“With our heart in our hands and our hands in the soil, we declare the independence of our mestizo nation. We are a bronze people with a bronze culture.” — el plan de Aztlan
On the far fringes of the pro-immigration movement, some Hispanic activists openly yearn for the day when immigrants rise up and retake the American Southwest, more than 150 years* after the U.S. annexed it.
“If somebody steals your car, how much of it do you want back? Just the tires? The seats?” asks Olin Tezcatlipoca of the Los Angeles-based Mexica Movement.
Mainstream immigration advocacy groups — as well as academics and experts on nearly all sides of the illegal immigration issue — dismiss these “reconquista” notions as rhetorical, not to be taken seriously.
But such talk appears to be galvanizing foes of immigration. Anti-immigrant activists and some conservatives have seized on such rhetoric to claim that a conspiracy is afoot among illegal immigrants to reconquer the Southwest.
* European Americans just might wish to consider utilizing the same kind of long term memory. — FR