LOS ANGELES, MEXICO ?

Many Hispanic activists, Mexican citizens and perhaps even members of the Mexican government refuse to accept the legality of our 1845 annexation of Texas, the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo after the Mexican-American War, or the 1852 Gadsden Purchase, says Investor's Business Daily (IBD).

One of these activists is Charles Trujillo, a professor at the University of New Mexico:

He predicts a new, sovereign Hispanic nation within this century encompassing much of the American southwest and part of northern Mexico.

States have the right to secede under our original Articles of Confederation, he contends, and this will be accomplished by the electoral pressure of future majority Hispanic populations in these states.

Another is the Hispanic student activist group known as MECHa, an acronym for Movimento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan):

It claims that California, Arizona, Mexico, Texas and southern Colorado were stolen and should be returned to their rightful owners, the people of Mexico, under the name "Nation of Aztlan." Aztlan is the mythical place where the Aztecs are said to have originated.

Few caught the significance of the words of then-Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo before the National Council of La Raza in Chicago on July 27, 1997: "I have proudly affirmed that the Mexican nation extends beyond the territory enclosed by its borders."

Current President Vicente Fox repeated this line during a 2001 visit to the United States, when he called for open borders and endorsed Mexico's new dual citizenship law.

A June 2002 Zogby poll found that the majority of Mexican citizens agree with him and hold the view that, since the Southwest United States really belongs to Mexico, they do not need permission to enter. The poll found that 58 percent of Mexicans agreed with the statement, "The territory of the United States' Southwest rightfully belongs to Mexico."
Source: Editorial, "Los Angeles, Mexico," Investor's Business Daily, May 5, 2005.