Posted on 04/30/2006 1:36:36 PM PDT by Icelander
MEXICO CITY - More than 1 million migrants flood into the United States each year across a border cutting straight through what once was Mexican territory, a touch of history that haunts the immigration debate 158 years after the land changed hands.
The territory north of today's 1,952-mile border - half of Mexico at the time - was ripped away in 1848 after a U.S. invasion that ended with the capture of "the halls of Montezuma," Mexico City itself.
Ulysses S. Grant, who took part, called the invasion "the most unjust war ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation."
The loss changed Mexico's destiny and still tears at the country's heart. Primary school textbooks harp on it. Intellectuals often refer to it. Museums are dedicated to it.
In the United States, some anti-immigration activists see migrants as a threat to American land and culture, part of a Spanish-speaking invasion that will reclaim the American Southwest.
Their concern is fed by occasional Mexican references to the booming immigrant population as a "reconquista," or re-conquest, and by the Mexican government's efforts to reinforce the migrants' ties to their homeland.
When hundreds of thousands of mainly Latino marchers turned out for a pro-immigrant demonstration Los Angeles in March, Mexican television reporter Alberto Tinoco sounded almost giddy.
"With all due respect to Uncle Sam, this shows that Los Angeles has never stopped being ours," Tinoco said on the Televisa network's nightly newscast.
Prominent Mexican writers Elena Poniatowska and Carlos Fuentes have spoken sometimes of a "reconquista." Poniatowska says Mexicans are recovering their lost lands "through migratory tactics." Fuentes portrays it as a powerful northward thrust of the Spanish language that will enrich both nations.
It may not be on the minds of job-seeking migrants, but the memory of the Mexican-American war "is a very important issue in the bilateral relationship. And it's always kind of floating around in the background ... at the diplomatic levels," said Ana Maria Salazar, a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense who now works as a political analyst in Mexico.
"Re-conquest," too, may be misleading. Before the war, most people in the Mexican territory north of the current border, from California to Texas, were Indians. They spoke little Spanish and paid little allegiance to Mexico.
Spain began establishing missions in "Alta California" shortly before the American Revolution, and the land became Mexico's after its own independence from Spain in 1821. But only a few thousand Spaniards and Mexicans were living in the area when the United States took the 525,000 square miles under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo decades later, paying $18.25 million in cash and assumed debts - the equivalent of about $434 million today.
The treaty also included Mexico's first formal recognition of the loss of Texas, which won its independence in 1836 and was absorbed by the United States in 1845.
Just as Texans used the temporary loss of the Alamo to Mexico in 1836 as a rallying cry, Mexicans have made national heroes of fighters slain resisting the American invaders 11 years later: the "child heroes" who reportedly jumped to their deaths rather than surrender and the San Patricio Battalion of Irish soldiers who put up a ferocious defense at the Churubusco monastery in Mexico City.
The monastery is now Mexico City's National Museum of Interventions - and the scars on its walls from American guns fired 159 years ago years later are carefully tended.
Yet after visitors tour exhibits decrying the aggression that "mutilated" the nation, they can stop by the museum souvenir shop to find Mickey Mouse computer games and a "Movie Talk" course in learning English.
In fact, many Mexicans complain about U.S. domination. Mexico City's Independence Monument has been ringed by buildings bearing the names of Ford, Sheraton and American Express, with the U.S. Embassy a few steps away. Mexicans watch "Los Simpsons" and NFL football on television and shop at Wal-Mart, Mexico's largest private employer.
The inroads of the English language have met official resistance, at times with comical results. Officially mandated "perro caliente" never caught on as a substitute for "hot dog."
And the migrants themselves, changed by the culture of the United States, are helping to change Mexico.
"Even the way they view and understand politics is different, and the expectations they have on the way the political process would work," said Salazar, whose own life story makes her case.
Born in the United States, she spent her childhood in Mexico, earned degrees at the University of California-Berkeley and Harvard, served in the Pentagon and then returned to Mexico, where she runs possibly the only predominantly English-language radio program in the country.
Poniatowska, too, says migrants become different from the people they leave behind - no longer the "race of bronze" portrayed by Mexican nationalists, but people with "a new way of being, and a new way of experiencing their country."
Less philosophical is Rafael Palacios Franco, who runs a small tourist camp east of Mexico City and who has four children in the United States.
"A long time ago, they took half the country from us," he said. "Now we don't want them to give it back, just that they let us work there."
Mexico held land for 20-25 years. Land they took from the natives. We've held the land 170 years after we took it from them. By what logic do they have a stronger claim on the land?
Hey, Mexico-we won, You lost. GET OVER IT.
We won it fair and square , they need to get over it.....
Santa Ana should not have been running around committing
war crimes and genocide of early Texan settlers .
He / they got what they deserved.
Mexico has always had bloody , confused , corrupt and inept
political leadership . They have a nationally ingrained habit
of trying to blame the Gringos for their own failings.
All Mexicans should just be happy they did not permanently
become a French possession .
An unfinished job always irritates me.
Don't try to use logic!
This is bullsh!t, pure and simple.
1. This doesn't explain illegal immigration beyond the southern states.
2. There is no indication that these areas wouldn't be slums like the other mexican cities in present day mexico.
3. We are not going to just "give back" this land.
Ok, here's the deal. We have sucked California dry of most of its natural resources. In the last 100+ years, we have pumped out all of the state's oil and burned it in our cars, we cut down 95% of the old growth trees, and built houses (which now make up decaying, crime ridden suburban neighborhoods. We have polluted many of the aquifers. I could go on, but the bottom line is, we plundered all the good stuff. Maybe we should sell it back someday, especially Southern California. It's plagued by crime, ridiculous house prices,and schools that don't teach. Yeah, let's start selling out to the illegals, making them pay outrageous amounts of money for 50 year old, termite infested cracker box houses. Then, we'll take our $$ and move out. Good luck keeping things running. Something tells me it will be Zimbabwe all over again. Adios!
Mexico's climate and natural resources are vastly superior to ours. It's time they appreciate what they have, (Their country is fairly large, the fourth-largest in the Western Hemisphere) invest in it, and reap the benefits. That country needs a good dose of capitalism and rule of law.
And darn fortunate for that half that it was.
Thank goodness the American west wasn't left in the miserable clutches of the corrupt and incompetent Mexicans.
I suppose we can send Mexico the equivalent of Castro's Mariel boatlift. Sent them Charley Manson et al.. They can commit heinous crimes that the locals don't want to commit..
I must be missing something, because based on current illegal
immigration trends and birth rates, The U.S. southern states will be 50%+
hispanic within 50 years and the reconquest will be a fait accompli, n'est pas?
Remember. The "Latinos" (Spaniards from SPAIN) stole the Southwest from the American Indians and the American Indians are on OUR side in this. We just took the land away from Spain and returned it to the rightful owners while keeping some for ourselves as a reward for our efforts.
"Gone For Soldiers" by Jeff Shaara is an enjoyable and educational read about the Mexican American war. Winfield Scott led the invasion. Under him during that war were the majority of the generals for the South in the upcoming Civil War.
Mexico attacked us, which hardly anyone knows, then we went down and whipped them, then bought part of our SW from them when we could have just taken it. They have no legitimate claim to anything except another whipping.
I see you bought into the "Greens" propaganda hook, line, and sinker.
I've heard it estimated that there were only about 9,000 californios, all more spanish than anything else, 100k native indians and 2 or 3 thousand Americans in my state at the time of annexation. There were virtually NO mexican indians.
It is likely a solid majority of the rancheros were totally supportive of the movement to join the US.
Precisely.. the claim of the Amerindians would predate Spanish/Mexican claims. They unfaired someone, and someone did the same to them.
Tough tamales.
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