http://www.sbsun.com/news/ci_3401016


Article Last Updated: 1/14/2006

Give the land back is a faulty argument
Returning California to Mexico would do more harm than good
Conor Friedersdorf, Staff Writer
San Bernardino County Sun

If you pay much attention to the immigration debate you've likely heard someone argue that California ought to belong to Mexico.
During the 1800s, the argument goes, an imperialist America seized the present day Southwest. As a result, these people claim the United States hasn't any right to enact laws restricting the entry of Latinos to this territory. Illegal immigrants are cast as jilted victims taking back what's rightfully theirs.

This worldview is deeply mistaken. In fact it is so deeply mistaken that few people bother to refute it. This columnist finds that unfortunate. Even the worst ideas can endure when they're not directly challenged. At present there are people who earnestly believe the United States owes immigration spots to foreign Latinos to atone for historical sins.

As we consider this particular argument, let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the United States did seize the Southwest from Mexico somewhat unfairly. Now consider how arbitrary it would be to undo that particular historical wrong amid the vast sweep of centuries stretching behind us.

Even the most basic knowledge of Mexican history demonstrates my point. Spaniards colonized the Mexican territory. They succeeded in part because some indigenous people fought on their side. Over time the Spanish and the indigenous people intermixed and intermarried.

So here are a few hypothetical questions for those who would return California to Mexico: If we're going to return it to anyone, shouldn't it be to the American Indian tribes who lost their land and civilization as a result of the Spaniards' arrival? Should we exclude those tribes whose ancestors fought on the side of the Spanish?

That's the thing about historic sins we've all got them. Moreover, most were committed at a time when the winning people and the losing people both subscribed to the legitimacy of territorial conquest, at least prior to being on the losing end of the battle.

In more modern times, geopolitical norms have changed. We rightly abhor territorial aggression. Consider one of history's most abhorrent examples: the German and Japanese campaign during World War II. Many people who suggest Mexican immigration policy ought to be influenced by American sins in the Southwest would be horrified by the suggestion that we ought to today punish prospective immigrants from Germany and Japan.

I certainly don't favor sanctioning those of Japanese and German dissent either check out my last name! As little sense as that makes, however, it makes more sense than rewarding present-day Mexicans, or punishing present-day Americans, based on the treatment of ancestors whose names aren't even remembered.

The theory gets even more absurd when you consider how few illegal immigrants have ancestors who lived in California in, say, 1849, and how many Americans have ancestors who didn't arrive on this continent until well after that year.

Then there's the fact that so many immigrants are flocking to the American Southwest not to protest what the United States has done with the place, but because its place within our union, rather than the Mexican nation, is the primary factor in its success. Baja California is lovely, and remarkably similar to Southern California in its climate and natural resources. Does anyone doubt that if Mexico had retained control of California it would now be as corrupt and impoverished as the rest of that nation? Or that illegal immigrants would now be flocking into Oregon and Nevada?

Anyone who feeds their family and educates their children with wealth produced in the United States a designation that applies to a whole lot of Mexico realizes on some level, practically speaking, our presence here is more of a benefit to Mexico than a burden.

Anyone who doesn't blame themselves for the unjust acts committed by their great-great-grandfathers should be slow to stake a moral claim to something based on the argument that their great-great-grandfathers were robbed of it.

And anyone who wants to argue for more expansive opportunities for legal immigration to the United States ought to choose an argument far stronger than an appeal to historic grievance.

Conor Friedersdorf manages The Sun's blog on immigration issues. The blog, designed to provide a forum for opinions and information on immigration, is at www.beyondbordersblog.com.