![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c2/Hispanic_population_in_the_United_States_and_the_former_Mexican-American_border.png/400px-Hispanic_population_in_the_United_States_and_the_former_Mexican-American_border.png)
The Reconquista ("reconquest") is a characterization of the increased demographic and cultural presence of Mexicans in the Southwestern United States, an area that was part of Mexico before the Texas annexation (1845) and the Mexican Cession (1848), as a trend leading toward territorial losses by the United States. The characterization, and the term itself, was popularized by contemporary Mexican writers Carlos Fuentes and Elena Poniatowska.[1][2][3][4]
The characterization was originally a jocular analogy to the Spanish Reconquista of Moorish Iberia, as the areas of greatest Mexican immigration and cultural diffusion are conterminous with the territories the United States gained from Mexico in the 19th century. However, certain groups that identify themselves with the modern Hispanic Mexico, such as the National Will Organization, see the losses of northern territories after the Mexican War as illegitimate and seek a restoration of the earlier borders.
Views
Jose Angel Gutierrez
In an interview with In Search of Aztlán on August 8, 1999, Jose Angel Gutierrez, a political science professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, stated that:
We're the only ethnic group in America that has been dismembered. We didn't migrate here or immigrate here voluntarily. The United States came to us in succeeding waves of invasions. We are a captive people, in a sense, a hostage people. It is our political destiny and our right to self-determination to want to have our homeland [back]. Whether they like it or not is immaterial. If they call us radicals or subversives or separatists, that's their problem. This is our home, and this is our homeland, and we are entitled to it. We are the host. Everyone else is a guest.[5]
He further stated that:
It is not our fault that whites don't make babies, and blacks are not growing in sufficient numbers, and there's no other groups with such a goal to put their homeland back together again. We do. Those numbers will make it possible. I believe that in the next few years, we will see an irredentists movement, beyond assimilation, beyond integration, beyond separatism, to putting Mexico back together as one. That's irridentism [sic]. One Mexico, one nation.[5]
In an interview with the Star-Telegram in October 2000, Gutierrez stated that many recent Mexican immigrants "want to recreate all of Mexico and join all of Mexico into one... even if it's just demographically.... They are going to have political sovereignty over the Southwest and many parts of the Midwest." [6]
In a videotape made by the Immigration Watchdog website (as cited in the Washington Times), Gutierrez is quoted as saying:
We are millions. We just have to survive. We have an aging white America. They are not making babies. They are dying. It's a matter of time. The explosion is in our population.[1]
In a subsequent interview with the Washington Times in 2006, Gutierrez said there was "no viable" Reconquista movement, and blamed interest in the issue on closed-border groups and "right-wing blogs."[1]
Other views
Illegal immigration into the southwest states is sometimes viewed as a form of reconquista, in light of the fact that Texas statehood was preceded by an influx of U.S. settlers into that Mexican province until United States citizens outnumbered Mexicans 10-1 and were able to take over governance of the area. The theory is that the reverse will happen as Mexicans eventually become so numerous in that region that they can wield substantial influence, including political power.[7] Even if not intended, some analysts say the significant demographic shift in the American Southwest may result in "a de facto reconquista."[1] A 2002 Zogby poll reported that 58% of Mexicans believe that the southwestern US belongs to Mexico.[8]
Harvard University professor Samuel P. Huntington stated in 2004 that:
Demographically, socially and culturally, the reconquista of the Southwest United States by Mexico is well under way. No other immigrant group in U.S. history has asserted or could assert a historical claim to U.S. territory. Mexicans and Mexican-Americans can and do make that claim.[1][2]
Neo-liberal political writer Mickey Kaus has remarked,
If you talk to people in Mexico... if you get them drunk in a bar, they'll say we're taking it back, sorry. That's not an uncommon sentiment in Mexico, so why can't we take it seriously here? This is like a Quebec problem if France was next door to Canada.[9]
Other Hispanic rights leaders say that Reconquista is nothing more than a fringe element. Nativo Lopez, president of the Mexican American Political Association in Los Angeles, when asked about the concept of Reconquista by a reporter, responded "I can't believe you're bothering me with questions about this. You're not serious. I can't believe you're bothering with such a minuscule, fringe element that has no resonance with this populace."[1][10]
Sometimes the Mexico–United States barrier is compared to the Berlin Wall, both which separate a "people". Mexico has been critical of the United States' decisions to increase border control. Recently, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto mocked Ronald Reagan's speech, Tear down this wall!, due to increased frustration due to the United States' policies.
Reconquista sentiments are often jocularly referred to by media targeted to Mexicans, including a recent Absolut Vodka ad that generated significant controversy in the United States for its printing of a map of pre-Mexican-American war Mexico.[11]
Channel Islands of California
The Channel Islands of California have been under the sovereignty of the United States since 1852. While some unofficial Mexican groups have demanded the country take them back, the government of Mexico has not made any claim on them. In 1972, the Brown Berets, a group of Latino activists, some residents took the island of Santa Catalina, invoking the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, saying that it makes no mention of the islands. While it has been speculated that Mexico has a founded basis for such a claim, a dispute over sovereignty and an eventual return after a favorable decision by the International Court in The Hague, including a detailed analysis of the situation calls into question the ability of Mexico to win the case through international arbitration. The chances of Mexico reclaiming the islands are slim.
Statistics
According to the United States Census Bureau, as of 2009 and 2010, six out of seven U.S. states with highest proportions of people of Mexican origin were in the Southwestern United States, including the seven modern-day states that used to be part of Mexico - California (30%), Arizona (25.9%), New Mexico (28.7%), Texas (31.6%), Nevada (20%), Colorado (15.1%), and Utah (9.4%). 31% of Mexican residents of the six states (CA, AZ, NM, TX, NV, CO) were born in Mexico, the majority of the remaining 69% being second- and higher-generation Americans of Mexican ancestry. The four southwestern border states had only 23% of population of the country, but were home to 65% of all first-generation Mexican immigrants.
See also
- Manifest Destiny
- Revanchism
- Irredentism
- Nativism
- Aztlán - A new nation proposed by Chicano nationalists
- Chicano nationalism - The opposite of Reconquista, instead advocates a separate nation called "Aztlán"
- Mexican Cession of 1848
- National Will Organization
- Anschluss
References
- ^ a b c d e f "Mexican aliens seek to retake 'stolen' land". The Washington Times. 16 April 2006. Retrieved 14 February 2013.
- ^ a b Huntington, Samuel P. (1 March 2004). "The Hispanic Challenge". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 14 February 2013.
- ^ Template:Es icon"La otra "Reconquista": Las protestas migratorias en Estados Unidos potencian a movimientos de recuperación de la tierra "robada" a México en medio de las apocalípticas advertencias de Samuel Huntington sobre el fin del 'sueño americano'". Nuevo Digital Internacional. 18 April 2006. Retrieved 14 February 2013.
- ^ "Poniatowska: 'Avance de español e hispanos es como una reconquista'". Terra.
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(help) - ^ a b In Seach of Aztlán - José Angel Gutiérrez Interview, In Search of Aztlan, August 8, 1999 (retrieved on December 12, 2010.
- ^ Interview of La Raza Unida Party Founder Jose Angel Gutierrez by Michelle Melendez, Star-Telegram (posted on www.aztlan.net), October 18, 2000.
- ^ The Bulletin - Philadelphia's Family Newspaper - 'Absolut' Arrogance
- ^ "Aztlan": A Warped Vision of History to Justify Disloyalty to & Subversion of the U.S.A.: Latino Separatism in the American Southwest By Jack Ward, The Progressive Conservative, USA, Volume V, Issue # 2, January 2, 2003.
- ^ http://reason.com/archives/2010/07/19/mickey-kaus-interview/2
- ^ The article misspelled "populace" as "populous".
- ^ ABQNews - Updated at 12:15pm - U.S. Vodka-Maker Teases Absolut Over Mexico Ad