Los Angeles, Mexico

Los Angeles, Mexico

Thursday, May 5, 2005

Immigration: While California's governor is accused of racism for advocating a secure border with Mexico, a Los Angeles billboard provides a revealing glimpse into the mind-set of those advocating open borders.

In a recent radio interview, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger committed a couple of faux pas (or however you say that in Spanish). First, he said the U.S. government was failing to secure the border with Mexico. Second, he said the Arizona Minutemen, a bunch of old men in lawn chairs, "have done a terrific job."

"Shameful" was the reaction of Nativo Lopez, state national president of the Mexican American Political Association. Schwarzenegger's comments, he said, were "nothing short of base racism."

The Los Angeles Times chimed in with an editorial criticizing the governor for these and other remarks. The newspaper also chided him for failing to see the "humor" in a billboard advertising a Spanish-language newscast.

The billboard, which has since been removed, showed the Angel of Independence, a well-known monument in Mexico City, in the center of the L.A. skyline, with "CA" crossed out after "Los Angeles" and the word "Mexico" in bold red letters put in its place (see photo above).

"I think they should take it down immediately," Schwarzenegger said in the radio interview, contending it encouraged illegal immigration. The L.A. Times response was to opine that "as someone born and raised in the shadow of the Third Reich, he should know better than to be fanning this anti-foreigner frenzy."

But is insisting that U.S. immigration laws be enforced racist and anti-immigrant? And why, exactly, did Clear Channel Communications and the Spanish-language TV station think the billboard would appeal to their current and potential viewing audience?

The fact is that many Hispanic activists, Mexican citizens and perhaps even members of the Mexican government refuse to accept the legality of our 1845 annexation of Texas, the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo after the Mexican-American War, or the 1852 Gadsden Purchase.

One of these activists is Charles Trujillo, a professor at the University of New Mexico. He predicts a new, sovereign Hispanic nation within this century encompassing much of the American southwest and part of northern Mexico. States have the right to secede under our original Articles of Confederation, he contends, and this will be accomplished by the electoral pressure of future majority Hispanic populations in these states.

The Hispanic student activist group known as MECHa, an acronym for Movimento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan) has spent the last three decades indoctrinating Latino students on U.S. campuses.

It claims that California, Arizona, Mexico, Texas and southern Colorado were stolen and should be returned to their rightful owners, the people of Mexico, under the name "Nation of Aztlan." Aztlan is the mythical place where the Aztecs are said to have originated.

Few caught the significance of the words of then-Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo before the National Council of La Raza in Chicago on July 27, 1997: "I have proudly affirmed that the Mexican nation extends beyond the territory enclosed by its borders."

Current President Vicente Fox repeated this line during a 2001 visit to the U.S., when he called for open borders and endorsed Mexico's new dual citizenship law.

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

Perhaps it was that audience the billboards were designed to reach.

http://www.investors.com/editorial/issues02.asp?v=5/5

_____________________________________________________________

What in the world is Senor Trujillo smokin'?