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2/26/00 "Southwest's secession from U.S. predicted"   F.ZORETICH

"How realistic is it? That's one of the key issues," Truxillo said of his proposal. "It's not unfeasible as a premise and a realistic possibility when you consider global geopolitical trends. It could happen with the support of the U.S. government."
He listed a number of international developments that he said would have seemed "far-fetched in the 1950s," including the breakup of the Soviet Union, the breakup of Yugoslavia, the apparently imminent creation of an independent West Bank Palestinian state agreed to by Israel and ballot-box separatist movements aimed at achieving a Quebec independent of Canada. The "tide of history" is moving the U.S.-Mexico border region toward political autonomy, Truxillo said.
Why does he think there should be a new Hispanic republic? It has been suggested before. In the 1960s, during the height of Chicano activism, something similar a sovereign Hispanic homeland to be called Aztlan was proposed by Rudolfo Gonzales and others. When Truxillo was 14, he first met Reies Lopez Tijerina, leader of a group of New Mexicans who seized the courthouse in Tierra Amarilla, the Rio Arriba county seat, in 1967. It was a protest against Spanish land grants being taken by the federal government and set aside for national forests.
He said New Mexico is the first "minority-majority state" in which Hispanics and Indians and other minorities on a national level outnumber non-Hispanic whites. U.S. census estimates of New Mexico's 1998 population: 52 percent Hispanic, Indian, black and Asian; 48 percent non-Hispanic white. The Hispanic population alone was estimated at 40.3 percent. Texas is likely to become the next minority-majority state, Truxillo said, adding that Hispanics are already in the majority in the border regions of all the Southwest states, largely because of a long and continuing immigration from Mexico.

The "overwhelming bulk of Mexican immigrants are attracted by the American economic way of life," Truxillo said. "Not as attractive to them is the American cultural way of life, but they are willing to make the exchange of economic security for cultural anarchy.
"Among native-born American Hispanics, there is the feeling that we are strangers in our own land. We remain subordinated. We have a negative image of our own culture, created by the media. Self-loathing is a terrible form of oppression. The long history of oppression and subordination has to end. There has to be an alternative."
Scripps Howard News Service

10/5/00 "El Pasoans pursue Mexican nationality" D.Washington Valdez

Mexican nationality entitles someone to many of the privileges enjoyed by Mexican citizens, such as doing business or owning property in Mexico. But nationality, unlike citizenship, doesn't entitle someone to vote, run for political office or serve in the armed forces. To be eligible, a person must have been born in Mexico or must have a parent who was. Mexico has granted nationality to 1,033 people in the El Paso area since the program began in 1998, said Mexican Consul Antonio Meza. "That's not bad considering that the Los Angeles area has 7,000, while the total for the United States has reached 30,000," he said.
Velasquez said the fact that the process would not jeopardize her U.S. citizenship helped motivate her to pursue Mexican nationality. U.S. citizens who recover Mexican nationality do not take an oath and are not asked to renounce citizenship from another country. "The primary reason people give for pursuing this is to recover their Mexican nationality, and the second top reason is to facilitate conducting business," said Socorro Cordova, spokeswoman for the Mexican consul's office.

El Pasoan Elia Mares-Purdy, executive director of the World Trade Center El Paso/Juárez, obtained Mexican nationality earlier this year. Her job requires her to travel back and forth across the border almost daily. "It's a lot easier crossing into Mexico," she said. "I don't need a business visa or a tourist permit to visit the interior of Chihuahua state." Mexico's Foreign Ministry estimated that 3 million to 6 million people in the United States are eligible. Experts said the law could change the flows of people and money between the United States and Mexico and might have cross-border political repercussions.

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