Apr 27 2006
The Taking of the Southwest
“Por La Raza todo. Fuera de La Raza nada.” (For those of the [Hispanic] race, everything. For those outside the [Hispanic race], nothing.]
What was once a trickle of illegal immigrants hopping the border at a handful of isolated points between Brownsville, Texas and San Diego has become a deluge. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) emphasis has switched from the arrest and deportation of illegals to drug enforcement, with a passing nod to apprehension of those involved in large-scale human smuggling. Locals along the American side of the border decry the lack of enforcement, leading to establishment of Minutemen and other quasi-legal organizations bent on turning back the human flow. Privately funded barriers on private property are springing up along the New Mexico and Arizona borders in the face of government inaction.
The issue has become a political football that cuts across party affiliation. Democrats and Republicans propose legislation to give the appearance of concern and activity, but few imagine that any meaningful immigration legislation will be enacted, let alone be enforced. The building trades, the service industries and agriculture have become addicted to cheap labor. All have brought pressure to bear against legislators who threaten the source of that labor.
Within the Hispanic community there exists a growing Reconquista movement to take back the American Southwest from the gringos. Groups like MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan) or “Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan” support forceful eviction of non-Hispanics from the region by any means necessary, legal or otherwise, peaceful or otherwise. [Aztlan is loosely all of Mexico, Colorado, California, Arizona, Texas, Utah, New Mexico, Oregon and parts of Washington state.] Aztlan-supporters have found a supportive, even welcoming environment in academia and hold public office throughout the southwest. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was chairman of the UCLA MEChA chapter in his college days. He has never renounced MEChA.
Reconquistas have become part of the landscape.
Non-Hispanics are becoming a distinct minority in many southwestern communities, particularly as birthrates among Hispanics are significantly higher than for blacks and Anglos in those communities. In fact, the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics 2004 Report on Birthrates shows that the birthrate of Hispanics was 50% higher than for blacks and fully double the rate for “non-Hispanic whites.” By 2003, Hispanics had already overtaken blacks as the single largest minority in the United States.
For more info on MEChA and the devotees of Aztlan, go here.
So how is your Spanish?
