Aztlan: Don't Expect a Gift from the U.S.

[Mad Scottsman]

Well I'm new here. In fact, this is my first post. At any rate, I may be posting this in the wrong location. Please direct me to the correct board if I'm off target.

To the meat of my argument: Carlos Loret de Mola and Dr. Charles Truxillo have both written articles discussing the inevitability of Aztlan, modernly viewed as a "reconquest" of the northern part of Mexico lost to the United States after the Mexican War. (I won't dwell on the history/legend, the story goes that before the Aztecs settled in Tenochtitlan, they lived in a land to the north (perhaps the present areas of New Mexico and Arizona, and maybe southern California, Nevada and Utah.) The two writers I've mentioned are not the only ones to discuss a gradual, eventual ownership of U.S. citizens who would one day no longer accept U.S. authority over their lives, and that it would require simply living in the area and one day making a declaration.

But there are problems with this concept:

The United States would not allow either the new sovereignty, or the transfer to Mexico, presuming Mexico would accept the transfer and allow these areas to petition for Mexican statehood (for those who do not know, Mexico is a federal republic of states, and like the U.S., its constitution grants authority to its Congress of how new states can become part of the republic.)

The U.S. Constitution refers to guarantees to each state, and subsidiary laws which made these 5 states part of the Union would mean that the President could enforce the continued inclusion of the states as part of America.

Many, like myself, believe that any part of the United States that seceded from the Union would be more in line with Marxist views. But I do not see how this could come about without a fight from the United States Armed Forces.

I welcome a discussion of this issue.

Mad Scottsman

[pandora]

What you are referring to is the Gadsen Purchase following the seizure of lands North of Juarez Mexico in the 1846 following the U.S./Mexican War, and the U.S. invasion of Mexico referred to as the Mexican War.

This seizure had a lot to do with certain mineral deposits in California (49'ers ie gold!) and control of those assets, as well as silver in Colorado.

The Gadsen Purchase mostly involved New Mexico, yet this was mostly a defensive measure to protect the Texan "pioneers" from the deep South who wishing to spread their haciendas sought out new lands, and new slaves in trying to usurp Mexican lands and Mexican peasants. Of course Mexico put a stop to this and was dreadfully attacked, as a result she had to forfeit most of her lands to pay the "war debt" a hack job of economics whereby Mexico like Germany had to pay for the war that the Texans had started. remember the alamo, Pancho Villa sure did in Columbus New Mexico in 1916. He was not attacking New Mexicans but new invaders from White immigrant families who had just tried to homestead in what was until that point really still part of Mexico being off the Sante Fe trail. For trying to take it back he is still a hero in Mexico and on Father's Day thousands of Mexican citizens go to his ashes in the Plaza de Revolucionne to honor him.

Truth was and still is most of New Mexico is in truth Mexican despite recent invasions of "snow birds" from the North and rich Californians looking for a hacienda. Nearly 80% of the residents are Chicano with another 10% Native People; although this has changed somewhat in the last ten years due to rising real estate and property taxes forcing old familes of the past 500 years out of their homes :(

New Mexico sees itself as New Mexico, more a part of Mexico than the United States, but it's own nation unto itself, and definately seperate from Texas.

The sad situation in Colorado has to do with forcing the Spanish occupants and Native occupants out to protect silver claims and interests and moving in immigrant families to work the mines (Rockafeller shooting a village of striking miners comes to mine of 150 some odd women and children.) Company owned towns were brought in.

The reality is that although Chicano people may soon be a majority throughout the Southwest, there are other groups there that also share prominence, ie.) Oakland and Compton come to mind ;) unfortunately instead of forming in solidarity with these groups there has been a lot of gang warfare Black against Chicano. If there is ever to be an Aztlan in reality if not in name, just as "New" Mexico has lived till recent time it will require coming into greater solidarity with different ethnic groups such as African American, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Iranian, and most importantly Indigenous groups to name a few and ending competition. Pure Marxism Comrade :D

Then it doesn't matter if it's US, like New Mexico everyone will know the local law is Spanish or Socialist and that you don't mess with the locals.

The saddest thing I have seen in such circles is rivalaries, and attacks against one another. To stop this will mean accepting different ideologies, for instance. I have a Navajo female friend who is often attacked at parties by Chicana females because she is light skinned and they think she is a strange pompous Hispanic woman when she is holding her head high as is her custom and has land rights as a Navajo woman. There are a lot of derisive terms towards Native women in New Mexico and also in Olklahoma because they held power which in traditional Chicano society was held by men, and hold themselves as such, but look Hispanic.

There will have to be much more open minds if there is to be a socialist society in the Southwest, but perhaps we should not call it by the ideology of one group.

[FeArANDLoAtHiNg]

Sounds very interesting. It's too bad that there's no unity between groups. :(

[Reuben]

sounds like an abosolutely ridiculous idea...

No i don;t think a territory that seceeded from america and placed itself under the authority of president fox would be 'closer to marxism'. This movement substitutes the cllass struggle for a naional struggle. I dont bel,ieve that that latino workers of thestates in question would be generally emancipated by placing choosing the mexican oligarchuy over the American Oligarchy. What could on th other hand bring about emancipation is the unity of ALL oppressed elements in American society on the basis of a general struggle for social justice

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Mad Scottsman
Many, like myself, believe that any part of the United States that seceded from the Union would be more in line with Marxist views. But I do not see how this could come about without a fight from the United States Armed Forces.

Yes, in this limited example, you are right...Aztlan would have to fight a guerrilla war of independence which could only be won by making it too costly for the United States to hold on to the occupied territory.

There is zero chance that the American Empire would peacefully acquiesce to the loss of a sizable chunk of "it's" territory.

Unless...the war was timed to coincide with a period of tremendous domestic upheaval in which the U.S. armed forces were already committed to other tasks.

In other words, a revolutionary period.

My own opinion is that there is nothing "sacred" about the borders of the United States (or any other presently existing nation-state).

If the oppressed ethnic/cultural groups within the American Empire desire to form independent nations in the course of the revolutionary process in North America, I have no problem with that.

For that matter, breaking up the "super-states" after the revolution would have, I think, more favorable than unfavorable consequences...the general rule of history appears to be that "the bigger the country, the smaller the citizen".

But when you hint that Aztlan would be "more in line with Marxist views", that is, to say the least, speculative.

And behind it looms the spectre of "identity politics".

Do we have any reason to believe that certain ethnic/cultural groups are "naturally inclined" to "a more Marxist view?"

Would a "Republic of Aztlan" or a "Republic of New Africa" necessarily be "more socialist" or "more communist" than the "white, Anglo" remnants of the Empire?

Unless the people who want to see the birth of Aztlan independence also want to see the birth of socialism or even communism -- and are prepared to openly advocate that -- then the result might well be a capitalist Aztlan...with all the dire consequences that would ensue.

"Identity politics" still has a class basis.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Mad Scottsman]

Pandora: I am not referring to the Gadsden Purchase at all. I am referring to the Mexican Secession

For details on the Gadsden Purchase:

The Gadsden Purchase was one of the most curious real estate deals in which Uncle Sam has ever taken part.

James Gadsden (1788-1858), whose name the purchase bears, was a grandson of Christopher Gadsden (1724-1805), a South Carolina Revolutionary soldier and statesman who was captured by the British at Charleston and confined as a prisoner for ten months at St. Augustine. James Gadsden soldiered for several years under General Andrew Jackson and it was he who seized the papers that led to the trial and execution of Robert C. Ambister and Alexander Arbuthnot in Florida in 1818, an incident that strained British-American diplomatic relations almost to the breaking point.

Gadsden was appointed by President Monroe as the commissioner in charge of placing the Seminole Indians on reservations. While living as a painter in Florida, he championed nullification and lost the patronage of President Jackson. He had long been interested in promoting railroads and upon his return to South Carolina in 1839 was chosen president of the South Carolina Railroad Company. His pet dream was to knit all Southern railroads into one system and then to connect it with a Southern transcontinental railroad to the Pacific, to make the West commercially dependent on the South instead of the North.

After engineers advised Gadsden that the most direct and practicable route for the Southern transcontinental railroad would be south of the United States boundary, he made plans to have the Federal Government acquire title to the necessary territory from Mexico. Through his friend and fellow empire dreamer, Secretary of War Jefferson Davis. Gadsden was appointed U.S. Minister to Mexico by President Franklin Pierce with instructions of his own design to buy from Mexico enough territory for a railroad to the Gulf of California.

It was a perfect setup. By the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, signed February 2, 1848, at the close of the Mexican War, the Republic of Mexico was compelled to abandon its claim to Texas and to cede to the United States the territory now comprising most of New Mexico, Arizona, California, Colorado, Utah and Nevada. The territory ceded to the United States by Mexico constituted about 200,000 square miles or two-fifths of all her territory.

In return for this vast territory, the United States gave $15,000,000 and assumed responsibility for paying $3,000,000 in claims of American citizens against the Mexican Government. A large body of public opinion in the United States had opposed the war against Mexico and felt that the Southern republic had been treated badly. The territory desired by Gadsden and his group was then a sort of no man's land, experiencing frequent Indian raids. The United States wanted to make certain "boundary adjustments"; Mexico needed money and wanted a settlement of her Indian claims against the United States; and Gadsden and his friends wanted a route for their railroad. In 1852 Gadsden agreed to pay Santa Anna $10,000,000 for a strip of territory south of the Gila River and lying in what is now southwestern New Mexico and southern Arizona.

Many Americans were not especially proud of the Guadalupe-Hidalgo Treaty and considered the price of the Gadsden Purchase as "conscience money." The Gadsden Purchase has an area of 45,535 square miles and is almost as large as Pennsylvania. This tract of nearly 30,000,000 acres cost Uncle Sam about thirty-three cents an acre.

The deal was so unpopular in Mexico that Santa Anna was unseated as dictator and banished. Gadsden was recalled as Minister to Mexico for mixing in Mexican politics and domestic affairs and did not live to see the Southern Pacific Railroad built through his purchase. When the inhabitants of Arizona asked Congress for a Territorial government in 1854, one of the names suggested for the new Territory was Gadsonia, a Latin adaptation of the surname of James Gadsden.

[Mad Scottsman]

Hi Redstar2000, and thanks for your comments: This is exactly the type of discussion points I was hoping to ilicit.


Do we have any reason to believe that certain ethnic/cultural groups are "naturally inclined" to "a more Marxist view?"

I have no reason to belive that any ethnic or cultural group is more naturally inclined toward any view, and history has shown this. Medieval Africa had "free enterprise" marketing and state protection of same for hundreds of years, as did all of Asia, as did all of Europe. I don't believe one is born with more of an inclination toward any political lifestyle.

Why do I believe Aztlan would be more Marxist: If such a cesession would be attempted, it would have to appeal to the vast numbers of citizens in the area without being racist per se (though the pursuit of Aztlan, is itself, to a degree, a racist notion.) That whole thing is a tricky business.

My main point is that to fan the flames of revolt, the underclass would have to be promised a different system than what they would preceive is oppressing them. I merely argue it would move toward a more socialist system, and the fighters would ally themselves with more socialist organizations.

I believe the fight will fail unless there is a collapse of the United States as an entity. And I do not believe that will happen.

I suppose I only see this attempt occurring with an outright fight from the beginning. This nonsense that a lot of people just move into an area and then control their lives, pretending the greater authority will do nothing is silly. It was tried before and President Lincoln had an answer that would be repeated by any U.S. President and Congress.