by Phyllis Schlafly
Like many teenagers, President Bush dashed off to Cancun for spring break. Protected by a long and impenetrable fence and plenty of security guards, he met privately with the Mexican president and wealthy CEOs from both countries.
Bush should have gone to the Arizona border where American citizens really need a fence to protect themselves, their children, their animals and their property from the hundreds of illegal aliens who tramp across their land every night.
Bush thus gave the back of his hand to the 88 percent of Republican House Members who voted to secure our borders against the invasion of criminals, smugglers of illegal drugs with their armed escorts, smugglers of thirsty humans in crowded vans, and Other Than Mexicans (OTMs) who obviously aren't coming here to pick strawberries.
While Bush was closeted in a plush foreign resort hotel, the people who support his plan rather than the bill passed by the House demonstrated in the streets and the schools, flying the U.S. flag upside down subordinate to the Mexican flag, and carrying placards asserting that Mexico owns the southwest states. Are those the people Bush is now allying himself with instead of the people who elected him?
We would like to see the shocking 2004 campaign video just discovered by the Los Angeles Times, which Bush secretly mailed to Latino voters all over the country. Narrated by Bush, the video shows Bush waving a Mexican flag and describing U.S. citizens in Texas as foreigners in Mexico's native land.
At a closed meeting of conservatives in Washington, D.C. last week, a Bush representative tried to deny that Bush is advocating amnesty, but a participant retorted, "His dispute is not with us; it's with the dictionary." The additional comment that "we don't believe the President any more" elicited spontaneous applause.
In another semantic deception, Bush said in Cancun that he is committed to signing a "comprehensive immigration bill. And by 'comprehensive,' I mean not only a bill that has border security in it, but a bill that has a worker permit program in it. That's an important part of having a border that works."
That statement is false, a non sequitur, and offensive to the intelligence and wishes of the American people. Our experience with the 1986 law proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that amnesty destroys border security and quadruples the number trying to enter the U.S. illegally.
Even the use of the word "comprehensive" is odious. For 20 years, those of us who have fought education issues know that "comprehensive" is the code word used to conceal from parents the fact that sex education includes teaching kids in coed classrooms how to use condoms.
Likewise, "comprehensive" border security means concealing from the public that it means immediately legalizing the illegals who are already in our country and giving worker permits to many more foreigners to come in, while giving us only pie-in-the-sky promises about closing our borders to illegal entry.
On the eve of the Cancun trip, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted for the Kennedy-McCain amnesty/guest-worker/no-border-security bill with the votes of all the Democrats and four Republicans. The bill would provide legal status to at least 11 million illegal aliens (Bear Stearns estimates 20 million) now living in this country plus 1.5 million guest farm workers, plus guest-worker status for at least 400,000 new non-farm workers every year with their relatives, plus in-state-college-tuition status for illegal-alien students.
Putting his name on a Ted Kennedy bill should forfeit any chance John McCain might have had to be the 2008 Republican presidential nominee. The Amnesty Four who voted for the Kennedy-McCain bill, Arlen Specter, Sam Brownback, Michael DeWine, and Lindsey Graham, also forfeit their Republican respectability.
Rep. Bob Beauprez (R-CO) figured it out correctly. He said this would be "the biggest magnet ever, ... a dinner bell, 'come one, come all.'"
The Kennedy-McCain bill is directly contrary to what the American people want. A new survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press reports that 53 percent of Americans believe illegal aliens should be required to return home, and only 40 percent said they should be granted some legal status to remain.
George W. Bush, who will never again run for office, is selfishly destroying the Republican Party. He is molding the Republican Party into the Party of Big Business and Big Government.
While employers get the benefit of importing millions of "willing workers" from poor countries, the taxpayers are stuck with having to pay for social benefits for low-paid workers: schooling, health care, food stamps, housing subsidies, Earned Income Tax Credit handouts, law enforcement, and, if amnesty passes, adding 10+ million people to the already staggering number eligible for Medicaid.
Economics 101 teaches that an increase in low-paid labor supply inexorably depresses wages and increases the costs of social benefits. Cui bono? Corporate donors to Bush and the Republican Party.
Further reading: Amnesty
http://www.eagleforum.org/column/2006/apr06/06-04-12.html
Monday, February 23, 2009
La Republica del Norte: The Next American Nation
Source: The Social Contract Press (Fall 2000)
by Brent Nelson
The Albuquerque Tribune in its issue of January 31, 2000, reported at length on one man's plan for a Republica del Norte. The new republic, according to its herald, Dr. Charles Truxillo, an adjunct professor of Chicano Studies at the University of New Mexico, should be brought into existence ''by any means necessary.''(1) Despite this impatient tone, Truxillo admits that the new Republica del Norte will probably not come into being until toward the end of the century. When it does take its place among the nations of the world, it will be a sovereign Chicano nation straddling the present U.S.-Mexican border. North of the border, it will comprise the present states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and part of Colorado. South of the border, it will include the present Mexican states of Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, and Tamaulipas.Why will the rest of Mexico not be included in the new republic? The Albuquerque Tribune's reporter did not ask this question, but a reasonable guess is that the republic's boundaries will be drawn to include only the northern industrial belt of Mexico. This is the area of Mexico where the pro-capitalist National Action Party (PAN) has elected governors. Northern Mexico also has the highest concentration of people who are wholly or mostly of Caucasian descent. Southern Mexico is Indian Mexico and seems to be in a state of insurgency more often than not.(2) Although the Marxist opposition party, the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) is strong in the southernmost provinces, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) still manages to dominate them through force and fraud.Truxillo believes in the right of a state to secede. Although the U.S. government might deny that right to its own states, it at least once recognized the right of Mexican states to secede. The notorious example of the latter was, of course, the U.S.-approved transformation of Tejas into Texas. (Santa-Anna could have argued — and perhaps did so, because he lived until 1876 — that he was only trying to do what Lincoln did.)Along both sides of the border, according to Truxillo, ''there is a growing fusion, a reviving of connections. Southwest Chicanos and Norteno Mexicanos are becoming one people again.'' They must become one people again, and independent, because they ''have been ruled by three empires, Spain, Mexico, and the United States. Under all three systems, we have failed to achieve self-determination.''(3)Why is self-determination for Chicanos so important? Truxillo's answer is thought-provoking ''Among native-born American Hispanics, there is the feeling that we are strangers in our own land. We remain subordinated. We have a negative image of our own culture, created by the media. Self-loathing is a terrible form of oppression. …There has to be an alternative.''(4)Truxillo cites the notorious Malcolm X formula, ''by any means necessary,'' but it is doubtful that any drastic measures will be taken to bring into being a Republic del Norte. The spirit of el Plan de San Diego, an abortive violent uprising which erupted in 1917, provided the inspiration for a number of nationalist movements from then until the 1980s, all focused on Aztlan and la Raza, but it is now probably an obsolescent model.(5) Political and legal developments fully accepted and even welcomed by U.S. governing circles are preparing the way for a triumph of Chicano nationalism without any recourse to armed militancy.On July 2, 2000, the Mexican equivalent of the fall of the Berlin Wall took place when Vicente Fox Quesada, the presidential candidate of PAN, won a winning plurality of the vote against the candidates of the PRI and the PRD. For the first time in 71 years, the candidate of the PRI had failed to win election.(6)The PAN, a pro-capitalist and pro-religious party, differs sharply from the PRI, which has always leaned to the left and to secularism. The most important difference between the two parties may be, however, the fact that the PRI has always been a nationalist, hence anti-United States party, while the PAN is, at least attitudinally, as pro-American as it is pro-business. Paradoxically, the pro-American stance of the PAN may make it more of a menace to the territorial integrity of the United States than the adversarial posturings of the PRI and the PRD.Fox lost little time in proposing that the U.S., Canada, and Mexico work jointly to achieve an economic union patterned after the European Union. He asked that the U.S. immediately increase visas for Mexicans entering the U.S. to 250,000 a year. Fox admitted that closing the gap in wages between the U.S. and Mexico, which is 7 to 1 in the U.S.'s favor, might take decades.(7) Since 1994, when the North American Free Trade Agreement was implemented, average wages in Mexico have in fact fallen, largely as a result of the 1994 peso crisis. (8)Few spoke up to voice the obvious objection to such a closure from the standpoint of the American worker once the gap was closed the new level of wages would almost certainly not be the U.S. level, but rather one intermediate between those of the two nations, a clear decline in the standard of living of wage workers and, probably, even salaried workers in the U.S. (9) This would be especially true if the explosive growth of the Mexican population is not curtailed. PAN, a pro-clerical party, has already moved to outlaw abortion in at least one Mexican state and is unfriendly to birth control programs.(10) The adoption of a European Union model for economic integration would be especially significant given the increasing acceptance of dual citizenship. The oath taken by newly naturalized citizens in which they ''renounce and abjure all allegiances and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty'' was by 1998 rendered legally moot. Since a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1967, the U.S. no longer finds a second citizenship to be legally problematic. Supposedly, the oath no longer requires a citizen to give up a previous citizenship. In its report delivered at the end of 1997, the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform called for ''modernizing'' the language of the oath.(11)The U.S. Supreme Court in 1967 in the case of Afroyim v. Rusk (387 U.S. 253) reversed previous decisions and held that a naturalized citizen could not be deprived of his citizenship by Congress. Afroyim, born in Poland, became a naturalized U.S. citizen, then moved to Israel in 1950 and in 1950 voted in an election for the Israeli Knesset. When he applied for a renewal of his U.S. passport in 1960, his application was refused by the Department of State which cited a section of the Nationality Act of 1940 mandating revocation of citizenship for naturalized citizens who vote ''in a political election in a foreign state.'' Afroyim sued the Secretary of State, asking to have the statutory provision declared unconstitutional as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Overruling its prior decisions, most notably Perez v. Brownell (356 U.S. 44) in 1958, the Supreme Court agreed with Afroyim that he was unconstitutionally deprived of his citizenship. Only if a U.S. citizen voted in a foreign election with the stated intent of renouncing his U.S. citizenship could he lose his citizenship. Although this ruling seems to be as potentially significant as Brown v. Board of Education or Roe v. Wade, it has received little publicity. In response to this tacit acceptance of dual citizenship, the Mexican government on March 21, 1998, changed the Mexican Constitution to permit millions of Mexican-born citizens, as well as their U.S.-born children, to claim or reclaim Mexican citizenship.(12) Admittedly, the Mexican Constitution is not unique in its recognition of dual citizenship. Ireland also offers citizenship to any of the millions of American citizens who had at least one grandparent who was born in Ireland. Germany, more generously, grants citizenship to anyone who can prove German descent. Thus, tens of millions of German Americans could also assume German citizenship.(13) What made the Mexican initiative unique, however, was its being soon followed by what seemed to be open attempts to mobilize Mexican Americans on behalf of the political interests of their nation of birth or ancestry. In 1999, a serious movement began in Mexico to allow Mexican Americans, possibly as many as ten million of them, to vote in the 2000 Mexican presidential election. (14)The acceptance of dual citizenship by U.S. governing circles also partially explains the inadequate response to what may be called the partial secession of El Cenizo, Texas. In 1999, the Texas border city of El Cenizo, near Laredo, established Spanish as its official language and declared the town a ''safe haven'' for ''undocumented workers.'' City officials also warned that city employees cooperating with the U.S. Border Patrol would face dismissal. El Cenizo, a colonia chartered as a city only in 1989, had grown to a population of 8,000 by 1999, more than two-thirds of which spoke little or no English. The official establishment of Spanish as the town's language of government aroused protests from the organization U.S. English, while officials of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service asked to meet with city officials regarding their stance on the Border Patrol.(15)What happened in El Cenizo was a non-violent uprising of el Republica del Norte against the United States. The French political thinker Charles Maurras well-described the situation with his observation that the real nation is not to be confused with the legal nation. Truxillo's new republic, as far as the city officials of El Cenizo are concerned, is their real nation. They and other Chicano nationalists have a sense of nationality, while the U.S. leadership does not go beyond considerations of citizenship (i.e., legality). Virtually every nation in Europe, unlike the United States, has a foundation in some ethnicity, albeit that that foundation may no longer be legally recognized. Anthony D. Smith, a British sociologist, finds the core of each nation in what he calls ''the ethnie.'' Ethnies are ''human populations with shared ancestry myths, histories and cultures, having an association with a specific territory and a sense of solidarity.'' Uniting the ethnie is a ''collective name,'' ''imputed common ancestry and origins,'' and a shared culture which includes religion, language, customs, institutions, laws, folklore, architecture, dress, food, music, and arts. The sense of solidarity, ''which in times of stress and danger can override class, factional or regional divisions within the community'' partially explains why the ''paradox of ethnicity is its mutability in persistence, and its persistence through change.(16)Any attempt to establish an ethnie for the United States in the year 2000 now seems to be almost un-American. All members of the U.S. power elite seem to agree with Justice Hugo Black that ''the United States is purely a creature of the Constitution.'' (17) The once popular sense of an ethnically defined founding people, who first created the nation and then crafted a constitution for it, has been largely lost. Admittedly, that sense may have been tenuous from the beginning and was further eroded by the 14th amendment.(18)While the ethnie of the American nation is submerged and blurred, if it is any longer existent at all, that of Truxillo's projected new republic is much sharper in definition and clarity. It is a sense of autochthony claimed by the Chicano population on the basis of their Indian ancestry. This right of priority, of being indigenous or autochthonous, has recently been challenged by partisans of Kennewick Man, but Kennewick Man established no enduring settlements.(19) Survival is the final determiner of nationhood. If the American ethnie does not enjoy more than a feeble resurgence, then the Southwest U.S. will give way to el Republica del Norte.
Notes1. Frank Zoretich, ''New Mexico Will Secede to New Nation, Prof Says,''Albuquerque Tribune, 31 Jan. 2000, p. A1.2. See Lester D. Langley, MexAmerica Two Countries, One Future (New YorkCrown, 1988), pp. 4-5.3. Zoretich, Ibid.4. Ibid.5. For a somewhat partisan account of el Plan de San Diego, see AlfredoMirande, Gringo Justice (Notre Dame, Ind. Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1987),pp. 95-6.6. For a detailed account of this fateful election, see Mary Beth Sheridan,''Mexico's Landmark Vote,'' Los Angeles Times, 3 July 2000, p. A1.7. See Kevin Sullivan and Mary Jordan, ''Fox Seeks New Cooperative Era for N.America,'' The Washington Post, 14 Aug. 2000, p. A1.8. See Edward Alden and Henry Tricks, ''Border Crossing,'' Financial Times[London], 21 Aug. 2000, p. 14.9. Critics included George Borjas, ''Mexico's One-Way Remedy,'' The New YorkTimes, 18 July 2000, p. A21, and Robert J. Samuelson, ''America as Mexico'sEconomic Safety Valve,'' The Washington Post, 20 July 2000, p. A25.10. See Sullivan and Jordan.11. See ''Courts Render Citizenship Vow Moot,'' San Francisco Examiner, 15Feb. 1998, Sec. A, p. 17. See also Stanley A. Renshon, ''Dual Citizens inAmerica An Issue of Vast Proportions and Broad Significance,'' Center forImmigration Studies Backgrounder, July 2000, pp. 1-11.12. See Jonathan Tilove, ''Rise of the Ampersand American,'' San FranciscoExaminer, 15 Feb. 1998, Sec. A, p. 17.13. Ibid.14. See Sam Dillon, ''Mexico Weighs Voting by its Emigrants in U.S.,'' The NewYork Times, 7 Dec. 1998, Sec. A, p. 3, and Patrick J. McDonnell, ''U.S. VotesCould Sway Mexico's Next Election,'' Los Angeles Times, 15 Feb. 1999, Sec.A, p. 1.15. See Joyce Howard Price, ''Officially, They Speak No Ingles; It's SpanishOnly for Town in Texas,'' The Washington Times, 14 Aug. 1999, Sec. A, p. 1.16. See Smith's The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford Basil Blackwell, 1986),pp. 21f.17. Black is quoted in David Jacobson, Rights Across Borders Immigration andthe Decline of Citizenship (Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p.102. 18. The last influential apologia on behalf of an American ethnie is Henry PrattFairchild's The Melting-Pot Mistake (Boston Little, Brown, 1926).19. On Kennewick Man, see Roger Downey, Riddle of the Bones Politics,Science, Race, and the Story of the Kennewick Man (New York Copernicus,2000) and David H. Thomas, Skull Wars Kennewick Man, Archaeology, and theBattle for Native American Identity (New York Basic Books, 2000). Brent Nelson, Ph. D., is the author of America Balkanized --Immigration's Challenge to Government published by the ImmigrationControl Foundation of Monterey, Virginia. © 2000 by The Social Contract Press
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by Brent Nelson
The Albuquerque Tribune in its issue of January 31, 2000, reported at length on one man's plan for a Republica del Norte. The new republic, according to its herald, Dr. Charles Truxillo, an adjunct professor of Chicano Studies at the University of New Mexico, should be brought into existence ''by any means necessary.''(1) Despite this impatient tone, Truxillo admits that the new Republica del Norte will probably not come into being until toward the end of the century. When it does take its place among the nations of the world, it will be a sovereign Chicano nation straddling the present U.S.-Mexican border. North of the border, it will comprise the present states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and part of Colorado. South of the border, it will include the present Mexican states of Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, and Tamaulipas.Why will the rest of Mexico not be included in the new republic? The Albuquerque Tribune's reporter did not ask this question, but a reasonable guess is that the republic's boundaries will be drawn to include only the northern industrial belt of Mexico. This is the area of Mexico where the pro-capitalist National Action Party (PAN) has elected governors. Northern Mexico also has the highest concentration of people who are wholly or mostly of Caucasian descent. Southern Mexico is Indian Mexico and seems to be in a state of insurgency more often than not.(2) Although the Marxist opposition party, the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) is strong in the southernmost provinces, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) still manages to dominate them through force and fraud.Truxillo believes in the right of a state to secede. Although the U.S. government might deny that right to its own states, it at least once recognized the right of Mexican states to secede. The notorious example of the latter was, of course, the U.S.-approved transformation of Tejas into Texas. (Santa-Anna could have argued — and perhaps did so, because he lived until 1876 — that he was only trying to do what Lincoln did.)Along both sides of the border, according to Truxillo, ''there is a growing fusion, a reviving of connections. Southwest Chicanos and Norteno Mexicanos are becoming one people again.'' They must become one people again, and independent, because they ''have been ruled by three empires, Spain, Mexico, and the United States. Under all three systems, we have failed to achieve self-determination.''(3)Why is self-determination for Chicanos so important? Truxillo's answer is thought-provoking ''Among native-born American Hispanics, there is the feeling that we are strangers in our own land. We remain subordinated. We have a negative image of our own culture, created by the media. Self-loathing is a terrible form of oppression. …There has to be an alternative.''(4)Truxillo cites the notorious Malcolm X formula, ''by any means necessary,'' but it is doubtful that any drastic measures will be taken to bring into being a Republic del Norte. The spirit of el Plan de San Diego, an abortive violent uprising which erupted in 1917, provided the inspiration for a number of nationalist movements from then until the 1980s, all focused on Aztlan and la Raza, but it is now probably an obsolescent model.(5) Political and legal developments fully accepted and even welcomed by U.S. governing circles are preparing the way for a triumph of Chicano nationalism without any recourse to armed militancy.On July 2, 2000, the Mexican equivalent of the fall of the Berlin Wall took place when Vicente Fox Quesada, the presidential candidate of PAN, won a winning plurality of the vote against the candidates of the PRI and the PRD. For the first time in 71 years, the candidate of the PRI had failed to win election.(6)The PAN, a pro-capitalist and pro-religious party, differs sharply from the PRI, which has always leaned to the left and to secularism. The most important difference between the two parties may be, however, the fact that the PRI has always been a nationalist, hence anti-United States party, while the PAN is, at least attitudinally, as pro-American as it is pro-business. Paradoxically, the pro-American stance of the PAN may make it more of a menace to the territorial integrity of the United States than the adversarial posturings of the PRI and the PRD.Fox lost little time in proposing that the U.S., Canada, and Mexico work jointly to achieve an economic union patterned after the European Union. He asked that the U.S. immediately increase visas for Mexicans entering the U.S. to 250,000 a year. Fox admitted that closing the gap in wages between the U.S. and Mexico, which is 7 to 1 in the U.S.'s favor, might take decades.(7) Since 1994, when the North American Free Trade Agreement was implemented, average wages in Mexico have in fact fallen, largely as a result of the 1994 peso crisis. (8)Few spoke up to voice the obvious objection to such a closure from the standpoint of the American worker once the gap was closed the new level of wages would almost certainly not be the U.S. level, but rather one intermediate between those of the two nations, a clear decline in the standard of living of wage workers and, probably, even salaried workers in the U.S. (9) This would be especially true if the explosive growth of the Mexican population is not curtailed. PAN, a pro-clerical party, has already moved to outlaw abortion in at least one Mexican state and is unfriendly to birth control programs.(10) The adoption of a European Union model for economic integration would be especially significant given the increasing acceptance of dual citizenship. The oath taken by newly naturalized citizens in which they ''renounce and abjure all allegiances and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty'' was by 1998 rendered legally moot. Since a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1967, the U.S. no longer finds a second citizenship to be legally problematic. Supposedly, the oath no longer requires a citizen to give up a previous citizenship. In its report delivered at the end of 1997, the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform called for ''modernizing'' the language of the oath.(11)The U.S. Supreme Court in 1967 in the case of Afroyim v. Rusk (387 U.S. 253) reversed previous decisions and held that a naturalized citizen could not be deprived of his citizenship by Congress. Afroyim, born in Poland, became a naturalized U.S. citizen, then moved to Israel in 1950 and in 1950 voted in an election for the Israeli Knesset. When he applied for a renewal of his U.S. passport in 1960, his application was refused by the Department of State which cited a section of the Nationality Act of 1940 mandating revocation of citizenship for naturalized citizens who vote ''in a political election in a foreign state.'' Afroyim sued the Secretary of State, asking to have the statutory provision declared unconstitutional as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Overruling its prior decisions, most notably Perez v. Brownell (356 U.S. 44) in 1958, the Supreme Court agreed with Afroyim that he was unconstitutionally deprived of his citizenship. Only if a U.S. citizen voted in a foreign election with the stated intent of renouncing his U.S. citizenship could he lose his citizenship. Although this ruling seems to be as potentially significant as Brown v. Board of Education or Roe v. Wade, it has received little publicity. In response to this tacit acceptance of dual citizenship, the Mexican government on March 21, 1998, changed the Mexican Constitution to permit millions of Mexican-born citizens, as well as their U.S.-born children, to claim or reclaim Mexican citizenship.(12) Admittedly, the Mexican Constitution is not unique in its recognition of dual citizenship. Ireland also offers citizenship to any of the millions of American citizens who had at least one grandparent who was born in Ireland. Germany, more generously, grants citizenship to anyone who can prove German descent. Thus, tens of millions of German Americans could also assume German citizenship.(13) What made the Mexican initiative unique, however, was its being soon followed by what seemed to be open attempts to mobilize Mexican Americans on behalf of the political interests of their nation of birth or ancestry. In 1999, a serious movement began in Mexico to allow Mexican Americans, possibly as many as ten million of them, to vote in the 2000 Mexican presidential election. (14)The acceptance of dual citizenship by U.S. governing circles also partially explains the inadequate response to what may be called the partial secession of El Cenizo, Texas. In 1999, the Texas border city of El Cenizo, near Laredo, established Spanish as its official language and declared the town a ''safe haven'' for ''undocumented workers.'' City officials also warned that city employees cooperating with the U.S. Border Patrol would face dismissal. El Cenizo, a colonia chartered as a city only in 1989, had grown to a population of 8,000 by 1999, more than two-thirds of which spoke little or no English. The official establishment of Spanish as the town's language of government aroused protests from the organization U.S. English, while officials of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service asked to meet with city officials regarding their stance on the Border Patrol.(15)What happened in El Cenizo was a non-violent uprising of el Republica del Norte against the United States. The French political thinker Charles Maurras well-described the situation with his observation that the real nation is not to be confused with the legal nation. Truxillo's new republic, as far as the city officials of El Cenizo are concerned, is their real nation. They and other Chicano nationalists have a sense of nationality, while the U.S. leadership does not go beyond considerations of citizenship (i.e., legality). Virtually every nation in Europe, unlike the United States, has a foundation in some ethnicity, albeit that that foundation may no longer be legally recognized. Anthony D. Smith, a British sociologist, finds the core of each nation in what he calls ''the ethnie.'' Ethnies are ''human populations with shared ancestry myths, histories and cultures, having an association with a specific territory and a sense of solidarity.'' Uniting the ethnie is a ''collective name,'' ''imputed common ancestry and origins,'' and a shared culture which includes religion, language, customs, institutions, laws, folklore, architecture, dress, food, music, and arts. The sense of solidarity, ''which in times of stress and danger can override class, factional or regional divisions within the community'' partially explains why the ''paradox of ethnicity is its mutability in persistence, and its persistence through change.(16)Any attempt to establish an ethnie for the United States in the year 2000 now seems to be almost un-American. All members of the U.S. power elite seem to agree with Justice Hugo Black that ''the United States is purely a creature of the Constitution.'' (17) The once popular sense of an ethnically defined founding people, who first created the nation and then crafted a constitution for it, has been largely lost. Admittedly, that sense may have been tenuous from the beginning and was further eroded by the 14th amendment.(18)While the ethnie of the American nation is submerged and blurred, if it is any longer existent at all, that of Truxillo's projected new republic is much sharper in definition and clarity. It is a sense of autochthony claimed by the Chicano population on the basis of their Indian ancestry. This right of priority, of being indigenous or autochthonous, has recently been challenged by partisans of Kennewick Man, but Kennewick Man established no enduring settlements.(19) Survival is the final determiner of nationhood. If the American ethnie does not enjoy more than a feeble resurgence, then the Southwest U.S. will give way to el Republica del Norte.
Notes1. Frank Zoretich, ''New Mexico Will Secede to New Nation, Prof Says,''Albuquerque Tribune, 31 Jan. 2000, p. A1.2. See Lester D. Langley, MexAmerica Two Countries, One Future (New YorkCrown, 1988), pp. 4-5.3. Zoretich, Ibid.4. Ibid.5. For a somewhat partisan account of el Plan de San Diego, see AlfredoMirande, Gringo Justice (Notre Dame, Ind. Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1987),pp. 95-6.6. For a detailed account of this fateful election, see Mary Beth Sheridan,''Mexico's Landmark Vote,'' Los Angeles Times, 3 July 2000, p. A1.7. See Kevin Sullivan and Mary Jordan, ''Fox Seeks New Cooperative Era for N.America,'' The Washington Post, 14 Aug. 2000, p. A1.8. See Edward Alden and Henry Tricks, ''Border Crossing,'' Financial Times[London], 21 Aug. 2000, p. 14.9. Critics included George Borjas, ''Mexico's One-Way Remedy,'' The New YorkTimes, 18 July 2000, p. A21, and Robert J. Samuelson, ''America as Mexico'sEconomic Safety Valve,'' The Washington Post, 20 July 2000, p. A25.10. See Sullivan and Jordan.11. See ''Courts Render Citizenship Vow Moot,'' San Francisco Examiner, 15Feb. 1998, Sec. A, p. 17. See also Stanley A. Renshon, ''Dual Citizens inAmerica An Issue of Vast Proportions and Broad Significance,'' Center forImmigration Studies Backgrounder, July 2000, pp. 1-11.12. See Jonathan Tilove, ''Rise of the Ampersand American,'' San FranciscoExaminer, 15 Feb. 1998, Sec. A, p. 17.13. Ibid.14. See Sam Dillon, ''Mexico Weighs Voting by its Emigrants in U.S.,'' The NewYork Times, 7 Dec. 1998, Sec. A, p. 3, and Patrick J. McDonnell, ''U.S. VotesCould Sway Mexico's Next Election,'' Los Angeles Times, 15 Feb. 1999, Sec.A, p. 1.15. See Joyce Howard Price, ''Officially, They Speak No Ingles; It's SpanishOnly for Town in Texas,'' The Washington Times, 14 Aug. 1999, Sec. A, p. 1.16. See Smith's The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford Basil Blackwell, 1986),pp. 21f.17. Black is quoted in David Jacobson, Rights Across Borders Immigration andthe Decline of Citizenship (Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p.102. 18. The last influential apologia on behalf of an American ethnie is Henry PrattFairchild's The Melting-Pot Mistake (Boston Little, Brown, 1926).19. On Kennewick Man, see Roger Downey, Riddle of the Bones Politics,Science, Race, and the Story of the Kennewick Man (New York Copernicus,2000) and David H. Thomas, Skull Wars Kennewick Man, Archaeology, and theBattle for Native American Identity (New York Basic Books, 2000). Brent Nelson, Ph. D., is the author of America Balkanized --Immigration's Challenge to Government published by the ImmigrationControl Foundation of Monterey, Virginia. © 2000 by The Social Contract Press
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Map circa 2080
Another map. This one now shows Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, the lower half of Colorado, and about half of the upper part of Mexico as "Del Norte States" on the legend and "Republica del Norte written across the area.
El Plan del Norte
We people of Mexican origin have been in the American Southwest (1848 to the present), or the Mexican north (900-1848 A.D.), from ancient Meso-American times, northward being our natural migration pattern. Later under Spanish hegemony, we Hispanicized Mexicanos continued our northward march setting up settlements in New Mexico (1598), Arizona (1690), Texas (1718), and California (1769). One hundred and seventy years ago the former colonial children of protestant England - the Anglo Americans, and we the mestizo children of Catholic Spain and indigenous natives - the Mexicanos - clashed along the north Mexican frontier. In that encounter the Anglo-Americans won and annexed half of Mexico's national territory along with 100,000 of us Mexicanos/Chicanos. Even though the "Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo" (1848) promised to protect our civil, religious, and property rights, we soon found ourselves reduced to colonial status, subordinated, and subjugated - strangers in our own land. Since that time, we Norteños have lived under colonial rule of the United States with our language, identity, land grants, and religion under incessant attack.
The centuries-old battle for the Spanish borderlands is not yet resolved. The westward push of the norteamericanos continues, as does the northward march of Mexicanos. Let no one misunderstand the insidious anti-Mexicano propositions continually rearing their ugly head in California; they mark the broadside fired in the cultural war being raged to further homogenize American society. The mantras of "multiculturalism" and "diversity," touted by the dominant society are hollow as they implicitly note a diversity which is English speaking, and intent on retaining dominant Anglo cultural values.
The continuous accounts of police corruption, odious legal precedents, and overtly discriminatory and harsh sentencing practices that imprison our young people are further proof of anti-Mexicano attitudes. Yet the so-called "national" politicians fail to address our issues. Why should a colonized, marginalized, yet emerging majority population endorse such a system? A system whose foundation was built around a doctrine of white supremacy. A system designed to ensure the maintenance of a dominant Anglo oligarchy. A system which protects the individual over the good of the community, and a judicial system not centered on justice, but the protection of economic interests through the manipulation of the courts. Where do we the disenfranchised masses go to seek redress for our grievances?
A growing sense of alienation from the United States government pervades many sectors, creating a search for alternatives. One alternative is ethnic nationalism. The United States' foundation as a country was based on the right of self-determination: first as colonists from England pursuing religious and political liberty, then as revolutionaries rejecting British rule. It a tragic historical irony that such a country would deny that same inalienable right to subordinated nationalities within its territory. Our Native American brothers still struggle for full sovereignty within the United States, but their day will soon come. African-Americans also seek redress from centuries of oppression.
A cursory perusal of the global geo-political situation bears witness to the dismemberment and crumbling of old and tired multi-ethnic empires - the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, India, Indonesia, potentially China and eventually the United States. We are also witnessing the re-emergence of long suppressed nations - Croatia, Palestine, and Armenia amongst others. The tide of history is in favor of smaller states reemerging out of larger but faltering super-states.
Beginning in 1910, the Mexican Revolution initiated a ninety-year process by which Mexicanos began re-colonizing the former Mexican North. Currently the wounded and receding American Empire, with its false claim of "Liberty and Justice for all" is slowly being exposed as the widening gap between the rich and poor in the United States, and throughout the rest of the world, impels mass waves of immigration. The southern border of the United States is patrolled by the military to keep our people out of their ancestral home, yet ironically American economic and foreign policy objectives throughout Latin America impoverish and decimate indigenous communities forcing droves of immigrants to seek jobs in el Norte. Within the next 25 years, Mexico's population will reach 150 million. Perhaps as many as 50 million will make their way north, pressing against and spilling over the American border in a virtual völkerwanderungen. Mexicanos will cross that imaginary line and re-colonize those lands lost to the Americans in 1848.
This change in regional demography will eventually establish a Chicano/Mexicano majority in the American Southwest around 2080. Which in turn will create Quebec style separatism, and perhaps foster an intifada like student movement. Those who seek the welfare of our people should also anticipate the formation of a new country based on Justice, Equality, and the Self-Determination for its indigenous peoples. A country in the American Southwest and the Mexican North - La República del Norte!
http://www.unm.edu/~ecdn/planenglish.html
The centuries-old battle for the Spanish borderlands is not yet resolved. The westward push of the norteamericanos continues, as does the northward march of Mexicanos. Let no one misunderstand the insidious anti-Mexicano propositions continually rearing their ugly head in California; they mark the broadside fired in the cultural war being raged to further homogenize American society. The mantras of "multiculturalism" and "diversity," touted by the dominant society are hollow as they implicitly note a diversity which is English speaking, and intent on retaining dominant Anglo cultural values.
The continuous accounts of police corruption, odious legal precedents, and overtly discriminatory and harsh sentencing practices that imprison our young people are further proof of anti-Mexicano attitudes. Yet the so-called "national" politicians fail to address our issues. Why should a colonized, marginalized, yet emerging majority population endorse such a system? A system whose foundation was built around a doctrine of white supremacy. A system designed to ensure the maintenance of a dominant Anglo oligarchy. A system which protects the individual over the good of the community, and a judicial system not centered on justice, but the protection of economic interests through the manipulation of the courts. Where do we the disenfranchised masses go to seek redress for our grievances?
A growing sense of alienation from the United States government pervades many sectors, creating a search for alternatives. One alternative is ethnic nationalism. The United States' foundation as a country was based on the right of self-determination: first as colonists from England pursuing religious and political liberty, then as revolutionaries rejecting British rule. It a tragic historical irony that such a country would deny that same inalienable right to subordinated nationalities within its territory. Our Native American brothers still struggle for full sovereignty within the United States, but their day will soon come. African-Americans also seek redress from centuries of oppression.
A cursory perusal of the global geo-political situation bears witness to the dismemberment and crumbling of old and tired multi-ethnic empires - the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, India, Indonesia, potentially China and eventually the United States. We are also witnessing the re-emergence of long suppressed nations - Croatia, Palestine, and Armenia amongst others. The tide of history is in favor of smaller states reemerging out of larger but faltering super-states.
Beginning in 1910, the Mexican Revolution initiated a ninety-year process by which Mexicanos began re-colonizing the former Mexican North. Currently the wounded and receding American Empire, with its false claim of "Liberty and Justice for all" is slowly being exposed as the widening gap between the rich and poor in the United States, and throughout the rest of the world, impels mass waves of immigration. The southern border of the United States is patrolled by the military to keep our people out of their ancestral home, yet ironically American economic and foreign policy objectives throughout Latin America impoverish and decimate indigenous communities forcing droves of immigrants to seek jobs in el Norte. Within the next 25 years, Mexico's population will reach 150 million. Perhaps as many as 50 million will make their way north, pressing against and spilling over the American border in a virtual völkerwanderungen. Mexicanos will cross that imaginary line and re-colonize those lands lost to the Americans in 1848.
This change in regional demography will eventually establish a Chicano/Mexicano majority in the American Southwest around 2080. Which in turn will create Quebec style separatism, and perhaps foster an intifada like student movement. Those who seek the welfare of our people should also anticipate the formation of a new country based on Justice, Equality, and the Self-Determination for its indigenous peoples. A country in the American Southwest and the Mexican North - La República del Norte!
http://www.unm.edu/~ecdn/planenglish.html
Map circa 2050
I have not been able to copy the maps included in the El Centro de la Raza curriculum at UNM so I'll just describe them.
This one has a line indicating "Line of dense Hispanic population in U.S. states or territories." This line starts at Houston and goes to Sacramento including Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, and California. It has cities circled and colored in with numbers in the circles. The legend for these circles states, "Mexican states, or areas under effective control, including territories." The legend for the numbers indicate that .1 indicates an American city with 100,000 or more Hispanics and 1 indicates an American city with 1,000,000 or more. Odessa has a .1 in its circle. San Antonio has a 1.5. Houston has a 2. LA has a 10.0. San Diego has a 3.0. San Francisco has a 2.4.
This one has a line indicating "Line of dense Hispanic population in U.S. states or territories." This line starts at Houston and goes to Sacramento including Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, and California. It has cities circled and colored in with numbers in the circles. The legend for these circles states, "Mexican states, or areas under effective control, including territories." The legend for the numbers indicate that .1 indicates an American city with 100,000 or more Hispanics and 1 indicates an American city with 1,000,000 or more. Odessa has a .1 in its circle. San Antonio has a 1.5. Houston has a 2. LA has a 10.0. San Diego has a 3.0. San Francisco has a 2.4.
Movement of Nations
by Dennis Aguirre
I have often heard people say that the idea of an independent Norteño nation arising in the region of the modern day American southwest is a ridiculous and preposterous idea. These people dismiss this hypothesis based on their misconception that the United States is an eternal institution that will strive perpetually. This, however, is false and there are many examples throughout history that prove exactly this point.
Governmental regimes crumble and break into separate entities for various reasons and the path that the United States has embarked upon is not a particularly unique cause. In fact, throughout the course of human civilization this phenomenon has been a reoccurring theme that periodically intervenes and redirects the path of human history. This force that has altered the appearance of human history is the movement of nations and its impact has been tremendous.
The most famous movement of nations began on the fringes of the Arabian Desert around the year 2000 B.C. and is known to us through the pages of the Old Testament. In that year Yahweh, god of the Israelites, had ordered his chosen people to leave the land of their ancestors for the land which he destined for them. As a result the previous inhabitants were displaced and the emigration of the newcomers persisted which eventually led to the creation of the Jewish kingdoms.
Around the close of the fifth century AD the first great irruption of Germanic barbarians flowed out from the Steps of Asia and engulfed the Roman Empire. This new race of Indo-Europeans displaced the native population and set up new kingdoms ruled by Saxons, Franks and Visigoths. From these emigrations of Germanic peoples the foundations for modern day countries such as England and France were laid. The rise of Islam also caused an expansion of Muslims that would alter the appearance of Christendom even further. In 1453 AD the Ottoman Turks sacked Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire and the nucleus of the Eastern Christian Church, and converted the city into the Muslim city of Istanbul, which has remained to this day a Muslim city.
For the Chicanos del Norte the momentous event that sparked our colossal influx of emigration was the Mexican Revolution. The fact that this land had been settled by our ancestors and belonged to Mexico prior to American westward expansion gives us a legitimate claim to the land but it will be our numbers that give us ultimate claims of sovereignty. The year 1910 thus marks the beginning of the reconquista of the lands that were lost to the United States as a result of war. This re-Mexicanization of El Norte is evident in this region and in many ways it is indeed a type of warfare.
This particular type of warfare has never before been experienced in the United States, it is currently raising historical unprecedented issues within the political and social realms of American society. Never before (in the history of the US) has there been one large emigrant flow into such a vast and defined region from a single cultural, linguistic, religious and national source. This sufficient coherence and critical mass of people within a defined region will allow us to preserve our culture indefinitely and in the future will allow us to challenge the system in which we currently participate.
Ironically the closest and most significant example that is relevant to usis the manner in which Anglo-Americans seized control of Texas. Just as Mexicanos of the present day, Anglo-Americans who illegally entered into Texas settled in defined regions where they could develop coherence and which enabled them to preserve their culture intact. From 1821 to 1823 between 5-10,000 Anglo Americans settled in Texas and saw themselves as a distinct people connected by their shared virtues and who were only interested in the welfare of their people. Among these Anglos that presided in Mexico's northern province there was a sense of nationalism. It was that driving force that inspired them and gave them the courage to challenge a government that did not represent them and set laws that sought directly to destroy their culture.
With the population of the Chicano/Mexicano people expected to reach 135 million by the year 2080 there is much that can be learned from the Anglo settlement of Texas. The most important aspect that we can learn from this event is that we are also a distinct people in this region and that we currently possess the same legitimate grievances as the separatist of the Lone Star Republic. We are also underrepresented in State and Federal government and our culture is constantly under attack. The only force that can combat these attacks is unity. We must learn to attach significance to our shared virtues so that a sense of widespread pride arises and inspire us to fulfill our destiny and join the international community of nation states.
ECDN HOME
I have often heard people say that the idea of an independent Norteño nation arising in the region of the modern day American southwest is a ridiculous and preposterous idea. These people dismiss this hypothesis based on their misconception that the United States is an eternal institution that will strive perpetually. This, however, is false and there are many examples throughout history that prove exactly this point.
Governmental regimes crumble and break into separate entities for various reasons and the path that the United States has embarked upon is not a particularly unique cause. In fact, throughout the course of human civilization this phenomenon has been a reoccurring theme that periodically intervenes and redirects the path of human history. This force that has altered the appearance of human history is the movement of nations and its impact has been tremendous.
The most famous movement of nations began on the fringes of the Arabian Desert around the year 2000 B.C. and is known to us through the pages of the Old Testament. In that year Yahweh, god of the Israelites, had ordered his chosen people to leave the land of their ancestors for the land which he destined for them. As a result the previous inhabitants were displaced and the emigration of the newcomers persisted which eventually led to the creation of the Jewish kingdoms.
Around the close of the fifth century AD the first great irruption of Germanic barbarians flowed out from the Steps of Asia and engulfed the Roman Empire. This new race of Indo-Europeans displaced the native population and set up new kingdoms ruled by Saxons, Franks and Visigoths. From these emigrations of Germanic peoples the foundations for modern day countries such as England and France were laid. The rise of Islam also caused an expansion of Muslims that would alter the appearance of Christendom even further. In 1453 AD the Ottoman Turks sacked Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire and the nucleus of the Eastern Christian Church, and converted the city into the Muslim city of Istanbul, which has remained to this day a Muslim city.
For the Chicanos del Norte the momentous event that sparked our colossal influx of emigration was the Mexican Revolution. The fact that this land had been settled by our ancestors and belonged to Mexico prior to American westward expansion gives us a legitimate claim to the land but it will be our numbers that give us ultimate claims of sovereignty. The year 1910 thus marks the beginning of the reconquista of the lands that were lost to the United States as a result of war. This re-Mexicanization of El Norte is evident in this region and in many ways it is indeed a type of warfare.
This particular type of warfare has never before been experienced in the United States, it is currently raising historical unprecedented issues within the political and social realms of American society. Never before (in the history of the US) has there been one large emigrant flow into such a vast and defined region from a single cultural, linguistic, religious and national source. This sufficient coherence and critical mass of people within a defined region will allow us to preserve our culture indefinitely and in the future will allow us to challenge the system in which we currently participate.
Ironically the closest and most significant example that is relevant to usis the manner in which Anglo-Americans seized control of Texas. Just as Mexicanos of the present day, Anglo-Americans who illegally entered into Texas settled in defined regions where they could develop coherence and which enabled them to preserve their culture intact. From 1821 to 1823 between 5-10,000 Anglo Americans settled in Texas and saw themselves as a distinct people connected by their shared virtues and who were only interested in the welfare of their people. Among these Anglos that presided in Mexico's northern province there was a sense of nationalism. It was that driving force that inspired them and gave them the courage to challenge a government that did not represent them and set laws that sought directly to destroy their culture.
With the population of the Chicano/Mexicano people expected to reach 135 million by the year 2080 there is much that can be learned from the Anglo settlement of Texas. The most important aspect that we can learn from this event is that we are also a distinct people in this region and that we currently possess the same legitimate grievances as the separatist of the Lone Star Republic. We are also underrepresented in State and Federal government and our culture is constantly under attack. The only force that can combat these attacks is unity. We must learn to attach significance to our shared virtues so that a sense of widespread pride arises and inspire us to fulfill our destiny and join the international community of nation states.
ECDN HOME
The Demographic Future of El Norte
by Ignacio Martínez
Power resides in numbers. For the Chicano people they are our greatest asset, and the foundation that will secure our future as a nation.
Until the late 1800's our numbers in El Norte had been minimal, the result being a constant and relentless attack on our culture and livelihood. With the onset of the Mexican Revolution Mexicanos, tired and fearful of the unstable situation in Mexico, rushed to the United States to seek safety and economic stability. This movement of mass migration north only served to intensify negative Anglo sentiments towards Mexicanos as they saw their future being dampened with burdensome invaders. Nevertheless, for the Chicano/Mexicano people this event marked the beginning of La Reconquista, the re-conquering of their lost lands.
Since the Mexican Revolution our numbers have been on a constant and relentless rise, favorably reinforcing our language, culture, and religion. And now it seems, by taking a look at popular culture that the Hispanic ethos is everywhere and everybody wants to take part in it, nobody wants to be left behind. According to the U.S. Census Bureau the population of Hispanics as of March 2000 had 32.8 million Hispanics residing in the United States, making one in every eight people of Hispanic origin. Of this calculation 66.1% were Mexican, 14.5% were Central or South American, 9.0% were Puerto Rican, 4.0% were Cuban and the remaining 6.4% were of other Hispanic origin. The current U.S. projections show that the Hispanic population is currently at about 34,000,000. Anglos make up about 196,000,000 and blacks about 34,000,000, leaving about 20,000,000 to other ethnic groups. Nevertheless, Hispanics are growing at an incredible rate and are the fastest growing group, aside from Asians, in the United States.
The projections are mind boggling. By the year 2025 Hispanics will be at 60,000,000 and by 2075 our numbers will be at a staggering 142,000,000. Projections leading into the next century are even more significant. Still, these numbers are representative of the entire U.S. population, the situation in El Norte is quite different as our population will constitute the majority, primarily in the states of New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Arizona, and California, as early as 2035. California and Texas alone will have over 40,000,000 Hispanics.
Where will your loyalty be then, with an old and crumbling empire, or will you wish to secure your future and that of your children in a new and vibrant nation, La República Del Norte? The numbers don't lie, and immigration from Mexico does not seem to be abating any time soon, only adding to our population even more than the census can account for. Hence, as is predicted by all major census indicators Hispanics will be the largest ethnic group in the Southwest in just a few decades. Will you go down with the sinking ship or invest in the future?
ECDN HOME
Power resides in numbers. For the Chicano people they are our greatest asset, and the foundation that will secure our future as a nation.
Until the late 1800's our numbers in El Norte had been minimal, the result being a constant and relentless attack on our culture and livelihood. With the onset of the Mexican Revolution Mexicanos, tired and fearful of the unstable situation in Mexico, rushed to the United States to seek safety and economic stability. This movement of mass migration north only served to intensify negative Anglo sentiments towards Mexicanos as they saw their future being dampened with burdensome invaders. Nevertheless, for the Chicano/Mexicano people this event marked the beginning of La Reconquista, the re-conquering of their lost lands.
Since the Mexican Revolution our numbers have been on a constant and relentless rise, favorably reinforcing our language, culture, and religion. And now it seems, by taking a look at popular culture that the Hispanic ethos is everywhere and everybody wants to take part in it, nobody wants to be left behind. According to the U.S. Census Bureau the population of Hispanics as of March 2000 had 32.8 million Hispanics residing in the United States, making one in every eight people of Hispanic origin. Of this calculation 66.1% were Mexican, 14.5% were Central or South American, 9.0% were Puerto Rican, 4.0% were Cuban and the remaining 6.4% were of other Hispanic origin. The current U.S. projections show that the Hispanic population is currently at about 34,000,000. Anglos make up about 196,000,000 and blacks about 34,000,000, leaving about 20,000,000 to other ethnic groups. Nevertheless, Hispanics are growing at an incredible rate and are the fastest growing group, aside from Asians, in the United States.
The projections are mind boggling. By the year 2025 Hispanics will be at 60,000,000 and by 2075 our numbers will be at a staggering 142,000,000. Projections leading into the next century are even more significant. Still, these numbers are representative of the entire U.S. population, the situation in El Norte is quite different as our population will constitute the majority, primarily in the states of New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Arizona, and California, as early as 2035. California and Texas alone will have over 40,000,000 Hispanics.
Where will your loyalty be then, with an old and crumbling empire, or will you wish to secure your future and that of your children in a new and vibrant nation, La República Del Norte? The numbers don't lie, and immigration from Mexico does not seem to be abating any time soon, only adding to our population even more than the census can account for. Hence, as is predicted by all major census indicators Hispanics will be the largest ethnic group in the Southwest in just a few decades. Will you go down with the sinking ship or invest in the future?
ECDN HOME
The Logic of A Chicano Nation
This is one of the documents found on the University of New Mexico El Centro de la Raza website. We spread the news of it around and complained to the Board of Trustees so they've taken it down... but we had already saved it. What was really interesting was that a news article had just come out announcing that Felipe Calderon, President of Mexico, had funded the Mexican embassies located in the U.S. to promote several goals, all advocating amnesty. One of the goals was to fight "hate crimes" and "racial profiling." UNM had just gotten a new Institute of Diversity and the new director of that department was aggressive seeming to concentrate all her efforts on the El Centro de la Raza group. They immediately went after a veteran attending school there for tearing down a Mexican flag flying alone for 3 days. About the same time, another veteran tore down a Mexican flag flying above and the American flag, keeping the American flag, at what appeared to be a pool hall owned by an hispanic. And there were all kinds of sob stories about illegal immigrants in our papers. Odessa's was a 3-part serial about a young man who worked up here, liked to drive his truck and drink beer with his friends, and died...I forget how. There were several articles on police departments around the country being cited for racial profiling. The Odessa American even ran a story or maybe a guest editorial either interviewing the local ACLU woman or she wrote a guest column about her calling our police department down for racial profiling. At least one policeman up north and his department was sued.
Why El Norte will come to be
by Mario Encinias
Is a Chicano nation in the cards? There are more and more reasons why this question is increasingly being answered in the affirmative.
Imagine our future as a Chicano culture here in the so-called "Southwest" and how things might be. What will be the repercussions of increased immigration from Mexico? Last year (2000) the U.S. Census bureau predicted that Latinos will constitute the majority of the entire U.S. by 2080, most of whom will be situated in Texas, California, and Nuevo México. So we will become the majority. Now, will a majority Latino population be willing to receive the mandates of an Anglo minority? It's doubtful. Latino culture is already at the forefront of popular media. Our language has already gained regional status as being the second most widely spoken language in the U.S. and possibly the world. What's to come when the demographics of "El Norte" significantly change the political and popular landscape?
In this burgeoning age of globalization and the Internet, suppressing nationalism is a loser's game. If the invention of the printing press provided the means by which to fuel the political dissent of the early sixteenth century and break the stronghold of the European hegemonies, what role will the Internet play in coordinating common interest among a majority Latino/Mexicano population in the "Southwest"?
You think the U.S. is too powerful? It will never concede to such a preposterous notion? Consider this. The U.S. is already ceding some of its sovereignty to such global entities like the WTO, World Court, and the IMF. Why is it doing so? It is doing so because it is in its best interest to abide by these entities if it wishes to promote smooth international commerce and gubernatorial compatibility with global corporations. And corporations are precisely those entities that want an open border between the U.S. and Mexico. Why do they want this? Because they want the free passage of goods and labor. The U. S. will concede to an open border eventually. In addition the U.S. will eventually see the logic of conceding to Southwest autonomy as it will be increasingly burdened by having to cater its political agenda around a large Hispano constituency that significantly influences presidential elections and legislative measures as a result of its sheer numbers.
There is a catalyst potential for Mexican immigration to create conditions for a nationalistic movement in the "Southwest". The feared "mojado" is a blessing for those of us on this side of the Rio Grande for he continues to replenish our language and our culture. This so-called "mojado" does not sit still in the grips of adversity. No. He progresses. He has children and those children grow up and get college educations. And eventually his descendents become Chicanos. Those Chicanos, who are now seeing their numbers increase, eventually will refuse to bow down to a distant capitol in Washington. And then what? Believe me, Chicanos will not sit idly by and watch their language disappear, while foregoing their political potential. You don't buy it? Look at South Florida, Southern California, Columbus, New Mexico, etc.
Trends can be of predictive value. And if things keep going the way they're going, "El Norte" is only around the corner. There is a logic here.
ECDN HOME
Why El Norte will come to be
by Mario Encinias
Is a Chicano nation in the cards? There are more and more reasons why this question is increasingly being answered in the affirmative.
Imagine our future as a Chicano culture here in the so-called "Southwest" and how things might be. What will be the repercussions of increased immigration from Mexico? Last year (2000) the U.S. Census bureau predicted that Latinos will constitute the majority of the entire U.S. by 2080, most of whom will be situated in Texas, California, and Nuevo México. So we will become the majority. Now, will a majority Latino population be willing to receive the mandates of an Anglo minority? It's doubtful. Latino culture is already at the forefront of popular media. Our language has already gained regional status as being the second most widely spoken language in the U.S. and possibly the world. What's to come when the demographics of "El Norte" significantly change the political and popular landscape?
In this burgeoning age of globalization and the Internet, suppressing nationalism is a loser's game. If the invention of the printing press provided the means by which to fuel the political dissent of the early sixteenth century and break the stronghold of the European hegemonies, what role will the Internet play in coordinating common interest among a majority Latino/Mexicano population in the "Southwest"?
You think the U.S. is too powerful? It will never concede to such a preposterous notion? Consider this. The U.S. is already ceding some of its sovereignty to such global entities like the WTO, World Court, and the IMF. Why is it doing so? It is doing so because it is in its best interest to abide by these entities if it wishes to promote smooth international commerce and gubernatorial compatibility with global corporations. And corporations are precisely those entities that want an open border between the U.S. and Mexico. Why do they want this? Because they want the free passage of goods and labor. The U. S. will concede to an open border eventually. In addition the U.S. will eventually see the logic of conceding to Southwest autonomy as it will be increasingly burdened by having to cater its political agenda around a large Hispano constituency that significantly influences presidential elections and legislative measures as a result of its sheer numbers.
There is a catalyst potential for Mexican immigration to create conditions for a nationalistic movement in the "Southwest". The feared "mojado" is a blessing for those of us on this side of the Rio Grande for he continues to replenish our language and our culture. This so-called "mojado" does not sit still in the grips of adversity. No. He progresses. He has children and those children grow up and get college educations. And eventually his descendents become Chicanos. Those Chicanos, who are now seeing their numbers increase, eventually will refuse to bow down to a distant capitol in Washington. And then what? Believe me, Chicanos will not sit idly by and watch their language disappear, while foregoing their political potential. You don't buy it? Look at South Florida, Southern California, Columbus, New Mexico, etc.
Trends can be of predictive value. And if things keep going the way they're going, "El Norte" is only around the corner. There is a logic here.
ECDN HOME
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