A Scintilla of Hope for Higher Education

The following, from The Daily at the University of Washington, gives me some hope that all is not completely lost in our system of higher education- there are still at least some students who havent't drank the koolaid of the Left.
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Mexican claims to U.S. soil historically unfounded
October 8, 2007
By James Foxcurran

College campuses most often use the negative terms “imperialism” and “colonialism” to describe European and American history. Meanwhile, in 21st century North America, our southern neighbor is being granted moral legitimacy for the same behavior.

Mexican immigrants are now present in the Southwestern United States with a population percentage they have never enjoyed at any other time in history.

While defendants are saying it’s just the natural process of the Mexicans moving back onto land that really belongs to them and that the Hollywood demonstrations should be a source of conventional wisdom, history is being overlooked.

Mexico had barely colonized most of the Southwestern United States when it became U.S. territory in 1848. Spain, then Mexico, merely held imperial sway over Indian territories.

In 1835, Texas had about 3,500 Spanish-speaking residents, compared with almost 30,000 Anglo-American settlers, according to Ray Allen Billington, in his book The Far Western Frontier: 1830-1860.

In California, there were about 4,000 to 7,000 Spanish-speaking residents in the 1840s. The vast majority of the population was still Indian. Scattered missions, pueblos and presidios represented most of the Mexican presence in the area, which is why it was so easy for the United States to seize the area during the Mexican-American war, according to “History of French America” by Gilles Harvard and Cecile Vidal.

Meanwhile, in 1803, at the time of the Louisiana Purchase, there were 40,000 to 50,000 French-speaking residents west of the Mississippi River between Missouri and Washington state.

This number tripled to quadrupled by 1850. However, there is no modern political constituency for this group, therefore the story is apparently not worth telling.

The only state that has always had a majority Spanish-speaking population is New Mexico, with 44,000 Spanish-speaking residents in 1830. Since the Spanish were the first to explore the Southwest, their geographic terms are on the map every place they stopped to relieve themselves.

These vestiges are often used to justify the massive Mexican colonization currently unfolding, in spite of the fact that it is actually the first wave of Mexican colonization, not the second.

History is often revised to reflect the current situation rather than the facts. This is exactly what is happening with the American Southwest and the inflation of Mexican claims to the land there.

This historical revisionism clearly has a political motivation to justify and legitimize the influx of illegal Mexican immigrants and to discredit efforts to respect our border and immigration laws.

As former Rep. J.D. (R-Ariz.) Hayworth said in the film Border Wars, “The Left sees cheap votes, and the Right sees cheap labor, so you have the perfect storm.”

While one certainly can’t stereotype all persons of Mexican immigrants, there is a distinction between Mexican-American families who have citizenship and roots in the United States, and an illegal alien of a foreign nation who is violating and evading federal laws.

While illegal immigration is unacceptable, it is important to have sympathy for the migrants.

The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, working with the border patrol is serving a heroic function that is saving Mexican and American lives in large quantities. I don’t see any Leftists sweating in the Arizona desert, saving illegal Mexican migrants from dying of dehydration and starvation.

The only people that have decisively responded to this human rights tragedy are the groups that Leftists despise and routinely slander.

Mexicans are gaining considerable political power and forcing politicians of both parties to shy away from defending the border and enforcing immigration laws.

A Zogby’s poll found that 58 percent of Mexicans agree with the statement, “The territory of the United States’ Southwest rightfully belongs to Mexico.”

This was on display last year with the massive marches of Mexican citizens waving Mexican flags in American cities. If this isn’t blatant colonization, with ulterior imperialist motives, I don’t know what is.

[Reach contributing writer James Foxcurran at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.]