Reconquista (Mexico) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The term Reconquista was popularized by contemporary Mexican

Mexican people

Mexican people refers to all persons from Mexico, a multiethnic country in North America, and/or who identify with the Mexican cultural and/or national identity....

writers Carlos Fuentes

Carlos Fuentes

Carlos Fuentes Macías is a Mexican writer and one of the best-known living novelists and essayists in the Spanish-speaking world. He has influenced contemporary Latin American literature, and his works have been widely translated into English and other languages.-Biography:Fuentes was born in...

and Elena Poniatowska

Elena Poniatowska

Elena Poniatowska is a Mexican journalist and author. Her generation of writers include Carlos Fuentes‎, José Emilio Pacheco and Carlos Monsiváis.-Life:Poniatowska was born in Paris to Prince Jean Joseph Evremont Sperry Poniatowski and Paula Amor Yturbe...

to describe the increased demographic and cultural presence of Mexicans in the Southwestern United States

Southwestern United States

The Southwestern United States is a region defined in different ways by different sources. Broad definitions include nearly a quarter of the United States, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah...

Historical usage

It was originally a jocular analogy to the Spanish Reconquista

Reconquista

The Reconquista was a period of almost 800 years in the Middle Ages during which several Christian kingdoms succeeded in retaking the Muslim-controlled areas of the Iberian Peninsula broadly known as Al-Andalus...

of Moorish Iberia

Al-Andalus

Al-Andalus was the Arabic name given to a nation and territorial region also commonly referred to as Moorish Iberia. The name describes parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Muslims , at various times in the period between 711 and 1492, although the territorial boundaries...

, since the areas of greatest Mexican immigration and cultural diffusion are conterminous with northern New Spain

New Spain

New Spain, formally called the Viceroyalty of New Spain , was a viceroyalty of the Spanish colonial empire, comprising primarily territories in what was known then as 'América Septentrional' or North America. Its capital was Mexico City, formerly Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztec Empire...

and former Mexican territories.

The concept, but not the term "reconquista" itself, has been advanced by Chicano

Chicano

The terms "Chicano" and "Chicana" are used in reference to U.S. citizens of Mexican descent. However, those terms have a wide range of meanings in various parts of the world. The term began to be widely used during the Chicano Movement, mainly among Mexican Americans, especially in the movement's...

nationalists of the 1970s to describe plans for the creation of a mythical Aztec homeland called Aztlán

Aztlán

Aztlán is the mythical ancestral home of the Nahua peoples, one of the main cultural groups in Mesoamerica. And, by extension, is the mythical homeland of the Uto-Aztecan peoples. Aztec is the Nahuatl word for "people from Aztlan".-Legend:...

, Aztlán having been the northern origin of the Azteca people who migrated south into Mexico and founded Tenochtitlan. The map used to illustrate the made up "Aztlan" has nothing at all to do with the "Aztec" (or "Mexica") tribe, which lived far south in what is now central Mexico, but it is rather, a map of land explored by the Spanish, and claimed by the Spanish, for Spain (New Spain) after their arrival from Europe, land which covers the homelands of a multitude of native tribes, which were many where related through the wide Uto-Aztecan

Uto-Aztecan languages

Uto-Aztecan or Uto-Aztekan is a Native American language family consisting of over 30 languages. Uto-Aztecan languages are found from the Great Basin of the Western United States , through western, central and southern Mexico Uto-Aztecan or Uto-Aztekan is a Native American language family...

family of languages. Many Chicanos point to this fact as a concrete connection between the southwestern section of the United States and the rest of Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...

. The word properly applies to immigration inside territories won from Mexico in the Texas Revolution

Texas Revolution

The Texas Revolution or Texas War of Independence was an armed conflict between Mexico and settlers in the Texas portion of the Mexican state Coahuila y Tejas. The war lasted from October 2, 1835 to April 21, 1836...

and the Mexican-American War.

Modern usage and supporters

Other groups, like the National Will Organization

National Will Organization (Mexico)

The National Will Organization , is a far right Mexican nationalist organization, opposing Anglo-American culture influences , abortion, gay marriage, and the presence of Evangelical and Protestant religions in Mexico....

, do not support the concept of the imagined "Aztlan", and identify themselves with the modern Hispanic

Hispanic

Hispanic is a term that originally denoted a relationship to Hispania, which is to say the Iberian Peninsula: Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal and Spain. During the Modern Era, Hispanic sometimes takes on a more limited meaning, particularly in the United States, where the term means a person of ...

Mexico, which they see as deprived of its northern territories after the Mexican War

Mexican–American War

The Mexican–American War, also known as the First American Intervention, the Mexican War, or the U.S.–Mexican War, was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848 in the wake of the 1845 U.S...

. Other groups that support the concept of Reconquista include the Mexica Movement

Mexica Movement

The Mexica Movement is a self described "Indigenous rights educational organization" based in Los Angeles, California. Their organization views Latin Americans of Amerindian descent, Native Americans, and Canadian First Nations as one people who are falsely divided by European-imposed borders...

and Voz de Aztlan

Voz de Aztlan

La Voz de Aztlan is "an internet news service for Mexican and Mexican-Americans in the U.S. Southwest and in Mexico."...

.

Charles Truxillo

A prominent advocate of Reconquista is Professor Charles Truxillo of the University of New Mexico

University of New Mexico

The University of New Mexico at Albuquerque is a public research university located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the United States. It is the state's flagship research institution...

(UNM), who envisions a sovereign Hispanic nation called the Republica del Norte (Republic of the North) that would encompass Northern Mexico, Baja California, California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

Truxillo, who teaches at UNM's Chicano Studies Program on a yearly contract, states in an interview that "Native-born American Hispanics feel like strangers in their own land. We remain subordinated. We have a negative image of our own culture, created by the media. Self-loathing is a terrible form of oppression. The long history of oppression and subordination has to end” and that "Along both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border “there is a growing fusion, a reviving of connections...Southwest Chicanos and Norteño Mexicanos are becoming one people again.”" Truxillo stated that Hispanics who have achieved positions of power or otherwise are “enjoying the benefits of assimilation” are most likely to oppose a new nation, explaining that “There will be the negative reaction, the tortured response of someone who thinks, 'Give me a break. I just want to go to Wal-Mart.' But the idea will seep into their consciousness, and cause an internal crisis, a pain of conscience, an internal dialogue as they ask themselves: 'Who am I in this system?”' Truxillo believes that the Republica del Norte will be brought into existence by "any means necessary" but that it was unlikely to be formed by civil war but rather by the electoral pressure of the future majority Hispanic population in the region. Truxillo added that he believes it's his job to help develop a “cadre of intellectuals” to think about how this new state can become a reality.

In 2007, the UNM reportedly decided to stop renewing Truxillo's yearly contract. Truxillo claimed that his "firing" was due to his radical beliefs, arguing that "Few are in favor of a Chicano professor advocating a Chicano nation state."

Jose Angel Gutierrez

In an interview with In Search of Aztlán on August 8, 1999, Jose Angel Gutierrez

José Ángel Gutiérrez

José Angel Gutiérrez, is an attorney and professor at the University of Texas at Arlington in the United States. He was a founding member of the Mexican American Youth Organization in San Antonio in 1967, and a founding member and past president of the Raza Unida Party, a Mexican-American third...

, a political science

Political science

Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...

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."

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
Irredentism
Irredentism is any position advocating annexation of territories administered by another state on the grounds of common ethnicity or prior historical possession, actual or alleged. Some of these movements are also called pan-nationalist movements. It is a feature of identity politics and cultural...

. One Mexico, one nation."

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."

In a videotape made by the Immigration Watchdog Web site (as cited in the Washington Post), 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."

In an subsequent interview with the Washington Post in 2006, Gutierrez said there was "no viable" reconquista movement, and blamed interest in the issue on closed-border groups and "right-wing blogs"

Other Views

Felipe Gonzáles, a professor at the University of New Mexico

University of New Mexico

The University of New Mexico at Albuquerque is a public research university located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the United States. It is the state's flagship research institution...

(UNM), who is director of UNM's Southwest Hispanic Research Institute, has stated that while there is a “certain homeland undercurrent” among New Mexico Hispanics, the "educated elites are going to have to pick up on this idea [of a new nation] and run with it and use it as a point of confrontation if it is to succeed.” Juan José Peña, who heads the Hispano Round Table (a Hispanic advocacy group in New Mexico) believes that Mexican Americans currently lack the political consciousness to form a separate nation, stating that “Right now, there's no movement capable of undertaking it.”

Illegal immigration into the southwest states is sometimes viewed as a form of reconquista, in light of the fact that Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

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. Even if not intended, some analysts say the significant demographic shift in the American Southwest may result in "a de facto reconquista." A 2002 Zogby poll reported that 58% of Mexicans believe that the southwestern US belongs to Mexico.

Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

professor Samuel P. Huntington

Samuel P. Huntington

Samuel Phillips Huntington was an influential American political scientist who wrote highly-regarded books in a half-dozen sub-fields of political science, starting in 1957...

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."

Neo-liberal political writer Mickey Kaus

Mickey Kaus

Robert Michael Kaus , better known as Mickey Kaus, is an American journalist, pundit, and author best known for writing Kausfiles, a "mostly political" blog which was featured on Slate until 2010. Kaus is the author of The End of Equality and had previously worked as a journalist for Newsweek, The...

has remarked,
Other Hispanic rights leaders insist that Reconquista is nothing more than a fringe element. Nativo Lopez, president of the Mexican American Political Association

Mexican American Political Association

Mexican American Political Association is an organization that promotes the interests of Mexican-Americans, Mexicans, Latinos, Chicanos, Hispanics and Latino Economic Refugees in the United States.-History:...

in Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, when asked about the concept of Reconquista by a reporter, angerly 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 populous."

Reconquista sentiments are often jocularly referred to by media targeted to Mexicans, including a recent Absolut Vodka

Absolut Vodka

Absolut Vodka is a brand of vodka, produced near Åhus, Skåne, in southern Sweden. Since July 2008 the company has been owned by the French firm Pernod Ricard who bought V&S Group from the Swedish government....

ad that generated significant controversy in the United States for its printing of a map of pre-Mexican-American war Mexico.

Statistics

According to the United States Census Bureau, as of 2009 and 2010, six out of seven U.S. states with highest densities of people of Hispanic origin were in the Southwestern United States, including the 7 modern-day states that used to be part of Mexico - California (38%), Arizona (30%), New Mexico (46%), Texas (38%), Nevada (27%), Colorado (21%), and Utah (13%) (substantial Hispanic populations also exist in the parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming that were once part of Mexico). 31% of Hispanic 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 Hispanic 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.

Historical usage

Modern usage and supporters

Statistics

See also