Thread: AZ-Here in Aztlan, it's the people that make the difference

Here in Aztlan, it's the people that make the difference
By Lionel Waxman, Inside Tucson Business
Published on Monday, July 06, 2009

If you had asked me 10 or 15 years ago about Aztlán and reconquista, I would have dismissed the notion as fanciful. But today, it must be taken seriously. While we have been busy with other things, Mexico has been promoting an invasion of the Southwestern United States. They come individually or as families. They come every possible way, but they come, by the thousands.

Anglos here call them illegal aliens. They consider themselves immigrants. They tell themselves they own this land and so do not need permission to enter it. Of course the United States denies this. We rely on the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the Gadsden Purchase which together settled the boundary between the United States and Mexico. But Mexicans were never satisfied with that. No one ever is satisfied by boundary revisions occasioned by war. The Russians want Alaska but the U.S. has no plans to give that back, either. The causes and conduct of the Mexican-American War are well documented and do not bear repetition here.

Recently Mexicans have been making a more concerted effort to recover the lands in question. They are doing this by entering the United States, often surreptitiously and without documentation. They usually come because they believe they can earn a better life here and remit some of their earnings to their families in Mexico. Some are not so beneficent. Some join gangs and engage in criminal activities.

Organizations have given them a cause beyond themselves in reconquista. They rationalize that they are entitled to this land and they come to take it back. Obviously, this war will not be fought militarily. It is a contest of will, and, as usual of late, the United States is found wanting.

Politicians who do not live on or near the border appear not to take the threat very seriously. They make half-hearted attempts to enforce the border, but it’s well-known that it is extremely porous. So they come, overwhelming social supports and requiring service we had reserved for our poor.

They see the standard of living in the U.S. and they aspire to it. But they prefer not to spend the generations it takes to achieve it. They think by recovering the land of the rich, they will, miraculously become rich, too. But this is a mistake.

The land in the U.S. Southwest is not appreciably different than the land in Mexico, if anything, it is less fertile. What makes land under the U.S. flag worth so much more than the land under the Mexican flag cannot be duplicated without adopting the American way of life.

Look at aerial photos of border cities and you will see the Mexican side built-up right to the international boundary. On the U.S. side, border cities are smaller and much of the land is sparsely settled with cattle ranches and desert preserves. There is no benefit for Americans to build right up to the border.

The very things that make America wealthy, are the very things they will not have in Aztlán. They include the United States’ Constitution, our country’s history of living under English Common Law, the Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence, the concept of individual sovereignty, the presumption of innocence, the rule of law, the dignity of the individual. These concepts simply do not exist under Mexican law which is based on Continental Code law.

Mexicans cannot and will not re-create the conditions here that have guaranteed our freedom and allow us to be as productive as we can be.

You can’t fully appreciate the traditions of the United States that have allowed us to create the most extraordinary country ever. It’s not the land. Land is land. You can grow lettuce almost anywhere. But to live free to be your own person, to pursue your best efforts without government interference – well, that is the foundation of America. And even though we have strayed far from that ideal. It remains the foundation of our republic.

To fully appreciate it, it helps to have lived here all your life and been educated here. That’s why no matter who owns the land, no Mexican, no Kenyan, will ever be able to fully appreciate our way of life or reproduce it under a different flag.

If the Mexican people want to participate in the American dream, they must become Americans: learn the language, learn the way of life, learn the traditions. Become an American. It’s not the land, it’s the people. The promise of Aztlán is a hollow one. They will not reproduce American prosperity in the reconquista, they will only extend Mexican poverty to it.

Contact Lionel Waxman at territorial@waxmanmedia.com or visit his website: www.newflashpoint.com.


http://www.azbiz.com/articles/2009/07/0 ... 976895.txt

Excellent Article, thank you.

This attitude is not reflective of most Mexican Americans, legal immigrants or even most illegal aliens but it is the language of a well organized group of activists. They have co-opted a lot of the American system.



The argument used to declare the Southwest and by extension the rest of the United States "Aztlan" is that the word Aztlan is from a family of languages spoken by tribes living in the Southwest called Uto Aztecan which includes the Utes and extends into Mexico. The Utes here on the whole do not support any so called "Plan of Aztlan". However the family of languages and tribes did not simply migrate into Mexico to become part but not all of Mexico it also extended past Mexico to Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua. There are tribes and Indians there of the same stock now who are just as much Uto Aztecan. The Mexican extremists here support full citizenship of Mexicans in the United States but fall silent on the rights of Central Americans in Mexico. If there were Central Americans acting like the Mexican amnesty supporters have here then there would be massive military arrests and deportations. If any Central American Uto Aztecans spoke triumphalistly like this on the right of their people to replace the rights of Mexicans they would be found by the thousands their corpses sides of roads with their political tracts in their mouths and their decapitated heads in their hands.

Very good read, thank you for posting it FedUpinFB.

Originally Posted by Richard

This attitude is not reflective of most Mexican Americans, legal immigrants or even most illegal aliens but it is the language of a well organized group of activists. They have co-opted a lot of the American system.

I beg to differ, at least in California the majority of Mexicans/Mexican descent buy into it, they have the "this is Mexico, you stole it, the border crossed us" attitude.

I live in Arizona, in an Hispanic community. They TOTALLY believe they are taking over. Anyone that thinks they don't have that intention is not listening. Not watching. Not seeing. Not noticing. AND, take my word for it, they all have guns, even the 10-year-olds.

Stop is now. Or regret it later.