"Mis Dos Patrias (My Two Countries) is about a man who is naturalizing as a US citizen, but asking that his fellow Mexicans not view him as a traitor."

I became a U.S. citizen automatically because both of my parents became naturalized citizens before I was 16. But my parents' relatives in Germany did not consider them to be traitors for becoming naturalized citizens. If I had not become a citizen automatically I would have been naturalized and would have been PROUD
to become a citizen of this country. If one chooses to make one's home in this country, one should be proud of becoming its citizen. The United States is very generous about this and makes it relatively easy for legal immigrants to become citizens. We don't need citizens like this guy who only did so to protect his pension. He should go back to Mexico.

Now, from an American living in Mexico, read the other side of the story.

That includes this translation of one of their hits:

-------------
A thousand times they have shouted at me,
“Go home, you don’t belong here”
Let me remind the Gringo
That I didn’t cross the border, the border crossed me
America was born free—Man divided her
They drew the line so I would have to jump it
And they call me Invader
That’s a big error
They took eight states from us—who is the invader here?
I am a stranger in my own land
I don’t come to make war—I’m a working man

(Chorus)

If history does not lie, the Powerful Nation was seated here in glory
Composed of valiant warriors
Indians of two continents
Mingled with Spaniards
And if we go by the centuries
We are more American [“Somos Mas Americanos”]
We are more American
Than any son of the Anglo-Saxon
-------------

P.S. I can translate that into German if anyone wants, and I can even try my best to avoid using the phrase "Blut und Boden".

Interesting.  I've alway been stricken by the contridictions in Mexican culture.  You know, Cortes the civilizer vs Cortes the destroyer.  My old Madre Segundo, who was from Madera, Chihuahua (near the area where Geronimo's band found refuge) would tell me her memories of Pancho Villa, in in one breath he was a great hero of the people, and the next he was a horrible villan.  She would jump to either mode without the slightest sign that she was contradicting herself.

The same schizms crop up in the Mestizo discourse.  And why not?  Look at the elaborate Mexican class system, with Peninsulars and Creoles at the top, Mestizos in the middle and the Indio at the bottom. 
But in Spanish and Mexican law, the Indio is at the top of the hierarchy.  Strange...

But here's a real Internet treasure, if you are interested.  Hakim: The Yaqui Homeland. It's the story of a tribally secret document created by the Yaquis in Sonora that demark the boundaries of their ancestral homeland.  How it came to be released, with the instructions that it could be translated into English, but not Spanish, is fascinating.  The Yaquis were very stressed and worried because the Mexicans were slowly intruding on their lands as squatters.  As I recall, this was in the 70s and 80s.  But what got me was the question why the Yaquis produced a land holding document in the first place.  I have a couple of theories. 

One concerns Álvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca.  I think C.de Vaca was living with the Yaquis at the time he repatriated with the Spaniards - Nuñez Guzmán and his army - between the Rio Yaqui and Rio Mayo in Sonora. I think C.de Vaca advised the Yaquis to never trust a Spaniard.

The other concerns a land claim litigation in early colonial Mexico - 1550 - that went in favor of the Zapotec, who had presented indigenous maps to define their domain.  I wouldn't be surprised if news of this legal victory traveled widely in Indian Mexico, and could have inspired the Yaquis to create their document.  

At any rate, I just wanted to point out this schism in Mexican culture about Indianess.  I've met farmworkers up here that swear that all Indians are cannibals.  You know, guys who looked like full-blooded Huicholes. 

Neoboho

"That I didn’t cross the border, the border crossed me"

Unless you are a decendent of one of the tribes of the Southwestern United States, you have no basis for that claim.

And what about all the illegal immigrants living in places like Illinois and Alabama?

"They took eight states from us—who is the invader here?"

If this land had remained with Mexico it would be just as poor and backward as the rest of Mexico and Mexicans living there would be crossing the Sabine River to get into the United States.

American workers would do all those jobs if the employers would offer a living wage and benefits, so illegal immigrants are not needed. The reason the illegal immigrants are being let in is to provide U.S. employers with cheap labor and shaft American workers.

"I can translate that into German if anyone wants, and I can even try my best to avoid using the phrase "Blut und Boden"."

I'm not sure what the point of this remark is. I think that legal immigrants from Mexico should be made to feel as welcome here is we were made to feel when we immigrated from Germany. But I also think that if they become U.S. citizens they should feel the same pride at becoming a U.S. citizen as I did when I became a U.S. citizen.

The land did not belong to the Spaniards, it belonged to the Indian tribes

Good point, Captain. That makes all of us (who are non-native Americans) illegal immigrants. So how can some of us brand others of us illegal, and deport people, when we're all illegal? Makes no sense.

You keep coming up with good stuff like this, you're a major.

I disagree, Don.  Legal and illegal are products of the law itself.  If you want someone's land, you just write a law to make it legal.  Thus we have some rather remarkable legal documents to ponder for eternity: The Rights of Discovery; Manifest Destiny and so on.  Chief Justice John Marshall wrote in Worchester v. Georgia that God gave priority to agricultural peoples over the hunters and beasts of the woods.  Nevermind that the nations the US was bent on disenfranchising were in fact agricultural people (hunting and gathering being a small fraction of their total economy).  They had been defined as savages: hunters and beasts of the woods.  So the whole affair was based on a metaphysical assumption...written into law.  Another metaphysical assumption which underwrites the rights of discovery comes from John Locke - that god gave man the earth as real estate to dispose of as it pleases man. 

From the Indian's pov, the distinction between the law and a bullet blurred.  But the White man was of course completely legal.  Thus it was legal for the Pit River Rangers of Redding, California, to hunt and kill Indians for sport in 1852. It reminds me of Blackwater's abillity to legally murder Iraqis. 

Neoboho

And New Mexico Indians against the Spaniards.

The point is that the Indian tribes of the Southwest are the only people who have any historic claims on the Southwestern lands.

But there were quite a few gringos living in Northern Mexico by 1846.  In Sonoma, California they even rioted and created "The Republic of California", and they did not yet know that the US had declared war on Mexico.  Mexico was naturalizing gringos, so these people were also citizens of Mexico as well as the US.  

One thing that you have to keep in mind is that Mexico was almost bankrupt after the 12 year War of Independence from Spain (ending  in 1821).  They were powerless to thwart the land greedy gringos, more or less.  Santa Anna's campaign in Texas was quite a feat, considering the resources Mexico had to bring to the battlefield.

At any rate, there were plenty of gringos around that got crossed by the border. 

Neoboho

"Mexico was naturalizing gringos, so these people were also citizens of Mexico as well as the US."

Mexico actually sought immigration from the U.S. to these sparsely populated territories. Not a wise decision.

So the citizens of Mexico in Texas and California revolted against Mexico and won their independence just as the British subjects of the 13 colonies revolted against Great Britain and won their independence.

The fundamental underlying cause of the illegal immigration problem is the failure of the Mexican economy to thrive. A country that must export its poor in order to keep it from collapsing is a pathelogically disfunctional economy. The existence of a corrupt one pary political system is undoubtedly a major cause. After things looked up after the first free elections put the Fox government into power, it looks like the PAN managed to steal the election from Obrador. This is a great tragedy for Mexico because Obrador would have brought about some of the reforms Mexico badly needs. While the great majority of Mexicans live in abject poverty, it has an elite of very rich people. If Mexico is ever to prosper this has to be brought to an end.
This change has to be brought about by Mexicans, the United States cannot do it for them except by closing the border, so that Mexico can no longer count on exporting its poor as a substitute for genuine reform.

Well, here, let me complicate it a bit more.  In the Hopi creation stories there is an important segment about the wandering of the clans.  They claim some of the clans came from Palenque, Chiapas. 

I think there is a popular notion in the US that Indian groups were very localized, didn't know much about the world three hills away, and were only aware of the existence of their immediate neighbors.  This simply was not the case.  Obsidian from Modoc County in Northern California has been found in sites in New York State, for example, or pottery from Tenochitlan has been found at sites in Redding.  It's fascinating to study good language maps of the Americas, they are full of all sorts of surprises.  You realzed that Indians from the Carrabean populated the Amazon basin, of there is a small group of Athabascan speaker is Costa Rica.  

The present US Mexican border did not exist before it was stricken by the United States Topographic Core of Engineers in the 1850.  Indigenous traveled freely across it for at least ten thousand years.  The so-called "Anasazi" people lived in a related cultural complex that stretched from Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and deep into Chihuahua.  The so-called Aztecs (Tenochas) arrived in the Valley of Mexico in the 14th century, from parts unknown (I think it was the "Anasazi" area in Chihuahua, but that's another topic.)  They were absorbed by the Nahuatl culture there - language, culture and religion.  The Navajo migrated to their lands from Canada, arriving around 1500.  

Neoboho

Location of message moved.

Well, that could get complicated too.  The Siouian groups were forced out of the north eastern woodlands onto the plains by Chippewas who were being forced east by Iroquoians who were being forced east by Englishmen.  The Lakota claim to the Black Hills has to be taken in that context.  Remember, Kevin Costner's Indian buddies were being attacked by Pawnee bad guys - who were pissed because the Souix had moved into their lands.  

You know, Tecumseh could have succeeded in chasing the Europeans off the continent.  When he traveled around to organize the tribes in the Southeast they all agreed to a united front.  His error was that he didn't leave cadres of organizers behind - when he moved on to the next tribe, the just-radicalized tribe just stood around wondering what to do, so nothing much happened.

Neoboho

And the Navaho were invaders into the lands of the tribes who were already there, the Hopi and the Pueblo. As a matter of fact Anasazi is a Navaho word meaning something like "enemy of my ancestors."

Many of the various Indian tribes also defended their borders from unauthorized entry by outsiders.

Captain,
Tomorrow being Sunday I and my companion shall take a leisurely drive through southern California, park the car in Tecate, US, and stroll across the Mexican border un-noticed and un-molested to Tecate Mexico. We shall walk down the hill to the zocolo (square) where we will take a seat at an outdoor restaurant and order our coffee and huevos rancheros, which we will enjoy while watching the scene unfold: vendors, families, finely dressed Mexican gentlemen in their sombreros and polished boots, the old gents playing dominoes, the children romping, the mariachis, etc. Being on a diet, I'll pass up the usual paleta (delicious fruit ice) and finally walk back north, up the hill and through the US customs station with the nasty officer asking me stupid questions: What did you do? Where's your car? Where are you going? and then we're back home again.

ecotourism
WeGoEco.com

But the Chiapas rebellion is a lot more recent and may still not have been fully resolved.

ecotourism
WeGoEco.com

I looked up your Web site. If health permits I may well take the tour of Copper Canyon that one of the companies on your site offers. Using local guides and structuring the tours to help the local economy is something that strongly deserves to be supported.

Dang, I'm going to have to visit Tecate - I haven't been there in years and years.  Building a retirement home in Tecate seems to be a popular goal of many Mexicans here in Imperial Valley. 

But your story reminded me of a 1 am crossing I made in ancient times, circa 1962, at San Luis Rio Colorado.  The Mexican border agent was sound asleep, but some how he managed to wave us through without opening his eyes. 

Neoboho