who were here on the
continent before Europeans arrived, including mestizos. Since the movement doesn’t recognize any
North American borders, it teaches that any person
defined as indigenous has the right to go anywhere he wants in North America. White people,
meanwhile, must go back to Europe.
One more thing about the Mexica
folks—they want to leave the U.S. Constitution intact while they go about their
plan. Another example of how seditionists use our own
constitution against us!
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And here’s yet another
possibility, which is maybe the most likely of all.
What if, instead of the U.S. breaking up, it just
became another Spanish-speaking country?
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That’s what Univision’s Jorge Ramos predicts will take place in about 2100. Other activists who don’t
subscribe to a specific doctrine (reconquista,
Aztlan, Republica del Norte or Mexica movement) seem to
be thinking along these lines also.
In other words, instead of working
to secede from the U.S., why couldn’t unassimilated Hispanics just immigrate and multiply
until they could just take over the whole country?
Under that scenario, the borders of
the U.S.A. wouldn’t change. The U.S. would just be
transformed into a Latin American country.
Yes, these movements and the
sentiments they reflect are real. But of course the
future may not turn out exactly how these movements
envisage it.
What about the historic white, English-speaking majority of the United
States of America? Does that majority have any say in the matter? I mean, if all these Mexican,
Hispanic and Indigenous activists can boldly plan our
nation’s future, what about the historic majority of the country? Or has it already
been bypassed by history? Will it speak?
Given
current political, social and demographic trends, the
future of the nation, and its nature, will be up for
grabs in the next few years. CRO
copyright
2007 Allan Wall
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