Reconquista (Mexico)
The Reconquista ("reconquest") is a term to describe an irredentist vision by different individuals, groups, and/or nations that the Southwestern United States should be politically or culturally returned to Mexico. Known as advocating a Greater Mexico, such opinions are often formed on the basis that those territories were claimed by Spain for centuries and then by Mexico from 1821 until they were annexed by the United States during the Texas Annexation (1845) and the Mexican Cession (1848) because of the Mexican–American War.[1]
For the attempted "Reconquista" of Mexico, see Spanish attempts to reconquer Mexico.Background[edit]
The term Reconquista means "reconquest" and is an analogy to the Christian Reconquista of Moorish Iberia. The areas of greatest Mexican immigration and cultural diffusion are the same as with the territories that were taken by the United States from Mexico during the 19th century.[2]
Real approaches[edit]
Early 20th century[edit]
In 1915, the capture of Basilio Ramos, an alleged supporter of the Mexican dictator Victoriano Huerta, in Brownsville, Texas, revealed the existence of the Plan of San Diego, whose goal is often interpreted to be reconquering the Southwestern United States to gain domestic support in Mexico for Huerta. However, other theories are that the plan, which included killing all white males at least 16 years old, had been created to push the US, eventually successfully, to support the rule of Venustiano Carranza, a major leader of the Mexican Revolution. Most evidence supports that the Plan of San Diego was by anarchists and intended for independence of only South Texas, not all of the Southwestern United States, for an anarchist political system.
In 1917, according to the intercepted Zimmermann Telegram, Germany, in exchange for Mexico joining it as an ally against the United States during World War I, was ready to assist Mexico to "reconquer" its lost territories of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. There is no evidence that the Mexican government ever seriously considered it. The telegram's disclosure promoted anti-Mexican sentiment and was a major factor in the US declaring war on Germany.[23]
Modern[edit]
For Chicano nationalists in the 1960s, the term was not used, but many often felt that "Aztlán" should undergo cultural revival and expansion.[24]
In the late 1990s to the early 2000s, as US census data showed that the population of Mexican Americans in the Southwestern United States had increased, and the term was popularized by contemporary intellectuals in Mexico, such as Carlos Fuentes, Elena Poniatowska, and President Vicente Fox,[8][16][25] who spoke of Mexican immigrants maintaining their culture and Spanish language in the United States as they migrated in greater numbers to the area.
In March 2015, at the midst of the War in Ukraine, when the US was planning on supporting Ukraine to fight against Russia, Dukuvakha Abdurakhmanov, the speaker of the Chechen Parliament, threatened to arm Mexico against the United States and questioned the legal status of the territories of California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming.[26]