Mexico Called. They Want Texas Back.: Difference between revisions

In 1835 the Republic of Texas separated from its previous [[Mexico|Mexican]] rule. After spending the better part of their one sovereign decade attempting to join the United States, Texas was annexed by the USA in 1845. The United States offered Texas security, stable rule, and economic survivability, as many had families in the United States and feared that Mexico had plans to strike once more at Texas, hence this trope. The United States also would protect the settlers' right to own slaves-- theseslaves—these settlers, first invited to Texas by the Mexican government after agreeing to follow Mexican law, balked at Mexico's ban on slavery in 1829, which these slave-owning settlers very much disagreed with. <ref>Texas was actually granted a one-year exemption from the 1829 ban, but Mexican president Anastasio Bustamante ordered that all slaves be freed in 1830. To circumvent the law, many Anglo colonists converted their slaves into indentured servants for life.</ref> The slavery aspect is something Texans unsurprisingly tend to gloss over when discussing their state's history.

In 1846, the United States Congress declared war on Mexico following a border skirmish between a Mexican cavalry detachment and a U.S. patrol. Long story short, Mexico lost, and the Mexican government ended up signing the Guadalupe-Hidalgo treaty, in which Mexico transferred to the USA the territories that are nowadays covered by California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of Colorado and Oklahoma -- thatOklahoma—that is, around 60% of its territory (though only a very small part of its population or gross national income)- for the sum of 15 million dollars ( accounting for inflation, that's about $313 million today). This was later followed by the sale of La Mesilla / purchase of Gadsden for the purpose of building a transcontinental railroad.

Thus, whenever in speculative fiction you see the United States somehow greatly weakened, or in the past before the USA became a superpower, you can pretty much be assured the back story will involve Mexico conquering at least Texas and California. <ref>Some Northerners would say [[Take That|good riddance.]]</ref> This is particularly ironic, because Mexico's economy is barely larger than Texas .<ref>And not even as large as California's; in fact should Mexico hypothetically succeed this very moment in recovering just these two states, the Mexican economy would practically ''triple'' its size.</ref>. But then again, [[Everything Is Big in Texas|it IS Texas]].

* The above picture comes from an ad for Swedish Vodka that only ran in Mexico. That there was [[Internet Backdraft|a backlash]] when it was leaked into the USA is putting it mildly. This [https://web.archive.org/web/20121019112713/http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,346964,00.html news article] will explain better anything about the ad and the controversy.

** The [[All There in the Manual|backstory]] states that Mexico is part of the World Socialist League, and the USSR faked a civil war there to justify a troop intervention -- whichintervention—which provided them a base to invade the USA.

== Webcomics[[Web Comics]] ==

* The Nation of Aztlan movement has this as its goal.

* [[Imperial Germany]] during [[World War OneI]] delivered the Zimmermann Telegram, which offered to give Arizona, New Mexico and Texas to Mexico if it sided with Germany. The British decrypted the message and sent it to the U.S. before the Mexicans could even get around to responding. This was pretty much the last straw that drove the U.S. to enter the war against Germany. Because Mexico was in the middle of a [[Mexican Revolution|revolution]], it probably wouldn't have been interested anyway.

** Mexican President Carranza actually had the Mexican Army's General Staff analyze the Zimmerman Note and what Germany was offering, and turned down the offer on the grounds that 1) holding and occupying the states in question would have been a nightmare; 2) German financial assistance was meaningless in that the only country capable of supplying Mexico enough arms to attack the United States was ''the United States itself!'' and 3) No German military assistance was immediately forthcoming due to Germany's own situation in Europe and Allied shipping patrols in the Atlantic. Carranza correctly concluded that the Zimmerman Note was a case of Germany saying to Mexico "[[Let's You and Him Fight]]" in an effort to keep the U.S. out of [[World War OneI]].

* [[wikipedia:George Friedman|George Friedman]], in his novel ''The Next 100 Years'', details his very broad political predictions for the 21st century and states that Mexico will at least attempt this by 2100, due to Mexico's likely stabilization (he points out China has been in chaos in the recent past and overcome that chaos), its population growth and the US population decline.

[[Category:AlternateX HistoryCalled. TropesThey Want Their Y Back.]]