And for months now, Mexicans have been posting variations of this joke on social media in response.
That's what your MesaZona blogger loves about Mexicans - their sense of humor.
Admittedly yours truly has both a re-VISIONist view where we need to look back at history [here in Mesa before the arrival of the Mormon 'pioneers' in the 1850's] and another forward-looking vision where a 6% sub-culture learns to share the power with the other 94% of the population, about half of whom are dis-engaged in local politics.
First, back to a recent article in Vox about border history
Mexican Twitter’s counterproposal to Trump: Make Arizona Mexico Again!
Updated by Dara Lind on May 10, 2016, 1:50 p.m. ET
For those of you who don't have Spanish as a second "foreign" language, the text reads (translated figuratively):
WE SUPPORT DONALD TRUMP: YES TO THE BORDER WALL
WE'LL HAPPILY SEND YOU THE PLANS
DON'T WORRY, MEXICO WILL PAY FOR IT.
WHEN WILL THE PRE-CONSTRUCTION EVICTIONS START?
"The point, of course (to belabor the joke), is that the US-Mexico border that Donald Trump and others treat as inviolable has actually shifted substantially over time — and the very places where Americans today are most liable to imagine an "invasion" of immigrants in fact belonged to Mexico long before they ever belonged to America.
Because the meme goes all the way back to when Mexico was still a colony of Spain, though, it actually misses the point when Mexico really could have used a wall. This is what the US-Mexico border looked like in 1826, a few years after Mexico won its independence from Spain:[image to the right]
You'll notice that "New Mexico" is still part of original Mexico. So are Arizona, California, and, crucially, Texas.
Historic Map of Arizona and New Mexico.
[nearly all marked locations have Spanish place-names]
Permission details: This media file is in the public domain in the United States.
This applies to U.S. works where the copyright has expired, often because its first publication occurred prior to January 1, 1923. See this page for further explanation. This image might not be in the public domain outside of the United States; this especially applies in the countries and areas that do not apply the rule of the shorter term for US works, such as Canada, Mainland China (not Hong Kong or Macao), Germany, Mexico, and Switzerland. The creator and year of publication are essential information and must be provided. See Wikipedia:Public domain and Wikipedia:Copyrights for more details.
 | This media file is in the public domain in the United States. This applies to U.S. works where the copyright has expired, often because its first publication occurred prior to January 1, 1923. See this page for further explanation. |  |
 | This image might not be in the public domain outside of the United States; this especially applies in the countries and areas that do not apply the rule of the shorter term for US works, such as Canada, Mainland China (not Hong Kong or Macao), Germany, Mexico, and Switzerland. The creator and year of publication are essential information and must be provided. See Wikipedia:Public domain and Wikipedia:Copyrights for more details. |
The Arizona dynamic: white newcomers freaking out about Latino long-timers
. . . Journalist Bryan Curtis pointed this out in a Daily Beast column in 2010, when Arizona was in the throes of controversy about its immigration-crackdown bill (known as Senate Bill 1070), championed by then-Gov. Jan Brewer [and introduced by Mesa Mormon Russell Pearce]
Blogger's note: like Russell Pearce, former governor Evan Mecham was recalled out-of-office by Arizona voters not only for his racial discrimination but also for corruption while in office]
Senate Bill 1070 is often seen as an outgrowth of Mexican migration. But Arizona has a parallel migration narrative: one of Anglo migrants who came for the hot weather and golf courses, and, in many cases, brought along their conservative politics. Evan Mecham, the governor who canceled the state’s Martin Luther King holiday in 1987, was an arriviste from Utah. John McCain didn’t make it to Phoenix until he was in his 40s. Jan Brewer, a California native, relocated to the Phoenix suburbs with her husband, a chiropractor, in the 1970s. . . So Brewer’s blasts are, in one sense, correct. Arizona has suffered an "invasion."Valley settlement: The traditional story
The early history
"Swilling and Smith noted long mounds of earth leading from the river to flat areas of the valley floor," according to the tale. "Weed - covered and unexplained, they intrigued Smith and Swilling, who finally concluded they must have been man-made. The only reasonable deduction was that they had been the banks of canals constructed by some vanished civilization for irrigation purposes.
". . . Once they had realized some former tenants of the land had made the desert bloom, they determined to do the same. Smith supplied the business brains . . .Swilling was the promoter."
Geoffrey P. Mawn, who has a doctorate in U.S. history from Arizona State University, has done extensive research on the early settlement of the Valley and he has expressed doubt about the Swilling and Smith relationship. Writing in an article published in the autumn 1977 issue of Arizona and the West, Mawn said:
"While writers continually link John Smith and Jack Swilling with hay camp visits or work relationships during the spring or summer of 1867, no contemporary evidence exists to document the whereabouts of Smith during this time period."
Mawn said Smith - John Y.T. Smith after the Territorial Legislature approved a bill adding the initials Y. T. to his name-''probably coordinated the civilian work forces harvesting wild hay (for the army) along the Salt between February and June of 1866."
In July 1866 Smith worked as a wagon master at the army depot in Tucson and later was released, Mawn said. Between then and January 1868, when Smith was the ferryman at the McDowell Crossing north of present-day Mesa on the Salt River, Mawn could find no facts on Smith's whereabouts.
The 1883 newspaper article may have been correct when it said Smith was at the hay camp in the spring of 1867. But Swilling couldn't have worked for Smith for more than a year if he ever worked for him at all.
Swilling in 1866 managed a quartz mill, took part in an expedition into eastern Arizona and delivered mail, a job he held until the spring of 1867. In August and October he was reported as having "fine" and "excellent" crops on his farm aside the Hassayampa River outside Wickenburg.
From these events, all recorded in the Arizona Miner, it seem apparent that Swilling didn't work for Smith. Nor did Smith supply "the business brains" when Swilling promoted the irrigation company that led to the start of the first successful ditch in December 1867....
The Swilling Irrigating and Canal Co. was organized Nov. 16, 1867, at Wickenburg.
Article I adopted by the organizers said the company had formed "for the purpose of taking the water from the channel of Salt River at a point claimed and located by J. W. Swilling & Co., Nov. 11, 1867. . ."
"Swilling& Co." consisted of Swilling, Charles C. Clusker, Fred Henry, Joseph H. Davis, James Smith, Henry Wickenburg, Darrell Duppa and Thomas McGoldrick. They formed themselves into the Planters Irrigating Co.
The point they claimed on the river was as follows:
"Commencing opposite the Buttes on Salt River, at a big rock about two miles above the point known as the Hay Camp and about 25 miles above the junction of the Gila and Salt rivers."
The buttes were on the south side of the Salt River at the future site of Tempe. The hay camp could have been John Smith's.
Besides claiming "all the waters of Salt River or as much thereof as may be necessary, for milling, mining, farming and irrigating purposes," they also claimed the right of way ''to an ancient acequia" to its end.
Source: http://www.apcrp.org/SWILLING,%20Jack/The_Swilling_Legacy.htm#_Toc143211635Another source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Arizona
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