Borders and buffers

Dear Mexican:

In a column some time ago, you mentioned the Aztec prophecy claiming that “their descendants would reclaim ancestral lands in the southwest United States—and guess what?” I’d appreciate it if you shed a little light on this statement. This is the mythical state of Aztlán you’re referring to, right? What are its “borders"? How many Mexicans, Mexican-Americans, Central Americans and indigenous peoples know and/or believe in this? Is there a movement to take over these lands? And how similar is this to the (incorrect) Jews’ claim to the holy land of Israel?

—Texas Truth Seeker

Oh, Aztlán! Nothing gets Know Nothings more encabronados than this creation myth. The breve version: The Aztecs told the Spaniards that their ancestors had migrated from somewhere north of modern-day Mexico City. The Spaniards begin a-slaughtering, unintentionally elevating Aztlán to Eden in the minds of the Mexica. Centuries later, the 1960s Chicano movement began appropriating Aztec motifs and picked up on the People of the Sun’s longing for the Garden. Not content with pilfering from one culture, the Chicanos also grabbed from another—the historical reality of the southwest United States once belonging to Mexico—and conveniently anointed this geographic region Aztlán, despite there being no evidence the Aztecs ever lived anywhere in the Southwest. At least the Jews kept their origin story straight for millenia, you know?

Aztlán seems like revanchist irredentism, ¿qué no? But believing in it is mostly a college phase, like thinking communism can work or that Dane Cook is funny. Most Mexicans only vaguely know about Aztlán, and then in the same way gabachos think about Plymouth Rock. Some Chicanos adopt its Edenic spirit—in other words, the spirit of a people committed to bettering their community. Nothing harmful in that. But yes: Some do believe the American Southwest is Aztlán, and that all non-Mexicans should vamoose back to Europe—the Mexican calls these ahistorical pendejos indigenazis. Don’t believe the hype—Aztlán is as harmless as arroz con leche, and anyone who believes otherwise has listened to too much Coast to Coast. Mexicans aren’t taking back any ancestral lands because they’re guided by Aztec destiny or fiat—los Estados Unidos can take credit for that demographic reality, baby.

I don’t know if someone has asked you this before, but with all the talks of problems with illegal immigrants, and with all the obvious racial tension in this country between whites and Mexicans, do you think that Mexicans are the new blacks of this country?

—Division Street Dude

Gracias for giving me the opportunity to commemorate the passing of one of the Mexican’s idols: Studs Terkel, the legendary oral historian who went to his reward two weeks ago at the age of 96. I can give you an answer, but Terkel documented a much better respuesta in his 1992 collection, Race: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About the American Obsession, in a chapter titled “Ron Maydon.” In it, the namesake Chicago wab said Mexicans served as a buffer between African-Americans and gabachos. In light of Barack Obama’s historic victory, Maydon’s following words are most telling: “Whatever gains the Hispanic community has made in this country have been at the expense—we’ve piggybacked the black movement. I say every time blacks political, economic and social gains, I say hooray for them because we get some of the fallout. They sneeze; we catch the cold. They make inroads; we get hired.” By the way, Know Nothings and the Hillary Clinton campaign: More than two-thirds of Mexicans voted for a negrito in this presidential election, contrary to your assertions. How do you like them manzanas?