NOTHING could be further from the truth. mecha adopted the word for no other reason than to make themselves seem more powerul than they were. Many Mexicans and Central and South Americans were forced into speaking or acting spanish but that doesn’t stop them from having their own indigenous cultures.
Since the term itself originally referred to the Latin American countries, never mind mecha, aztlan, la raza, ad nauseum, it is still just an ethnic label, nothing more. Many people prefer Latino/Latina, which at least refers to a person, rather than a place. And no one carries much water for those racist organizations in Texas, except lunatic California imports in far south Texas and liberal
Austin.
I did not say it had anything to do with “culture”, and if there is an insistence on putting labels on an ethnic group, then call it “persons descended from ancestors who emigrated to the new world/Americas after 1500 AD”.
The reason those natives/indigenous people/Indians in the Americas were forced into speaking Spanish and acting according to European mores, was because they were slaves-right along with Blacks taken to the Caribbean, courtesy of the Spaniards, beginning with Hernan Cortez. They were conquered peoples, and back then, that meant that you got sold into slavery.
Their culture(s) became combined with those of the Spanish, and now, 500 years down the road has elements of both, from our Catholic celebrations, various dialects of the Spanish language, to the commonly served foods.
And this has very little to do with George Zimmerman-who was rightly judged not guilty-and the likes of Al Sharpton, who is still a bigot and race hustler...