Amnesty and Historical Guilt: the Mexican-American War

POSTED BY: Jongsstraw
UPDATED: Thursday, March 6, 2025 13:53
VIEWED: 1959
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JONGSSTRAW

Monday, June 3, 2013 5:38 PM

June 2, 2013

By John Bennett

Aren't many illegal immigrants just retaking land that was stolen from Mexico? A recent CBS report suggested exactly that. Several historians I spoke with are concerned by the notion that amnesty is justified by the Mexican-American War (1846-48), and rightly so.

Land, race, nation, and historical grievance are powerful forces that pro-amnesty Republicans have utterly failed to take seriously.

Some Mexicans see the American southwest as land stolen from them, and that attitude is not conducive to assimilation.

To see this attitude at work, consider the CBS report on the Mexican-American War, which concluded with a statement that troubled several historians. Speaking to CBS about that war, Yale historian Amy Greenberg said, "A lot of [American] people live in land that was taken from Mexico in this war and they're not aware of that."

She added, "I believe a lot of the immigration debate that's going on now operates in a vacuum where people are not realizing that in fact Mexicans are here in land that once belonged to Mexico."

I asked professor Greenberg if she thought that people should become more supportive of amnesty, after taking that history into account. She replied,"I don't know what the effect of a more historically informed discussion would be on the views of individuals debating immigration reform, but the effects of the lack of historical context are glaringly obvious -- highly polarized views and little common ground."

When I pressed Greenberg as to what outcome that "informed discussion" should have, she did not reply.

Historian Douglas Richmond tells me that Greenberg's remarks imply something deeply political: that America wrongly took Mexican land and thus we shouldn't be opposed to amnesty, an idea he rejects.

Richmond is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Texas at Arlington, and author of The Mexican Nation: Historical Continuity and Modern Change. Richmond says, "While there is little doubt among most historians of Mexico that Polk provoked a war with Mexico to grab the southwest, that in no way justifies an amnesty program."

"I see no reason why our past aggression necessitates an amnesty bill. Why should the current generation pay for the sins of an older generation?" he asked.

Another historian, professor John Pinheiro of Aquinas College, believes that Greenberg's comments were "too simplistic": "Mexico's government could not get its citizens to move to its northern frontier, which is why in the 1820s it began giving land to Americans who were willing to settle there. In the meantime, successive coups and rebellions had left California virtually autonomous."

Pinheiro disagrees with Professor Greenberg's key assertions, like the claim that the Mexican-American War was "the first war that is fought for greed rather than principle in American history," and that it "was the first [American] war that was started with a presidential lie."

Pinheiro asserts, "What labeling [President Polk's] land claims a knowing lie does is obscure the fact that Mexico wanted war with the United States because it (and the rest of the world) thought it could easily win one."

Nevertheless, there is a version of history that portrays white, European Americans as villains and thieves of Mexican land. According to a Tucson, Arizona teacher who blew the whistle on La Raza ethnic studies courses, La Raza teaches children that "white teachers" do not want Hispanics to get ahead in life, and "that the Southwestern United States was taken from Mexicans because of the insatiable greed of the Yankee who acquired his values from the corrupted ethos of Western civilization."

The president has also offered a controversial vision of this history. In a 2010 speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, President Obama stated:

Long before America was even an idea, this land

GEEZER

Monday, June 3, 2013 6:08 PM

And I want Britain back from those Norman bastards.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

JONGSSTRAW

Monday, June 3, 2013 9:52 PM

Price of Kahlua would certainly drop significantly. Long live Black and White Russians!!

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Monday, June 3, 2013 10:49 PM

yeah, who needs thoughtful discussion when you can shout platitudes

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT

Tuesday, June 4, 2013 12:06 AM

Well, hey, does this, or does this not, evoke any similarity to the Israelis and the Palestinians?

GEEZER

Tuesday, June 4, 2013 1:57 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
yeah, who needs thoughtful discussion when you can shout platitudes

Oh, come on. Mike hasn't posted to this thread yet.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

SIGNYM

Tuesday, June 4, 2013 3:51 AM

Quote:
Well, hey, does this, or does this not, evoke any similarity to the Israelis and the Palestinians?

If Mexicans are so sensitive about stolen land, maybe they should give up everywhere south of the border back to the indigenous peoples.

There is a strong undercurrent of resentment, anger, and lack of desire to assimilate on the part of many Spanish-speaking "immigration activists". I attended a party once, a friend of our daughter's whose family either spoke only Spanish (elder generation) or were comfortably bilingual (middle generation) or primarily english-speaking (youngest generation). The family was more than comfortable to speak entirely in Spanish, leaving us... their daughter's guests.. isolated at the table. RUDE?? ENTITLED? RESENTFUL? You effing bet! I waited for an hour to see how long they'd keep it up. It wasn't until I tried out my few Spanish words that they opened up and spoke English. Because, in their minds, they SHOULDN'T have to speak English until I made the proper obeisiances to their national identity. Which, you'll notice, wasn't the USA's.

When my dad was bounced from country to country, he learned the language of every nation he was in. It's not illegal immigrants that bother me, per se, it's immigrants who arrive with entitlement and attitude and resentment. Who the frak needs that?

SIGNYM

Tuesday, June 4, 2013 2:07 PM

Apparently, I'm the only one who sees this.

HERO

Tuesday, June 4, 2013 3:28 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Jongsstraw:
Let's just give it all back to Mexico.

Mexico claimed what is now the American southwest, but the land was never more then sparsly populated and the Mexican govt exercised little authority over it. Let's face it, once they lost Texas, the rest was sure to go.

The land was not stolen either. Most of it was won. Texas won its independence, so Texas is no more rightfully Mexican then India, the United States, and most of the world is British. So Texas is out. As for the remainder, a small portion was legally purchased (the Gadsden Purchase, 1853). Assuming we return the lands won in war, that would leave a strip of land along the existing border that was legally purchased still under our control. Perhaps Mexico would repurchase that land, although at present market value...they could not afford it.

As for the land taken in war, the war was a legal declared war between both powers with internationally recognized casus belli on both sides. I note for the record that it was a Democratic President, James K. Obama (Polk) who wanted that land as part of his westward exansion goals. The Texas War of Independence ended and there was a dispute over the border. The Texians claimed the Rio Grande per Santa Anna's orginal agreement, the Mexicans claimed a river further north and prepared a military invasion to settle the issue. The US sent military forces to defend Texas. On April 25, 1846 2,000 Mexican cavarly entered Texas and attacked 70 US soldiers. This attack along with Mexican rejection of peaceful US efforts to end the dispute including purchasing the disputed land led Polk to ask for a declaration of war.

"Mexico has passed the boundary of the United States, has invaded our territory and shed American blood upon American soil." James Polk (1846).

In many ways the war was a direct result of internal Mexican politcs. The Presidency changed hands numerous times during this period and the war itself was used by Santa Ann to regain power.

In short the Mexicans started the war, lost the war, and now are pretending to be the victims. It would be like the Nazis complaining about how they were abused by the allies or the Japs saying that they were the victimized party after they both started the wars they lost.

My answer to Mexico and Mexicans on the issue of restoring the 'stolen lands' is simple. Come and take them. If you can, you deserve them, if you can't be prepared to lose more of your country.

I would love to visit the new American States of Reaganvania, Bushland, and New Texas. To be fair...American conquest would probably be better for all the people living there anyway.

H

Hero...must be right on all of this. ALL of the rest of us are wrong. Chrisisall, 2012

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT

Tuesday, June 4, 2013 7:53 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Well, hey, does this, or does this not, evoke any similarity to the Israelis and the Palestinians?
If Mexicans are so sensitive about stolen land, maybe they should give up everywhere south of the border back to the indigenous peoples.

There is a strong undercurrent of resentment, anger, and lack of desire to assimilate on the part of many Spanish-speaking "immigration activists". I attended a party once, a friend of our daughter's whose family either spoke only Spanish (elder generation) or were comfortably bilingual (middle generation) or primarily english-speaking (youngest generation). The family was more than comfortable to speak entirely in Spanish, leaving us... their daughter's guests.. isolated at the table. RUDE?? ENTITLED? RESENTFUL? You effing bet! I waited for an hour to see how long they'd keep it up. It wasn't until I tried out my few Spanish words that they opened up and spoke English. Because, in their minds, they SHOULDN'T have to speak English until I made the proper obeisiances to their national identity. Which, you'll notice, wasn't the USA's.

When my dad was bounced from country to country, he learned the language of every nation he was in. It's not illegal immigrants that bother me, per se, it's immigrants who arrive with entitlement and attitude and resentment. Who the frak needs that?

I sympathize with this.

I think, perhaps, that there is a change in the immigration situation. During the last big waves of immigration: the Irish, the Eastern Europeans and Jews in the early 1900's, they came and intended to stay. Or at least, things behind were so bad, they never intended to return to their homelands. And relocating back would have been expensive and difficult. So they assimilated, and changed the American culture.

It seems to me that a lot of current Latin American immigration is more of a guest worker situation: come here, work a while, grab up a bunch of American dollars, then return home to live well. I have worked with several Mexican guys who were doing that. Assimilation is not the goal. That might mean taking advantage of short term benefits available here, but they're not really putting down permanent roots here. Their children, those DREAM kids, might be-- how can they go back to living the rural Latin American life style that they know nothing about?

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