Aztlan is a concept born in America, I'm not sure who originally dreamed it up. My guess is Corky Gonzalez's "Crusade for Justice" bunch in 1960's Denver. There was a a big conference there in or about 1968 which greatly influenced the Texas and California groups, I believe the idea spread out from there.
It was Gutierrez and some of his buddies who originally approached Mexican President Echavarria in the late 60's or early 70's seeking his assistance on either creating the new state of Aztlan or failing that, restoring the US / Mexican borders to what it had been in something like 1823. I believe the Mexican government didn't have the idea before then.
There was some resistance to the meeting. I believe Gonzalez objected because of Echavarria's role in the 1968 Tlateloco student massacre, Tijera was involved with his land title obsession, and Cesar Chavez wasn't going to have anything to do with it until the Mexican government held back the illegal entrants who were breaking his strikes.
The American born group was an embarrassing assemblage in Mexican eyes. Brown skinned people with Spanish last names who couldn't construct a sentence in Spanish, and one of the group even pointed to a picture on a Mexican war hero (of the Mexican American war) and commented that it was a great picture of Santa Anna, an unintended insult. However, Gutierrez has been in contact ever since, and there has been an official Mexican liaison to what became the NCLR since those times.
Even though he is an old man now, Gutierrez is a brilliant strategist and planner - don't ever underestimate him or those who learned from him. Even though much of it it ended up crashing, his takeover of the local governments and school district in and including Zavala County in Texas is the model for what has been quietly happening across the country over the last forty years.
Where can I find the original quote about killing the gringo, where it happened, who witnessed it? I have no doubt he said it, I haven't been able to find the original occurrence.
Quote:
Q: “How are Mexican immigrants of today different from Mexican immigrants of decades ago?”
GUTIERREZ:” They are different in one salient aspect…they are keeping their Mexicanness. ..The Mexicanos that are coming today, even though they are political refugees and migrants returning to their homeland, are keeping their Mexicanness … They are recreating Mexico here. I think they are doing it because of the sheer numbers. …”
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The difference is that before the Civil rights movement, most Mexicans told their American children that they needed to forget about speaking Spanish and become a part of America. However, for any of those people to become acceptable and successful in America they had to change their name, which is why Richard Valenzuela became Richie Valens. They generally couldn't eat in "white" restaurants, it was clear that the brown man worked for the white man and not the other way around.
No one can tell me it wasn't that way, there is memory of it in my house.
Then the 60's happened, and the pendulum has been forced to swing the other way, with kids who have no idea who Nixon and Johnson were -architects of affirmative action - carrying on as if pre 1960 white racism was their own experience.
The civil rights movement was to bring about equality, not exchange one racial pecking order for another or throw out the melting pot for the "salad bowl". Therefore every form and source of racism needs to be addressed, the issue of illegal immigration resolved, we need to reclaim our schools for the purpose of education rather than a fount of political and racial agenda, and we - regardless of race or ancestral origin, need to become one people as Americans.