Those nasty Gringos stole our lands

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Posted by Mike Scott on April 11, 2008 at 14:12:53

If anyone is curious how a majority of Mexicans (and some numbers of American Hispanics) feel about the legitimate ownership of the American Southwest, I suggest they click-on http://www.sgvtribune.com/opinions/ci_8869354.

This is a column by Ruben Navarrette who’s doing his best to conceal his anger over how the U.S. “stole” the American Southwest from Mexico. My email to this San Diego Union Tribune columnist:

“Looks like the Absolut controversy touched a raw nerve. Apparantly you don’t follow controversal events in San Diego. Just last month an official of the Mexican Consulate of San Diego stated, “This has and will be Mexico".There was no retraction of this statement by any Mexican official.

Then there’s Freudian Slip of Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo before the National Council of La Raza in Chicago on July 27, 1997: "I have proudly affirmed that the Mexican nation extends beyond the territory enclosed by its borders."

A June 2002 Zogby poll found that the majority of Mexican citizens hold the view that, since the Southwest U.S. really belongs to Mexico, they do not need permission to enter. The poll found that 58% of Mexicans agreed with the statement, "The territory of the United States' Southwest rightfully belongs to Mexico."

Then there’s Rodolfo Acuña’s “Occupied America” which fits-in with all the above statements. Last I heard, Professor Rudy was still harranging his Chicano students about the “U.S. border moving south”.

About your Freudian Slip, “land grab that U.S. historians generously refer to as the Mexican War of 1846-48. If you’d take the time to retreat to logic & the facts, you’d find that Mexico never “owned” the American Southwest, she only claimed this territory. Beginning with Texas in 1845, which initially became a separate country in 1836, (the Lone Star State) and California, Nevada, Utah, and parts of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Wyoming in 1848.

Perhaps the most competent of Spain's colonial kings was Carlos 111, who ruled Spain from 1759 to 1788. Carlos commissioned the The Marqués de Rubí, in 1765 to provide him with a detailed report of his Mexican colony, including the actual geographical status of New Spain. It took Rubi 3 years to compile this report. Among Rubi's findings was his contention that the true frontiers of New Spain were nothing like the imposing royal maps that delineated a mythical frontier stretching from Central America to Canada. These, according to Rubí were more apparent than real, and mega-fantasies. Rubi's report stated that the real Mexican frontiers were pretty much what they are today.

Without question, President Polk engineered the 1846-1848 war with Mexico in order to bring California and the other western states into the union. By the same token, there’s little question about Mexico’s inability to indefinitely hold-on to her 1846 American territories had the Mexican-U.S. war not taken place. Sooner or later, all 7 states would have followed Texas’ lead, and brought about the same results since Mexico hadn’t the focus, wherewithal, stability, or muscle to govern American settlers, who outnumbered Mexicans 23-1. Between 1821 and 1848, Mexico never conquered the American Southwest, nor undertook any meaningful steps to settle or develop the territory, and never had anything but an ancient ecclesiastically sanctioned map, a few thousand settlers, and a sprinkling of missions, churches and pueblos to make their ownership claim stick. After making an offer to buy the Southwest, and being refused, the U.S. used force. On the other hand, the territory had been ignored by Mexico, as by Spain before her, to such a sorrowful extent, and over so many centuries, that a virtual power vacuum existed. Mexican rule was accordingly pre-determined and temporary, and conquest by a foreign power was inevitable, be that power Russian, English, French or American. The United States just happened to be the first foreign power that had the practical means to accomplish it. Neither Spain, nor Mexico, nor the United States acquired the American Southwest with clean hands, and it makes little sense to infer that Mexico has/had a more solid case for sovereignty than the United States. And, - 160 years later, all this bumper sticker about Mexico being the legitimate owner of the American Southwest is historically untrue and moot.

Unlike yourself, I believe that “reconquista” is alive & well in millions of Mexican minds, something you wish to conceal with whiffs of charlatanry & narcissism. It would be a colossal & fatal mistake for Americans to accept your account of reconquista. Facts can present unpleasant and stubborn challenges to ingrained ideologies. “

Mike Scott
Glendora, CA



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