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Boundaries are artificial creations, originally used mostly to separate distinct national cultures, but losing importance as individual nations began to see the advantages of free trade.
But open borders and free trade create winners and losers. In the 1930's the great dictatorships of Europe tightened their borders to keep the slave-subjects in; in the present day, labor unions and other special interests, seek to use them to keep potential competitors out. In the long run, a strategy like that never works.
60% of Mexicans are a mix of indio and Spanish. Therefore, based on their Spanish roots they are Hispanics. Latino is merely someone from Latin America but they usually are Hispanics also for the same reason.
In Mexico? The Native Peoples are still active there: about 30% of the population is Amerindian or predominantly so, 60% mestizo. The Mayan, Nahuatl & various other regional indigenous languages are still spoken there, which says to me that the Amerindian culture is still up & running. If the various tribes are sufficiently isolated - by geography or by choice - they may not know Spanish. & politically, even if they do know Spanish, they may refuse to speak it, or even pretend not to understand it.
Were the Spaniards lily white? It's a good question - you might want to look into Spain's history - they were occupied by Islam for nearly 800 years, & in fact just finished the Reconquista of Spain in 1492CE, in time to dispatch Columbus across the Atlantic. There was a fair amount of intermarriage in Spain, & the Spanish elites scrambled to find or make places for themselves in the Islamic governments there - so a good proportion adopted Islam.
Yah, the Spaniards conquered - by recruiting allies among the Amerindian tribes in Mexico that had been conquered & were paying tribute to the Aztecs. The Spaniards by themselves would not have been a sufficient military force, & they needed porters, translators, guides & etc. Which the subjugated tribes were more than happy to provide, for a cut of the booty.
So, the notion of Mexican Reconquista of what is now the Southwestern US is amusing on several counts:
1. As noted, the traditional Native Peoples in Mexico don't speak Spanish, as a preference. & thus would be loathe to even say Reconquista.
2. The peninsular Spanish in Mexico are hardly well-loved, @ least the last time I looked into the question. The mildest common term for Spaniards there was gachupines - which carries a lot of negative freight. & therefore, again for political reasons, mestizo & Native Peoples activists there aren't going to ape Spanish political/cultural jargon.
3. New Spain & then Mexico always held the contested territory lightly. One of the issues with a centralized government is that the rich & powerful want to live & work in the center - typically in the capital of the state. & that's what happened in Mexico City - it was very difficult to get farmers & colonists out to the periphery of the state, let alone women & families. TMK, a lot of the Spanish/Mexican settlers to the border areas were settled-out soldiers - who were encouraged to marry & possibly given land & small sums to get started. So again, Reconquista is seriously overstating the situation on the ground.
- & of course, Spain/Mexico had to contest the ground against the Native Peoples, who were typically less than conciliatory. The Pueblo Revolt in NM massacred the Spanish, destroyed the churches & ranches & farms & government buildings, & drove the survivors back to what is now the Mexico/US border - there to regroup, reinforce & launch a military campaign against the Pueblos.
I live in a heavily hispanic populated area and I can tell you the vast majority of hispanics dont even know what aztlan even is.
The entire racist aztlan craze is as miniscule as the neo nazi craze who want to take over parts of the country for a white homeland.
Both are stupid.
This!!!
The reason you see Mexican flags at rallies is no different than the Irish and Italian flags you see waving in many neighborhoods and at their community gatherings.
I also know many young Latinos that will speak Spanish and wave a Mexican flag (one is from Colombia LOL) just to get under the skin of the loudmouth nativists that inevitably show up to spread their racism and hatred. Many posters on this forum make no attempt to hide their contempt for Latinos, even going so far as to call American citizens pejorative terms based on their parentage or skin color or complaining about the loss of "our culture" or needing an escort to the fainting couch anytime they hear Spanish spoken in a public place.
If they had control of these states, you'd better believe they'd expel all Asians, blacks, and whites.
Mestizos of Mexican descent would expel Asians? Asians are presumably the root stock from which the Native Peoples in the Americas descended. As I recall, the language formation, teeth, DNA etc. confirm that.
I don't know that race is the determining factor in who Mexicanos would want or not in their polity. It seems to me that culture - to include language, religion, a generally Mediterranean outlook, typical foods, music, etc. are more to the point. & of course, there is Spanish European blood in the mix there too - just not very much of it. Bear in mind that in what's now the US, the Native People populations were sharply reduced by disease, forced relocations, warfare, & basically internal exile to the most undesirable lands that were readily available. There have been Blacks in the Americas since the Spanish arrived - although their numbers didn't rise sharply until manpower shortages (the Native Peoples would die, or run away, or simply weren't' available in the desired numbers) required their importation to work sugar plantations & other labor-intensive sites.
The Native People populations in Mexico, especially in the central valley & Yucatan & the southwestern parts of the country, were teeming with organized cultures, with their own religion, language, agriculture, writing systems (some), architecture (some), hydro engineering (some), handicrafts, & so on. A very different situation from what the first European explorers in what is now the US & Canada initially found.
60% of Mexicans are a mix of indio and Spanish. Therefore, based on their Spanish roots they are Hispanics. Latino is merely someone from Latin America but they usually are Hispanics also for the same reason.
So, we now understand who would have been called a redskin 150 years ago and who wouldn't.
The reason you see Mexican flags at rallies is no different than the Irish and Italian flags you see waving in many neighborhoods and at their community gatherings.
I also know many young Latinos that will speak Spanish and wave a Mexican flag (one is from Colombia LOL) just to get under the skin of the loudmouth nativists that inevitably show up to spread their racism and hatred. Many posters on this forum make no attempt to hide their contempt for Latinos, even going so far as to call American citizens pejorative terms based on their parentage or skin color or complaining about the loss of "our culture" or needing an escort to the fainting couch anytime they hear Spanish spoken in a public place.
That kind of attitude just makes more enemies; especially with more and more of us Americans of any "race" who want ALL illegal aliens GONE, not just Spanish speaking Indians, at the point of a gun the way things are going.
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The devil is in the details
