After all, the White Man has been pissing, spitting and shitting on Montezuma's people for centuries.

And although they've done it under the guise of God, honor and justice, it was done – and still is being done – under the lies of hypocrisy, greed and exploitation.

It started in 1519 when the Spanish Conquistadors arrived in Mexico and encountered the Aztec civilization ruled by Montezuma. Within two years, Montezuma was dead and the surviving Aztecs (more accurately called the Mexicas), were turned into second-class citizens.

The great city of Tenochtitlan was destroyed and Mexico City was built in its place.
The ancient language of Nahuatl was abolished and replaced with Spanish.
And the Aztec religion where they worshiped the Sun God Huitzilopochtli was replaced with Catholicism (not a bad idea considering thousands were sacrificed to keep the Sun God happy).

But unlike the English settlers of North America, the Spanish largely intermarried and created families with the Aztecs. Those families that retained a purer European bloodline, remained with the gold and the power.

And those families that retained a purer Aztecan bloodline, remained second-class citizens, mired in poverty with little education opportunities.

Nevertheless, after a couple of generations, they were all Mexicans. And Mexico, at the time, was twice the size of what it is today, stretching up to what is now California, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Utah.

But in the 1840s, the Manifest Destiny gave the U.S. Government a “God-given right” to seize those states from Mexico. After all, isn’t God always on our side?

About 80,000 Mexicans were living in those states at the time, as they had been doing for several generations. They were allowed to become citizens and were promised that they would be allowed to keep their land. But by the end of the 19th century, either through force or fraud, their land was stolen from them.

The abuse continued through the 1940s with the Zoot Suit riots in Los Angeles, when American soldiers would drive into the Mexican community to attack Mexican-American men, ripping off their suits and burning them in the streets. When police arrived, they would arrest the Mexican-American for disturbing the peace.

And it continued in 1954 with Operation Wetback, in which the Border Patrol made regular sweeps of Mexican-American communities, arresting and harassing anyone who looked too Mexican.

And it continued in the 1960s, which resulted in Cesar Chavez standing up to the White Man and forming the United Farm Workers union.

And it continues today with politicians wanting to turn millions of hard-working Mexicans into felons overnight.

As a Colombian-American who was born and raised in Miami, before spending seven years in the Southwest United States where I worked as a journalist, I see this current sentiment against illegal immigration as another example of repression against the poor people of Mexico.

Those same people whose ancestors inhabited the Southwest United States centuries before the Europeans came ashore.
Those same people who lived in the Southwest United States before it even belonged to the United States.
Those same people who introduced the Aztec words, “taco” and “chocolate” into our language.
And those same people who have fought on the American side in every war since WW I.

Now that I am back in Miami, where more than fifty percent of the population is foreign-born, many who are here illegally, the hypocrisy of the situation is even more glaring.

Since my return before the 2004 presidential election, I have yet to see a Border Patrol Agent despite the fact that there are thousands of illegal immigrants from South and Central America here. Why do you think there was no large-scale protest here this weekend?

The fact that the Cubans are allowed to remain here legally would make it very difficult to decide who is allowed to stay and who shall be deported. It would turn into a disaster. And it would probably cause Miami’s economy to collapse.

Not that Miami hasn’t gone through its anti-immigration phases. The 1960s and 1970s were a very divisive time between Hispanics and Anglos down here. Considering that my mother was born in Colombia and my dad was born in Virginia, I could see and understand both sides of the issue. And I still do.

But because my dad married a Colombian woman and settled in Miami, the rest of his family in Virginia shunned him (except my grandmother, who was also living in Miami). My mother’s side, on the other hand, welcomed the green-eyed gringo into the family.

As a result, I’ve always considered my true family to be the ones living in South America. My cousins and uncle from my father’s side didn’t want much to do with a brown-eyed, half-breed like me, not that I ever lost sleep over it.

Fortunately, most of Miami’s xenophobes left a long time ago. The Anglos that live here today accept and immerse themselves in the city’s Latin culture. It’s not a perfect city, far from it, but we have moved beyond xenophobia.

But unfortunately, the rest of the country hasn’t.

Just keep in mind that before there was a U.S. Constitution, there was a small Mexican town on the west coast called Nuestra Señora la Reina de Los Angeles Porciuncula, where yesterday, more than a half-million people took to the streets in protest.

If I was still living in Southern California, I would have been marching by their side in downtown Los Angeles.

So to that small-minority of Mexican-Americans on DU, I salute you and your people. Your people have always welcomed me into their homes and culture. I raise a Tecate in your direction. And I follow it with a Cuervo shot.

Estoy contigo en la lucha.

Post here and tell me who you are, even if you’re just a lurker.

And to the rest of DU, I ask: Isn’t it about time we allow the Mexicans to share this stolen land with us?