The Homeland, Aztlan/El otro Mexico The Homeland, Aztlan/ El otro MExico El destierro/The Lost Land In 1846, the U.S. incited Mexico to war. U.S. troops invaded and occupied Mexico, forcing her to give up almost half of her no sabe el indio que bacer nation, what is now Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and California la tieme que defender, With the victory of the U.S. forces over the Mexican in the el indio se cae muerto U.S.Mexican War, los norteamericanos pushed the Texas yel afuerino de pie. border down 100 miles, from el ro nueces to el rio grande South Texas ceased to be part of the mexican state of Tamauli- pas. Separated from Mexico, the Native Mexican-Texan no Arauco tiene un4 pena longer looked toward Mexico as home; the Southwest became mas negra que su che our homeland once more. The border fence that divides th y4 no son los espaiole Mexican people was born on February 2, 1848 with the signing of los que les bacen llorar, the Treaty of Guadalupe- Hidalgo. It left 100,000 Mexican citi boy son los propios chilenos zens on this side, annexed by conquest along with the land. The and established by the treaty as belonging to Mexicans was soon swindled away from its owners. The treaty was never honored violeta parra, "Arauco tiene una per and restitution, to this day, has never been made In the 1800s, Anglos migrated illegally into Texas, which The justice and benevolence of God was then part of Mexico, in greater and greater numbers and will forbid that . Texas should again gradually drove the tejanos(native Texans of Mexican descent) become a howling wilderness from their lands, committing all manner of atrocities against trod only by savages, or.. benighted them. Their illegal invasion forced Mexico to fight a war to keep its Texas territory. The Battle of the Alamo, in which the mexi- by the ignorance and superstition the anarchy and rapine of Mexican misrul can forces vanquished the whites, became for the whites, the The Anglo-American race are destined symbol for the cowardly and villainous character of the Mexicans rever the proprietors It became (and still is)a symbol that legitimized the white this land of promise and fulfillment imperialist takeover. With the capture of Santa Anna later in Their laws will govern it 1836, Texas became a republic. Tejanos lost their land and their learning will enlighten it overnight, became the foreigners heir enterprise will improve it. ge its boundless pastures Ya la mitad del terreno for them its fertile lands will yield les vendio el traidor santa luxuriant harvests lo ha becho muy m The wilderness of Texas has been redeem la nacion americana by Anglo-American blood enterprise Que acaso no se conforman -William H. Wharton' on el oro de las minas? Ustedes muy elegante The gi locked into the fiction of white si y4q4〃0『 otros en rune5, ed complete political power, stripping Indians and Mexica their land while their feet were still rooted in it. Con el Del peligro de la Intervention destierro y el exilo fuimos deswnados, destroncados, destri
The Homeland, Aztlan/El otro Mexico The Homeland, Aztlan/EI otro Mexic re were jerked out by the roots, truncated, disembo- In the 1930s, after Anglo agribusiness corporations cheated nd se om our identity and the small Chicano landowners of their land, the corporations history. Many, under the threat of Anglo terrorism, abandoned hired gangs of mexicanos to pull out the brush, chaparral and cactus and to irrigate the desert. The land they toiled over had tested. But as the courts, law enforcement officials, and govern- once belonged to many of them, or had been used communally by ly ignored their pleas but penalize eir efforts, tejanos had no other recourse but armed retaliation and had the Mexicans scrape the land clean of natural vegetation robbed a train Brownsville, Texas on October 18, 1915, Anglo vigilante groups land cleared; saw the huge pipes connected to underwater sources the brush and shoot them. One hundred Chicanos were killed in ai those canals when they were full and hunt for e g in some of when they were dry. In the 1950s I saw the land, cut up into to Mexico, leaving their small ranches and farms. The anglos, thousands of neat rectangles and squares, constantly being irri- fraid that the mexicanos would seek independence from the gated In the 340-day growth season, the seeds of any kind of fruit U.S., brought in 20,000 army troops to put an end to the social or vegetable had only to be stuck in the ground in order to grow protest movement in South Texas. Race hatred had finally More big land corporations came in and bought up the remaining fomented into an all out war. 11 My grandmother lost all her cattle, To make a living my father became a sharecropper. Rio they stole her land. Farms Incorporated loaned him seed money and living expenses At harvest time, my father repaid the loan and forked over 40% Drought hir South Texas, "my mother tells me."La of the earnings. Sometimes we earned less than we owed, but se puso bien seca y los animales comenzdron a morrirse de se, M always the corporations fared well. Some had major holdings in ocbo bwercos, with eight kids and one on the way. Yo fui la gether ole trucking, livestock auctions and cotton gins. Alto- papa se mario de un heart attack dejando a mama pregnant y con lived on three successive Rio farms: the second was mayor, tenia diez anos. The next year the drought continued el adjacent to the King Ranch and included a dairy farm; the third ganado got hoof and mouth. Se calleron in droves en las pastas y was a chicken farm. I remember the white feathers of three el brushland, pe blancas ballooning to the skies. El siguient thousand Leghorn chickens blanketing the land for acres around. afo still no rain, Mi pobre madre viuda perdio two-thirds of her My sister, mother and I cleaned, weighed and packaged eggs. (For ganado. A smart gabacbo lawyer took the land away mamahadn't years afterwards I couldn,'t stomach the sight of an egg. )I paid taxes. No hablaba ingles, she didn't know how to ask for remember my mother attending some of the meetings sponsored time to raise the money. "My father's mother, Mama Locha, also by well-meaning whites from Rio Farms. They talked about good lost her terreno. For a while we got $12.50 a year for the"mineral nutrition, health, and held huge barbeques. The only thing rights"of six acres of cemetery, all that was left of the ancestral lands. Mama Locha had asked that we bury her there beside her food canning and a food-stained book they printed made up of husband. EL cemeterio estaba cercado. But there was a fence recipes from Rio Farms' Mexican women. How proud my around the cemetery, chained and padlocked by the ranch owners mother was to have her recipe for enchiladas coloradas in a book. f the surrounding land. We couldn 't even get in to visit the ch less bury her there. Today, it is sti E l adlocke sign reads: Keep out. Trespassers will be shot ' Abora si ya tengo un tumba para llora upon being reu with