June 16, 2001
MEXICO KNOWS WHERE IT WANTS TO GO: THE U.S.
By Joe Guzzardi
The defeat of Los Angeles mayoral candidate Antonia Villaraigosa by James Hahn is a bump in the road in the Latino political movement.
But future Mexican-American candidates should improve their public relations skills.
The American-born Villaraigosa, who said to Latino audiences, "I am proud to be a Mexican," never said, "I am proud to be an American."
Villaraigosa and Hahn ran neck and neck until May 31.
During the final debate at the Museum of Tolerance, KNX radio reporter Frank Mottek asked Villaraigosa if he still favored, as he did when he was president of the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicana/o de Aztlan chapter at UCLA, the formation of a separate Mexican republic in the southwest United States.
By refusing to answer, Villaraigosa indicated that he still supports MEChA's goal for radical Hispanics to take over Aztlan (more commonly known as the American Southwest).
Consider this paragraph from the MEChA national constitution: "Chicano and Chicana students of Aztlan must take upon themselves the responsibilities to promote Chicanismo within the community, politicizing our Raza with an emphasis on indigenous consciousness to continue the struggle for the self-determination of the Chicano people for the purpose of liberating Aztlan."
MEChA chapters, operating under the guise of promoting Latino self-esteem, thrive at local high schools and colleges everywhere.
For Mexico, Villaraigosa's loss is an unexpected setback. But the politics of divisiveness remains alive and well.
As Juan Hernandez, the head of Vicente Fox's presidential Office of Mexican Living Abroad, said, "Mexico knows where it wants to go even more clearly than the U.S. knows where it wants to go."
And where Mexico wants to go is the U.S.
Hernandez was among the first Mexican officials to arrive in Arizona at the hospital bedsides of the 12 immigrants who survived a dessert crossing which killed 14.
"That was very impressive," Arizona Gov. Jane Hull said.
Hull should have used the opportunity to chew Hernandez out for not vigorously pursuing "coyotes" who abandon Mexicans in the dessert to die. Or Hull could have condemned the corrupt Mexican government that has turned its back on its people for decades, thereby forcing them to take foolish risks in search of jobs.
After his hospital visit, Hernandez appeared at the League of United Latin American Citizens convention.
" Mexicans and Mexican-Americans being successful in the U.S. is a great benefit to Mexico," Hernandez said, referring to the billions sent home by Mexicans working illegally in the U.S.
Jose Angel Gutierrez, a political science professor at the state taxpayer funded University of Texas at Arlington, attended the LULAC convention.
"Mexicans should have our own agenda and choose our own people to speak for us," Gutierrez said.
Subversive professors in universities throughout the U.S. echo Gutierrez's nationalistic philosophy.
Mexico parlays a usual combination of circumstances to its maximum advantage.
On the one hand, organizations like MEChA and LULAC are vocal and well organized. And the mainstream media and the politicians play right into their hands.
Consider the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
Despite its altruistic name, MALDEF is a pro-open border, anti-American lobbying group with tremendous influence on Capitol Hill. Unlike grassroots groups that have to scratch for every dime, MALDEF has access to the Ford Foundation's deep pockets.
This funding allows MALDEF to operate offices throughout the U.S.
Recently, MALDEF moved its San Francisco branch to Atlanta. MALDEF, its work apparently done in California, wants to sew things up in the Southeast, too. "MALDEF has shown itself to be not so much a civil rights organization as a separatist group encouraging criminality and divisiveness," said Donna Locke, coordinator for the Georgia Coalition for Immigration Reform.
The biggest boost for Mexico comes from our most preposterous law, the so-called "anchor baby" rule.
By granting automatic citizenship to the children of illegal aliens, the U.S. allows Mexico to continue to chip away at its agenda of complete take-over. Allan Wall, an American journalist working in Mexico, wrote in detail about this phenomenon. His story, "Anchor Babies" appears online in Frontpage Magazine.
Writing about his experience when his child was born in Mexico, Wall recalled that he traveled 370 miles to the U.S. consulate in Monterey, filled out documents, and showed proof that he is an American citizen.
Illegal aliens don't have to do or prove anything. And they don't have to part with a dime. What awaits them is free pre-natal care and child delivery. The number of births to illegal aliens may be as high as 350,000 annually. More than 60 percent of all babies born in Los Angeles community hospitals are born to illegals.
According to Wall, the automatic birth citizenship is common knowledge in Mexico and a huge incentive to illegal immigration.
"The anchor baby fiasco must be stopped," Wall writes. "It rewards illegal immigrants and encourages more illegal immigration. It costs law-abiding taxpayers a bundle. It makes it harder to control the border, reform immigration and rein in the runaway welfare state. And, as I found in my own experience, it cheapens American citizenship and mocks those who play by the rules."
What a pity that Congress feels so obligated to maintain the status quo on issues that have clearly hurt and divided America. And sadder still is that our elected officials are so eager to listen to the Mexican government and not the Americans who trusted them to protect our future.
Joe Guzzardi, an instructor at the Lodi Adult School, has been writing a weekly opinion column since 1988.
