La Raza Spreads Its Propaganda to Children

The supporters of open door immigration constantly assert that the millions of aliens flooding into the US only want to support our economy or become Americans. In fact, the evidence increasingly suggests the opposite. In the cultural arena, violent Central American gangs have taken root in virtually all US major cities, and a billboard in Los Angeles, proudly proclaims that California is now part of Mexico. Then there is the case of La Raza, the quasi-gang Latino organization (La Raza means "the race" in Spanish - a fact usually deliberately overlooked by its apologists), which conducts educational outreach to Latino youth in the US. What does La Raza teach them?

Wide-eyed and curious, young Jesus Tarin sat Saturday in a remote classroom at the Auraria campus as the pony-tailed man described this part of the country as "Aztlan."

Tarin, 16, a student at Palisade High School in Mesa County, listened to more about his culture and learned about the struggles of his ancestors. He was proud.

"They teach us here that we're more valuable than we might think we are," Tarin said.

He was among 1,500 teens from throughout the state who came to Denver for Saturday's 14th annual La Raza Youth Leadership Conference to learn that leadership, self-respect and self-worth are rooted in understanding culture.

"La cultura cura (your culture cures)," ethnic studies professor Arturo "Bones" Rodriguez told the classroom of students. "You practice culture, and you're practicing love, love for yourself and for your family and the people around you. You practice culture, and you're practicing dreaming and going after your dreams.

"You are living in our ancestral land, a place we call Aztlan," he said.

Make no mistake, when Professor Rodriquez exhorted the children to practice "your culture," he didn't mean traditional American culture. He meant Mexican culture. The identification of the American Southwest as Aztlan is designed to establish in the minds of Latino youth the belief that the southwestern US is actually territory stolen from Latinos. This is a message with a distinct ideological purpose. It sows the seeds of emnity and dissension from mainstream (read: "Anglo" or white) American culture. La Raza seeks to sculpt a separate cultural identity for Americans of Latino descent, particularly for recent immigrants (legal or not) and their children, since they have the weakest identification with American culture and are the most easily swayed by blatant racial propaganda. La Raza's long term political agenda promises disaster for American cultural and territorial cohesion.

Not that anyone in Washington cares. The Bush administration continues its deliberate effort to erase the US-Mexico border, in direct defiance of the wishes of the American people, and to the growing alarm of Republican party leaders. Nor is the Bush administration any stranger to La Raza and its machinations. High ranking Bush Administration officials have openly embraced La Raza. The future of a nation is written among is youth. If allowing millions of aliens to flood the country wasn't bad enough, permitting racist organizations like La Raza to mold the minds of young Latino-Americans is a blueprint for future cultural disaster.