Tom Hayden: Who Are You Calling an Immigrant?
Posted on May 2, 2006
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A protest sign laid out on the lawn of Los Angeles City Hall during the May Day protest march. |
By Tom Hayden
I wore the multicolored Aymaran flag of Bolivia to the May Day march in Los Angeles, the same day that Evo Morales, the first indigenous president of Bolivia, nationalized the oil and gas fields. It seemed right to recognize the reappearance of the indigenous in the Americas. I gazed at Marcos Aguilar, one of the UCLA hunger strikers for Chicano studies in 1993. Now he stood bare-skinned and feathered, leading a traditional dance below the edifice of the Los Angeles Times. Rather than becoming assimilated into gringotopia, he was forcing the reverse, the assimilation of the Machiavellians into the new reality of L.A. Another hunger striker from those days, Cindy Montanez, was chairing the state Assembly’s rules committee. Another UCLA student, a beneficiary of ’60s outreach programs, was mayor of the city.
Contrary to most mainstream commentary, these protests were part of a continuous social movement going back many decades, even centuries. And yet the commentators, especially on the national level, once again summoned the stereotype of the lazy Mexican, the sleeping giant awakening. For years it was convenient to blame apathy and low participation rates on the Mexican-Americans and other Latinos, ignoring the racial exclusion that prevailed east of the Los Angeles River. In 1994, the same “sleeping giant” arose against Pete Wilson’s Proposition 187. It previously awoke in the 1968 high school “blowouts,” the 1968-69 Chicano moratorium and the farmworker boycotts, which were the largest in history, and, in an earlier generation, the giant awoke in the “Zoot Suit Riots and Ed Roybal’s winning campaign for City Council. The giant never had time to sleep at all.
In the Great Depression, in the lifetimes of the parents and grandparents of today’s students, up to 600,000 Mexicans, one-third of the entire U.S. Mexican population, many of them born in the United States, were deported with their children back to Mexico, their labor no longer needed.
Out of nowhere?
There is a frightening gap between the white perception of this 50-year trauma of deportation and the experience of Mexicans and other immigrants, like the Salvadorans who were driven here by the U.S.-backed civil wars of the 1970s. Somewhere between amnesia and a self-induced lobotomy, the gap needs to be closed in the dialogue that may come of these historic protests. The mere passage of time may erase white memories and guilt, and induce acceptance among Mexicans, but it does not legitimize the occupation itself. The wound will not disappear under American flags, searchlights and border walls.
The fundamental issue still shaping attitudes down to the present is this: Either the Mexicans (and other Latinos) are immigrants to a country called the United States or the U.S. is a Machiavellian power that denies occupying one-half of Mexico for 156 years. During the 1846-48 war against Mexico, at least 50,000 Mexicans died. The fighting took place across many cities considered pure-bred American today; in Los Angeles, a revolt temporarily drove out the U.S. Army. Guerrilla resistance by Mexican fighters left a mythic legacy of those like Joaquin Murrieta and Tiburcio Vasquez, names still alive among Mexican-American students today. Meanwhile, The New York Times was declaring in 1860: “The Mexicans, ignorant and degraded as they are, [should welcome a system] founded on free trade and the right of colonization so that, after a few years of pupilege, the Mexican state would be incorporated into the Union under the same conditions as the original colonies.”
After unilaterally annexing Texas in 1845, despite massive protests, the U.S. president sent troops 100 miles into what previously was Mexican land. When the Mexicans retaliated, the U.S. declared war on the pretext that Americans had been attacked on American soil. When it ended, the U.S. took 51% of Mexico’s land, including California, where the discovery of gold had been kept secret from Mexican negotiators. At least 100,000 Mexicans and an additional 200,000 indigenous people lived on those lands. Ever since, those people and their descendants have lived in a split-consciousness similar to that of African-Americans described in W.E.B. DuBois’ The Souls of Black Folk. Each new generation of immigrants fuels that consciousness all over again.
Under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the imposed settlement of the 1846-48 war, the inhabitants of the occupied territories were granted legal, political, educational and cultural rights as citizens, not as immigrants. Some of the earliest official documents of California were required under the treaty to be printed in Spanish and English. This treaty, which was unenforced, became the basis for later movements stretching into the 1960s, movements that gave the Southwest an Aztec name (Aztlan) and demanded the return of former land grants. It was not unlike Radical Reconstruction, the period after the Civil War when Gen. Sherman’s official promise of “forty acres and a mule” was withdrawn.
Today’s demonstrations are not demanding implementation of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Modern Mexican-Americans have made the legalization of undocumented workers as United States citizens their consensus demand. But there remains an unspoken difference between two states of mind regarding the meaning of the border. In every generation, immigrant workers and youth have claimed their American rights without abandoning the memory of their deeper historical ones.
A significant number of white Americans, especially among the elites, still hold to nativist definitions of American identity, in contrast to those multinational corporations that tend to be more interested in cheap foreign labor than in keeping American white.
Conservative journals like the American Outlook publish articles glorifying “the Anglosphere” as the standard of globalization (March-April 2001). Kevin Phillips is quoted in the article as still longing for an American culture whose “core thought is a kind of English revivalism.” Regarding this month’s demonstrations, the black neoconservative Thomas Sowell has criticized the “demanding” and “threatening” tone of “people who want their own turf on American soil
” (L.A. Daily News, April 29, 2006).
No one lends an Ivy League luster to the Minuteman Mentality more than Harvard University professor Samuel Huntington. A proud “Anglo-Protestant,” Huntington previously advocated the “forced urbanization” of the Vietnamese peasantry into a “Honda culture” as a formula for ending the nationalist uprising. In the ’70s, he complained that an “excess of democracy” threatened Western authorities. More recently, he formulated the strident doctrine of “the clash of civilizations,” decreeing that Islamic culture is incompatible with democratic civilization. Finally, he has weighed in on “The Hispanic Challenge,” arguing that Latino immigration is “a major potential threat to the cultural and possibly political integrity of the United States” (in Foreign Policy, March-April 2006). Huntington argues that Mexican-Americans are too close to their traditional culture to become assimilated as patriotic Americans. By this he means, of course, that they cannot become imitation WASPs, whose identity he sees as basic to the American nation. For Huntington, assimilation seems to mean submission and disappearance into the master culture, a viewpoint still held by many. We defeated you, and now you should become like us.
Largely forgotten in the current debate, too, are those among the elites who still consider Mexico itself a strategic long-term threat. The late Caspar Weinberger, a secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan, wrote in 1998 of planning for a theoretical “next war” against Mexico, opting for the military option in case “it becomes necessary to go down in and try to catch [a] rebel leader in Mexico and restore democratic rule to Mexico” (interview with Chuck Baldwin Live, Feb. 17, 1998). The Harvard historian of Chiapas, John Womack, has written that in the 1990s “the US government, in particular the Defense Department
wanted ‘low-intensity’ warfare in Mexico” (Rebellion in Chiapas, Harvard, 1999).
But the U.S. has historically been the destabilizing force in Mexico, most recently with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which has flooded the country with corn and other products and replaced indigenous manufacturing with the maquiladora economy, thus displacing at least hundreds of thousands of Mexicans, many of whom seek survival in el norte. Perpetuating the cycle is absolutely crucial to neo-liberal economics. But it also perpetually stimulates rebelliousness, in fact and memory, among those who take to U.S. streets today, and who shortly will be the urban majority in a new America.
As people of color, mainly immigrants, edge closer to majority status in key states, their relatives to the south are becoming nationalist, populist majorities in country after country, with interests that sharply conflict with the disintegrating U.S. Monroe Doctrine of 1823. If the populist mayor of Mexico City is elected president of Mexico this fall, NAFTA itself will die or be re-negotiated. This is the first time in many decades that the interests of Latinos in the U.S. are closely converging with the governments and people of the nations of the south. As seen even in the recent international baseball championships, the willingness of America’s major league Latino players to join the lineups of their homelands shows the fluid nature of borders and solidarity. A policy beyond the Monroe Doctrine will have to be crafted for the United States, with Latinos in the lead. As Evo Morales of Bolivia is suggesting, “another annexation is possible,” the annexation of the United States into peaceful coexistence with Latin America.
Some would argue that America must simply follow the path of previous immigrant generations, like my Famine Irish ancestors. It is true that the slum-dwelling Irish, Jews and Italians rose in time to the middle class, and the same future may lie ahead for the new immigrants. We can see signs of the past in the growing ranks of Latino trade unionists and mayors and other politicians. But the difference in the histories is race and class. If neo-liberalism has failed to widen the American middle class since 1973, how will it expand to provide decent jobs for the aspiring immigrants in today’s underclass? Is there another New Deal just over the horizon, or a hardening defense of the status quo?
Huntington’s Anglosphere is dying, if only through demographics. It is a matter of time—of when, not whether. The newcomers have neither the need nor the capacity to assimilate into a declining Anglosphere. They will remain multicultural of necessity, the hybrid multitude arising from the depths of empire and its resistance. The real question is how the rest of America, the rest of us, can assimilate and find belonging within all the Americas, where so many flags are fluttering in the gusts of self-determination.
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By Patricia Smythe, September 4, 2008 at 10:43 am #
Tom Hayden is no longer a progressive, if he ever was. There is a difference between a radical and a progressive. He has of late fallen in with a very bad crowd - Terry Golway, Niall O’Dowd and O’Dowd’s ILIR (Irish Legalization Immigration Reform) - none of whose ideologies and/or political demands are remotely “progressive”. I think he ceased being a progressive when he began in his 60s or so to embrace an ultranationalist Catholic integralism, that he evidently missed out on as a child where his family’s faith was “more formal than fervent” or if his divorce from Jane Fonda, which cost her millions of dollars in alimony to Hayden, money which he played no role in helping her earn, was what did it. I do know that if you read Hayden’s blog at the Huffington blogsite, “O’Bama needs the Irish”, which is untrue btw as Obama needs Hillary supporters, disgusted Republicans and open-minded independents, the last thing Hayden can be called is
“progressive”. Hayden seems to think there is no more pressing problem than giving green cards to the 50,000 or so Irish illegal aliens in the United States today.
The ILIR (Irish Legalization Immigration Reform) is a racist and arrogant group. Obama’s refusal to pander (“outreach”) led to O’Dowd’s paper, the Irish Voice, publishing Hayden’s letter as the rather threatening “A Warning to Obama”. As reported in the New York Times How Green Was My Rally (December 2006; see http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/opinion/10sun3.html, http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/11/opinion/eddownes.php), Senator Charles Schumer shouted a chant (Tiochfaid Ar La) normally associated with the Irish Republican Army, punched his fist in the air and mentioned his sister, Fran Schumer McNULTY!!!
Trina Vargo, an assistant to Senator Edward Kennedy, came to the same realization regarding the arrogant, egomaniacal racism of both the ILIR and its patrons. For exercising her First Amendment vigorously she was tossed aside like rubbish when she was no longer of any use, insulted and traduced, despite her many years of service to Senator Kennedy and her work with Bruce Morrison’s visa scheme of the 1990s which created 120,000 visas for those who could not otherwise qualify; 48,000 of which were allocated to those born on the island of Ireland.
The following are two responses from those who consider themselves Americans first and foremost, to Hayden’s “O’Bama needs the Irish”, to which he has not deigned to respond. Perhaps he doesn’t listen to people who don’t agree with him, like our current President, “Dubya”, also decidedly not a progressive.
a) Sorry, Tom, but your field trip has warped your perspective. The vast majority of Irish-Americans have assimilated to the point where their primary concerns are American concerns, not Irish. Those that havent are a very few that remain in isolated urban pockets, undereducated and out of reach to a black candidate. The Irish of which you speak are in Ireland and, needless to say, do not vote. Read your post again in a month and see if you still agree with it. (ched @ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-hayden/obama-needs-t he-irish-ame_b_117917.html#)
b) I grew up in a catholic irish neighborhood in the states. The racism was so thick you could cut it with a knife. I am Irish but I say to hell with what the Irish want and yeah to what black people need. The turning point for me was when I was about five years old and saw a mob of your so called wonderful Irish people burn down a house with a black woman in it holding her child (a baby) in her arms. I am Irish and I say to hell with what the Irish want. Apparently Tom, you have not seen the things I have seen. (cylindar @ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-hayden/obama-needs-t he-irish-ame_b_117917.html#)
Report thisBy Guitarsandmore, February 22, 2007 at 12:14 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Tom Hayden suffers from typical white middle class guilt (because he was born with more than others) and attempts to console himself by representing as many immigrants as he can.
This birth right of guilt is a bunch of hooey and we have a right to close down our borders anytime we want to. It should have been done fifty years ago. The United States doesnt belong to the world; it belongs to the U.S. citizens.
Orion Prime is right about Texas.
Report thisBy Orion Prime, February 21, 2007 at 2:10 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
I’m from Texas. If ya’ll will remember back to 1836, and prior to that, Americans settled in and became Mexican citizens. Due the the imperialistic nature of the then Emperor of Mexico Santana, we decided that we had had enough and took possession of our own destiny. Texas, before it became a state was a sovereign nation unto itself.
If none of you have ever read Texas history, perhaps you should. A lot of what you have now a day was given to you, where as Texas fought and shed blood for its independents. Perhaps you should all go back and re-read history and not this tripe that is being read now a day.
When Mexico, after Texas became a state in 1845, tried to reclaim Texas and invaded the US. In my history books, the US Army went as far as beating Mexico all the way down to mexico city, without actually invading it.
There is a piece of paper called the Treaty of Guadalupe Hildalgo. The US govt. paid 15 million dollars for the lands of New Mexico, Arizona, California and other states, what others call Aztlan.
I often wonder, since this has come up, what would the world be like if Mexico had retained those lands. The way i see it, the only thing that has ever come out of mexico is drugs, rapist, thugs, child molestors and the mexican government pimping its people out as slaves.
I was often times told, “Take care of your own front porch before you worry about somone elses.” In other words, all of these immigrants, stand up and see that you are being manipulated by others instead of taking care of your own govt.
Report thisFor all those people that want to side with mexico and do a rollback, feel free to drop what you are doing and migrate down to mexico. We’ll see how good you prosper down there.
You’d think after all this time, Mexico would be standing beside us by now. Instead, it blames it ill wills and all of its hardships on the US instead of taking responsibility for its own manifest destiny.
Shame on mexico and the mexican who are fooled into thinking such.
By Adam Jones, May 10, 2006 at 9:19 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Bravo to Tom Hayden for bringing out at least one aspect of the hypocritical debate over “illegal immigration” to the US. But there is a broader point to be made. The whole history of the United States is a history of illegal migration onto other people’s territories. From the 17th to the 19th centuries, the pattern was consistent: “settlers” moved onto Indian lands, and claimed them as their own; governments either supported them from the outset or justified the invasions post-facto; ethnic cleansing and genocide of the native inhabitants followed, at the hands either of colonists or of state agents. Dozens if not hundreds of treaties with Indian nations were torn up or ignored. The result, combined with the Mexican invasions and seizures that Tom describes, was the process of expansion that had completed the occupation of the continental US by the turn of the 20th century. To opponents of “illegal immigration” today, I would say: remember that every one of you lives on stolen land, as I do. And be glad that the modern generation of “illegal immigrants” is interested only in working, living peacefully, and legalizing their status—not in ethnic cleansing or genocide against you.
Report thisBy johanna lynch, May 8, 2006 at 11:52 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Wonderful! Please ad my name and little newspaper to your list. Thank you, Johanna Lynch
Report thisBy candide, May 7, 2006 at 9:05 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
A warning to Hispanics: if they are going to claim the border changed and that’s why they are illegal immigrant, then they had better be ready for ethnic cleansing. That’s what always comes next.
Report thisBy Charles, May 6, 2006 at 1:37 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
When God asked Cain where his brother Abel was, Cain, who had just murdered Abel, ironically answered, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
Tom Hayden’s answer, and mine, is “Yes, I am my brother’s keeper, and my sister’s.” All the flim-flam about flags and not being able to help all the world’s poor and American interests—all these red herrings distracting us from our true purpose as human beings—dissipate in the face of Cain’s question.
Nothing is more important than this: We are here on this planet to help each other.
Report thisBy strong, May 5, 2006 at 10:44 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
I don’t want to be harsh with Tom Hayden - he stood with us (no, he lead) in opposition to war back in the 60s. Mr. Hayden’s is wrong-headed in his approach to this issue and his article demonstrates that he has enough white man’s guilt for all the rest of us.
Report thisBy Cathie Buchanan, May 4, 2006 at 6:24 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
for those who bad mouth mexico, have you ever been? also, i am quite shocked to see the willingness to remain ignorant of the real reasons as to why people migrate to the u.s. thanks to nafta, a u.s. piece of legislative trash, many of the thousands of local farmers are now out of work because nafta effectively changed the mexican constitution. prior to nafta, agricultural corporations were not permitted to establish in mexico. after nafta, they were and they effectively put out of business the thousands of local farms. where are they going to go? to the place where they can work on the land. please, if you are not aware of the u.s. policies that deliberately puts into impoverished conditions the lives of others in other nations, then please do me a favor and pay attention to more than fox news.
thank you.
Report thisBy S.D., May 4, 2006 at 5:53 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
I doubt some of you who are claiming to be “lefties” really are, because if you were you would not sound like pathetic, racist, unsympathetic pigs!
In comment to #8503 Rogelio: You are correct.
Mexicanos/Latinos are here because our government has turned its back on the illegal immigration issue for decades. The demand for cheap labor that big-business demands has led to this current dilemna. For years our govenment has done absolutely nothing about the border issues. All of a suddent Americans jump on the bandwagon of illegal immigration and then the media pays attention to the problem.
It is much easier for Americans to criticize immigrants than it is to analyze the stupid war in Iraq or the rediculous gas prices (Isnt Bush an oil man), or be outraged by the corruption of Enron, or the inept government during Katrina. We need a scapegoat for the war in Iraq. Solution=Immigrants.
Report thisBy MT, May 4, 2006 at 1:14 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Nice work NYCNAB. Unfortunately, we all just have to agree that Europe is essentially the crashers of the party here. Lets face it, we’re marching for rights that we acquired from “crusading” European imperialists and we’re just propogating their blatant disregard for human well being. Unfortunately, the ones that should be marching are too busy building and running casinos on reservations (some of them).
Report thisBesides, once Bush declares marshall law after nuclear invasion of Iran, America will just sweep down and takeover Latin America & South America (via tunnels we’ve built that surface in American factories {thankyou CAFTA}). Therefore, we’ll all be one happy European descended family, and all the Germans descendents can meet up with their Nazi descendents in South America. And maybe, just maybe swimming in the Rio Grande won’t be illegal.
By ETSpoon, May 4, 2006 at 10:52 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Yes, David Young, the “issue” of illegal immigration brings out the racist in many white Americans, even those claiming allegance to the Democratic Party; though,in truth, I suspect those posting here are Republican trolls who’ve donned the donkey suit.
The immigration “issue” has the odor of Karl Rove all over it and it is aimed at the basest part of the Republican base: the angry white male. The GOP is banking that enough outrage over “illegal” immigration will be generated to return a Republican majority to both Houses of the US Congress after the November elections. Knowing the fecklessness of the Democratic Party, this is a distinct possibility.
Once back in session and control of the federal government, the GOP leadership will quietly and quickly forget about any “immigration” reform until the next election cycle.
Report thisBy David Young, May 4, 2006 at 8:45 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Wow. Hard to believe that so many racists read truthdig. So many comments about the lazy Meicans, and what heir fromer territories would look like if they were still in control. One writer, who doesn’t want to give his/her name (Post 8539) said the US Government has one job only, to do what’s in the interests of the people of the US while observing international laws. Is that’s what’s going on in Iraq now? Has the writer studied the list of illegal US invasions since WW II. Perhaps he would like to visit Panama and help find the mass graves of civilians killed in the poorest part of the city
Report thisin the 1989 invasion, to capture one man, formerly used by the CIA (Noriega)> Today US companies in Panama operate call centres, to sell products in the US, and pay their top employees some $400 a month, before deductions.
Meanwhile 96,000 Panamanians are working in the US. Good luck to them.
By Bob, May 3, 2006 at 11:04 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
With all due respects to Tom Hayden; who it must be noted for those to young to remember, has been always a true voice crying in the wilderness for social justice and, progressive minded ideals. That having been said though, I beg to differ with him on this topic. At the same it must also be acknowleaged this is the reason why this country is still the greatest on the planet; fourms like this, and the freedom of speach. Yet to the point, as much as I am altruistically in favor of a more flexible immigration process, I must admit that I agree with the posts of NABNYC
Report thisThere is no way this country can simply absorbe all the worlds poor and needy people. Especially, when it has yet to come up with a reasonable plan to deal altruistically, or not, with one’s we already have here; including any, and all AMERICAN"S of what ever past descent. Yet’s face it for the most part the reasons people want to immigrate to America, do not do so because of any political oppression at home. Yet do so because, they’re trying to flee economic oppression. If we as concerned American’s really want to help, then we should be willing to push for the re-establishment of the Peace Corps, join, and then return with those willing to go with us and help them for change. Yet its beginning to seem the powers that be here in this country, are working to try and replicate the same soical and economic conditions here, that have led those we’ve all seen marching lately, to leave there native land and come compete with us. Question, if and when this be true and ever finally takes place, where is it we as an economically oppressed people to go? I mean there is nothing wrong with being high minded and all but, common sense has to kick in sooner or later. Support a more flexible legal process? Yes, on all accounts. Unrestricted illigal immigration? No. It is not only unfair to those going through the legal process, it’s also unfair to poor and working class American’s having to compete with cheap labor and at the same time eck out a living the best they can as it is. The problem it seems to me is this, the goverments where most of these people come from have apparently under-funded their countries education; Now, that they have an undersatinding of the idea and power of mass organized peaceful protest; why don’t they take this new found understanding back to their respective native countries, and work to lift up the mulitudes they have left behind. I know, they are afraid of being shot or, persecuted. If so then I ask: Then what is the true price of freedom if it not be willing to die for something you believe in? Is that not the reason why our leaders believe it is right to have our sons and daughters over in Iraq right now? I mean it seems to me that it’s just a little bit disingenuous on the parts of those who are willing to be unafraid to march in the streets of this country and demand rights they have yet proven to deserve. Than march in the capitals of their home county and demand or fight for those those very same rights, they rightfully deserve. And as far as being willing to do the jobs other Americans don’t want. Well, it does not take a rocket scientist to tell you what that really means is jobs American’s are not willing to do at less than a living wage. Besides, unlike American’s of African descent these people were not kidnapped and brought here against there will and forced to be Slaves, of what ever descent. No they’ve come voluntarly and willing to be.
By Frank, May 3, 2006 at 9:12 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Re: comment #8507 by Walt Swift.
What a difference 173 years makes. The desire to continue slavery was indeed one reason why Texas proclaimed itself an independent country. But I found this particular passage in Wikipedia very ironic.
“By this time (1833), the trickle of illegal (American) immigrants entering Texas had become a flood. Santa Anna believed that the influx of immigrants to Texas was part of a plot by the U.S. to take over the region. ... Santa Anna then ordered all illegal immigrants out of Texas.”
Items in parentheses added by me.
See this for the story of the Texas Revolution against Mexico -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Revolution
Report thisBy GG, May 3, 2006 at 8:07 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
What an interesting reaction. Let me dispel a couple of stupid notions. Instead of saying that the stolen territories would be just another impoverished and corrupt Mexican state; and that Mexicans would want to move to Oregon…how about this instead. Would the US be the power it is without these territories?
Report thisAbout Mexico being corrupt and all of that…well, just about most countries in the world live under equal or worse corruption and poverty. What feeds that corruption is another question. However, at the end of the day, that corruption benefits commercial interests of the US and the local elite.
By unknown, May 3, 2006 at 6:26 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Comment #8534 by Ruben Rodriguez on 5/03 at 12:08 pm
Let me start by saying Tom Hayden is an idiot and anti-American. The whole thing about how parts of the US used to belong to Mexico is just stupid. Im a liberal and I believe that most wars are unnecessary but wars are fought and won and you cant after the war expect the victor to return the land they acquired. Ive been to SanFransisco and its a beautiful city. Do you think it would look that way if it were owned by Mexico? I dont think so. Mexico is the way it is because it is run by corrupt polititians who are mostly descendants of Spaniards who raped and pillidged the land.
I just want to add that for Ruben Rodriguez he is the ignorat one and has no respect what so ever for other perspectives. Now, he speaks or impies being pure american shame on him, he should first change his name since it’s all latino , what “american culture” is he bragging about? please come on.
Report thison the other side, i loved Georgia Whitman comment; it’s speaks the truth. however, in response to her last question , that if immigrants would want to go back to mexico if its governmnet improved, the answer is yes. Do you know how many mexicans would love to go back to mexico and see that it has imporved? tons because they just want the money but never want to forget where they come from. now come on. this question was a little absurd.
By NABNYC, May 3, 2006 at 4:26 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
The theory that the U.S. Southwest really “belongs” to Mexico is historically inaccurate.
The land belongs to native Americans. In the central coastal areas of California, the Chumash owned and occupied all of the land. Their ancestors can be traced back 10,000 years. They had villages spread up and down the coast, had their own culture, art (their cave paintings still survive), and languages.
In the 1760s Spain (through its conquest of Mexico) decided that all native Americans should be rounded up, baptized as Catholics, their culture destroyed. This led to the mission system created up the coast in California and, in turn, led to the deaths of thousands of native Americans and destruction of their communities and culture.
Mexico got its independence from Spain in 1820. Instead of giving the California land back to the people who owned it—the Chumash—Mexico gave it to Mexicans in what were called Mexican Land Grants. So Mexico’s claim to the land was illegitimate - the land was taken by force by Spain, then grabbed by Mexico for the few years after its own independence and before the Mexican-American war.
The Mexican-American War (about 1846-50) led to U.S. “yankees” taking the land of California. Treaties were signed by the U.S. to respect and honor the Mexican land grants, but that did not happen. Instead, laws were passed saying the Mexicans had to “prove” their ownership - and the local recorders offices which had the vital land records were burned down by the yankees. Then the yankees bought the land up in secret auctions.
It’s a little annoying to hear anyone claim that the land really belongs to Mexico, because Mexico’s claim is derivitive only of the genocide committed by Spain and the Catholic Church. Mexico “owned” this land for about 30 years, at most.
And of course Mexicans don’t come here because they need land. They have land - plenty of it. They just do not have jobs.
Finally, we live in a world of nations. The U.S. government has one job only: to always do what is in the best interests of the people of the U.S. (while also observing international laws). There is no way to argue that unrestricted immigration from a third world country is in the best interests of the people of the U.S. Businesses profit because they can hire slave labor, and put more money in their own pockets. But the working men and women citizens gain nothing from illegal immigration. The taxes paid by working people are simply spread out more thinly to cover services for ever more people. Wages fall, benefits disappear, housing costs increase, and schools, police, fire, parks, and all social services are overburdened.
Spin it however you want. It is not in the best interests of the American public to have unrestricted illegal immigration.
Report thisBy Kelly, May 3, 2006 at 3:59 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
So we give the southwest back to Mexico, and what, they enact the same economic policies that work so wonderfully for the rest of Mexico. So people won’t be crossing the border in Arizona, they’ll have to cross in Oregon. Sounds good to me.
Report thisBy anonymous, May 3, 2006 at 3:50 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
The economic reality is that, with a global economy, people will go to where the work pays the best. The heroic efforts to cross the desert to get to where the jobs are make this self-evident. What to do?
1) Campaign finance reform for the US election process, so that the influence of corporate wealth upon the electoral process is minimized, AND allows elected officials to act in a responsible manner. A repsonsible manner includes creating a sensible, growth oriented foreign policy that helps to raise the standard of living in countries south of our border. We either spend the money and resources chasing a failed policy, or we spend the money and resources developing the hemisphere’s economies. Make no mistake, China sees this region as an opportunity for investment. Why isn’t the US doing the same? In the marketplace of ideas and economies, why aren’t we competing? Is it not in our best interests to do so? This, then, creates an incentive for folks to stay and build their own economies, communities, and families. A responsible manner alos includes creating a quick and painless way for immigrants to become US citizens, to become tax paying AND voting citizens.
2) Organize, organize, organize. To turn the new citizens into union members who contribute to their communities AND who VOTE. This will dovetail with the changes in the US foreign policy listed above to turn the tide of exploitation not only in this country, but in the countries from where the immigrants are coming.
Public policy has to reflect what we want to be as a country, and a continent, and a world. It starts with each of us, in our homes, at our jobs, in our communities, and most importantly at the ballot box. Vote this November. Don’t lose sight of what the radical theocratic conservatives have been up to for the past six years. Understand that this issue is of a larger political piece to divide the center against itself along race and class lines. The political calculus is to have an issue that brings out the conservative base and attempts to divide the center. Aside from the appalling lack of leadership on any number of other issues at play in this country today, the radical conservatives have shown themselves to be politically repugnant and idealogically bankrupt.
Report thisBy Ruben Rodriguez, May 3, 2006 at 3:08 pm #
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Let me start by saying Tom Hayden is an idiot and anti-American. The whole thing about how parts of the US used to belong to Mexico is just stupid. I’m a liberal and I believe that most wars are unnecessary but wars are fought and won and you can’t after the war expect the victor to return the land they acquired. I’ve been to SanFransisco and it’s a beautiful city. Do you think it would look that way if it were owned by Mexico? I don’t think so. Mexico is the way it is because it is run by corrupt polititians who are mostly descendants of Spaniards who raped and pillidged the land.
Report thisBy Guitarsandmore, May 3, 2006 at 1:47 pm #
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Am I an immigrant?
I was born here in the United States. My father was born here too. My fathers father was also born here. But in 1799 my great great great was born in Switzerland on the side of a mountain and eventually found his way to the Ohio valley in America probably fleeing religious persecution by the Catholic church like so many other Europeans.
Reading Tom Haydens article about this demonstration of immigrants in L.A, I suddenly began to wonder if I should be carrying a Swiss flag and joining in on the parade.
Or perhaps I should go back to Switzerland and reclaim the shack on the side of the mountain and tell them they can all stick their religion where the sun dont shine. I will never assimilate. Never!
But before the original Guitarsandmore lived in Switzerland, where did his ancestors live? Did they move from Germany to Switzerland? Perhaps they left France or the Netherlands to go to Switzerland. Maybe they were always in Switzerland. How would I ever know and does it matter?
Perhaps I should go back to Switzerland and study the ancient history of my ancestors. Maybe there is some long standing feud that I am supposed to be fighting for the sake of my family pride and heritage. I have rights!
Remembering how docile and passive my dad was, my best guess is no, there is no long standing feud.
I think I will just get out one of my guitars and explore the 12 bar blues some more, a true American pastime.
Report thisBy Thomas C. Kelly, May 3, 2006 at 1:11 pm #
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As an African-American, I am often made aware of the borders that we as men create between one another. It is my belief, that these ‘borders’ foster, maintain, and generate isolation,ignorance,fear, and hatred.
It is interesting to note that man is quite creative in the maintenance of these ‘borders’.
Whether it be religion, racism, or philosophy that we use as tools, we always manage to reinforce these imaginary fences in order abate our insecurity.
We’ve got to evolve more spiritually so that we can finally realize a true amalgamation of ourselves as the human souls that desparately need to be!
We don’t need no stink’in borders!
T. Kelly
Report thisBy John Trask, May 3, 2006 at 12:59 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
It is a mathematical certainty that there will always be social and economic stratification in our country, but the impression that the majority of those at the bottom are mostly from south of our border is to some degree only an illusion. Whos at the bottom economically is matter of education, culture, numbers, and luck. In our history we have seen, wave after wave of immigrants from all over the world. No wave has remained totally at the bottom for long, becoming wealthy, middle class, or remaining poor in proportion to our population as a whole. The immigrants from south of the border are no different in that sense, however they are different in another sense in that they do not constitute a wave some much as a river. A river that will never stop so long as the wages and living conditions in our southern neighbor countries remain below what they are here in the United States. The population in those countries will continue to grow, people will immigrate north and they will continue to start for the most part at the bottom. In order to deal with this perpetually replenished underclass identified as from south of the border the flow of these immigrants will have to abate. How we successfully accomplish that is the challenge we all face.
Report thisBy Barbara, May 3, 2006 at 12:49 pm #
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The people whose land we took are the Cherokee, Arapoho, Apachi, etc etc etc. And if we hadn’t taken it this land would look like - Mexico.
Liberals never cease to amaze. they are against outsourcing but think its swell to import slaves for business. morons.
Fellow Democrats. We need to take the Democratic party back from the liberals before they drive the rest of us into the republican party with their anti-real American bs.
Rahm Emanuel will choose the next Democratic nominees. Remember how Al Gore was told he would get no money or support and then elites (liberals) foist John the warmonger kerry off on us? We have to take it back. Then we can send the liberals to mucking mexico along with the $%&* Mexicans.
Report thisBy Walt Swift, May 3, 2006 at 12:46 pm #
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Tom Hayden and Truthdig:
Wow did your piece bring out the xenophobic crap!
Everybody seems to want to forget that not only did the USA steal half of Mexico from under the Mexican’s noses, but it was a particular segment of the American political landscape, the Slaveholding South, and its Southern President, James K. Polk, that launched the aggression. Contrary to the John Wayne version of the Texas Rebellion that eventually led to the War with Mexico, Anglo immigrant Texicans didn’t rebel to defend their freedom but their right to own slaves when Mexico abolished slavery. Abraham Lincoln was courageous enough to buck the Bush-like charges of “treason” and oppose the war for what it was, a power grab by the Slaveholders.
And we have the nerve to treat the descendents of our victims as “illegal aliens?” I once knew the daughter of a Californio family - Californios were the original Mexican population of California - and the horror stories about how Anglos disposessed these people brought tears of outrage and shame to my eyes.
Also, where do so many people get off drawing parallels between our genocide of Native Americans and what Mexico represents? Mexico is a predominantly Native American culture, where even today, many people speak their indigenous tongues and nationalism is equated with Indianism. As a retired high school history teacher, I am saddened by what this says about the state of affairs in our classrooms. Apparently, it is bigotry that is being taught.
Bravo Tom Hayden for a great post.
Report thisWalt Swift
Alameda, California
By David Datz, May 3, 2006 at 12:38 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
All the debates about illegal Hispanic immigration to the US are very interesting. There are good debating points on all sides. Yes, these immigrants undoubtedly contribute mightily to our economy—for instance, they’re rebuilding New Orleans, for goodness sake! Yes, they do put a strain on the localities through which they cross and where they settle. No, they do not disproportionately commit crimes—except for simply crossing the border without papers. Yes, the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo has never been enforced. Yes, we do need to maintain the integrity of our borders. Yes, it might be nice if instead of writing new laws, we enforced the one passed in the immigration reform act of 1986, which included punishments for employers who knowingly hire illegals.
But instead of arguing principle, let’s focus on some facts:
The sky is blue.
I will never slam-dunk or realize my fantasy of playing the piano like Art Tatum (I can’t jump or play piano at all).
We do not have the means to deport 12 million illegal immigrants. It’s impossible.
No matter what bill Congress passes and the President signs, no matter how “tough” we get on illegal border-crossers, no matter how many amnesties, quasi-amnesties, or near amnesties we have—those immigrants will keep on coming.
We cannot successfully fence our borders. It would be too expensive and probably would fail, and besides, it would be so hideous that any foreigners who don’t already hate us would start immediately.
We can give full citizenship to people who have been here ten years, five years, or 15 minutes, getting them into the legal economy with its laws on wages and working conditions—and the illegals will keep on coming, and they will get jobs, because they will work for even less than the new legals. Among employers, the wage race is to the bottom.
As long as the huge gap between Mexico’s economy and ours persists, people will continue to pay exorbitant fees to human smugglers and risk their lives crossing deserts, because they are truly desperate for income. And when they get here, we will hire them to clean, cook, garden, build homes, and work in whatever factories we still have, because they work so cheaply.
The immigrants will assimilate, because they have children, and for young people, American culture—for better or for worse—is irresistable. Movies, TV, rock ‘n roll, clothing styles, and attitudes will take them as they have taken every other immigrant group.
Those are facts. Might as well get used to them.
Report thisBy Rogelio, May 3, 2006 at 12:20 pm #
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Tom Hayden’s article may be old rehtoric for those who know their history. However, I am sure his main goal was to educate an ignorant mass of Americans that have no concept of American “imperialist” history. To understand the present it is important to understand the economic/political/social factors that have contributed to the present.
Can you explain why there are Vietnamese in the U.S. without mentioning the American made war in Vietnam? Can you explain why there are Salvadoreans in U.S. without explaining the stupid civil war that the U.S. financed? Can you explain why Puerto Ricans have legal access to the U.S. without mentioning the Spanish-Amerian War. The past is not irrelevant. NAFTA has contributed to the current wave of immigration.
Mexicanos/Latinos are here because our government has turned its back on the illegal immigration issue for decades. The demand for cheap labor that “big-business” demands has led to this current dilemna. For years our govenment has done absolutely nothing about the border issues. All of a suddent Americans jump on the bandwagon of illegal immigration and then the media pays attention to the problem.
It is much easier for Americans to criticize immigrants than it is to analyze the stupid war in Iraq or the rediculous gas prices (Isn’t Bush an oil man), or be outraged by the corruption of Enron, or the inept government during Katrina. We need a scapegoat for the war in Iraq. Solution=Immigrants.
There is no “Reconquista” spreading through the Latino community. The idea of “La Reconquista” is nothing but foder for the Conservative led media to make the “Aliens” appear to be attacking this nation like the terroist of 911.
Many Mexicanos share a strong resentment for the imperialist led war of agression against their corrupt impoverished nation. Mexicanos who speak of the Mexicano-Americano War do so out of a simple argument that this was once Mexicano land. There is no movement to reclaim the land like the Jews who were historically discriminated by Europeans and Americans, then given their historical homeland after being exiled for 2,000 years.
As a first generation Mexicano-Americano, I am saddened by the attitudes of our political leaders, business leaders, and fellow Americans. Why are businesses like Wal-Mart and Agri-business who hire illegal workers, not out vocally supporting the need for cheap labor? Shame on you! Those illegals have made you millions but none of you have the common decency to speak in their behalf.
We should begin to boycott food products since illegal cheap labor picks it for our consumption. I have a better idea, we should force the farmers to pay a better wage and I will gladly pay $5 for a head of lettuce.
Shame on the illegals for keeping our food price low, hail to the rich oil men that force us to pay $3 a gallon! Shame on the illegals for giving up their lives on Iraqi soil.
Report thisBy Bob Jimenez, May 3, 2006 at 12:14 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Tom Hayden is a voice of reaason, compassion and reality. Viva Tom!
Report thisBy candide, May 3, 2006 at 12:06 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
We stole the Southwest fair and square.
Report thisBy anonymous, May 3, 2006 at 11:04 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
I say we give ‘em Texas & call it even.
Does anybody really want the Mexican government to take charge?
Get real!
Report thisBy Bruce Donaldson, May 3, 2006 at 10:45 am #
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The people who are jealous for the land we took from them had to conquer someone at some time for the land they claim as their own…what do ya say?
“Aztlan” was forged over someone else’s territory, no?
No doubt someone else will move in and take the land of North America for themselves before too long.
If you trust God, then you may believe He’s allowed it. If you believe in the little evolutionary motor, then it’s survival of the fittest baby!
Play the cards you’re dealt or step away from the table freakin’ WHINERS!
Report thisBy Traven, May 3, 2006 at 9:31 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
What a load of specious crap. Using the same reasoning, Brits ought to still consider Oregon “theirs”. Mexico is just as much an artificial construct as the US. I a lefty liberal, but I refuse to feel guilty about a war that took place over 150 years ago.
Report thisBy Hilding Lindquist, May 3, 2006 at 8:55 am #
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Some of the “shoulds” in our lives as residents in this country—the U.S.—are tied to reversing the denial too many of us (the residents) have of our genocidal and imperialistic history under the guise of being a Chosen People of Almighty God and pursuing the Manifest Destiny of that belief—which is still a prime mover in our policies, foreign and domestic (as they say).
I am sure most of us here in these forums have read all or parts of Howard Zinn’s, A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. If you haven’t, please do. It will help bring you up to speed in this discussion. It’s widely available in public libraries and bookstores.
If the following statement is true:
The core nature of our will to power and ascendancy on planet earth stems directly from our predominant belief in our direct personal relationship with Almighty God.
What do we do about it?
From my POV it affects how we go about arriving at rational solutions. Until we resolve the absurdity of our dominant religious beliefs, we will continue to play Joshua rather than Jesus:
But all the silver, and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, [are] consecrated unto the LORD: they shall come into the treasury of the LORD.
So the people shouted when [the priests] blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city.
And they utterly destroyed all that [was] in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.
- Joshua 6:19-21
Report this(King James Version of the Old Testament, Bible;
http://www.blueletterbible.org)
By Georgia Whitman, May 3, 2006 at 6:22 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Thanks for the history lesson Tom Hayden, but you need to spend more time in contemporary Mexico. I spent three months there in 2005 and 2006. That doesn’t make me an expert, but it gave me some insight.
My Mexican friends and acquaintances want to leave. Women in particular because they have no rights in that ultra-macho culture. I watched campesinos march into Mexico City and camp out on the Zocalo for over two months. Their issues? Corruption. Abuse of power. Need for justice. And don’t even try to compare those issues with the US. The scale is incomparable.
The response to rape, abuse and murder of women? Blame women. Pres. Vicente Fox caused an uproar when he said that women are like machines.
I understand why Mexicans come to the US. They come because their is no justice, much corruption and little opportunity. Wages are low and people are desperate. Those are valid reasons and US corporations are in part responsible for those conditions. What I don’t understand is why organizations that represent the interests of Mexican immigrants don’t use the economic and political clout of their communities to demand change in Mexico. Why aren’t they protesting in front of Mexican embassies demanding real democracy and justice? In the countryside Catholic priests exthort pesos from improvished parishoners. This is well known in Mexico. Have you ever visited a poor village that held a lavish festival? How do they afford it? They do it at the behest of their priest who constantly tells them that their village Saint is unhappy with them. And through this practice the priest enriches himself. Those same priests interfere with attempts to improve the education system in their communities. They need and want to keep the people ignorant. Why isn’t their a demand for the Vactican to put a stop to criminal priests?
Illegal immigration will never stop until true democracy, justice and opportunity are established in Mexico. But I wonder, would illegal immigrants voluntarily return to Mexico if conditions improved?
On more thing…university students and professionals that I met look to Canada and Europe. They aren’t interested in the U.S. at all.
Report thisBy Dr. Susan Block, May 3, 2006 at 4:30 am #
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Here, here! H.B. 4437 is a vicious effort to win the hearts and votes of fearful, racist Americans, and a seamy attempt at extending the genocide that certain European peoples committed against the indigenous tribes of North America. The Northern Euros pretty much wiped out the Injuns throughout most of the area we now called the States, but the Euros in the South seemed to have had more interesting sex lives and interbred like bunnies with the natives. Their offspring are what we now call Hispanics or Latinos. The way I see it, they have just as much right to live, work and play in this land as I do. And though Im a little irritated that I have to improve my Spanish, Im grateful that many of them are humble enough to do work that nobody else in this country wants to do. But of course, the way I feel isnt all that relevant to the facts. The fact is that Latinos are fast becoming the majority, at least here in Southern Cali, and they are taking over. And why not? This is their land. Im grateful they *let* me live here. Amen and Awomen. Por favor pase el guacamole
Report thisBy acerbas, May 3, 2006 at 3:35 am #
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Yeah, and the borders of Aztlan are also a mythical construct that never existed in reality. And why take it back just 156 years? Seems pretty arbitrary to me. Why not take it back to 1769, when Junipero Serra, backed by an army led by Gaspar de Portola, set out to (successfully) to establish the Spanish (not Mexican) “right” to Alta California, establish a chain of missions and enslave and dispossess the rightful occupants, the Native Americans, and convert them to the bastard slave religion of Christianity. Lets take it back even further. Prior to 1519 unquestionably the Native Mexican tribes had trade relations with linguistically affiliated tribes in Nortamerica, like the Piaute, Shoshone, Navajo, and Hopi, but they sure as hell didn’t occupy the area. The Hopi in particular would not have stood for it; they were some damned fierce fighters prior to being “pacified” by superior gringo firepower. I wonder how the Chumash and other California tribes feel about “reconquista”? Maybe they think that a couple of conquistas are enough. The issue of illegal immigration is complicated enough without the historical facts being selectively distorted in the service of political agendum.
Report thisBy Jason C. Stone, May 3, 2006 at 1:29 am #
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I think it’s a little too early to predict the failure of this group of immigrants to integrate into mainstream American. The willingness to leave one’s country and culture of origin in search of a better economic future is as American as apple pie.
The ethnic navel-gazing that’s going on right now in this community can be readily explained as reactionary. In essence, the recent surge in their efforts to conserve their traditional identity is the result of a people coming to grips with the full price of what they may now see as a Faustian bargain. In other words, it is a byproduct of the success of their assimilation and not a bellwether of its failure. The debate regarding illegal immigration is just a convenient context for venting their shared anxieties.
Touting what are essentially the death throws of a culture as a legitimate alternative to the homogenizing forces of American-style, free market capitalism (which by the way is only coincidentally and not essentially rooted in the Anglo-Saxon tradition) seems like an attempt to give life to personal fantasies about an alternate universe in which the environment for a truly pluralistic culture actually took root in America.
Many of us outside the Latino community find ourselves empathizing with their current struggles simply because they are a present reminder of are own lost traditions. It causes us to reflect on the alternative cultures that our immigrant ancestors long ago bartered away without our consent. Don’t get me wrong, America will inevitably be changed by a huge influx of people with such a strong sense of shared identify, but this change seems more likely to take the form of token concessions ( how about a professional sports team mascot or maybe even an official holiday?) rather than a tectonic shift in the American identity. This ultimately means it will be a difference without much meaning.
In spite of this fleeting sense of buyers remorse, history has shown that Latinos in America are most likely to undergo an evolution in their identity that is convergent with those that have gone before them. The economic and political angling they have demonstrated recently is only further proof that they’re now “playing our game”. And why shouldn’t they be? They’ve already paid the tremendous price of entry.
-jcs
Report thisBy Roberto Leal, May 3, 2006 at 12:23 am #
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I read Tom Hayden’s article with great interest and agree with his premise of the historical motivations underlying the current nationwide immigrant demonstrations.
However, I believe the historical roots go back even further than the relatively recent Mexican War of 1846-48.
The powerful Aztec, Toltec and Olmec civilizations had developed cultural, economic and poliical relationships with other Native American tribes in what is now the American Southwest, West and Midwest.
This configuration more closely resembled the ancient Greek and Roman city states. It is my opinion, we are slowly reforming into geopolitical entities similar to those Greco-Roman city state models.
The modern nation-state is a relatively recent development in human history with its beginnings in the late Middle Ages. The nation-state was essentially a result of powerful rulers consolidating power, territory, resources and populations within artificially defined “borders”.
The border separating Mexico and the U.S. is also an artificial geopolitical construct born out of the mythic dream of Manifest Destiny.
These imaginary lines have been drawn over the ghostly imprint of a vast historical and cultural “map” that does not recognize “borders”.
Roberto Leal
Report thisAustin, TX