Alaska Sounds like Aztlan -- Secessionists Go Mainstream

By Roberto Lovato, New America Media. Posted September 11, 2008.

Sarah Palin's repetition (5 times) of the word "Alaska," her home state, during her acceptance speech last night may actually have sounded to some Latinos like "Aztlan," the mythical homeland of the Aztecs. If Lou Dobbs and other political prognosticators are right, Latinos' interpretation of the Republican vice presidential nominee's references to her home state were not simply the product of bad English-to-Spanish translation (Spanish language media's payback for years of garbled, sometimes horrific, Spanish-to-English translations in mainstream media, perhaps?), but something else, something much more nefarious: the mainstreaming of secessionist sentiments.

Palin's personal connections to the Alaska Independence Party (AIP), which has, since 1978 sought the Last Frontier states' separation from these United States, have brought state secessionist sentiments onto the national political stage like no candidate since Alexander Stephens and his Confederate President Jefferson Davis' did in the lead up to the civil war. Palin and her husband, Todd, the "First Dude," may well have their greatest appeal among Latinos in the south-western United States if we are to believe Lou Dobbs, Michelle Malkin, Pat Buchannan and many other conservative commentators and politicians who rail daily against what they believe is the upcoming conflict sparked by Latinos' lust to reclaim their former land.

Just a week before Palin's speech, for example, a videotape was released in which New York Congressional candidate Jack Davis decried how "in the latter part of this century or the next, Mexicans will be a majority in many of the states, and could therefore take control of the state government using the democratic process." And, he added: "They could then secede from the United States, and then we might have another civil war."

For almost a decade now, the careful research, in-depth investigations and the almost daily denunciations of the commentators have detailed a Southwestern Latino, especially "illegal" Mexican, plot to secede from the United States in what has become popularly known as the "reconquista," or reconquest.

According to Malkin, "Aztlan is a long-held notion among Mexico's intellectual elite and political class, which asserts that the American southwest rightly belongs to Mexico. Advocates believe the reclamation (or reconquista) of Aztlan will occur through sheer demographic force." Like most of the commentators and pundits, Malkin has the uncanny ability to divine the workings of the Latino immigrant mind, without speaking Spanish. And after years of careful study of the Latino Fifth Column, Malkin and other Latino experts will surely be alarmed by how Palin's speech shortened the distance from cold Alaska to sunny Aztlan.

Meanwhile, the major and minor Latino organizations and Latino leaders allegedly spearheading this invisible demographic empire, (all of whom are more careful and surreptitious than Palin and the First Dude about any statements or ties to secessionist groups), may be inspired to go public by the Palin's links (ie; Todd was a card carrying AIP member in 1995 and 2002) to an organization with 13,681 registered members whose political platform calls for securing the "complete repatriation of the public lands, held by the federal government, to the state and people of Alaska."

See more stories tagged with: immigration, election08, mccain, culture war, conspiracy theories, palin

Roberto Lovato, a frequent Nation contributor, is a New York-based writer with New America Media. He blogs at ofamerica.

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