165
Years of Internal Colonialism in the Southwest:
Decolonize
Now!
February
2, 1848, marks the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo with
Mexico, the United States 'occupied' the Southwest United States
(otherwise referred as AZTLAN) since for 165 years, the treaty ending
the US War against Mexico. It was the first U.S. expansionist war.
The northern territories of Mexico became the new U.S. Southwest of
today. In the everyday oral history of our people this was passed on
through generations as the story of 'nos
robaron las tierras',
they stole our lands. Whose land was stolen?
The
land is the land, the original peoples lived on the land under a
co-existing balance with nature, no one person owned the land. The
land, belong to all who lived on it. The Europeans, Spanish as far
as Mexico is concerned, occupied by military force, terror and
violence the 'Americas' calling Mexico New Spain. Under their own
invention called 'Right of Discovery' they justified genocide and the
forceful removal of the original peoples in oder to occupy the land
and transform it into 'private property'.
Starting
in 1492, the Spanish Empire their terror and occupation of the
Caribbean, Santo Domingo, Puerto Rico, and Cuba. Extending the
occupation of what is now Mexico, from 1521 to 1821, 300 years of
'colonial rule' based on Monarchy system. This expansion of colonial
rule brought Florida, New Orleans, Mississippi River and the US South
under Spanish rule for hundreds of years, or French, English Dutch
imperialists settler colonialists. Thus the Southwest, the South of
the United States today share more common history of genocide,
racism, colonial occupation and oppressive rule, plantation work,
slavery, and war than we do under the rule and occupation by the
United States. Approximately 300 years of colonial rule and
oppression under the monarchical empires, and 165 years under US rule
for Southwest, and 148 years for South African Americans since
emancipation from slavery. Streets and plazas named after the
assassin Ponce de Leon can be found from San Juan, Santo Domingo, to
Florida and Georgia amongst other places and cities.
We
share, Native American Indians, Indigenous, Mexicans (and Puerto
Ricans in diaspora) and African Americans, a status of internal
colonial subjects. As colonial subjects we exists in a culture and
politics of oppression where like Puerto Rico we have a status of
'belonging to but not a part of' the United States. Indian removal,
massacres and the forced confinement in 'reservations', another name
for 'federalized' concentration camps, continues as policy and
practice up to today. The Mexican removal laws, under the umbrella
of immigration turned inhabitants of these lands into 'undocumented'
migrants. To make the divide as permanent as possible the US
government has 'walled' the US-Mexico border and militarized it with
equipment and military, federal agents, homeland security and local
law enforcement officers and 'deported' or force removal of millions
of people annually resulting in hundreds who die crossing the border,
while the US has an open border with Canada. The African Americans,
brought from Africa and other regions by forced removal and
enslavement under terror and forced labor, finally achieved their
dream of freedom from slavery, but live under a 'Jim Crow' apartheid
racism based on color of the skin, Black as inferior and whites as
superior race. The Puerto Rico diaspora in US is a result of forced
displacement due to colonial policies in Puerto Rico and labor
demands by United States.
