BALDWIN PARK, June 25, 2005--By noon, about eight hundred counter protestors stood against the invasion of Baldwin Park by Save Our State from Ventura and Minutemen from Arizona, both militant anti-migration groups, and the Nazi National Vanguard, a white supremacist group, together numbering about forty or fifty. This was the invaders' second unsuccessful effort to attract attention to a monument at the Baldwin Park Metrolink station entitled Danzas Indigenas by renowned artist Judy Baca, which commemorates a Tongva ("Gabrielino") Indian uprising led by Toypurinah against the San Gabriel Mission and the history of the land from that time forward. At their first incursion on May 25, SOS had declared inscriptions on the monument referring to indigenous Mexican culture "seditious."

I was escorted into the celebration by two friends, one looking particularly sharp in his brown beret. We were met by eight hundred celebrants who had come to assert their Indigenous, Mexican, and Chicano culture in the face of the racist intruders, surrounded by cops. A mild-mannered poet burst into a fierce diatribe proclaiming "Genocide alert!" in a poem about Kristallnacht. An interlingual agitprop teatro group told a history of the Native and Mexican land grabs. Behind the tarp that hung as a backdrop, young actors hastily tore off one costume and slipped into the next. They parodied a white SOS member in the large, droopy American-flag hat who had appeared at an earlier demonstration and Lupe Moreno, the Latina spokesperson for SOS. El Pelado ended the acto with a costume transformation revealing him not to be a clown, but a proud Chicano declaring "Ya basta!".

Under the omnipresent helicopter, musicians and speakers, including the Jornaleros Unidos de Valle San Gabriel, a group that had joined the Alhambra demonstration in support of day laborers and against Save Our State, extended their support. Danza Cuetemoc from Lincoln Park and from Baldwin Park performed to the north along Ramona Boulevard for passing motorists.

Near the police line across the Metrolink station's parking lot, thirty large signs on ten-foot poles staked out the southwest boundary of the celebration. The signs interspersed various pictures of non-Europeans with "Good Art Confuses Racists," "We Remember Toypurina," "The land doesn't belong to us. We belong to the land," and "He thinks the land belongs to him, and that we plan to reconquer it. His mind is upside down." When those holding the signs turned around, the National Vanguard, SOS, and Minuteman protestors at the other end of the park saw on the signs silhouettes of backs of people identified as immigrants and in Spanish and English, "America Turns Its Back on Hate-Groups."

Piñatas of Jim Gilchrist, leader of the Minuteman Project, and Arnold Schwarzenegger were strung over the crowd, and giant puppets in the Bread and Puppets tradition, one with red, brown, black and white faces pointing to the four directions, swirled across the lawn. Police videographers (from the L.A. Impact unit, which investigates major drug dealing and organized crime) not surprisingly were more interested in gathering footage of those attending than the cultural celebration in front of them.

Among the celebrants were an assortment of Mexican cultural, anarchist, socialist, and groups. A dozen young Brown Berets from San Diego, crisply disciplined in starched brown uniforms and led by a dignified older woman in a slightly worn beret, mingled with Mechistas and hundreds of neighborhood Chicanas and Chicanos.

While about five hundred of the largely Chicano/a and Indigenous crowd stayed at the celebration, about three hundred counter protestors walked nearly three miles around cordoned-off city streets to confront the racists. A small contingent of socialists, including a Franco-Iraqi, invited me to hook up with them, and three Chicanas later joined our group as we wended our way through Baldwin Park side streets, getting shooed off by cops at their barricades, and asking neighbors for directions and where we could get one of those Big Gulps. As we passed the railroad tracks our wiser members warned us that we might get arrested. Some of us laughed it off--why would the police bother with people walking on the tracks? But we decided it wasn't worth even the small risk. We tried and failed to cut through a fence behind an apartment complex while the residents looked over their railings at us, and we wished for a ten-year-old guide who would have known the shortcuts and led us through the sprinklers and slip-'n-slides in the midday heat. I later learned from legal observers that the police had indeed staked out the tracks and arrested those who had cut through to Pacifica Avenue.

With the streets secured from foot and vehicular traffic by 12:30, the racists were waving their placards at only the police, counter protestors, and a handful residents standing on balconies. But apparently the sixty or so police got their message. Baldwin Park, West Covina, Polomo, San Marino, and California State University police had joined with L.A. County Sheriffs in front of, to the side, and behind the counter protestors, while about twenty others chatted with the racists.

Joe Turner, head of Save Our State, repeatedly tried to cross into the counter protestors' group. It was reported that Turner was briefly arrested during one of these provocations, only to be released when he was escorted back to the other side of the street. Apparently the police were unaware of his previous arrest record.

The counter protestors demanded that the racists go home and asserted their claim to the land and their culture.

At 2:15, the police moved against the counter protestors, now joined by danzantes, backing them away and down Pacifica Avenue, two blocks from the anti-Mexican group. At 2:30, half a dozen counter protestors confronted police on a side street shouting that the police were the same as the anti-migrant racists. The protestors and police lunged at each other, and I heard the sharp crack of rifles being cocked to my left. But other counter protestors urged their companions to return to the main group, while warning the cops not to attack the community.

At the northeast end of the park, white supremacists apparently had carte blanche from the cops to mill around the cultural celebration. In one instance, Aztlan Mexica Nation/Harmony Circle, in black slacks and red shirts, escorted out one National Vanguard member wearing a white construction hat and using an American flag to mask a four-foot long, 2-inch wide pole. A replica rifle was confiscated from another intruder. Three more, one in military khakis, ribbons, and a garrison cap, tried to lecture the crowd.

Ultimately, a lone, smirking young white guy, mistaken by the crowd for Turner, marched the length of the celebration on Downing Avenue carrying a colonial American flag. He strode to the police barricade expecting to cross, but the cops refused to let him pass. A hundred angry Chicanos quickly surrounded him shouting, "Get off our land--the Mayflower's waiting for you!" The man, with his haughty, aloof grin, stood unperturbed, while police refused to act either to arrest or protect him. The Harmony Keepers intervened and asked the crowd to step back, saying the day's celebration shouldn't turn ugly. The crowd, understanding the Harmony Circle's message, stayed at arm's length. The police apparently attempting to rile the crowd by leading the man back through the celebration on Downing Avenue rather than escort him through police lines. The police turned east on Ramona Boulevard, away from the celebration, but then turned around and took the man west past the protestors on the street. When asked by one spectator if they intended to provoke an outburst, a police officer chortled, "Heh, heh, heh."

Back on Pacifica Avenue, at about 2:45 the police began escorting the National Vanguard, Minutemen, and SOS out of the area. Three cop cars behind the protestors pulled out as the counter protestors headed back to the celebration, this time around the block. The cops stopped the protestors on a side street entrance to the park, but after chants of "Whose streets? Our streets!" the cops allowed the counter protestors to walk single file back onto Downing Avenue. As we marched back to our sisters and brothers, we were greeted with raised fists, hugs, and tearful eyes. We melded into one voice chanting "Aquí y allá la lucha seguirá."

Aztlan Underground began their set invoking the spirit of Toypurinah. It ended with dozens of young Chicanas and Chicanos dancing to the driving, 21st-century drums and flute surrounded by their elders and allies. With Toypurinah's burial mound just yards away, I'm pretty sure she had stepped up to join the crowd of dancers.

Bulldog announced that the permit for the celebration had expired. I walked out between rows of tired danzantes lining the sidewalk and noted the police tape now fluttering on the ground, except around the monument, which remained untouched. I glanced back and saw twenty Harmony Keepers proudly marching down the sidewalk, their work done for the day.

Obviously, I couldn't be in two places at once. My thanks to those who helped fill in the blanks and to Arturo Ramos for the artwork.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THIS GREAT REPORT LEISLIE.

Apparently I can't type my name or reconquista today.

"Reconquita" is what the "Chiquita" brand will be renamed to when the banana republics are taken back by the indigenous people of Central America.

Joe Turner, head of Save Our State, repeatedly tried to cross into the counter protestors' group. It was reported that Turner was briefly arrested during one of these provocations, only to be released when he was escorted back to the other side of the street. Apparently the police were unaware of his previous arrest record.

I was with Turner the entire time. He never attempted to cross into the counter protesters. He was NEVER arrested, unlike 23 counter protesters.

Two very tough SOS members DID walk through the counter protesters, who shrank back like cowards. (only throw bottles at old ladies) They walked into the local store where the owner told the counter protesters to get out and let the SOS members in beause "THEY are customers."

Excellent report!

I had seen the white supermist scumbag with the white construction helmet double-timing it through the anti-hate protesters, being followed by about a dozen anti-hate activists on their heels. There were two racists walking quickly through the good guys being yelled at as I arrived at the anti-hate rally so it must have been around 11:40 a.m. or so.

When I saw the white supremist with the white construction helmet being chased by a bunch of anti-hate protesters, I looked at the cops who were standing near the Monument and I had wondered why they weren't rushing forward to help escort the hate mongers out. The two scumbags were so distressed that I was expecting to see dark stains spreading on their pants at any time. }:-} But the cops just watched as one person stopped between the white supremists and the good guys and said something and allowed the white helmet and other scumbag to continue on.

Also it's interesting to note that the white supremists I _did_ see were invariably wearing jungle camo pants.

These hate mongers are all Republicans and they all support their Fuhrer's war in Iraq. When I saw these two "Save Our State" / "Minutemen" white supremists, one in a hard hat, the other wearing jungle camo, I thought, "Why aren't these hate mongers in Iraq where they belong? Why aren't they supporting their mass murdering Fuhrer where he needs them the most?"

Any way, good report. There was a lot more going on all the time and a fun time was had by all -- all but the racist scumbags down ar the far end.

We had a table set up with materials for people to make their own anti-hate protest signs, and down along the street there were groups of people holding signs of Arnold Schwarzenegger wearing his daddy's Nazi uniform with the caption, "Son of a Nazi." And so much other good stuff took place.

It's ironic that these SOSMM/National Vanguard racists provided a forum for denouncing the Republican agenda.

all we are doing is making more Mexicans angry, it seems that every time,.. the Mexican crowds get bigger and bigger, im going back home

error

Hey there, you at least doubled the # of counter protesting goonies.

I love all the reconquista/brown beret talk to...I am sure the one guy that posts on here that insists there is not reconquista, and that it was made up by whites just loves this...dohl !!!!!

Oh yea, and turner basically stepped off the sidewalk one time, and it was about 1 foot off for about 5 seconds. He behaved pretty good.

Hey Fred, after the BB's are done with us, they will turn you out for sure also ! You are not brown friend, they will not tolerate you. They are a true racist/sep group, just like the WN and NVG. You better form your own group of capitalist something or others.

> Hey Fred, after the BB's are done with us, they will
> turn you out for sure also ! You are not brown friend,
> they will not tolerate you. They are a true racist/sep
> group, just like the WN and NVG. You better form
> your own group of capitalist something or others.

Damn, that _is_ disturbing. I never thought of that. Soon, even the guys at Taco Bell won't assemble my lunch for me and every Mexican resturaunt will "turn me out." I never considered that unavoidable eventuality before. And now that you bring it up, I can see I should have been standing on the other side of the yellow ribbon all along.

Now. If I may impose upon you and drag you down to Earth with the rest of us for a brief time, I did in fact see and hear some anti-white racism on the good guy's side of the yellow ribbon, yes, admittedly. Do you think that that makes _your_ side any different or any better?

If so, how so?

What a bunch of communist propaganda.

Leslie do you think that everyone is so stupid to believe the lies you have posted here?

Give me a break

One only has to look in the mirror to see the racist on this board.

First of all, thanks to those who commented that they enjoyed reading this. I enjoyed attending, and it's my way of saying "gracias" to those who did the work.

The only complaints here are that I over-estimated the number attending (but if I did so, so did most of the media), that Turner didn't cross into the protestors, and that littlebopeep doesn't like the title.

According to your accounts, Turner "behaved himself." But no one has contradicted that he was briefly arrested, that he has an arrest record, or that half a dozen Nazis, Minutemen, and SOSers tried to mix it up with the celebration. So I'll go with my source. Just heard an interview from BP: Turner was advocating revolution in Mexico--that would make him a terrorist if Mexico had the U.S. Patriot Act. And that's your idea of Joe behaving himself. What does he do when he's misbehaving--detonate small nuclear weapons in his garage?

Ah, metaphor! More art lost on Luddites. Read the article, littlepeep. The Reconquista in it is a *cultural* celebration--no guns, no land grab, no war, no violence. I almost named it "The reconquista begins" because this is the first cultural celebration to come out of your forays, but I didn't want to disrespect BP1, Fallbrook, Victorville, Alhambra, and Garden Grove. Is this what you're afraid of--theatre, poetry, piñatas, and puppets? But of course it is, just as you're afraid of the monument. Just as you're afraid that white culture will have to concede that this cultural territory was, is, and will be Mexican.

Big Dave adds nothing of substance, so I assume he's just here to advertise his size.

> Leslie do you think that everyone is so stupid to
> lieve the lies you have posted here?

I'd like to hear some _specifics_ about all these lies I keep hearing about. I keep reading about how IndyMedia is chocked full of lies and yet I don't see a lot of details about what, exactly, these mysteriously invisible lies are.

Now there may be -- and often is -- _inaccuracies_ in suich things as time, location, numbers of people, sequence of events and such. But if someone wants to claim they're seeing a lot of lies, wouldn't it be nice if they pointed them ouit so they could be corrected?

The lie is that SOS is a white Supremacist Organization.

Show me the proof.

You folks have not shown Joe Turner to be white supremacist other than your constant mantra of racist and racial epitaphs slung at him

Joe Turner is a proud American like the 80% to 90% of Americans that want our borders closed and immigration laws enforced.

Deal with it!

I am a Patriotic American and am sick and tired of you communist socialist advocates trying to change this country into a Marxist Paradise.That is your real agenda and you hide behind race to mask you true goal.

If you want that kind of Country, may I suggest you move to China or Cuba, it should be a paradise because that is what you advocate doing to this country.

In addition, it is not racist to advocate enforcing our laws and deporting Illegal Aliens whether they are from Mexico or any other country.

People that scream racist to justify their arguments are clearly bigots according to Websters.

Take your over estimated crowd of 800, (400) and perform a background check, and let's see the rap sheets unfurl. Better yet, we should all come together in harmony, and have are DNA tested, to see exactly *who* we are related to and which part of the county we can protest in...(sarcasm)

Most everyone that was born in Southern California and grew up here have something on their records..
Jaywalking, loitering..DUI etc..tresspassing..:>)

What is the point of reporting if the truth is guilded in hidden biase?

> The lie is that SOS is a white Supremacist Organization.

*******Show me the proof.*********
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> The lie is that SOS is a white Supremacist
> Organization.

Huh. That would explain why the American Nazi Party, Storm Front, National Vanguard / Alliance and others stand with you guys.

> you communist socialist advocates trying to
> change this country into a Marxist Paradise.

And there we have the usual right-wing kook conspiracy rant devoid of all reason. Since people oppose racist hatred and bigotry, they must be Communists or Sopcialists. That's the Republican IQ once again, and it's the typical mentality of the type that goes in for racist notions.

Here's a clue: I'm a Capitalist Pig who probably earns more money that you do, and I probably contribute more to the health, safety, and welfare of the United States than you do.

Here's another clue: Just because I oppose racist hate mongers doesn't mean I'm blind to the fact that racism exists among all walks of life regardless of skin hue.

And while we're at it, another clue: Just because I advocate equality for gays doesn't mean I'm gay. Because I advocate equality for blacks doesn't mean I['m black. Because I advocate equality for women doesn't mean I'm women.

Point being, I oppose racist bigotry and hatred not because I'm constantly subjected to it and have a direct, strong vested interest in opposing it, I oppose racist bigotry because it's the right thing to do; it's the AMERICAN thing to do. It's one of the higher ideals of Democracy in our Constitutional Republic that's worth fighting for.

Now, you may wish to play pretend that the SOSMM aren't racists or white supremists or that they don't incite violence, hatred, bigotry, and known white supremists groups and individuals to join you in your quest. You may even think that you're "defending America" or -- if you're truly insane -- you may even be parading around in the desert playing pretend you're a General in some American Hero Army, but let me tell you: the mere fgact that you have the support and defense of the good people at Storm Front and National Vanguard speaks otherwise.

My opinions, of course. I understand yours are different. The proof is in the pudding, however, and I don't believe the evidence supports your beliefs.

The notion that damn near everyone has been arrested -- those of us of a certain age growing up in California -- is false. I have never been arrested, not foir any reason. And in fact among all my friends, many of whom are activists in a large varity of venues including environmentalism and equal rights for gays -- not a one of them has ever been arrested.

The notion that it's common or typical for people to be arrested for _something_ all their lives is false. It's as inaccurate as the notion that everyone's taken illegal narcotics at least once. I never have, not through High School, not before or after. Indeed, I've never been drunk, not once. Such things -- deliberately polluting one's mind -- is something I find stupid.

A great many arrests are the result of stupidity -- which includes mouthing off to some cop. I suspect that the people who were tagged on the rail bed were brought in simply to be run for wants and warrants since it was _something_ the many police officers could do after so many hours of being utterly useless during the anti-hate rally.

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2005/06/130189.php

The Battle of Baldwin Park: Land, Genocide, Memory and Denial

Part 2:

Now It's Ours:

Race Hatred, White Nationalism, and the Struggle for Aztlan


"AMERICANS ARE TIRED OF FEELING LIKE A FOREIGNER IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY." [sic]
- Joe Turner, "leader," Save Our State

_________

"No other major nation has been built so purely on world genocide. Our whitelife has no history, no identity, no culture, no economy without genocide. Outside genocide we are a blank.

"Amerikkkans want to distance themselves from genocide. You know, it's always something long ago ("you can't change the past"), or far away ("There's never been anything like the Jewish Holocaust.") But genocide is running, right now. It's not far away. See, we are the genocide. I mean that literally and precisely. Everything we are, our bodies, our careers, our plans for our children, has all been made of genocide."

- Butch Lee, The Military Strategy of Women and Children


_________

Joe Turner, age 27, is an angry young white man with a sneering manner. He wants to obliterate the monument in Baldwin Park that stands, in part, as a tribute to the Tongva Indians, the indigenous group that was forced into the San Gabriel Mission a mile away. It's "seditious" he says, because of the inscription that reads "This land was Mexican once, Indian always, and is, and will be again."

His group has issued a threat that "one way or another" the language "will be removed" by early July. He also wants to remove the native Mexicans it represents, and the threat to Anglo domination of the region their presence implies.

The City of Los Angeles is now 2/3 peoples of color, has elected a Chicano mayor, and demographic trends show that the nation as a whole will be half peoples of color by 2050, a fact that causes no small unease among white cultural conservatives across the country.

Turner led a protest against the monument in May in which his band of extremists was outnumbered by the Chicano community by a measure to ten to one. They were forced to leave when police claimed they could no longer guarantee the safety of the racist organization's members.

His group plans a repeat performance in late June to "punish" the City of Baldwin Park for allowing the monument to remain. "We are angry! We are seething with anger and boiling with rage," he writes.

"Make no mistake," says Turner, leader of the anti-Mexican group Save Our State, "our opponents are savages."

Although Turner claims his group isn't racist, there can be no mistake about who Turner's calling "savage." His organization - "SOS" for short, is nothing other than a hate group, one that targets Chican@s, Mexicans and Central Americans. SOS routinely targets people of color, and has allies among neo-Nazi, "White Nationalist" and vigilante groups.

Its leader sees a coming race war, and at least one of its allies has advocated mass roundups of brown skinned people. It is part of a broader anti-Mexican movement that has been praised by California's governor- who has also praised Adolph Hitler - and acts as a kind of vanguard, or shock troop, for a broader fascistic movement whose ultimate leadership controls the White House.

Americans, Turner says, "are tired of watching their great American culture disappear, only to watch it be replaced by other cultures that are inferior and contradictory to everything this country was built upon." A headline on his website reads "Aren't you tired of watching your state turn into a third world cesspool right before your eyes?"

The "inferior culture" he's referring to, of course, is Mexican and Chicano culture.
"I have talked about the perils of cultural relativism and stated that American culture is superior to other cultures. I make no bones about it," he maintains. As if to emphasize the point, the organization's website is riddled with racist images posted by his loyal adherents.

"A Day Without a Mexican is a Good Day Indeed" reads one caption, posted by "no peeky panish." Then there's the image of a burning Mexican flag, and a poster of a set of handguns that reads "Celebrate Diversity."

A Confederate flag, America's most enduring symbol of racism, is inscribed with the words "Now It's Ours!" - or as Turner puts it, "This is our land. This is our fight. And we are willing to bleed to defend it."

Like other groups on the extreme racist right, Turner's SOS fears what they call a "reconquista," that the presence of Mexican and Central American migrants foreshadows a day when the southwest will be reconquered by Mexicans and other Indians the way South Africa was retaken by its African majority.

Racist groups like SOS believe that Mexican and Central American migrants will unite with Chican@ radicals to create the nation of Aztlan in what is now the US Southwest.

As one SOS member put it, "This nation wasn't "stolen" it was conquered and it's about to be conquered all over again, it's really just a matter of who does the conquering this time." One Turner supporter threatened on the LA Indymedia website that Mexicans would soon find themselves on reservations, Bantustan - style.

On the website of SOS and at the neo-Nazi "White Nationalist" Stormfront site, you'll see migrants from Mexico referred to as "invaders."

While their agendas are not identical in every respect, SOS and neo-Nazis groups have more than a little in common.

The National Vanguard, which has replaced the National Alliance as the US's largest neo-Nazi group, joined SOS recently for an anti-immigrant rally in Victorville, just as they joined the Minutemen in their Mexican -hunting expedition in Arizona. SOS will be joined by the anti-Islamic hate group The United American Committee in the next Baldwin Park protest.

Stormfront.org posted messages praising the SOS protest against the monument in Baldwin Park. One member wrote: "perhaps some aspect of this current American resistance to the invasion of the U.S. doesn't yet come in the form of an ideally or completely White Nationalist group, but for now, any way that this invasion can be repelled is fine with me. For this invasion could be a "world ender" for American White Nationals if it is not stopped."

The racist website "White Revolution" echoes much of the SOS rhetoric, falsely claiming, "Hard-working Americans are losing their jobs to nonWhite illegals…"

It calls on its readers to join the right wing paramilitary group the Minutemen, whose leader, Jim Gilchrist, will also be joining SOS for the protest against the Baldwin Park monument on the 25th of June.

Gilchrist's recent address to the California Coalition for Immigration Reform (which has protested side by side with White Revolution members) was the object of an intense and bloody protest in which a CCIR member ran down several protestors with his car. He was released without charges by the Orange County District Attorney, while a young woman who was hit by his car has been the object of ongoing police harassment.

Gilchrist is also a member of CCIR, an organization listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a racist hate group.

SOS is not far behind.

Turner writes: Gone are the days when we allowed our opponents to define the terminology of the debate." In an SOS email thread entitled "Racism Redefined," SOS members show what he means:

One writes: "I say: "Racist and proud of it" when they hurl their slime at me."

"Avatar" posts an image of a waving confederate flag and writes, "You call me racist as if it were a bad thing??"

SOS member "William", the man who posted the image of the burning Mexican flag wrote: "…remember, the word "racist" is simply a Marxist term used by the Left and non-whites to intimidate & bully White people. That's all." And, he said " Ignore them. As I said, the term "racist" is simply a Marxist political tool. It means nothing. Whenever I hear some filthy Communist or liberal use the term "racist," I ask them to define it…"

Some SOSers deny their racism, while others try to rationalize, even celebrate it.

"OhighLass" writes "We are not about hating all Mexicans…I could pass for Hispanic. So, how do we differentiate? Tattoo "I" or "L" on our forheads [sic]?"

John Wagner writes "We do NOT want to call ourselves racist. It is not racist to protect our race, culture and civilization."

And in a classic inversion "Joazinha" writes "Most SENSIBLE citizens are NOT against immigrants for BEING immigrants; we just don't like the RACIST variety."

"Last Great Hope" says, "For what its worth, I don't want it to come to a friggin' race war. Too many innocents would be hurt. I won't attack people on the basis of their ethnicity. However, anyone trying to take my homeland from me is a target."

But like many white racist groups on the extreme right, and like the Stormfront member who fears the worst for white America, Turner sees a race war coming. He writes, "Many suggest that violence is coming to California. Many suggest that a civil war of sorts may be on the horizon."

In a straightforward expression of the Minutemen mentality, SOSer "DWB" writes, "It is the duty of every American to be prepared and to take the law into our own hands if the government goes against the will of the people, just like now. We need to shut down the boarder [sic] by force and then we need to weed out the bad seeds in the government and try them on treason, then execute the basteds [sic].

The geopolitics and world view implied in such a stand are made clear on the racist American Renaissance website, which has praised the SOS actions: "If Bolivia split up into two nations, one for the whites and one for the Indians, the new white nation would be promptly deluged with Indian and mestizo welfare parasites. So long as there is one white nation left on earth, it will beseiged by diversitoid parasites. Segregation into ethnic states may be no more practical than multicultural/multiethnic nations. There is, however a third option."

That option is genocide.

While Turner disclaims any intentions of unleashing violence against indigenous peoples, recent events paint a different picture.

"Enough is enough," he writes. "We have reached the point where we can no longer sit back and allow our government to aid and abet the illegal alien invasion. We must respond as our founding fathers would have responded. We must refresh the tree of liberty."

The tree of liberty, according to tradition, is "refreshed" with blood. "Together," Turner says, "we will drive a stake through the heart of the 'reconquista' movement."

Fellow anti-migrant activist Andy Ramirez of "Friends of the Border Patrol" has denounced Turner, noting his call for SOS activists to bring baseball bats to demonstrations.

A local newspaper, the Daily Breeze, reported that prior to an anti-migrant demonstration in Redondo Beach Turner issued a call to his troops, "Bring your bats, fellas. If we are lucky, we are gonna need them. PING!"

"You don't incite violence," Ramirez said, according to the Breeze. "It's racist crap. Emotions are hot to begin with. "What he says is insensitive, disrespectful and racist. It's neo-Nazi thuggery. What's next, the sheet and hood?"

The Breeze reports Turner claimed "he would be willing to resort to violence if anybody opposing the group showed up."

"I don't mind going toe-to-toe with people, but we're here for a peaceful demonstration," Turner said.

In the meantime, one SOS member- "oneinchgroup"- has promised online to arrive at Baldwin Park for the SOS demonstration on June 25th armed with a gun. The group is deeply upset that one of its members was struck with a plastic water bottle at their first foray in Baldwin Park, and, they claim, went to a hospital for observation, staying overnight.

Press and police reported no injuries, but the SOS website carries a banner proclaiming "Baldwin Park 1 Survivor - Remember the Water Bottle!" SOS members feel the first "Battle of Baldwin Park" was a sort of California Alamo for anti-Mexicans. Four SOS supporters asked the Baldwin Park City Council to offer a "reward" for the capture of the plastic bottle thrower.

When Hal Netkin, a member of the CCIR hate group, ran down six anti-racist protestors with his van, many SOS members saw it is tit for tat - as a fitting response to the attack of the plastic water bottle.

The orientation of these forces toward violence isn't aimed just at Chican@ protestors, however.

City officials say they have received hundreds of racist hate mails, threats and harassment calls from SOS supporters. Artist Judy Baca has also been threatened.

The Minutemen's Jim Gilchrist has called for the National Guard to be deployed not only at the Mexican / US border, but has also urged Guard deployment for the upcoming demonstration in Baldwin Park.

Gilchrist's partner and rival in the Minutemen, Chris Simcox, known among disaffected followers as "The Little Prince" and "The Little Hitler" makes the agenda clear, saying, "Oh, Jesus, it is unbelievable. I mean, we need the National Guard to clean out all our cities and round them up. They are hard-core criminals. They have no problem slitting your throat and taking your money or selling drugs to your kids or raping your daughters and they are evil people."

And this, of course, is the bottom line - roundups of a scapegoated community under a government that is moving harder and faster toward the extreme Right, toward fascism itself.

Fittingly, these "Patriot" groups are pushing for a new state sponsored "California Border Patrol" under Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

They hope he'll create it for them, and they may not be wrong. The Terminator, whose father Gustav joined Hitler's SS just six months after the SS led the Kristallnacht pogroms against Germany's Jews, went out of his way to endorse the Minutemen, calling them "exemplary citizens." The governor has openly praised Adolph Hitler, saying "I admire Hitler, for instance, because he came from being a little man with almost no formal education, up to power. I admire him for being such a good public speaker and for what he did with it."

SOS, Stormfront, White Revolution, the National Vanguard and the Minutemen Project have lots of little men vying to be big, not least among them Joe Turner.

In the meantime, Turner is leading a series of demonstrations attacking Home Depot stores, which, he claims, provide a platform for the hiring of migrant day laborers. Simcox of the Minutemen describes such actions as "phase two" of the Minutemen media campaign - having "Minutemen protesters picketing employers who are hiring illegals [sic] and see if we can't make an effort, some impact there."

No sane Mexican wants to see Mexico reclaim any American soil. The Mexican "revolutionary" spirit has been a flop from day one. The People of Mexico can't even liberate themselves from their own corrupt government, made up of, of course, Mexicans, not Americans or White scapegoats.

In the unlikely even the Southwest did fall into Mexican hands, illegals would just continue migrating northward from the former California (soon turned into a statewide piss-smelling barrio like TJ) to Oregon.

No real American of Mexican descent has anything to be embarrassed about. Mexico is the old counry from which s/he should sever all ties.


.

Guilt by association and the strawman are alive and well.

You get an "F" for cut and paste

Joe Turner is a Patriot

VIVA SOS

> Guilt by association and the strawman are
> alive and well.

Yeah, how _dare_ anybody think that people who stand along side white supremists and spew the same rhetoric, hold the same protest signs' message, and organize their gatherings think they're guilty?

I mean damn, how unreasonable!

What part of these racist and fascistic comments DIRECTLY from SOS members _don't_ you understand?

"Make no mistake," says Turner, leader of the anti-Mexican group Save Our State, "our opponents are savages."

Americans, Turner says, "are tired of watching their great American culture disappear, only to watch it be replaced by other cultures that are inferior and contradictory to everything this country was built upon." A headline on his website reads "Aren't you tired of watching your state turn into a third world cesspool right before your eyes?

"A Day Without a Mexican is a Good Day Indeed" reads one caption, posted by "no peeky panish." Then there's the image of a burning Mexican flag, and a poster of a set of handguns that reads "Celebrate Diversity."

A Confederate flag, America's most enduring symbol of racism, is inscribed with the words "Now It's Ours!" - or as Turner puts it, "This is our land. This is our fight. And we are willing to bleed to defend it."

Turner writes: Gone are the days when we allowed our opponents to define the terminology of the debate." In an SOS email thread entitled "Racism Redefined," SOS members show what he means:

One writes: "I say: "Racist and proud of it" when they hurl their slime at me."

"Avatar" posts an image of a waving confederate flag and writes, "You call me racist as if it were a bad thing??"
SOS member "William", the man who posted the image of the burning Mexican flag wrote: "…remember, the word "racist" is simply a Marxist term used by the Left and non-whites to intimidate & bully White people. That's all." And, he said " Ignore them. As I said, the term "racist" is simply a Marxist political tool. It means nothing. Whenever I hear some filthy Communist or liberal use the term "racist," I ask them to define it…"

Some SOSers deny their racism, while others try to rationalize, even celebrate it.

"OhighLass" writes "We are not about hating all Mexicans…I could pass for Hispanic. So, how do we differentiate? Tattoo "I" or "L" on our forheads [sic]?"

John Wagner writes "We do NOT want to call ourselves racist. It is not racist to protect our race, culture and civilization."

And in a classic inversion "Joazinha" writes "Most SENSIBLE citizens are NOT against immigrants for BEING immigrants; we just don't like the RACIST variety."

"Last Great Hope" says, "For what its worth, I don't want it to come to a friggin' race war. Too many innocents would be hurt. I won't attack people on the basis of their ethnicity. However, anyone trying to take my homeland from me is a target."

"Enough is enough," he writes. "We have reached the point where we can no longer sit back and allow our government to aid and abet the illegal alien invasion. We must respond as our founding fathers would have responded. We must refresh the tree of liberty."

The tree of liberty, according to tradition, is "refreshed" with blood.

One has to ask the obvious.

To read Turner, to listen to his rhetoric about "superior" and "inferior" cultures, the scapegoating language about "cesspools," and "disease bearers," to see clearly his appeals to "blood," his belief in an impending race war, to watch him slip in his Nazi allies among his "innocent" SOS crew, one has to ask...

Is Turner an operative, say for the National Vanguard, r Stormfront, or White Aryan Resistance, and is SOS an "unconscious" front group for Nazis?

Leslie,

While I assume you are somewhat well educated by your choice in words and excellent grammar. Some of what you write is pure fiction. Take the "land grabs" for example. Pure exaggerations of the truth. Mexico was paid 15 million dollars after SIGNING a treaty. Plus another 3 million in Mexican debts was assumed by the United States. Also, another 10 million dollars was paid out a few years later for the Gadshen Purchase, which was nothing but sun-baked desert. Nominally this was for a train route, but most of the money was additional compenation for the lands the US aquited in 1848.

Thus the US paid a total of $28 million for the claim to the southwest. In todays dollars that is close to $1 trillion. If Mexicans want this land back, they should repay this $1 trillion, plus pay for all the improvements Americans have made, which are worth another $5 to 10 trillion.

Hardly a land grab when 28 million (in 1848 dollars) was given to Mexico. I respect the protestors that hold up signs claiming "everyone has the right to work and eat" far more than the idiots with "this land was stolen from us."

Also as a sidenote, the Mexican Army was 4 times the size of America's and still lost. What does they saying about Mexico's ability to fight a war when they outnumbered their opposition 4 to 1? Kinda pathetic if you ask me.

Mexican historians tend to avoid northern frontier history, maybe they feel it is a black eye.

A book by David J. Weber titled "The Spanish Frontier in North America" is a great reference. While he does express sympathy towards the Chicano movement in his forward and conclusion, his work directly refutes much of the Mechista garbage passed off as fact.

Weber has another book titled "The Mexican Frontier". Ditto, and impressive.

Mexican Historian Enrique Krauze has a book translated into English titled "Mexico: Biography of Power". Basically he reveals Mexican history through profiling Mexico's Political leaders from 1821 to Fox. Insightfull and informative.

Sorry but the land grab claims are crap. Also, you and I both know that Native American tribes such as the Apache and Navajo would rather be a part of the United States than Mexico. It's funny how so many Mexicans try to boast about their indigenous blood, yet the most indigenous people of Mexico are the most improverished.

I personally don't see Mexicans as an indigenous people. They are mostly mix blooded with tribes that were never in present day California, Arizona, Texas, etc. How they claim they are native to California is complete .

Granted some Mexicans immigrated to California after winning independence from Spain and before the United States took over. But true Native Americans were already here. In fact the Apaches even held battle with the advancing Mexicans. The bottom line is that very few Mexicans were in California when the U.S. took over. But for the ones that were, they all were allowed to keep their land deeds, yet many sold them at a profit. How many Mexicans today have families that go back California, Arizona, New Mexico in 1848? Very few. The vast majority came after the United States had established economic stability throughout the southwest. That whole "We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us" is utter . You seem intellectual enough to know that. Not that you posted it, but I'm just saying.

I used to teach in Santa Ana and one of my students, whom happens to be an illegal alien, said if this were still Mexico we wouldn't be here. "We" referring to all of us. The truth is that Mexican need the stability created by America in order to live more promising lives. America provides for Mexicans what Mexico can't.
If white people were to ever "go back to Europe". Mexicans would just eventually follow us for jobs. Deep down you know it.

There may have been white hate groups at Baldwin Park. But there was also some Mexican hate groups. MeCha and La Raza are completely racist. My Mexican friends refused to join because of the extreme and racist ideals.

I hope you are a member of one of those racist groups.

Roberto Gotti

I meant I hope you are NOT a member of one of those racist groups. Typing at 1am when I should be asleep.

"Also as a sidenote, the Mexican Army was 4 times the size of America's and still lost. What does they saying about Mexico's ability to fight a war when they outnumbered their opposition 4 to 1? Kinda pathetic if you ask me. "

...sorta like the US and Vietnam...very pathetic....

...so that whole Mexican American War thing was about a pilfered bottle of tequilla?

Now, you use good grammar and can string words together...a little long winded, but decipherable. You seem to be intelligent, but I am confused.

How can you even beging to talk about how these lands that used to be part of Mexico without mentioning Manifest Destiny or the Mexican-American War? And anyone who has studied the issue honestly as you represent yourself as having done, would know that an offer of $15 million was made to Mexico for the land BEFORE the war, and was rejected outright as being insufficent, and it was (imagine paying $1 trillion "in todays dollars" for California ALONE...it would be a 'steal'!). The US only "paid" for the land after they had "grabbed" it by violence of war...more to allay their own guilt than as a fair exchange.

Now, you seem like an intelligent guy, why would you avoid those facts?

I hope you are not one of those members of that closet racist group, SOS, are you?

There seems to be this ongoing debate about and implication of some sort of nefarious action on the part of the US in attaining lands from Mexico.

Seriously, do any of you actually give a fuck? Does anyone actually think these lands would be better served as part of Mexico or that some great injustice was done rescuing at least part of the GREAT FAILURE that is the country of Mexico?

However and whatever we did to get this land was absolutely the right thing to do. Clearly Mexico simply hasn't been able to do much with the land and vast resources they have. California would have been just so much more wasted resource.

Gotti( 'grandfather' Italian, correct?)
very well stated.
I am indigenous and have no qualms at all about
supporting the Rule of Law here in the United States of America.
it is true that the Purchase of the Land from mexico was
definitly in our(Indigenous Peoples) favor.
we have fought in every war in behalf of the USA
from the Revolution to Iraq,
defense of America is the defense of Native America.
It doesn't matter what or who you came from,
America is unique to human history,
it is worth defending by ALL Americans.
the Law of equal protection, Citizen rights,
all of it.
Happy Fourth of July to everyone..

Thanks OneEyedMan (or should I call you KPC?), for responding so well.

Robert, I have little to add, except that I've never written about "land grabs" except there were not> any land grabs at BP2. But let me point out that, the value of the gold alone purchased by the U.S. Treasury from California miners was nearly $2.5T (106,276,163 ounces from 1848 to 1968). The U.S. can start by returning that and all the prosperity the gold brought, add to it the cost of restoring the land, and we'll see what the balance sheet says then.

But this is meandering pretty far off topic, which at Baldwin Park is the white assumption that white people have to right to determine the culture of Indigenous-descent people. White people in this country have a long history of imposing European culture on others, from "christianizing" slaves to "educating" native children to whether they "approve" of a monument a hundred miles away.

I have said this elsewhere, but let me make the connection again. The anti-immigrant groups cannot possibly believe that illegal immigration per se is the greatest threat facing their beloved country. It is that migration provides a constant influx of living culture to the Southwest, and that culture isn't white. I have a deep suspicion that if those who come here from south of the Rio Bravo instantly spoke English, bought into the Puritan work ethic and Puritan sexuality, toned down the colors and size of their painting, celebrated assimilation, wore fedoras, drank martinis, performed only "well-made" theater, and otherwise became "white," the anti-immigrant folks would crawl back to wherever they came from.

As to my associations and friends, well, let's say we don't run in the same circles.

Gotti wrote: " Thus the US paid a total of $28 million for the claim to the southwest. In todays dollars that is close to $1 trillion. If Mexicans want this land back, they should repay this $1 trillion, plus pay for all the improvements Americans have made, which are worth another $5 to 10 trillion."

This is a pathetic and laughable argument and one that falls falt as a bord when you look at the real global economic context.

Gotti parades this pittance on $28 million as if it _meant_ soemthing.

Reality check.

Between the years 1780 and 1810 ( a decade prior to the end of overt Spanish colonial rule) Mexico produced 480 million pesos worth of _silver alone_ from its mines, not to mention other precious metals.

And not to mention the immense sums stolen by Spain from 1534, when the first of the mines opened, to 1780, or from 1810 to 1821 when Spain lost direct control in Mexico.

We are talking roughly half a billion pesos in 30 years, in a period when the average Mexican income was 116 pesos and that of the average white colonizer in the US was around 160 pesos.

The unimaginable sums stolen from Mexico by Spain fueled the industrial revolution in Europe lock, stock and barrel, right along with the mass enslavement of Africans.

The basis of all European wealth and dominance was laid by bloodthirsty genocide and enslavement of (primarily ) Mexico, Peru Boliiva and Africa. Period.

You know what we would call someone who killed a woman's family, stole her house, became wealthy in the process, then raped her, offering a pittance of a "payment" for the theft of her land and the rape of her body?

We would call such a person a depraved beast worthy of the severest punishment or the sickest individual walking in the most dire need of help. A criminal in any case, a Hannibal Lector.

The shoe fits. It fits "Amerikkka." Historically, it fits all of Europe.

The people who would justify such actions - and cover them up - are little better than dog excrement on the bottom of one's moral shoe.

Wipe it off.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>You know what we would call someone who killed a woman's family, stole her house, became wealthy in the process, then raped her, offering a pittance of a "payment" for the theft of her land and the rape of her body?

We would call such a person a depraved beast worthy of the severest punishment or the sickest individual walking in the most dire need of help. A criminal in any case, a Hannibal Lector.

The shoe fits. It fits "Amerikkka." Historically, it fits all of Europe.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Nothing was stolen...California will remain in the United States and your delusional hypothetical dreams of rape and theft are laughable. Do you even realize what you sound like?

So now there is backpedalingl from "stolen land" to a "low ball offer". Whatever the case, it is not a clear cut and dry case of theft.

Still though, Mexicans are NOT INDIGENOUS to California. They merely arrived here before the Americans did. Mexicans moved up North, and the Americans moved West.

The United States bought much of the Central and Midwest portion of America from France. Do you think the Natives recieved any of that money? I don't. And do you think General Santa Anna paid any money to the Apaches of Arizona or the Utes of Utah? I don't. But HE DID AGREE to take money for the land that they ARE INDIGENOUS to.

I don't recognize the United States obtaining Louisiana through a purchase with France. To me, it is was just Native American land being sold without their consent or without them recieving any of the funds. It's the same way I view the American Southwest. The true American Southwest belonged to the Native Americans. Not the Spaniards, not the Mexicans, not the Americans.

In the end, a treaty was signed and Americans paid out money that never went to the true owners of the land, the Native Americans. Mexicans say they were low-balled with 15 million dollars. Imagine what the Native Americans must have been thinking.

To Leslie: The gold that came out of California is a non-issue. The Treaty of Guadalupe was signed Feb. 2, 1848. Gold was discovered only a week earlier near Sacramento by James Marshall but wasn't made public till March of that year. It's not like the United States nor Mexico knew for sure there was gold in California. I'm sure it would have been an issue at the table if known, but it wasn't.

And to go back to what my old student said. "If this were still Mexico, we wouldn't be here".

If you guys want to protest immigrant bashing, then that's one thing. But don't bring in falsehoods and exaggerations such as "this land was stolen from us" to support your protest. It's just plain wrong and does little to help your protest since it pisses off Americans (Natives included) for having to hear this BS.

Sidenote, the Vietnam statement up above is rather stupid. The United States had around 60,000 Deaths/MIAs/POWs from the war. The North Vietnamese had 500,000 to 600,000 killed. That's a 10 to 1 kill ratio for the United States. Granted Vietnam may not be considered an American Victory and total deaths don't determine a winner. But it is definitely not a solid defeat like Mexico in the Mexican-American War. It was ridiculous to make the analogy although most of your post was acceptable.

If you follow Robert's thinking: And a bunch of beads or 60 guilders or whatever for Manhatten wasn't a land grab either. And paying $10K a year to farm workers isn't exploitation. And the Spanish conquerers weren't a prime example of war rape and race genocide by impregnation.

I'm not qualified to discuss Indigenous-Mexican relations, or Indigenous-Chicano relations for that matter, but as a woman I will submit that the children of raped Kosovo and Bosnian women, and the offspring of Spanish conquistadors, have a right to claim their mothers' heritage.

As to the gold, follow my argument carefully: if the U.S. hadn't taken the land, Fort Knox would be in Mexico, along with a big chunk of U.S. economic prosperity.

And for the record, rumors of gold in the "new world" began with Balboa, and gold in California was documented by 1842, when Jose Francisco de Gracia Lopez sent word to Mexico City that he had discovered gold and had it assayed by the Philadelphia mint. 1300 pounds of gold were removed before the Treaty of Guadalupe Hildalgo. The Mexican miners were displaced after the war and replaced by U.S. miners, according to Santa Clarita historian Jerry Reynolds, as reported by Leon Wordon.

Now you tell me that the Philadelphia Mint and the Treasury Dept. didn't bother to mention .926 fine gold in California to the U.S. War Department.

Who we are

The Xicana/o / Mexican@, and CentroAmerican@ people are native to this land.

From Nicaragua to Hopiland, the Kachinas and deities, the spirit of the land, are one.

Our peoples, largely the Uto-Aztecan peoples- the Hopi, Comanche, Shoshone, Tongva, Ute, Yaqui, Tohona O'odham, Ra-Ram-Uri (Tarahumara), Huichol, Paiute, and Azteca (Mexica) --arose from this land.

The Uto-Aztecan peoples as a culture group and as a language group began near the southern borders of what are today New Mexico and Arizona.

From Nicaragua to what is now Idaho, was a single, interrelated cultural complex - a single civilization.

We are their descendants, the uprooted ones, the end product of five centuries of genocide, the greatest Holocaust in human history.

Over 100 million of our ancestors - at a minimum 90% of all living native human beings – perished.

There were no borders as we understand them today. The borders and the nation-states that created them are all one thing, too - they are all European imports, false to this land and to its peoples, scars on the Earth, like the societies Europeans have forced upon us.

The objection will be raised, as always, that Mexicans are not Indians, but rather some kind of half-breed. This argument is phony . Only 10% of the population has ever been European in Mexico - less than the population of Africans.

We are an Indigenous people - whatever tortured permutations have been forced upon us by the invaders, and whatever creative cultural responses we made to the impositions.

Gotti is plain wrong, not only about the money, but about the land and the people, and their realtionship to one another.

His excuses are nothing but excuses for genocide. At best he is a quasi-Nazi or a wannabe Nazi, or a "put your best face forward" Nazi.

Fed Up Wrote:

" Nothing was stolen...California will remain in the United States and your delusional hypothetical dreams of rape and theft are laughable. Do you even realize what you sound like?"

Fed Up is a fool and a liar or knows nothing about history, or both.

http://academic.udayton.edu/race/02rights/guadalu3.htm

"Who are the real illegals in California?"

Prior to 1822 What is today Mexico, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and California are all Spanish colonies.

1822 Mexican colonists, following the American revolution, rebel against Spain and win their own revolutionary war, making Mexico a free nation just like America.

1844 James Polk campaigns for the U.S. presidency, supporting expansion of U.S. territories into Mexico.
1845
February, 1845 James Polk, on his inagauguration night, confides to his Secretary of the Navy that a principal objective of his presidency is the acquisition of California, which Mexico had been refusing to sell to the U.S. at any price.

Early 1845 The Washington Union, expressing the position of James Polk, writes: "...who can arrest the torrent that will pour onward to the West? The road to California will be open to us. Who will stay the march...?" "A corps of properly organized volunteers...would invade, overrun, and occupy Mexico. They would enable us not only to take California, but to keep it."

Early 1845 John O'Sullivan, editor of the Democratic review writes it is "Our manifest destiny to overspread the continent ...for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions."

Early 1845 James Polk promises Texas he will support moving the historical Texas/Mexico border at the Nueces river 150 miles south to the Rio Grande provided Texas agrees to join the union. "The traditional border between Texas and Mexico had been the Nueces River...and both the United States and Mexico had recognized that as the border." (Zinn, p. 148)

June 30, 1845 James Polk orders troops to march south of the traditional Texas/Mexico border into Mexican inhabited territory, causing Mexicans to flee their villages and abandon their crops in terror.

"Ordering troops to the Rio Grande, into territory inhabited by Mexicans, was clearly a provocation." (Zinn, p. 148)

"President Polk had incited war by sending American soldiers into what was disputed territory, historically controlled and inhabited by Mexicans." (John Schroeder , "Mr. Polk's War")

Early 1846 Colonel Hitchcock, commander of the 3rd Infantry regiment, writes in his diary: "...the United States are the aggressors....We have not one particle of right to be here....It looks as if the government sent a small force on purpose to bring on a war, so as to have a pretext for taking California and as much of this country as it chooses....My heart is not in this business."

May 9, 1846 President Polk tells his cabinet: "...up to this time...we have heard of no open aggression by the Mexican Army."

May 10, 1846 Violence erupts between Mexican and American troops south of the Nueces River. Of course Polk claims Mexicans had fired the first shot, but in his famous "spot resolutions" congressman Abraham Lincoln repeatedly challenges president Polk to name the exact "spot" where Mexicans first attacked American troops. Polk never met the challenge.

May 11, 1846 President Polk urges congress to declare war on Mexico.

May 12, 1846 : Horace Greeley writes in the New York Tribune: "We can easily defeat the armies of Mexico, slaughter them by thousands, and pursue them perhaps to their capital; we can conquer and "annex" their territory; but what then? Who believes that a score of victories over Mexico, the "annexation" of half of her provinces, will give us more Liberty, a purer Morality, a more prosperous Industry...?

1846 Congressman Abraham Lincoln, speaking in a session of congress "...the president unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced a war with Mexico....The marching an army into the midst of a peaceful Mexican settlement, frightening the inhabitants away, leaving their growing crops and other property to destruction, to you may appear a perfectly amiable, peaceful, un- provoking procedure; but it does not appear so to us."
1847


after war is underway, the American press comments:

February 11, 1847. The "Congressional Globe" reports: "...We must march from ocean to ocean....We must march from Texas straight to the Pacific ocean....It is the destiny of the white race, it is the destiny of the Anglo-Saxon Race."

The New York Herald: "The universal Yankee Nation can regenerate and disenthrall the people of Mexico in a few years; and we believe it is a part of our destiny to civilize that beautiful country."

American Review writes of Mexicans "yielding to a superior population, insensibly oozing into her territories, changing her customs, and out-living, exterminating her weaker blood."

1846-1848 U.S. Army battles Mexico, not just enforcing the new Texas border at the Rio Grande but capturing Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, and California (as well as marching as far south as Mexico City).
1848 Mexico surrenders on U.S. terms (U.S. takes over ownership of New Mexico, California, an expanded Texas, and more, for a token payment of $15 million, which leads the Whig Intelligencer to report: "We take nothing by conquest....Thank God").
(date unknown) General Ulysses S. Grant calls the Mexican War "the most unjust war ever undertaken by a stronger nation against a weaker one."

Primary Source: "We take nothing by conquest, Thank God", in A People's History Of the United States, 1492-Present, Howard Zinn, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. (This book is available on the shelf at virtually every bookstore in America. The New York Times Book Review says it "...should be required reading for a new generation of students...." )

Oh yeah, and James Polk said "Let's only send in a few Irishmen to do America's fighting in Mexico. 1/4 the number of Mexican troops should be a FAIR fight."

I guess James Polk overestimated Mexico's ability to fight a war. Want a silly American President.

Lets go another twenty years down that road and the French are kicking the crap out of the Mexicans and ruling the country. Who the hell loses to the French? The United States just finished up the Civil War and then told the French to leave Mexico since France had supported the Confederate Army. Only then did the French leave Mexico, not because of the strength, or lack there of, of Mexico. Can I get a "Viva America"?

Noxtinnomecayotzin
"From Nicaragua to what is now Idaho, was a single, interrelated cultural complex - a single civilization."

Oh yeah, and the Roman Empire stretched all the way to Hawaii.

How exactly did these different nations communicate with each other. Let's see.....telephone....NO. Internet......NO. Horseback wtih riders.....NO considering the Spaniards brought over horses.

Sorry, bro.....but there is no way in hell that can be considered a "single civilization". It's not feasible.

"We are their descendants, the uprooted ones, the end product of five centuries of genocide, the greatest Holocaust in human history."

I call BS. The Jews have been persecuted for 2000 years. That's the greatest holocaust. The Africans were enslaved because the Natives (your supposedly people) were too weak to do the work on the fields. Way to help the Africans out.

"Over 100 million of our ancestors - at a minimum 90% of all living native human beings – perished."

100 million huh? That's funny, Zacateco wrote 20 million. You two might want to get together and compare info.

"The objection will be raised, as always, that Mexicans are not Indians, but rather some kind of half-breed. This argument is phony . Only 10% of the population has ever been European in Mexico - less than the population of Africans."

If so then that is close to saying that Mexicans are 90% native and only 10% European in blood. I call BS. Natives don't grow beards and I've seen too many hairy Mexicans in my life. Also, half the Mexicans I see are much lighter in skin tone than Natives. When it comes to blood, each mexican family is obviously different. But the AVERAGE Mexican has no less than 40% Spanish/European blood in them.

I love how Mexicans speak a European language. How Mexicans hit pinatas at birthdays, which came from China through Marco Polo to Europe to Mexico. How Mexican daughters have Quinceañeras and promise to the Catholic Church (from Europe) to remain virgins till they are married. Man, Mexicans sure are Native in their ways of life. Simplying amazing. I always thought the Aztecs made the best low-rider cars.

Leslie:
"Spanish conquistadors, have a right to claim their mothers' heritage." Heritage or Land? Cause land is really the only thing Mexicans are trying to claim.

One problem with that is many White Americans have a little Native American blood in them as well. It looks like we both win that battle.

In Your Words:
Reading your comments is always fun and insightful. But I don't always agree.

Last Comment:
My illegal Mexican student from Santa Ana continues to claim "If this were still Mexico, we wouldn't be here."

So really the land has nothing to do with it. Truth is Mexicans come here for jobs and a better way of life. It's either that or it's because Mexicans love Americans and want to be surrounded by us. Hmmmmm......Is this all really just a cry for attention and a return of love.

C'mon now...I love Mexicans.....atleast the women.

Don't stop posting, this is too much fun.

Simply stated, a dictatorial Centralist government in Mexico began the war because of the U.S. annexation (1845) of Texas, which Mexico continued to claim despite the establishment of the independent republic of Texas 10 years before.


The Southwest United States was ceded to America on February 2, 1848. In 1824, after years of failure to settle Texas, the Mexican government gave an invitation to Americans, to come and settle the area, in exchange for land grants, dual citizenship and constitutional guarantees of citizens rights. More than 40,000 Americans flocked into Tejas, and within a few years, had accomplished what Mexico never had. During this time, a Mexican army officer by the name of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna led a rebellion against the Mexican government, starting wide spread civil war in Mexico. He appointed himself to the rank of general and in 1833, organized a democratic election, in which he was elevated to president. But, believing Mexico not ready for democracy, he soon declared himself dictator and immediately terminated the Mexican constitution and all of the agreements of 1824. He ordered the Texans to either leave Mexico, or submit to his absolute authority and stripped them of the ownership of their property. In October 1835, General Martin Perfecto de Cos arrived at the Alamo with 1,200 troops to enforce Santa Anna’s decree. On October 28th, the first skirmish between Texans and Cos’ soldiers ended in defeat for Cos. Several more battles were later fought, always defeating the Mexican soldiers. In November 1835, the northern part of the Mexican state of Coahuila-Tejas declared itself in revolt against Mexico's President Antonio López de Santa Anna. On December 5th, a full scale battle erupted between Texan and Mexican forces, resulting in Cos’ su rrender on December 10th, defeated by less than 100 Texas militia soldiers. Cos and his soldiers were allowed to return to Mexico.

In February 1836, Texans declared their territory to be an independent republic and that its border extended to the Rio Grande rather than the Rio Nueces that Mexicans recognized as the dividing line. On February 23rd, General Santa Anna arrived with a disputed force of 2,000 to 5,000 soldiers, attacking the Alamo on March 6th in the pre-dawn. All 189 defenders died in the massacre. On April 21, 1836 the Texans proclaimed themselves citizens of the Independent Republic of Texas following their victory over Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto. Santa Anna, a heavy cocaine user and rampant womanizer, had decided to take the day off, spending the day in his silk pajamas, using large quantities of cocaine and having sex with his mulatto slave, Emily Morgan, known later as the yellow rose of Texas. His soldiers took the day off as well. The sleepy Mexican encampment was surprised by General Sam Houston and his small force, defeating the Mexicans in less than 20 minutes. Santa Anna signed a treaty that day, ending the war, granting the Texans their independence and their claims of Texas. He was allowed to return to Mexico.

In December 1845, the U.S. Congress voted to annex the Texas Republic and soon sent troops led by General Zachary Taylor to the Rio Grande to protect its border with Mexico, which had decided that Texas still belonged to Mexico. The clashes between Mexican troops and U.S. forces led to a Congressional declaration of war on May 13, 1846. Fighting continued for the next two years as General Taylor led his troops through to Monterrey, and General Stephen Kearny and his men went to New Mexico, Chihuahua, and California. But it was General Winfield Scott and his army that delivered the decisive blows as they marched from Veracruz to Puebla and finally captured Mexico City itself in August 1847. Mexican officials and President Polk's representative, Nicholas Trist, began discussions for a peace treaty that August. On February 2, 1848 the Treaty was signed in Guadalupe Hidalgo, a city north of the capital where the Mexican government had fled as U.S. troops advanced. Its provisions called for Mexico to cede 55% of its territory (present-day Arizona, California, New Mexico, Texas, and parts of Colorado, Nevada and Utah) in exchange for $15 million dollars, a figure calculated by the Mexicans.
All of that brief history is very accurate, and it establishes a firm foundation, that the American Southwest is the rightful and legal property of the United States of America, and not the property of Mexico.

The very same with the Gringos who were the Californio. Prepare for the worse, because I ain’t going anywhere, but the land of my birth.

See, I can cut and paste too.

http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/judiciary/hju59872.000/hju59872_0.htm

If so then that is close to saying that Mexicans are 90% native and only 10% European in blood. I call BS. Natives don't grow beards and I've seen too many hairy Mexicans in my life. Also, half the Mexicans I see are much lighter in skin tone than Natives. When it comes to blood, each mexican family is obviously different. But the AVERAGE Mexican has no less than 40% Spanish/European blood in them.

This was true somewhat back in the 50s through the 70s, but not anymore. Many people coming over recently are clearly indigenous. Here's a picture of Elaine Miles from that old tv show Northern Exposure. Tell me if current immigrants look more like her, or like the two people or European descent above her.

Forbes is a noted native american scholar

http://www.mexika.org/index.htm


The Mestizo Concept: A Product of European Imperialism
By Jack Forbes

The Mestizo Concept

The terms mestizo and metis (as well as such comparable words as half-caste, half-breed, ladino, cholo, coyote, and so on) have been and are now frequently used in Anishinabe-waki (the Americas) to refer to large numbers of people who are either of mixed European and Anishinabe (Native American) racial background or who poses a so-called mixed culture.

In Canada, people of mixed European and Anishinabe background are ordinarily referred to as metis, that is, "mixed." In the United States, terms such as half-breed, half-blood and quarter-blood are most commonly used but, mustee (derived from mestizo) and even mulatto have been used in the South. From Mexico through Argentina mestizo ("mixed") is the standard term, but cholo, ladino, coyote, and other words are also commonly used. In Brazil, caboclo, mameluco and a variety of other terms are used, along with mestizo. The concept of mestizo has also been introduced into the United States scholarly literature and is becoming accepted among anthropologists and sociologists as a technical term replacing half-breed and similar words.

For the purposes of this article the word mestizo will be used as the equivalent of all such words. It should be kept in mind that there are several distinct ways in which the term mestizo is used:

(1) As a simple description- a person, or a group, who possesses a recent mixed background;

(2) As a kind permanent ethnic or caste categorization- a person, or a group, who is not only of mixed background but whose ethnic nature, or social status, is also mixed;

(3) As a strictly biological concept, referring only to mixture through sexual reproduction;

(4) As a cultural concept, referring to a mixture of customs, ways of behaving, and so on.

The first usage does not concern us here to any great extent, but the other three are of critical importance to the current status of native peoples in Anishinabe-waki.

Mestizo Peoples Who Are Not Mestizo

Today, virtually all of the peoples who are categorized as half-caste or mestizo live in zones where European imperialism has been active during the past several centuries (the South Pacific, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Macao, Vietnam, India, Singapore, South Africa, and throughout Anishinabewaki).

Peoples categorized as "half-caste" or "mestizo" tend to have several characteristics in common: they reside in areas subjected to recent European colonialism and imperialism; they seldom possess the power or resources to determine their own destiny (either political or intellectual-psychological); their existence is usually a direct byproduct of European imperialism and colonial policy; and they are primarily people with both European and non-European ancestry, almost never with mixed European national backgrounds.

To place this discussion in proper perspective, let us contrast the situations in Mexico and Spain. North American social scientists and intellectuals and the ruling elite of Mexico commonly seem to agree that Mexico is a mestizo nation, that not only are most of its people racially mixed but that its dominant culture is also mestizo. North American Anglo-Saxon scholars, in particular, delight in using the mestizo and Indo-Hispano concept when discussing Mexico and Chicanos (persons of Mexican background in the United States). It is very clear that Anglo scholars (and the Mexicans and Chicanos influenced by them) regard the very essence of the Mexican-Chicano people as mestizo (except for the perhaps ten percent of the Mexican people who are regarded as indio).

Now, is this mestization of the Mexican-Chicano people a concrete social reality or is it primarily the Europeans' imposition of alien descriptive categories upon the Mexican-Chicano masses? Let us look at the situation of Spain and Mexico with this question in mind. Spain is, clearly, far more of a mestizo nation (if that term is ever properly to be used) than is Mexico.

(1) The Spanish people speak a totally borrowed language, a dialect or branch of Italo-Latin mixed with many thousands of Arabic words. Very few words of the indigenous Hispano-Iberic language remain in use.

(2) The culture of Spain is a complex mixture of Latin-Italic, North African, Middle Eastern, Greek, Gitano (Gypsy), and other characteristics, with very few indigenous (pre-Roman) traits remaining, except among the Basques and Gallegos.

(3) Racially, the modern Spaniard probably carries relatively few indigenous genes, the latter having been greatly overwhelmed by Carthaginian, Celtic, Latin-Roman, Germanic, Arab, Moorish, Berber, Jewish, black African, and Gitano intermixture.

In both a racial and culture sense, then, the Spaniard is profoundly a mestizo. In fact, it is safe to say that (except among the Basques) the Spanish culture of modern times is almost wholly non-Spanish in origin (in terms, at least, of specific traits) and is thoroughly mixed. Surprisingly, however, one never finds Anglo-Saxon social scientists categorizing the Spaniards as a mestizo. One never finds scholars describing a Spanish subgroup as part Gitano or as a North African physical type. One never finds social scientists attempting to dissect the Spanish people and then to tell them who they are!

Why is this so? We know that during the fifteenth century, for example, there were many subgroups (such as maranos, mozarabes, moriscos, and so on) among the population. We know also that even today regional variations can probably be identified in Spain. Why is the Castillian-speaking Spaniard allowed to have dignity and security of being simply a Spaniard, of possessing an ethnic identity, a nationality, while the Mexican and the Chicano are even now dissected and categorized, first, as mestizos and only second as Mexicans or Chicanos?

Indisputably the Spaniard is a mestizo in the sense that he is mixed and has a mixed culture. But he is never categorized as a mestizo, but always as a Spaniard (or an Andalucian, Malagueno, Catalan, and soon), because since 1491 the Castellano-Spaniard has not been subjected to political and intellectual colonization.

The Spanish people have been free to develop themselves without having any alien government officials classifying individuals as one-quarter Gitano, one-eighth Jewish, one-half Arab, and so on. They have not had foreign scholars investigating them (trying to "understand" them) and then developing conceptualization which dominate the thinking of even native intellectuals. In short, the Spaniard has been free to define his own nationality and categories of existence.

It is true, of course, that Spain possesses minority ethnic groups, but neither the minorities nor the majority are classified as mestizo even though all are of mixed origin. It is also true that the Christian Spanish hierarchy did, for a time, keep records of converted Jews and Muslims and their descendants, but this was not to permanently categorize people, but instead to root out any secret Jewish or Islamic religious practices. The records concerned religion rather than race (in fact, many Hispanic Jews and especially Muslims were Christian Spanish, not North African, descent).

The same kind of analysis can be made about England, Scotland, Russia, and a number of other nations. The English are clearly mestizos- a mixture of Celtic (and pre-Celtic), Angle, Saxon, Danish, Norman-French, Flemish, and other descent. Likewise, English cultures highly mixed (for example, half of the words in these-called English language are of Latin origin, the English practice a "foreign" religion- Christianity-and the great bulk of contemporary English characteristics are of foreign origin- including even tea drinking!) It is safe to say that the modern Englishman has very little in common with the Britons and pre-Roman times or even with the Anglo-Saxons before Christianity.

The Scots are, of course, a mixture of Pictish, Gaelic (Scottish), Norse, Norman-French, Flemish, English (Anglic), Saxon, and other stocks. Culturally, little remains (except for a few place names) from the indigenous Picts. Even the culture of the invading Scots (coming from Ireland) had been eroded to such an extent that the Scottish language is spoken only in a few remote regions and is officially ignored by the government. Except for some "colorful" Highland characteristics here is little left of purely Celtic origin, although many Celtic, Germanic, and Latin traits have mixed together to produce modern Scottish culture.

The Russians continue to speak their native Slavic language, but their culture is extremely mixed (showing Greek, Turkish, Mongol, and German influences). Racially the Russians have absorbed large quantities of Finish, Kahzar, Turkic, Mongol, Greek and other alien ancestry.

Interestingly, the English, Scots, and Russians (like the Spanish) are never categorized as mestizos. Seldom does one ever ask a Scotsman if he is part Norman-French, nor indeed, does anyone ever ask a Scotsman if he has even a drop of Celtic (Pictish-Scottish) blood. Such questions are seemingly only asked of knocked-down, conquered, colonized, and powerless peoples.

The same kind of analysis can be made of almost all major ethnic groups- Chinese, Japanese, East Indians, Arabs, Turks, and so on. Almost all such peoples possess a mixed racial heritage and a mixed culture. But they are not mestizos (even when their ancient "race" and culture have been almost totally erased or altered). Furthermore modern Mexican and Chicano people possess far greater connection with their ancient Mexican past than many European groups do with their respective past.

For example:

(1) The Mexicans and Chicanos of today are perhaps eighty percent native Anishinabe descent, while only twenty percent of their ancestry is of European-North African, African, and Asian descent. In contrast, it is likely that Spaniards possess relatively little pre-Roman ancestry (native Iberian), certainly less than eighty percent.

(2) The Mexican and Chicano peoples' modern language, Spanish, possesses several thousand native Mexican words, while the Spanish is wholly non-Iberian in origin.

(3) The native religions of Spain have almost, if not completely, disappeared. In Mexico, however, the native religion has survived in many regions and has modified Christianity. Furthermore, Christianity is as foreign to Spain as it is to Mexico.

(4) The modern culture of Spain is almost entirely non-Iberian in origin. In contrast, the culture of Mexico, even among Spanish-speaking people, is, to a significant degree, of native Mexican origin.

In short, the Mexicans and Chicanos possess far greater continuity with their native past than do the Spaniards, and yet the Spanish are categorized as "unified" people (in spite of great regional variations), while the Mexicans and Chicanos must perpetually carry the burden of genuflecting before the idol of mestisaje.

Ethnicity and Integration

Many social scientists have written about Mexican villages as mestizo villages and Indian villages. In point of fact there is often no racial difference existing between such villages, but even if there were, I would challenge the idea that there are mestizo villages in Mexico.

It is true, of course, that one can find many pueblos in Mexico where the culture of the people can be traced to Spain, North Africa, and the Middle East, as well as to Native Mexico. But this historical fact of mixture does not in and itself produce a mestizo village.

If we were to visit such a pueblo, we would find that the people possess an integrated culture perceived as being their very own. They have no conscious concept of being "mixed," but instead have a sense of unity and wholeness. To categorize them as living in a mestizo village is as nonsensical as it would be to say that Davis, California, is a mestizo town because of the people's diverse ethnic origins and historically mixed culture.

Most people possess a mixed culture and mixed ethnic background. To say, therefore, that a village is mixed when it is an integrated community, is either to lie or to add nothing new to our knowledge of that village.

It is true that there are cities, villages, and even entire regions where peoples of different ethnic loyalties and cultures are living in close juxtaposition (as the Greeks and Turks in Istanbul). Such a place can be regarded as being multiethnic or biethnic, but it is not truly mixed precisely because the different ethnic groups are separate, although geographically intermingled.

Mestizo and such comparable terms imply outcast (i.e., belonging to no ethnic group or casta). People who possess a national or ethnic identity, no matter how much they have mixed historically with other peoples, can never be mestizo.

A people who possess an integrated culture, especially a gradually changing, relatively stable one, are also not mestizo culturally. Since all known cultures are of diverse, mixed origin, it follows that the Mexican culture of today is precisely that, i.e., Mexican culture and not a mestizo culture. Change, with borrowing, no matter how much, does not by itself produce a mestizo culture.

The Bulgarian people, for example, have shifted their homeland, changed their language, changed their religion, changed their physical appearance (through interethnic marriage), and changed almost their total culture, but the Bulgarians are not mestizos, they are not outcasts, they are not a new nation, they are simply Bulgarians.

Why? Because as a people, as a collection of related village-groups together forming a nationality, they have a historical bond of continuity with their past. The ethnic continuity implied by Bulgarian-ness and the gradual nature of change have ensured that the Bulgarians are not mestizos (although the Turks, and other former rulers, tried to erase that continuity).

The Mestizo as Outcast

Historically speaking, Europeans have often used such terms as mestizo, half-breed, half-caste, and so on, to refer to no-caste, out-caste, or groupless individuals- that is, to a person of mixed race having no clear ethnic affiliation.

A mestizo without a nationality or ethnic group to belong to is indeed an outcast. There is no doubt but what there are individuals or mixed race in Anishinabe-waki who are loners, without ethnic affiliation. But such individuals are relatively few in numbers in comparison with the broad masses of mixed-bloods who commonly possessed a group, an ethnic affiliation, or a community. For example, the mixed Cherokees of the nineteenth century were, for the greater part, Cherokee-speaking people who were citizens of, and emotionally a part of, the Cherokee Nation. In no sense could most racially mixed Cherokees be regarded as outcasts. Neither could they be regarded as mestizos, except in a purely descriptive sense.

In most regions of Anishinabe-waki there has been a gradual, imperceptible transition of a village (or tribe) from being composed of people of purely indigenous descent to being composed of people of mixed racial descent. In many cases the group has experienced no sharp change in ethnic identity. Thus, many North American Anishinabe groups have changed from being racially Indian to being racially mixed. However, they have retained their identity as Cherokees, Powhatans, Mohawks, and so on. Similarly, many Mexican, Central American, and South American villages have gradually acquired European or African admixture without any sharp transition, although in some instances the people have come to regard themselves as no longer being indios, because the government (and racist custom) regards the term indio as a derogatory one.

An example of the latter trend is the gradual "disappearance" of the Opata people of eastern Sonora. It is quite clear from the historical evidence that the Opatas imperceptibly changed as a result of missionization, serving in the Spanish army (against the Apaches), fighting in the many post-1821 civil wars and rebellion in Sonora, and perhaps to a lesser degree, intermarrying with Spanish-speaking Mexicans. In 1821 most Opata towns were still "Indian," although undoubtedly many residents were bilingual in Opata and Spanish, and virtually all were Catholics. By about1900 the grandparents were still speaking Opata, but their grandchildren had shifted largely to Spanish and wanted to be thought of as Mexicans. The Opata towns had, in effect, ceased being Opata and had become simply Mexican (or mestizo, as the Anglo-Saxon researcher and Mexican census-taker might assert). In this area, as in many others throughout Anishinabe-waki, the change from tribal loyalty to a new national loyalty was not primarily a biological-racial change but simply a gradual, imperceptible change in self-definition by others.

Thus, we see that some native nationalities have become racially mixed while retaining their old identity, while other native nationalities have been absorbed into a larger nationality without significant race mixture. In neither case, however, did the bulk of the people become no-caste or out-caste or half-caste in the process. Whether changing because of acculturation, race mixture, or both, they always have retained a community, an identity, and a sense of peoplehood. It is interesting, of course, to study such persons as Garcilaso de la Vega el Inca, the Inca-Spanish mestizo who was torn between native and Iberian loyalties, but it seems very unlikely that most persons of native descent in Anishinabe-waki ever went through such a process. And it is very unlikely that such a split identity, when it occurred, extended far beyond the first generation.

The mestizo as outcast is simply not a significant reality in Anishinabe-waki. Instead of inventing collections of no-caste individuals, we should concentrate our attention upon the history of real "peoples"- tribes, villages, bands, towns, regions, and nations.

The Mestizo Concept and the Strategy of Colonialism

One of the fundamental principles of the European invaders, and especially of the Spaniards, was to follow the policy of divide and conquer, or keep divided and control. This policy pitted native against native, and tribe against tribe, until Spanish control was established. Later this same policy prevented a common front of oppressed people from developing, by creating tensions and jealousies between the different sectors of the population.

The Spaniards were shrewd colonialists. They gave minor privileges (uniforms, batons of office, and the right to collect tribute) to caciques (chiefs), in order that the native leadership would prevent their people from rebelling. They also gave privileges (of a minor nature) to each different caste (indios living in villages sometimes were exempt from certain taxes, while mestizos, mulattos, and others were able to obtain minor positions in the army, move about freely, except in Indian villages and so on). People with some degree of European ancestry were ordinarily able to wear European-style clothing and obtain concessions not available to most Anishinabe (Indians).
A racist system was created by the Spaniards which favored light skin and European descent. Natives were regarded as inferior or childlike beings, and almost all who were ambitious sought to deny nonwhite ancestry or at least to be as white as possible.

This system, which saw each minor caste or class trying to curry favor from above at the expense of those below, served very well to keep the masses divided and distrustful of each other. It also resulted in many people of predominantly native descent pretending to be either mestizo or criollo (white or near-white) in order to be considered "una persona de razon" (a rational person). To the Spaniards, the native generally was not "de razon," but mixed-bloods could be!

The concepts of mestizo, coyote, lobo, cholo, pardo, color quebrado, and many others, were invented by the Spaniards, and Spanish policy kept these categories alive throughout the colonial epoch. Were those concepts of any real objective value, apart from being useful to the ruling class? It is extremely doubtful if the differences between a coyote (three-quarters Anishinabe), a mestizo (one-half Anishinabe), a lobo (Anishinabe-African), a pardo (Anishinabe-African-European), and so on were at all significant except in so far as the Spanish rulers sought to make them significant. It is true that there may have been cultural differences between natives and mixed-bloods speaking a native language and living in a native village, on the one hand, and Spanish-speaking person (of whatever ancestry) on the other hand. But those differences relate to political loyalty and culture and not directly to mestisaje as such.

The colonial documents mention several cases where mestizos, mulattos, and so on, took part in Indian rebellions on the native side. The documents (padrones or censuses in particular) also reveal that some Spanish soldiers of lower rank were "indios," at least when first recruited. Therefore, it is clear that the differences between indio and mestizo were not necessarily even of political significance.

On the other hand, if there were cultural differences and antagonisms existing between mestizos and indios, whose fault was it? Who created the conditions of exploitation which caused Anishinabeg to rebel? Who created a system wherein one could rise upward only by repudiating one's native blood and exploiting native people?
In short, the Spaniards created the system that created castes that were different one from another. They also created such rankings to accomplish their selfish purposes.

Let us dwell on this point for a moment by contrasting the development of Aberdeen, Scotland, with Santa Fe, New Mexico. The people of Aberdeen have a mixed origin, being of Scottish (Gaelic-speaking), Scandinavian, Norman-French, Flemish, and Anglo-Saxon descent. But this fact of biological mixture is of little ultimate significance in the history of Aberdeen. Of much greater importance is the fact that Aberdeen became a Broad Scotch and English language enclave in what have been a Gaelic-speaking region and that Aberdeen was a royal burg, a town loyal to the Scottish crown rather than to any Highland clan (tribal) chief. Of greater significance, also in the history of Aberdeen is the fact of socioeconomic and religious tensions within the city, totally unrelated (it would seem) to ethnic origins. In sum, whether an Aberdonian is one-fourth Gaelic of one-half Scandinavian or all Anglo-Saxon is of only passing interest. Loyalties to Aberdeen, to religion, to economic classes, to Scotland, are all of infinitely greater significance. Finally, all native-born Aberdonians are, and have been considered Scots, whether of Scottish or non-Scottish descent.

Similarly, Santa Fe was a Spanish royal settlement established in the far north of the Spanish Empire (Aberdeen was established to control and civilize the unruly Gaelic Scots, as Santa Fe was created to control and civilize the unruly Anishinabeg). The bulk of the initial settlers of Santa Fe, who lived in the barrio of Analco, were Mexicans, that is, Aztec-speaking people of Anishinabe blood. As time went by, the people became mixed, with Spanish, Anglo-Saxon, African, Pueblo Indian, Apache, Navajo, Plains Indian, and Paiute ancestry being absorbed into the community. Likewise, the Mexican language was gradually replaced by Spanish, religion changed, and so on. Whether or not a person of Santa Fe, by say1848, was all-native, three-quarters native, one-half native or one-eighth native is utterly without intrinsic significance. What is important is whether he was rich or poor, ruler or ruled, Catholic or fold religion, Spanish-speaking or native-speaking, and soon.

Ah, but there is a difference between Aberdeen and Santa Fe. In Santa Fe, the racist colonialist, strategy of the Spaniard and implanted the notion of nonwhite inferiority. Therefore, whether one was dark or light or classed as mestizo, blanco, o'indio did make a difference! The difference is not, however, due to the intrinsic significance of mestisaje but only to a racist-colonialist stratification based upon racial descent.

The French pursued a policy somewhat different from that of the Spanish, (except in Louisiana where part-blacks were classified as quadroons, octoroons, and so forth). The French were never able to recruit many settlers to come to Anishinabe-waki, so the interests of the empire (and of the fur trade) demanded that the Metis, the mixed-blood, be incorporated into the French system wherever possible. It appears that prior to 1763 no distinct class of mixed-bloods developed, since the Metis was absorbed into French Canadian society (albeit initially as a fur trader, canoe man, or trapper) or into a particular native group. It seems highly likely that most French-Canadians have some degree of native descent, while many Anishinabeg in the northern United States and Canada are part-French.

During the nineteenth century, however, along the banks of the Red River, Lake Winnipeg, and the Saskatchewan River, there developed a group who came to be known as Metis, and most of their descendants (now spread all over western Canada) are still known by that term. These people, sometimes called Red River Metis fought against the Canadian government on several occasions between 1860 and 1890, in alliance with Cree, Assiniboin, and Chippewa groups.

Who are these Metis? Initially some were French-native hybrids, some were Scottish-native hybrids, and a few were English-native hybrids. Generally speaking, they were closely connected with Cree and other Anishinabeg both in terms of annual migrations, alliances, marriages, and language. (Modern studies have shown that a large majority of Metis people speak Cree in their homes, at least in certain provinces.) The culture of the Metis was (and often still is) basically of a native character modified by European influence. (For example, they observed an annual buffalo-hunting migration cycle similar to that of the Cree and Assiniboin, with whom they frequently lived).

My tentative analysis is as follows: The so-called Metis were nothing more nor less than a partially Europeanized sector of the Cree-Chippewa-Assiniboin confederation (or alliance system). (It may well be that having a European father or grandfather was of crucial importance in becoming Europeanized, but that is not at all surprising [intermarriage is often a key element in an acculturation process].)
If left alone, the so-called Metis would have been to the Cree people what the mixed-bloods were to the Cherokee Nation: an influential subgroup within the overall nationality. To some degree this undoubtedly occurred in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, since the line between Indian and Metis even today is ethnically obscure in many areas.

The Anishinabeg of the Canadian prairies were not left alone, however. British imperialism (in particular, the Hudson Bay Company) attempted to distinguish between Metis and Indian. The Metis, being somewhat more European in orientation and usually bilingual, were favored over Indians for certain purposes, but were never recognized as being the equal of whites. Later the British and white Canadians recognized "Indian tribal" land rights and rights to special federal services but denied these to Metis. In point of fact, however, may people whom the Canadian government chose to regard as Metis were distinguishable from Indians. They simply were left out of treaty negotiations, were ignored, or were too mobile to live on a reserve.

Are the Metis truly mestizo, or is their present status a result of current British-Canadian policy? Some Metis call themselves non-status Indians, and perhaps that is a good description of some of them. Perhaps overall they represent simply an Europeanized, partly landless sector of the native population, confused about their identity by years of being denied Indian status. Or perhaps some of them are a distinct people for whom the name Metis does not mean mestizo but has become an ethnic (national) appellation.

In any case, the Red River Metis did not, and do not, exist as a no-caste collection of half-breeds. They seem to have always lived in communities or groups they considered home. Whenever they are to be known as Anishinabe is a matter for them to decide and not the Canadian government.

The United States and the Atlantic seaboard British colonies approached the Spanish system of caste categorization (mulattos, half-breeds, quarter-bloods, eight-bloods, mustees, high yellows, quadroons, sixteenth-bloods, and so on), but extreme racism somewhat altered the nature of colonialist policy.

Generally, the lighter the skin color the more acceptable a person was in colonial Atlantic seaboard society. Elaborate government records were not kept, but it would appear that visual inspection and local white opinion was utilized to determine whether or not a person was sufficiently white to vote, bear arms, hold office, or marry a white person (the laws varied from area to area, requiring anywhere from one-half to seven-eighths white blood to qualify as a white).
The Anglo-Americans very definitely adopted a system of giving different rewards to different castes and keeping nonwhite groups at odds with each other whenever possible. This was especially true in keeping Indians, free coloreds, and blacks (mostly slaves) from associating with each other (the fear of combined Indian-slave rebellions or raids was great in certain regions). After being militarily subdued, Indians generally became except from being enslaved (although many were enslaved before ca. 1750). They also were sometimes able to preserve a small tract of land in return for paying tribute. Free coloreds (mixed-bloods of all shades and free blacks) were able to move about more than tributary Indians and sometimes were able to vote and bear arms in the militia. Light-skinned mixed-bloods, who were able to prove they met the admission standards, could become white.

This system did several things:

(1) it forced many mixed-bloods to identify as tributary Indians in order to live on a reservation and be safe from the possibility of enslavement;

(2) it forced all visibly nonwhite people, no matter what the degree of blood, to become a part of a free-colored caste if they wished to live away from an Indian reservation;

(3) it accentuated notions of white supremacy and encouraged people to try to be as white as possible (except for those who chose to be a tributary Indian and even the latter were affected psychologically); and

(4) it made people caste conscious and encouraged disunity among the oppressed nonwhites.

It may well be that many of the free colored were initially mestizos, that is, in between, no-caste people. Soon, however, the free colored began together (frequently clustering together with a remnant Indian group), and they developed a community of their own. The nature of this community is, however, too complicated a subject for us to pursue here.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs (the United States' colonial office for Indians) at a later date became (and still is) the government's most ancestry-oriented agency. The bureau keeps records on ever Indian, recording the supposed exact degree of blood in detailed manner undreamed of even by the Spaniards. Furthermore, the bureau also decides who is an Indian and who is not an Indian and which Indians are eligible for Indian services.

One can well ask if there is any significant reason for keeping records of five-eighths Indians, one-quarter Indians, one-tenth Indians, "full-bloods," "half-bloods" and so on. What purpose does it serve? The categorization of Anishinabeg by degree of blood serves to transform the Anishinabe people from a group of nationalities into a series of castes.

The overall objective of United States native policy has been to liquidate the Anishinabe people entirely (a subject discussed below). One step in liquidation is to prevent Indians from assimilating (absorbing) outsiders and even to prevent them from retaining the loyalty of their own racially mixed children or grandchildren. A second step is to get the people of native descent to think of themselves as full-bloods, quarter-bloods, and so on, to keep them from thinking of themselves as Comanches, Cherokees, or other tribal groups, and to introduce jealousy and disunity.

This attempt to divide the Anishinabe into subcastes and to make much of the degree of blood may be useful to the bureau, but it does not really reflect the truly significant divisions within the native community. For example, from the 1820s through the1860s the Cherokee people were at times divided into two major factions. One group was highly Indian in loyalty and was composed of full bloods, but it also included many mixed-bloods, and its official leader was John Ross (seven-eighths white, one-eighth Cherokee, by blood). The other group was oriented toward the slave-owning, plantation economy of the south and was composed primarily of mixed-bloods. However, its leaders included full-bloods such as Stand Watie.
The key difference between these two Cherokee groups was the degree to which they were oriented toward Anglo-American values. One was quite interested in Southern-style wealth acquisition while the other was more traditionally Cherokee in its values. Mixed-bloods and full-bloods were found in both groups. Therefore, we again see that being biologically mixes is less significant than other factors, such as ethnic loyalty and values.

White writers often make much of the fact that Sequoyah was part-white. But since Sequoyah was raised as conservative Cherokee, thinking and speaking in Cherokee rather than English, is his white blood of any actual significance? Clearly, Sequoyah was a complete Cherokee nationalist, and he died seeking out lost Cherokees in northern Mexico. Quite obviously he was not mestizo, confused or split in his ethnic-cultural loyalties. To the Bureau of Indian Affairs, however, he would be regarded as a half-blood or a half-Cherokee, whatever that means! The same can be said of such racially mixed native leaders as Cornplanter, Quanah Parker, and Alexander McGillivray.

No general class or caste of Anishinabe-white mestizos has actually developed in the United States for several reasons:

(1) most of the mixed groups who have lost their specific native identity (such as these-called Mestizos of South Carolina or the Lumbees of North Carolina) have developed a new identity of their own (the "Lumee" identity, for example, is a new invented identity- the name is a local pronunciation of "Lumbar River");

(2) white racism has usually forced recognizable mixed-bloods to remain in the nonwhite community, where they originated, or at least to remain loyal to it;

(3) because native national(tribal) loyalties have remained strong.
It may be that there are Anishinabe-white-black mixed-bloods in the South and East who possess almost no group pride and who would choose to become white if they could. (Too dark to become white, many are being absorbed into the black population.) Such people perhaps come closest to the concept of being mestizo or out-caste.
The colonial policies of Spain, Britain, and the United States have invented the concept of mestizo and given reality to the concept through racist, caste-oriented policies that favor white persons over nonwhites while distinguishing grades of people within the nonwhite world. Isn't time that this grading system is halted forever?
The Plan to Liquidate the Anishinabe Peoples

In Mexico an indio who puts on shoes, learns Spanish, and moves to a larger city becomes a non-Indian (he becomes mestizo or a Mexicano).

In Peru an Anishinabe woman who sets up a small shop becomes a chola. She is no longer an india.

In Guatemala a Cakchiquel who learns Spanish and moves to the city becomes a ladino. He is no longer indio.

In Peru, Bolivia, Mexico, and elsewhere, millions of people who were indios just a few years ago are now officially campesinos. Bolivia has no more Anishinabegs, only peasants.

In Brazil an Indian who takes up farming away from a tribal village becomes a caboclo or perhaps a mestizo or simply a Brazilian peasant.

In the United States an Indian whose reservation is terminated becomes officially a non-Indian.

In Canada an Indian whose group never signed a treaty or received a reservation is a metis.

In the United States many Chicanos of unmixed physical appearance are classified as whites with Spanish surnames.
In Mexico a man of complete Indian appearance who wears a suit, has a college education, and speaks Spanish has to be mestizo, since he could never be an indio.

Throughout the Americas a strange phenomena exists. Almost every country in the hemisphere is doing away with Indians, either by genocide (as in Brazil, Colombia, and Ecuador) or by legislation and custom. The computers of the minds who dominate Anishinabe-waki have decided that the Anishinabe is programmed to disappear, but, of course, this disappearance is completely imaginary and exists only in the minds of the European-oriented ruling class.

The plan to liquidate the native people originated with the Spanish, English, and Portuguese imperialists. It involved several components:

(1) killing Anishinabe in wars of conquest;

(2) forcibly destroying native identity and culture in programs of missionization of "civilizing";

(3) transforming economically independent native into serfs, slaves, or urban proletariat and thereby making them part of the imperial economy;

(4) making native (indio) ways of life a bad thing and encouraging, via racism, everyone to try to become espanol, white, portuguesa or at least mestizo;

(5) discouraging the association of mixed-bloods with people still identified as Indian and developing jealousy and shame on the part of the various castes; and

(6) doing everything possible to be sure that all people, whether of European ancestry, mixed ancestry, or native ancestry, regard everything European as good (civilized) and everything Anishinabe as bad (uncivilized or, at best, rustic).

This European colonial policy, so vicious and one-sided, has had the effect of making it literally impossible, in most of Anishinabe-waki, for an Indian to be anything other than a rural peasant or inhabitant of some remote region. By definition, no Indian can be a professor, a doctor, an engineer, a statesman, or even an industrial worker, a sailor, a miner, a cowboy, or a truck driver. Since Indians are defined as rural peasants (or jungle dwellers), they cannot be a part of modern society. As soon as Indians become part of society they are given the "courtesy" of being regarded as cholos, ladinos, mestizos, caboclos, or Peruanos, Bolivianos, Brasilenos, Mexicanos, Chilenos, or Guatemaltecos, or campesinos, trabajadores, and so on. This is true to some degree even in the United States, where tourists and white children want to see "real" Indians in war bonnets and feathers and where anthropology has stereotyped Indian culture, such as the pre-white contact period.

European imperialists thinking has denied Anishinabeg the right to possess large (mass) nationalities. The anthropologists and colonialists generally have decided that Indians are tribal forever. Whereas other peoples have had the right to merge tribes together and form large nation-states, Anishinabe become something else whenever they leave their village.

For instance, the Paraguayans, Hondurans, Nicaraguans, and El Salvadoreans, are not Indians. How could they be? They belong to nation-states! But why not? Have they magically changed their raced merely because of intertribal mixture and the absorption of a few aliens? Are the Germans no longer Germans because they merged different tribes, changed their religion, and social system? If Europeans can remain Europeans while going through processes of tremendous social change, Anishinabeg can remain Anishinabeg while doing the same thing (no matter what white social scientists want to tell us)!

Since 1492 the conscious European colonialists policy has been to transform Anishinabe into an urban or rural proletariat. To accomplish this, tribes and villages had to be destroyed or uprooted, millions had to be killed, ancient values had to be destroyed, and a whole new mass of landless, economically dependent people had to be created. In the United States this policy has determined much of the present circumstances of the urban Indian, the landless Chicano migrant, the urban Chicano worker, and of course, the landless black population. South of the Unite States the result of this policy has been the creation of the mestizo-ladino-cholo-caboclo population.

Basically and fundamentally, the so-called mestizos of Anishinabe-waki are nothing more nor less than proletarianized Anishinabe. They are simply the descendants of Indians forced off their land, forced to mix with divergent tribes and languages, forced to learn Spanish or Portuguese, forced to become Christians, and forced to become an impoverished mass of rural or urban wage laborers. Of course, in the process of being proletarianized, European, African, and even Asiatic genes have been absorbed. But the fact of race mixture is of no real significance-whether the proletarianized, detribalized mass is of pure Anishinabe or mixed descent is inconsequential. What real difference can be shown between the predominantly Indian, Spanish-speaking proletariat of Mexico and the somewhat more mixed proletariat of El Salvador, aside from the fact that one is Mexicano in its specific history and the other is Salvadorian?

The Spanish-speaking Peruano is every bit as Anishinabe as the Quechua-speaking Peruano. The differences between the two groups are due to specific cultural characteristics and not the race. (Essentially these differences derive from the way colonialism affected the two groups. Both are equally pawns and victims of white manipulation and white-oriented thinking.)

In this connection, it should be stressed that the colonial policies of Spain, Portugal, Britain, and the United States have never been assimilationist. It was not the intention of the white invaders to absorb nonwhites into their own superior race. On the otherhand, it was, and is, the policy of the white ruling groups of Anishinabe-waki to proletarianize nonwhites!

Let us not confuse these two processes. Both assimilation and proletarianization would demand that the native Anishinabe (or African) cultures and tribes be destroyed. Both would demand that the conquered groups learn new skills, learn European language, and become part of the cash economy. But there the similarity ends. An assimilation policy would require the liquidation of racism, color consciousness, and resistance to intermarriage. Clearly, the white ruling groups of the Americas (even in the so-called relaxed Latin countries) have had no intention of doing that.

We might ask also, how is it that the white-oriented ruling groups stay in power in such overwhelmingly non-white countries as Ecuador, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Guatemala, and so on? Perhaps these rulers have learned to use the Spaniard's old trick of pitting cholo against indio, caste against caste, and city against countryside. Doesn't the policy of liquidating the Indian fit into this nicely? For example, an Inca-oriented Quechua revolution cannot probably occurring Peru as long as the cholos are led to believe that they are different and better than indios. No real revolution can take place in Guatemala as long as indios distrust ladinos and ladinos look down upon indios. It all seems so clever and (thus far) so successful.
Divide and conquer. Keep divided and control.

The Mestizo As a Cop Out

Before 1910 it was common for the Mexican intelligentsia to refer to themselves as blancos in contrast to los indios. Until very recently also it was common for Mexican-Americans to refer to themselves as whites, Latinos, Spanish-Americans, or Hispanos. More recently, firs in Mexico and now in the United States, the mestizo concept has come to be used (along with the ambiguous la raza terminology and de habla espanol in the United States).

This movement from whiteism and Spanishism to mestizoism can be as a progressive step, in that apparently the presence of Anishinabe ancestry is being acknowledged. In that sense perhaps it should be encouraged.

On the other hand, to be a mestizo is to be a nothing in particular (as discussed above). All people are mestizos to one degree or another, so for the Mexicano or Chicano to say he is a mestizo is to say, in effect, "I am a human being." Moreover, in its usage it says, "I am an out-caste, a confused in between person." (It may well be that many Chicanos are confused about the clash between Mexican and Anglo-American values, but mestizo is not used to refer to that cultural conflict). The traditional culture of most Chicanos is not mixed. It is a well-blended, fully integrated culture that has been evolving and changing for thousands of years.

More significantly, to be a mestizo is to cop-out. It is to accept the Spaniard's colonialist-racist ideology. It is to fall supine before the European's racial grading system instead of struggling for psychological liberation. It is to deny one's own people's history in order to have a masochistic, obscene relationship with the invaders and conquerors.

It is to be suspected that many Chicanos, Mexicans, and other nonwhite groups in Anishinabe-waki grasp at being called mestizo, not because of a desire to acknowledge Anishinabe descent, but quite the opposite reason, to affirm white descent. A mestizo (according to the racist caste system) is, after all, not a lowly indio. He is at least part-white and, therefore, part-civilized, una persona de razon.

The affirmation of being mestizo is, therefore, a counter-productive, neocolonialist stage of thinking. It is based upon a continued subjection to white categories of denigration and racism.

The mestizo-ladino-cholo-caboclo syndrome is also a major weapon in the arsenal of the white or near-white ruling cliques of many regions of Anishinabe-waki. It prevents the unification of the oppressed nonwhite masses in a common liberation struggle.

Who are the Mexicans? The Mexicans are what they always have been- Mexicans. Since (and before) 1520 they have absorbed many non-Mexicans (including other Anishinabeg as well as Asiatics, Africans, Spaniards, and so on); and their culture has changed (as do all cultures). Fundamentally, the Mexican people go back into history as far as we can see into the past. They have no need to explain their present status by denying their continuous past or by genuflecting before the shrine of mestisaje! The word Mexican historically means Aztec-Nahuan. Isn't that enough?

Basically, the peoples of Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Paraguay are, at one and the same time, both Mexicans, Guatemaltecos, Salvadoreans, et cetera, and Anishinabeg.

A clear distinction must be made between the use of the term mestizo as a purely descriptive statement of fact and the use of the term to categorize an entire community or people forever. For example, Winston Churchill could (I suppose) have been classed as a mestizo, that is, a person of mixed ethnic descent (since he was part-Indian). His identity was not that of a mestizo, however, since he was clearly and completely British.

It follows that when the term mestizo is merely used as a descriptive term, a person can be both mestizo and Indian, or both mestizo and French, or both mestizo and Filipino. For example, Cornplanter can be described as a mestizo (i.e., as an individual of known ethnic intermixture) and also as a Seneca. His nationality was, however, Seneca.

Similarly, individual Chicanos can be described as mestizo if they look part-European or know of anon-Indian ancestor. Their identity, however, is Chicano, and the Chicano group, by virtue of its cultural, racial, and historical continuity, cannot be categorized as mestizo.

Liberation from Colonialism

The oppressed peoples of the world are struggling to liberate themselves from both the material and the psychological forces of imperialism. Unfortunately, a "Brown is beautiful" movement has not yet penetrated many sections of Anishnabe-waki. Many people are still castrated by feelings of racial and cultural inferiority implanted by European colonialists and their neocolonialists successors.

The mestizo concept, as used by the Spaniards, by white ruling cliques, and by social scientists, is an anti-Indian, psychologically paralyzing tool of colonialism. It must be exposed and replaced by concepts rooted in the realities of American life.

http://www.houstonculture.org/mexico/aztec.html


ARE YOU RELATED TO THE AZTECS?
Uto-Aztecan Languages Spoken Throughout Mexico and the Western United States
By John P. Schmal

For five centuries, North Americans have been fascinated and intrigued by stories of the magnificent Aztec Empire. This extensive Mesoamerican Empire was in its ascendancy during the late Fifteenth and early Sixteenth Centuries. The Aztec Empire of 1519 was the most powerful Mesoamerican kingdom of all time. This multi-ethnic, multi-lingual realm stretched for more than 80,000 square miles through many parts of what are now central and southern Mexico. This enormous empire reached from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf coast and from central Mexico to the present-day Republic of Guatemala. Fifteen million people, living in thirty-eight provinces and residing in 489 communities, paid tribute to the Emperor Moctezuma II.


However, by the time that Hernán Cortés and his band of Spanish mercenaries arrived on the Gulf Coast of Veracruz in 1519, omens of impending doom had begun to haunt Emperor Moctezuma II and his advisors in their capital city, Tenochtitlán. With an incredible coalition of indigenous forces, Cortés and his lieutenants were able to bring about the fall of one of the greatest indigenous American empires in only two years.

The Empire that the Aztecs amassed makes them unique among Amerindian peoples. But, in at least one respect, they are far from unique. The Aztecs and other Náhuatl-speaking indigenous peoples of Mexico all belong to the Uto-Aztecan Linguistic Group. Spoken in many regions of the western U.S. and Mexico, the Uto-Aztecan languages include a wide range of languages, stretching from Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming all the way down to El Salvador in Central America. And the Aztecs represent only a small - but significant - part of this linguistic group.

While the Aztecs of the Sixteenth Century lived in the south central part of the present-day Mexican Republic, a wide scattering of peoples who presently live in the United States could probably be described as "distant cousins" to the Aztecs. If you belong to the Shoshone, Ute, Paiute, or Gabrielino Indians, you may very well share common roots with the famous Aztecs of central Mexico.

How is it that we can conclude that these relationships exist? Studies in historical linguistics have analyzed the Uto-Aztecan tongues - and the Náhuatl language in particular - have determined that Náhuatl was actually not native to central Mexico. Instead, it was carried south from lands that are believed to have been in the northwestern region of the present-day Mexican Republic and - before that - the United States. Most of us have already heard the story of Aztlán and the Aztec journey from that mythical homeland to central Mexico.

Legend states that the Aztec and other Náhuatl-speaking tribal groups originally came to the Valley of Mexico from a region in the northwest, popularly known as Atzlan-Chicomoztoc. The name Aztec, in fact, is said to have been derived from this ancestral homeland, Aztlan (The Place of Herons). According to legend, the land of Aztlan was said to have been a marshy island situated in the middle of a lake.

For nearly five centuries, popular imagination has speculated about the location of the legendary Aztlan. Some people refer to Aztlan as a concept, not an actual place that ever existed. However, many historians believe that Aztlan did indeed exist. The historian Paul Kirchhoff suggested that Aztlan lay along a tributary of the Lerna River, to the west of the Valley of Mexico. Other experts have suggested the Aztlan might be the island of Janitzio in the center of Lake Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, with its physical correspondence to the description of Aztlan. Many anthropologists have speculated that the ancestral home of the Aztecs lay in California, New Mexico or in the Mexican states of Sonora and Sinaloa.

The idea that Sinaloa, Sonora, California, and New Mexico might be the site of Aztlan is a very plausible explanation when historical linguistics are considered. "The north-to-south movement of the Aztlan groups is supported by research in historical linguistics," writes the anthropologist, Professor Michael Smith of the University of New York, in The Aztecs, "The Náhuatl language, classified in the Nahuan group of the Uto-Aztecan family of languages, is unrelated to most Mesoamerican native languages." As a matter of fact, "Náhuatl was a relatively recent intrusion" into central Mexico.

On the other hand, if one observes the locations of the indigenous people who spoke the Uto-Aztecan languages, all of their lands lay to the northwest of the Valley of Mexico. The northern Uto-Aztecans occupied a large section of the American Southwest. Among them were the Hopi and Zuni Indians of New Mexico and the Gabrielino Indians of the Los Angeles Basin. The Central Uto-Aztecans - occupying large parts of Chihuahua, Sinaloa and Sonora in northwestern Mexico - included the Papago, Opata, Yaqui, Mayo, Concho, Huichol and Tepehuán. It is reasonable to assume that where there is a linguistic relationship there is most likely also a genetic relationship. Thus, it is very possible that the legendary Aztlan ­ or another ancestral home of the Aztecs - was located in the Southwestern United States.

It is important to note, however, that the Aztlan migrations were not one simple movement of a single group of people. Instead, as Professor Smith has noted, "when all of the native histories are compared, no fewer than seventeen ethnic groups are listed among the original tribes migrating from Aztlan and Chicomoztoc." It is believed that the migrations southward probably took place over several generations. "Led by priests," continues Professor Smith, "the migrants... stopped periodically to build houses and temples, to gather and cultivate food, and to carry out rituals."

The migrating groups included many Náhuatl-speaking peoples who became associated with the Aztec Empire: the Acolhua, Tepaneca, Culhua, Xochimilca, Tlahuica, Matlatzinca, and the Tlaxcalans - all of whom settled in the Valley of Mexico or adjacent valleys that are now in the surrounding states of Morelos, Tlaxcala, and Puebla.

SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics) states that there are sixty-two existing Uto-Aztecan languages spread throughout the U.S., Mexico, and Central America. For a chart of this linguistic group, please see SIL's "Language Family Trees: Uto-Aztecan" at the following link: http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=1714

The Northern Uto-Aztecans, inhabiting several American states, speak thirteen of the sixty-two languages. But the Southern Uto-Aztecans - almost all of whom make their homes south of the present-day U.S.-Mexican border - speak 49 languages.

The Northern Uto-Aztecans are best known as the "Great Basin peoples," and the majority of them belong to the Numic subdivision of the Uto-Aztecan family of languages. The Numic Division is divided into several branches. The Western Numic consists primarily of the Northern Paiute, who inhabit Oregon, California, and Nevada.

The Southern Numic Division includes the Southern Paiute and Ute Indians. The Southern Paiute originally inhabited southern Utah, southern Nevada and northern Arizona. The Ute tribe once lived over much of Utah - which was named after them - and all of western Colorado. It is believed that they even stretched into Nebraska and New Mexico.

The Central Numic family is made up of the Panamint, Shoshone, and Comanche tribes. The Shoshone Indian people traditionally lived on lands in the east-central area of California to the east of the Sierra Nevada range, including Owens Valley and the lands south of it, which includes Death Valley. The Shoshone language is very closely related to the Paiute language, and some Shoshone tribes today live as far north as Idaho and Montana, representing the northernmost stretches of the Uto-Aztecans.

The Numic Family also includes a great many California tribes: the Serrano, Cupan, Luiseno, Cahuilla, Cupeno, Kiowa and Gabrielino, among others. It is noteworthy that one of these tribes - the Gabrielino Indians, who were given their name by the Spaniards because they occupied the lands near the San Gabriel Mission - are the primary indigenous group that occupied the Los Angeles Basin. Because they speak a Uto-Aztecan language, they can be considered relatives to the Aztecs.

The Southern Uto-Aztecans have a very large representation spread over a large area. An important branch of the Uto-Aztecans is the Sonoran Family of Languages, mainly spoken by indigenous peoples of Sonora, Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Durango, and Arizona. This group is represented by several tribal groups that are well-known to most Americans. The Corachol Family is represented in the present day era by the Cora and Huichol Indians of Nayarit and Jalisco.

Another Sonora subdivision is the Tepiman Family (spoken by the Papago, Pima Bajo, and Tepehuán of Sonora, Chihuahua and Durango). And the most well-known Sonoran division is the Taracahitic Family (spoken by the Mayo, Yaqui and Tarahumara of northwestern Mexico). As you might expect, a family is a group of languages that are genetically and culturally related to one another.

When the Spaniards arrived in Sinaloa in 1523, a large number of Taracahitic peoples inhabited the coastal area of northwestern Mexico along the lower courses of the Sinaloa, Fuerte, Mayo, and Yaqui Rivers. The Yaqui Indians of Sonora are the best known tribe of this family. Numbering 16,000 people living in scattered locations throughout Sonora, the Yaquis continued to resist the Spanish Empire and the Mexican Republic well into the Twentieth Century. The Mayo Indians, closely related to the Yaquis, continued to resist central authority well into the Nineteenth Century and today number some 40,000 citizens, inhabiting the border regions of northern Sinaloa and southern Sonora.

The Aztecan or Náhuatl-speaking peoples of central and southern Mexico speak almost thirty languages and are the single largest linguistic group in Mexico. In the 2000 census, 1,448,936 individuals five years of age and older were classified as Náhuatl-speakers, representing 24% of the total indigenous-speaking population. Many dialects of Náhuatl are spoken throughout Mexico and all are believed to be derived from a common source, perhaps thousands of years into the past. A listing of Náhuatl dialects and their locations within the Mexican Republic can be accessed at: http://nahuatl.info/nahuatl.htm.

Through time, all cultures and languages evolve. Sooner or later, a homogenous cultural group, responding to environmental and social pressures, will experience a cultural divergence of its component parts. As some members of an ethnic group begin to move away from the core group, their cultural and linguistic identity will change and undergo a transformation into a new cultural group. The dialects spoken by similar peoples - once they have been isolated from one another for a period of time - undergo a cultural diffusion until, eventually, the resulting groups reach a point where they speak mutually unintelligible languages.

For example, at some point in the distant past - probably a few thousand years ago - the ancestors of the Aztecs and the Yaquis were one and the same people, speaking a single language and practicing a single culture. However, in 1519, as Hernán Cortés sailed along the eastern seaboard with his small fleet, the Yaquis and Aztecs were two separate ethnic groups. They now spoke separate languages, practiced religions unknown to each other, and lived 1,300 kilometers away from each other. When two ethnic groups belong to the same linguistic grouping, we infer that they are in some way related.

So, the big question is "How and when did the Aztecs diverge from the Great Basin Indians and from the Yaquis and Mayos of Sonora?" Although studies have been done in attempt to determine the chronology of Uto-Aztecan cultural divergence, most of the experts do not agree on the numbers.

In the 1930s, the linguist Dr. Robert Mowry Zinng wrote that the Shoshone Indians of the present day Southwestern U.S.A. probably represent the closest thing we will ever find to the first Uto-Aztecans - the proto Uto-Aztecan culture - because they had not migrated as far as other Uto-Aztecan cultures, such as the Yaquis, Mayos, and Aztecs who are now far-removed from their probable ancestral homeland in the Great Basin of the United States.

Other authors have agreed with this analysis, stating that ultimately the roots of all Uto-Aztecan cultures will be found in the north. However, some theories have suggested that Southern California was the original home of the first Uto-Aztecans and that the Paiute and Shoshone diverged from the main group by migrating eastward into the Great Basin.

Some anthropologists suggest that Great Basin Prehistory may extend back more than 11,000 years before the present day. As the climate changed after this, the Great Basin witnessed the disappearance of many of its lakes. This caused many animal species to disappear, which led to reduced food resources. For this reason, the Great Basin inhabitants ­ the so-called proto Uto-Aztecans - evolved into a hunting and gathering semi-nomadic people who were able to deal with the diminishing resources of the region.

Half a century ago, both Sydney M. Lamb and Morris Swadesh hypothesized that about fifty centuries ago (circa 3000 B.C.), the Proto-Uto-Aztecan culture was becoming "dialectically differentiated, perhaps somewhere around the Arizona-Sonora border." Utilizing the linguistic term "minimum centuries ago" as a tool for measuring divergence, Lamb stated that the Numic and Aztec languages probably diverged 47 minimum centuries ago (circa 2700 B.C.).

Once the Northern and Southern Uto-Aztecan Groups diverged, the ancestors of the present-day Aztecs, Yaquis and Mayos apparently made their way into the territory of the present-day Mexican Republic. Dr. Lamb hypothesized that the Cahita (Mayo and Yaqui) ancestral language diverged from the Aztec ancestral language 27 minimum centuries ago (circa 700 B.C.). However, the late Wick R. Miller concluded that glottochronological estimates placed the divergence of the Aztecan linguistic group from the Sonoran at before 4500 B.C. (much earlier than Lamb's theory). It is important to recognize, however, that many linguists do not agree on the validity and accuracy of glottochronology and lexicostatistics in determining linguistic diffusion.

In the final analysis, however, nearly all experts agree that the Uto-Aztecan trunk is a widespread language grouping, boasting a tremendous diversity of language families spread over a large area. Studying and understanding who speak these languages and where they live provides us for clues in determining who may be related to the Aztecs.

Copyright © 2003, by John P. Schmal. Read more articles by John Schmal.

The data do not substantiate the myth of the "Spanish / Indian."

On page 425, in the footnotes of “Acts of Rebellion: The Ward Churchill Reader,” the author says:

“In the US, to take what is probably the most pronounced example, reactionary ideologues have always advanced the thesis that American society comprises a racial/ cultural "melting pot" which has produced a wholly new people while enforcing racial codes that imply the exact opposite.”

“Their opposition on the other hand has consistently offered the same spurious argument. Radical Chicanos, for instance, habitually assert that they represent “La Raza,” a culturally mixed “new race developed in Mexico and composed of “equal parts Spanish and Indio blood.” Setting aside the question of what, exactly, a “Spaniard” might be in genetic terms – the contention is at best absurd.”

“During the three centuries following the conquest of Mexico, approximately 200,00 immigrants arrived there from Iberia. Of these, about one third were Moors, and another third were Jewish “conversos” (both groups were being systematically exported from Spain at the time, as an expedient to ridding Iberia of “racial contaminants.”)

“This left fewer than 70,000 actual “Spaniards,” by whatever biological definition, to be balanced against nearly 140,000 “other” immigrants and some thirty million Indians native to Mexico. Moreover, the settlers brought with them an estimated 250,000 black chattel slaves, virtually all of whom eventually intermarried.”

“Now, how all this computes to leaving a “half-Spanish, half-Indio” Chicano population as an aftermath is anybody’s guess. Objectively the genetic heritage of La Raza is far more African – black and Moorish – than European, and at least as much Jewish (Semitic) as Spanish.”

--

Churchill, known, like Chomsky, for his exhaustive citations, cites two works on these points to substantiate his footnote. Peter Boyd-Bowman, “Patterns of Spanish Immigration to the New World 1493 – 1580” and Magnus Morner, “Race Mixture in the History of Latin America.”

Now, I think there is some exaggeration in Churchill’s assessment. He doesn’t take into account the radical impact of the Spanish genocide on indigenous population figures when he cites the Indian population of Mexico at 30 million. In the course of the first century of the conquest the population was reduced by 90%, and the more conservative population figures put the original number of people at about 20 million rather than 30 million. Most of the research I’ve seen agrees to the 90% reduction / genocide rate, no matter the starting figure.

But even with the most conservative possible estimates of Mexico’s indigenous population during the Spanish colonial period, there can be no such thing as a half Spanish / half Mexican population.

Let’s use the debatable proposition that the Jewish immigrants were “white” and not Arabic or African Jews. Then there would have been about 140,000 “white” immigrants alongside 320,000 Africans and about 2 million Mexicans ( the most conservative figure for the natives.) That gives us 2,460,000 people.

For there to be a “half Spanish / half Indian” population there would have to have been
1, 230,000 “whites.”

But the “ white” population, including the Jewish population, was only about 1/8 the size that would have been required for a “half Spanish / half Indian” to exist. That’s if we count the Jewish population as “white.” If we don’t, then the Spanish population was about 1/16 of what would have been required to make up a “half Spanish / half Indian” population. Seems there were about 32 indigenous people for every “pure” Spaniard.

I’ve seen other sources, that, unfortunately I can’t cite, that indicate that the average Mexican today is about 80% “Indian “”Blood”” – same as the average indigenous person in the US.

Don't substitute folk ignorance for knowledge. “Mexican” is a nationality and a commitment to a culture and a heritage – not a race.

And Mexico’s culture is deeply and fundamentally Indigenous with only an overlay of what the famous Mexican anthropologist Guillermo Bonfil Batalla calls an “Imaginary Mexico” – a European overlay on the fundamental fabric of the culture (See Bonfil Batalla’s “Mexico Profundo”)

In the fianl analysis, however, ethnicity is a matter of culture, consciousness and commitment, not genetics.

"Granted Vietnam may not be considered an American Victory and total deaths don't determine a winner. But it is definitely not a solid defeat like Mexico in the Mexican-American War. "

...you call THAT an argument????

you seem to be intelligent...why don't you just type "UNCLE" and stop embarrassing yourself....

"...a treaty was signed..."....how fuckin' pathetic.

> In the fianl analysis, however, ethnicity is a matter of culture, consciousness and commitment, not genetics.

so if I had an Anglo name, like say, "King" or something, and I decided to change my name to a Spanish name like, say, "Inquilinoria" or something, and then further decided to claim some kind of indigenous identity, what would that make me, ethnically? and more importantly, would making such a profound commitment of exchanging one conqueror's language name for another conqueror's language name and claiming indigenous identity give me the right to self-righteously condemn the ways in which others choose to form and understand their own identities? Would that give me the right to write off others' concepts of mestizaje, mestiza consciousness, etc., because I'm such a smarty smart fancypants intellectualificationizerer? er? er?

very good!
theory relating to indigenous identity.

theory being the oprative word here.
who is a mex? who is a spaniard?
which one is less white than the other?
who gets to point the finger at each other and
say "you da white man!"
lol !
which one gets to lay their filthy mitts all over
our Sacred Indigenous Identity?

one of these things is not like the other...(old rhyme..)

theory relating to reality.

the chicken and the egg.
live animal = accuality
egg= potentiality

your azltan fantasy works as long
as you(white/xicano/europeancomplexColonialpowerbase)
are not surrounded by

Real Living Native Indigenous People
who have real living connection to their culture and
History,.
not just what the
'academics' jump and twist, twirl, bend and contort;
in their efforts to stake 'their favorite horse' in the race;
another facet of your colonial ideations.(you know who I mean)

The First Peoples still face colonialism on many fronts.
America belongs to all of us,
our dream and our curse,
but Lord how we love it so.

x says" tastes great !"
y says " less filling!!"

I say "f you!"(not really , just jokes!)+
: )

jack forbes, the village idiot of the native community...
lol !

You know, there are some SOS clowns on here pretending to be native americans in order to attack Xican@s.

But like this jerk, they always give themselves away.

Any Indian knows you spell the short-hand this way... It's

NDN

not

INDN

Mexica – one of the cultures of Anahuac (AKA Tortuga or Turtle Island) are the Mexicans of today.

How can the rape of a culture that occurred over 500 years ago be contrived to mean that no Mexican is indigenous, but white European?

The term indigenous, derived from Indian – the misnomer given to the inhabitants of Tortuga, denies the existence of the Anahuac. Even the term Native American denies us of the original name of this continent and practically denies our existence prior to the arrival of Europeans.

Now, we have people, who proudly call themselves by the colonial term of Native American, vehemently denying the Nahua people any claim to roots on this continent.

This is the extent to which colonialism has imprisoned the minds of some natives in the USA.

This is the new struggle the Anahuac must embrace – to free our brothers and sisters still imprisoned by colonialism.

<>Sorry but the land grab claims are crap. Also, you and I both know that Native American tribes such as the Apache and Navajo would rather be a part of the United States than Mexico.

navajos and apaches are canadian tribes.second there ARE mexican apaches.i bet you didn't know that.

I made the list of offenses, but I did't get caught, thus no arrest record. Well, not in the civilian world. Not military arrests either, just a mild slap on the wrist.

Clean DMV for about 8-years. I now drive the speed limits -- mostly.

Oh, and I have guns and ammo too. I said that for all of the hoplophobes, who shivver at the mention of the word "guns".

BTW -- Leslie, your report, is late and biased. Too much education, I'd guess.

The more we know, the more we fear.

BR

>>Who doesn't have arrest record?
>>by Border Raven Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2006 at 2:12 PM



>>BTW -- Leslie, your report, is late and biased. Too much education, I'd guess.

>>The more we know, the more we fear.

>>"BR

What are you going on about now? And why, pray tell, should I care?

--Leslie

Hey dummy! Check the date of the story before you pop off and make yourself look like an ass.