They Said They Had Come to ‘Work’



The following is a contribution by outside blogger Gregory Sokoloff. Opinions expressed are solely those of Mr. Sokoloff.

At first, they were just 300. A puny number for a territory larger than France. And they tried to be as compliant and subservient to the land’s legal authorities as possible. They swore allegiance to Mexico City, they provided evidence of their good character and standing, they renounced their religions and adopted Catholicism, and tried to master at least some Spanish to be able to read government rescripts.

Neither then, nor now, did Mexico City really cotton to bilingualism.

Why did they come to Tejas, as the territory was then called, in 1822, following their leader Stephen F. Austin, who had inherited a hefty land grant on the banks of the Brazos River from his father? “To work,” was the reply. “To take care of families. To give a better future to the children.” There is absolutely no evidence that the settlers were anything but sincere.

“This is the most liberal and munificent Govt. on earth to emigrants – after being here one year you will oppose a change even to Uncle Sam,” Mr. Austin wrote to his sister about Mexican authorities in 1829. And when in 1824 Mexico adopted a new federalist constitution, under which all of its provinces were being transformed – at least on paper – into “sovereign” states, Mr. Austin traveled to Mexico City to petition the government on behalf of Tejas, which to Mr. Austin’s chagrin had been lumped together with the state of Coahuila.

The U.S. government in Washington was hardly in any expansionist mode either. In 1819, then-secretary of state John Quincy Adams and his Spanish counterpart, Luis de Onis, signed the so-called Adams-Onis Treaty, under which the United States received control of Florida but formally renounced all claims to Texas, establishing the border along the Sabine River. To be sure, there were plenty of Mexicans who viewed this flow of non-Spanish-speaking immigrants into their northern province with a jaundiced eye. But they were rebuffed by a pro-immigrant lobby, whose argument could be summed up like this: “And who’s going to plant corn and cotton, and raise cattle over there? No Mexican wants to live in this distant and inhospitable land.”

In a way, this was true. When Mr. Austin first moved in into Tejas with his 300 followers, the province’s population numbered not even 3,500 residents. But then, 300 turned into 600 and later into 3,000. New English-speaking immigrants were streaming across the border every day, and by 1834, the Tejas Anglo population had reached about 30,000 people, compared to only 7,800 residents of Mexican descent.

A new demographic — and political — reality has formed. And what seemed to be unthinkable suddenly became a distinct possibility. A possibility that was enhanced by a string of wars, coups and plots in Mexico City, which has resulted in gridlock and the government’s inability to control a faraway province. The grand paper bargain of the century, the Adams-Onis Treaty, did not make it even to its 30th anniversary, crushed by the inexorable forces of realpolitik of the time.

And Mr. Austin, come 1934, made no bones about what the determinant factor of the future of Tejas will be. “A great immigration will settle the question,” he wrote to his cousin. And it did. In 1936, Tejas became the independent Republic of Texas, which joined the American Union in 1945.

Just a trip down history lane that may, or may not, give some politicians pause — and fodder for thinking about the future.

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4 Comments

  1. avatar

    THEY CAME TO LOOT, TO OCCUPY, AND THEY DEMAND WE PAY FOR THIS OCCUPATION…!

    And we are!

    http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2011/11/looming-war-with-mexico-fighting-back.html

    Even members of Congress have splintered into race-biased groups, such as the Hispanic Caucus lead by Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a known anti-rule-of-law proponent of illegal immigration and original signatory to the unconstitutional Kennedy/McCain “comprehensive amnesty” bill proposal expected to cost taxpayers an estimated $7 to $36 trillion dollars over 30-years if approved. [5.2] (He is not alone in his disdain for the Constitution and law or anti-Americanisms, given Democratic House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s blocking of all progress on the SAVE Act, which would markedly end illegal immigration by forcing criminal employers to quit hiring illegal aliens).
    *

    In Arizona and California, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) scratched the surface of criminal overspill into the US from Mexico when they raided two dwellings to save over a hundred illegal alien kidnapped victims being held hostage by Mexican organized crime. [22.1]
    The political artifice that unsecured borders and immigration is merely a minor issue unworthy of solving by US leaders contrasts the hard reality that we are now engaged in a low level war with Mexico–a war that could escalate at any moment

  2. avatar

    EVERY ILLEGAL THAT CLIMBS OUT BORDERS ARRIVES WITH NOTHING BUT THEIR CONTEMPT FOR THESE BORDERS, OUR LAWS, ORDINANCES, FLAG, CULTURE AND LANGUAGE.

    THEY COME TO LOOT!

    AND THE LOOTING IS MADE EASY FOR THEM BY THE LA RAZA DEMS OF MEXIFORNIA!

    THERE ARE ONLY EIGHT STATES WITH A POPULATION GREATER THAN LOS ANGELES COUNTY WHERE HALF THE JOBS ARE HELD BY ILLEGALS USING STOLEN SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS!

    TO MAKE IT EVEN EASYIER TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED FOR THEIR PAYMASTERS, THE MEXIFORNIA LA RAZA DEMS PUSHED A BILL INTO LAW SIGNED BY LA RAZA GOV JERRY BROWN, MAKING IT ! ILLEGAL ! FOR EMPLOYERS TO USE E-VERIFY!

    LOS ANGELES COUNTY HAS A TAX-FREE MEXICAN ECONOMY CALCULATED TO BE ABOVE $2 BILLION PER YEAR, AND 95% OF ALL MURDERS ARE BY MEXICANS!

    REALLY WANT TO VIVA LA RAZA?

    THESE FIGURES ON WELFARE FOR ILLEGALS IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY ARE DATED. IT NOT EXCEEDS $600 MILLION PER YEAR!!! (source: Los Angeles County & JUDICIAL WATCH)
    *
    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1949085/posts

  3. avatar

    THEY CAME TO WORK, WITH A POCKET FULL OF STOLEN SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS!

    THERE ARE ONLY EIGHT STATES WITH A POPULATION GREATER THAN LOS ANGELES COUNTY, WHERE HALF THE JOBS ARE HELD BY ILLEGALS USING STOLEN SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS. THIS SAME COUNTY PAYS OUT $600 MILLION IN WELFARE TO ILLEGALS, AND HAS A TAX-FREE MEXICAN UNDERGROUND ECONOMY CALCULATED TO BE MORE THAN $2 BILLION.

    LA RAZA GETS ‘”FREE” ANCHOR BABY BIRTHING, OUR JOBS, “FREE” EMERGENCY ROOM MEDICAL, DISCOUNTS ON HIGHER EDUCATION, AND PATHWAY TO VOTING BOOTHS BY THE LA RAZA DEMS WHO FIGHT AGAINST I.D.s FOR ILLEGALS VOTING, AND NO ENGLISH ONLY!!!

    http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2011/12/la-raza-mexifornia-push-2-for-english.html

    *
    LA RAZA, THE MEXICAN FASCIST PARTY OF AMERICAN DEMONSTRATE THEIR SUPREMACY BY DEMANDING THIS NATION BECOME BILINGUAL!
    *
    “American jobs are vanishing into the Third World as corporations create a Third World in America – take note of California and other states – to date, ten million illegal aliens and growing fast.” GOV DICK LAMM of COLORADO

    THERE ARE ONLY EIGHT STATES WITH A POPULATION GREATER THAN LOS ANGELES COUNTY WHERE HALF THE WORKFORCE ARE ILLEGALS USING STOLEN SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS. THIS SAME COUNTY PUTS OUT $600 MILLION PER YEAR IN WELFARE TO ILLEGALS, HAS A TAX-FREE MEXICAN UNDERGROUND ECONOMY CALCULATED TO BE $2 BILLION PER YEAR, AND BOAST THE HIGHEST RATE OF MURDERS BY MEXICANS OF ANY COUNTY! OF THE TOP 200 MOST WANTED CRIMINALS IN LOS ANGELES, 176 ARE MEXICANS AND THE REST RUSSIANS!

    *
    PUSH 2 FOR ENGLISH?

    *
    WHERE I LIVE, ALL THE SERVICE JOBS GO TO MEXICANS WHO ONLY GRUNT AT AMERICANS (LEGALS) IN ENGLISH IF THEY HAVE TO, AND THEN TURN TO JABBER AWAY AGAIN WITH THEIR LA RAZA COWORKERS.

    IN LOS ANGELES, AT PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL OF SANTEE EDUCATIONAL COMPLEX, CLASSES ART TAUGHT IN SPANISH. BOOKS AND HANDOUTS ARE IN SPANISH. THE OVERWHELMINGLY LA RAZA STUDENT BODY SIT ON THEIR ASSES WITH THE AMERICAN NATIONAL ANTHEM IS PLAYED, AND SCHOOL ASSEMBLIES END IN VIVA MEXICO! VIVA MEXICO!
    *

    Mexico’s previous president, Vicente Fox, has boasted that Mexicans who speak Spanish in the U.S. are doing their patriotic duty (to Mexico, of course) and complained about Anglo-Saxons not getting with the globalization program fast enough.

    Well, in the 1990s, the organization’s longtime president Raul Yzaguirre declared that “US English [the organization] is to Hispanics as the Ku Klux Klan is to blacks.”
    *
    GOV DICK LAMM of COLORADO ON BILINGUAL AMERICA BY LA RAZA SUPREMACIST:

    “Here is how they do it,” Lamm said: “First, to destroy America, turn America into a bilingual or multi-li”ngual and bicultural country.”

    *
    COLORADO’S GOV DICK LAMM ( COLOARDO IS NOW 20% LA RAZA)

    DICK LAMM, GOVERNOR OF COLORADO
    Thoughts on the LA RAZA Invasion
    We know Dick Lamm as the former Governor of Colorado. In that context his thoughts are particularly poignant. Last week there was an immigration overpopulation conference in Washington, DC, filled to capacity by many of America’s finest minds and leaders. A brilliant college professor by the name of Victor Hansen Davis talked about his latest book, “Mexifornia,” explaining how immigration – both legal and illegal was destroying the entire state of California. He said it would march across the country until it destroyed all vestiges of The American Dream.

    Moments later, former Colorado Governor Richard D. Lamm stood up and gave a stunning speech on how to destroy America. The audience sat spellbound as he described eight methods for the destruction of the United States. He said, “If you believe that America is too smug, too self-satisfied, too rich, then let’s destroy! America. It is not that hard to do. No nation in history has survived the ravages of time. Arnold Toynbee observed that all great civilizations rise and fall and that ‘An autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide.'”

    “Here is how they do it,” Lamm said: “First, to destroy America, turn America into a bilingual or multi-li”ngual and bicultural country.” History shows that no nation can survive the tension, conflict, and antagonism of two or more competing languages and cultures. It is a blessing for an individual to be bilingual; however, it is a curse for a society to be bilingual. The historical scholar, Seymour Lipset, put it this way: “The histories of bilingual and bi-cultural societies that do not assimilate are histories of turmoil, tension, and tragedy.” Canada, Belgium, Malaysia, and Lebanon all face crises of national existence in which minorities press for autonomy, if not independence. Pakistan and Cyprus have divided. Nigeria suppressed an ethnic rebellion. France faces difficulties with Basques, Bretons, and Corsicans.”

    Lamm went on: Second, to destroy America, “Invent ‘multiculturalism’ and encourage immigrants to maintain their culture. I would make it an article of belief that all cultures are equal. That there are no cultural differences. I would make it an article of faith that the Black and Hispanic dropout rates are due solely to prejudice and
    discrimination by the majority. Every other explanation is out of bounds.

    Third, “We could make the United States an ‘Hispanic Quebec’ without much effort. The key is to celebrate diversity rather than unity. As Benjamin Schwarz said in the Atlantic Monthly recently: “The apparent success of our own multiethnic and multicultural experiment might have been achieved not by tolerance but by hegemony. Without the dominance that once dictated ethnocentricity and what it meant to be an American, we! are left with only tolerance and pluralism to hold us together.” Lamm said, “I would encourage all immigrants to keep their own language and culture. I would replace the melting pot metaphor with the salad bowl metaphor. It is important to ensure that we have
    various cultural subgroups living in America enforcing their differences rather than as Americans, emphasizing their similarities.”

    “Fourth, I would make our fastest growing demographic group the least educated. I would add a second underclass, unassimilated, undereducated, and antagonistic to our population. I would have this second underclass have a 50% dropout rate from high school.”

    “My fifth point for destroying America would be to get big foundations and business to give these efforts lots of money. I would invest in ethnic identity, and I would establish the cult of ‘Victimology.’ I would get all minorities to think that their lack of success was the fault of the majority. I would start a grievance industry blaming all
    minority failure on the majority population.”

    “My sixth plan for America’s downfall would include dual citizenship, and promote divided loyalties. I would celebrate diversity over unity. I would stress differences rather than similarities. Diverse people worldwide are mostly engaged in hating each other – that is, when they are not killing each other. A diverse, peaceful, or stable society is against most historical precedent. People undervalue the unity it takes to keep a nation together. Look at the ancient Greeks. The Greeks believed that they belonged to the same race; they possessed a common language and literature; and they worshipped the same gods. All Greece took part in the Olympic games. A common enemy, Persia, threatened their liberty. Yet all these bonds were not strong enough to overcome two factors: local patriotism and geographical conditions that nurtured political divisions. Greece fell. “E. Pluribus Unum” — From many, one. In that historical reality, if we put the emphasis on the ‘pluribus’ instead of the ‘Unum,’ we will balkanize America as surely as Kosovo.”

    “Next to last, I would place all subjects off limits; make it taboo to talk about anything against the cult of ‘diversity.’ I would find a word similar to ‘heretic’ in the 16th century – that stopped discussion and paralyzed thinking. Words like ‘racist’ or ‘xenophobe’ halt discussion and debate. Having made America a bilingual/bicultural country, having established multi-culturism, having the large foundations fund the! doctrine of ‘Victimology,’ I would next make it impossible to enforce our immigration laws. I would develop a mantra: That because immigration has been good for America, it must always be good. I would make every individual immigrant symmetric and ignore the cumulative impact of millions of them.”

    In the last minute of his speech, Governor Lamm wiped his brow. Profound silence followed. Finally he said,. “Lastly, I would censor Victor Hanson Davis’s book “Mexifornia.” His book is dangerous. It exposes the plan to destroy America. If you feel America. deserves to be destroyed, don’t read that book.”

    There was no applause. A chilling fear quietly rose like an ominous cloud above every attendee at the conference Every American in that room knew that everything Lamm enumerated was proceeding methodically, quietly, darkly, yet pervasively across the United States today.

    Discussion is being suppressed. Over 100 languages are ripping the foundation of our educational system and national cohesiveness. Even barbaric cultures that practice female genital mutilation are growing as we celebrate ‘diversity.’ American jobs are vanishing into the Third World as corporations create a Third World in America – take note of California and other states – to date, ten million illegal aliens and growing fast. It is reminiscent of George Orwell’s book “1984.” In that story, three slogans are engraved in the Ministry of Truth building: “War is peace,” “Freedom is slavery,” and “Ignorance is strength.”

    Governor Lamm walked back to his seat. It dawned on everyone at the conference that our nation and the future of this great democracy is deeply in trouble and worsening fast. If we don’t get this immigration monster stopped within three years, it will rage like a California wildfire and destroy everything in its path, especially The American Dream.

  4. avatar

    Add to the ‘we are only here to work’ myth the ‘we are only here to get free medical care’ truth

    Robert Menendez, Senator from New Jersey, has recently cleared immigration hurdles for the sister of Yarellis Bonilla to come to the United States to give her a bone transplant. When asked why her mother would not take her to her native El Salvador for this operation or to neighboring Mexico, a family member said it was ‘complicated’ in that the mother may not be allowed back into the USA again. Her problem is that she is an illegal alien and has no right to be here. I must question why Senator Menendez is unable to find a sick child of legal American parents to help in the most populous state in the nation of 8,791,894 citizens. Senator Menendez once again shows his true loyalty to anyone illegally here rather than to the legal citizens of this state. When I called his office, I could not receive an answer as to why he could not find a child of legal American parents to help. His office would also not tell me what this transplant will cost legal NJ citizens. My own research indicates the cost is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, not counting the free transportation of her sister to the US and back to El Salvador. His office was quick to point out that Yarellis is a US citizen , however, the 14th amendment was never written to allow illegals to grant citizenship on their children. Perhaps Senator Menendez should read the US constitution to refresh his memory as to who he is being paid to represent .