Those embarrassed by such racist mottos argue that ethnic triumphalists in the U.S. are ossified relics of the 1960s, and have tempered their rhetoric in the 21st century. Yet ponder the following essay from Ernesto Cienfuegos on the website La Voz de Aztlan (“The Voice of Aztlan”) in the wake of the French rioting:

Today, here in Los Angeles, we are already seeing ominous signs of an impending social explosion that will make the French rebellion by Muslim and immigrant youths seem “tame” by comparison. All the ingredients are present including a hostile and racist police as in France. In fact, we came close to having major riots on three separate occasions just this year alone…. There is a strange feeling here in Los Angeles that something sinister is about to happen but no one knows when. All it will take is for a “bird-brain cop” to do something stupid and all hell will break loose. If another major rebellion breaks out here in L.A. it could rapidly spread throughout the USA as it has spread in France…. The social and economic conditions that exist in France that adversely affect its immigrant and Muslim populations also exist here in the USA…. The rebellion that is occurring in France can and will most probably happen here.

The largest Hispanic grievance association is still called the National Council of La Raza (“the Race”), a well-meaning organization that nevertheless appeals to racial solidarity and purity and therefore separatism — a clear repudiation of the idea of American multiracialism. Its nomenclature would hardly be tolerated were it not for the enormous size of the growing Hispanic community.

In a 1997 speech before this activist group, former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo bragged that “the Mexican nation extends beyond the territory enclosed by its borders” and that Mexican migrants were “an important — a very important — part of this.” A Zogby poll of Mexican citizens conducted in late May 2002 showed that 58 percent believed that “the territory of the United States’ southwest rightfully belongs to Mexico.” The national newspaper of Mexico, Excelsior, agreed: “The American Southwest seems to be slowly returning to the jurisdiction of Mexico without firing a single shot.” No wonder then that 57 percent of Mexicans in that same Zogby poll believed that they should have the right to cross the border freely and without U.S. permission.

In a recent Pew poll, 40 percent of all Mexicans expressed a desire to immigrate to the U.S. That presents an Orwellian dilemma: almost half the population of our southern neighbor wants to leave home and enter our country, while claiming that this promised land ought to be part of the very system that has made their own country uninhabitable. A parallel phenomenon exists in Europe: radical Islamists who dream of Eurabia fail to realize that, without assimilation and adoption of their hosts’ culture, they would only recreate the same discontents that prompted their departure from home in the first place.