Posted on 08/21/2003 10:08:48 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
In case anyone hadn't noticed, assimilation is no longer cool in the United States. The American way is a relic of the past. Even hyphenated Americanism isn't good enough. More and more people must have their own 'reservation,' their own culture, their own language, communities and political representation. Consider the country of Aztlan, which most Americans have never heard of but certainly will in due time. Because it's right here in the U.S. Recently, Mexican President Vicente Fox formed a new cabinet level agency for the purpose of assisting in the "governing, protection and provision of services" for the 20 million Mexican natives who live in Aztlan, a territory that covers most of the Southwestern United States. The formation of the National Council for Mexican Communities Abroad is called by observers "a bold move that essentially extends an arm of Mexican government into the territory it lost in the Mexican-American War of 1848."
The new agency won the wholehearted support of the Mexican Congress. A "100 percent Mexican" in America will serve as the Aztlan representative to Mexico and will also head a new 'think tank' to address the "unique problems" facing Mexican immigrants in the U.S." The seven Southwestern states were purchased by the U.S. from Mexico under the provisions of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
Today, there are tens of thousands of activists and supporters of the movement to "liberate Aztlan" and return it to the descendants of the Spanish and Mexican settlers. The Aztlan movement has organizations in universities across America and hosts dozens of websites that clearly state their sentiments and goals. "California is going to be a Hispanic state," said Latino activist Mario Obledo. "Anyone who doesn't like it should leave.'
The preface to the constitution of MEChA, a student activist organization, reads: "Chicana/Chicano students of California must take upon themselves the responsibility to promote Chicanism within our communities, as well as politicize our raza (race) and continue the struggle for self-determination of the Chicana/Chicano people and the liberation of Aztlan." Statements in 'The Plan' to liberate Aztlan include: "Aztlan belongs to those who plant the seeds, water the fields, and gather the crops, not to foreign Europeans.
"The Mexican people of Aztlan suffered a brutal gringo invasion of our territories. "Economic control will only come by driving the exploiters out of our communities." "Political liberation will require independent action on our part, as the two-party system is the same animal with two heads that feed from the same trough." "European/U.S. colonization made Mexicans martyrs of U.S. history."
"The citizens of Aztlan are America's Palestinians." Those are just a few of the milder statements on the dozens of websites anyone can explore by doing a search on 'Aztlan.'
The name 'Aztlan' comes from the Aztec people. Following is a brief history:
Aztlan is the mythical place of origin of the Aztec peoples. In their language (Nahuatl), the roots of Aztlan are the two words: aztatl tlan(tli) meaning "heron" and "place of," respectively. 'Tlantli' proper means tooth, and as a characteristic of a good tooth is that it is firmly rooted in place, and does not move. The prefix of this word is commonly used in Nahuatl to denote settlements, or place names, e.g. Mazatlan (place of deer), Papalotlan (place of butterflies) or Tepoztlan (place of metal). The Nahuatl language is often said to include three levels of meaning for its words or expressions: literal, syncretic and connotative. The connotative meaning of Aztlan, due to the plumage of herons, is "Place of Whiteness."
In the origin myths of the Aztecs, they emerged originally from the bowels of the earth through seven caves (Chicomostoc) and settled in Aztlan, from which they subsequently undertook a migration southward in search of a sign that would indicate that they should settle once more. This myth roughly coincides with the known history of the Aztecs as a barbarous horde that migrated from present-day northwestern Mexico into the central plateau sometime toward the end of the first millennium AD, when high civilizations of great antiquity were already well established in the region. The exact physical location of ancient Aztlan is unknown, other than it must have been located near estuaries or on the coast of northwestern Mexico, though some archaeologists have gone so far as to locate the present town of San Felipe Aztlan, Nayarit, as the exact place.
In Chicano folklore, Aztlan is appropriated as the name for that portion of Mexico that was taken over by the United States after the Mexican-American War of 1846, on the belief that this greater area represents the point of parting of the Aztec migrations. In broad interpretation, there is some truth to this in the sense that all of the groups that would subsequently become the various Nahuatl-speaking peoples of central Mexico passed through this region in a prehistoric epoch, as attested by the existence of linguistically related groups of people distributed throughout the U.S. Pacific Intermountain region, the US southwest and northern Mexico, known as the Uto-Aztecan-Tanoan group, and including such peoples as the Paiute, Shoshoni, Hopi, Pima, Yaqui, Tepehuan, Rarámuri (Tarahumara), Kiowas and Mayas.
You got that right! Those young radicals are nursing one Hell of huge inferiority complex.
The majority appear to be recent arrivals or the first generation of US born to immigrants, like Lt. Gov. Bustamante, supposedly born in Tulare County, California. Only he has no birth certificate as proof, or so I've read.
This whole situation reminds me of Italian/Sicilian immigrants and their disenfranchisement. But in this case with Chicanos or Hispanics they've always been in the West and Southwest.
You don't know the half of it. Actually, given their focus on la raza ("the race", i.e., Chicanos) and their often overt anti-Semitism, they are even more strikingly similar to...Nazis. Yeah, I said it. For once, when it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, can we please call it a duck?
Otherwise, buzz off, and stay out of my gun sights.
Who wants the money? I like Texas, and after waiting for 40 years to get here (an accident of birth put me in the PRNJ), I ain't leaving.
Oh, and a special note to Vincente Fox (and any other Santa Anna wannabees): You gotta deal with 30 million Texan guns this time around, not to mention a few folks at Fort Hood, Randolph AFB, etc. Go ahead, pendejo, make our century.
Here in El Lay, flipping the bird might result in an answering gunshot, even to an old lady like me!
Lucy is a "little old lady" in some of L. Neil Smiths books. She carries a .50cal automatic that "looked like the gun was wearing her instead of the other way around".
Ain't too many ner-do-wells gonna mess with anyone pointing a hand cannon at them. ;-)
What? Assimilation in the United States is no longer groovy?
Latino activist Mario Obledo is passionately racist. The only thing he's lacking is a white hood (or would that be a brown hood?).
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