This is a very short introduction of what it is to be Mexican. I cannot claim that this is all there is to know about Mexicanism
since our identity is complex and can fill volumes just explaining it. This is only an overview and I am only
outlining the main points. In other pages i will try to get into more detail about the points I make here.
To know why you are not a Latino you must first know
who you really are and where you come from. You are MEXICAN. A son of Mexico and a brother/sister to the native people of
this continent. In part one of this short introduction I will explain why you are of Native American descent. In part two
I will explain why your descendent and heritage is important in defining who you are. You must know that in the Mexican constitution,
article 2, the Mexican nation is defined as ONE and INDIVISIBLE (cannot be divided). I point this out because I have seen
many 1st generation naturalized foreigners in Mexico trying to establish the idea that Mexicans can be devided into sub-groups
liks Italian Mexicans, Argentine-Mexicans etc. First of all these people are not true Mexicans because they are
obviously retaining a foreign identity and want to embed it into our Mexican identity to boot. Second, it is disastrous to
our cultural sovereignty as a people and a nation to keep allowing foreigners and pochos to keep distorting and deviding
our people into seperate factions instead of being one people under one nation.
Also I recomend that you should read and familiarize yourself with the Mexican constitution, so that
you can participate in our nation’s politics because without participation you are have no say in what goes on in Mexico
and these attacks against us will remain unchallenged in the political arena.
Part 1. Where we come from.
Mexico was founded in July 18, 1325 in the valley of
Mexico (Central Mexico) in the midst of a now extinct lake called Texcoco where now stands the modern capital: Mexico City.
You will do well here to get a map of Mexico and study it's geography and learn it's states and famous locations. The founders
of Mexico according to tradition, and the written Codex Boturini, were Mexitli and Tenoch; hence the capital city of the Aztecs
was called Mexico-Tenochtitlan in honor of these 2 men. When the Spaniards/Europeans came this was not a happy moment as the
festivities of Columbus Day make it seem in all the grammar schools across the U.S.; or in the thanksgiving cliché of pilgrims having a happy dinner with the natives. This was in fact a very tragic event that still upsets
the hearts of all Mexicans. This event lead to the near extinction of not just our heritage and native identity, but also
of our people themselves.
Organizations like Mecha, National Council of La Raza,
LULAC, MALDEF, Brown Berets, etc... will lie and exaggerate to you using facts out of context to tell you a lie that is only
half the truth. I am not defending the Europeans so don’t get me wrong, they actually did bring racism genocide and
racial-slavery to our people but it was not in itself what caused the tragedy that nearly made us extinct. There were many
factors at work here and I want to focus on the 2 main ones: disease and disunity. These two are very essential in defining
our past because once you come to understand them then you will comprehend why our people fell in the first place and how
we managed to survive it to become what we are today, and most importantly: to NEVER let it happen again.
According to Jared Diamond in his work "The Arrow of
Disease" the conquistadores killed an estimated 95% of our indigenous population by the disease they brought more than by
warfare. So in essence it was by sheer dumb luck that the Europeans managed to reduce our population to facilitate their gradual
conquest of our lands. The Europeans had many diseases to which our ancestors had no immunity towards and this is what lead
to the massive reduction of our people. Now this is pretty much all I can say about disease playing a role in the conquest.
The second factor was disunity. When Cortez launched his attack on Tenochtitlan only a fool would think for a second that
a band of 700 Spaniards could defeat the massive army of the Aztecs which made up at least 200,000 in their home turf. The
Spanish chronicler Bernal Diaz del Castillo even wrote that the Spaniards would probably not even survive in Mexico if it
weren’t for the Tlaxcalan leader called Xicontecatl I who wished to form an alliance with the Spaniards against the
Aztecs. Hernan Cortez used native allies (traitors) to dismantle ships from the gulf and reassemble them in lake Texcoco to
launch an attack on Tenochtitlan. In 1521 Cortez launched his final assaults on Tenochtitlan with 25,000 Tlaxcalans and 50,000
other indian allies and only 700 Spanish soldiers. They eventually wore down the Aztecs by disease and starvation when they
destroyed all food and water supplies that lead into the city. And this is the reason why we failed as a people. We were conquered
because we were not united, in fact many of our ancestors were traitors! This is what I call "La Maldicion de la Malinche,"
it is a curse of treason, it is brother killing brother, or like it happens today: Mexicans selling their souls to the invader.
I can immediately imagine the mentality of a fanatical person trying
to contradict me here, and it will go something like this: "You are a traitor to your ‘Anahuac’ people too because
you are listening more to what white people say than what your own people say." They will say this because I cite people who
are white such as Jared Diamond and even the Spanish codices. This is the mentality of organizations like MECHA and Aztlan who
will play more to your emotions than to the cold hard FACTS. Now lets not be idiots, here I want to stick to reality so that
we can learn from our past mistakes no matter how ugly or uncomfortable they seem. When you start judging a person by the
color of their skin more than by what they say or do and reject his re-search only because he is "white" then you are plainly
being an idiot and a fanatic like any other racist organization, e.g. the KKK.
After the Spaniards defeated the Aztecs they gradually raped our
women. This is how the mestizo came to be, not by a happy mixing between a Indian man and a Spanish woman as the romantics
like to portray, but by a forcefull rape of our women. This is where we come from. We are the descendants of a conquered,
humiliated, exploited and degraded people. We are the victims of Europe and we are not alone for many nations and many people
have also been exploited by the westerners such as India and the Middle East. Remember that the Conquistadores were all men,
they didn't bring European women untill much latter and even when they came they were certainly not allowed to run away with
a native. You must also not forget that these Conquistadores were power hungry adventurous men, they were here for one thing
and one thing only: Greed.
The Europeans did not bring us civilization. We already had a formidable
civilization with superb masonry skills and engineering by which the island city of Tenochtitlan was built.
We had, by far, superior astronomy and advanced Mathematics. At most the European brought us animals and beasts
of burden like the Horse and the Ox and new technologies like gun powder and metallurgy (technique or science of working metals).
These things of course were not needed because we had been getting along well without them even though the Aztec had
independently invented the weel but was only used in children's toys. These Europeans along with the new technologies
also brought new ideologies such as racism, monetary economics, and feudalism as well as their European cultures. The conquistadores
were the worst of Europe because they were driven by ambition. They came here only in the hopes of getting rich and making
a name for themselves. Spain and all of Europe became more rich only by the systematic rape and exploitation of our lands
and our people. Hence, we Mexicans are NOT Westerners (Europeans) we are NOT Latinos and the very idea of calling us such
an obscenity should spark a deep insult in the heart of all true Mexicans. We come from this land, we come from Mexico, we
are Mexican.
For further reading on the Aztec and why they fell to the Spanish
I recommend to you 2 books: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond. And: Daily Life of the
Aztecs by Jacques Soustelle.
Part 2. Who we are.
Where it gets tricky is in defining what a modern Mexican is and
here is where fanatical organizations trip over their own propaganda. These organization want to create a backwards culture
like the insurgents are trying to do in Iraq and revert us back into the 1500's. But they only succeed in dividing our Mexican
people and creating emotional fanaticism that further degrades us. Their fanaticism spawns emotional and irrational people
who develop a morbid hatred of whites and hence creates racists which I said earlier are no better than the KKK or the Nazis.
These organizations divide our Mexican people into white and brown. They ignore that NOT all Mexicans are brown skinned and
in fact alienate those who show any European features in their physical appearance. As I mentioned we still carry the scars
(meztisaje) of the racial rape of the Europeans. A minority of Mexicans look more white than native even though they may have
50% Native American genes and it is these Mexicans that fanatical organizations alienate. In Part 1 I explained how division
and disunity caused the downfall of our people. And when you see these stupid organizations creating problems that divide
our Mexican people I want you to think just who exactly are these people serving?
Now according to our Mexican Constitution in the begining of Article
2 it reads: "La nación tiene una composición Pluricultural
sustentada originalmente en sus pueblos indigenas...". This means we are a people of 2 cultures (pluricultural), we are an
indigenous and mestizo nation because as I explained previously our ancestral women were raped and impregnated by the European
invader, and our people subjugated under European culture. But notice that the article also states that our Mexican nation
is sustained originally in it's Native American roots. This is why Mexico is still called Mexico and why our flag has the
eagle purged on a cactus devouring a snake which was the sign that the founding fathers Mexitli and Tenoch understood to be
the prophesy of where they would find their new city. But we also speak Castilian and English now instead of Nahuatl and we
have various customs and even clothing that comes from European influence. This is why in Tlatelolco there is a plaza dedicated
to the Tri-culture of Mexico called "La Plaza de las Tres Culturas." It can be said that Mexico is a trinity, we are of 3
cultures; we are now living in the 3rd. We are "Mestizos," we are not Europeans or of European descent like the U.S. but we
are not as we were before the Europeans came either. We are unique, and we try to get back to our Native American roots and
break the cultural chokehold of European influence that has ruled us for the past 500 years.
We are MEXICAN, we are the descendants of the indigenous
people of this land.
