Huntington speech protested; "Mexican rights"; a different kind of assimilation

texas a&m huntington

Harvard professor Samuel Huntington spoke at Texas A&M yesterday as part of their Distinguished Lecture Series. Two hundred or so protesters were outside telling him to go home.
...But the current wave of immigration, which has been going on since 1965 and has been dominated by Mexican immigrants, has been different, Huntington contended. Because there have been so many such immigrants - legal and illegal - and they are so near the country they were born in, they have been able to resist assimilation and instead create pockets of the country where their culture dominates, he argued.

"To the Mexicans, the Southwest is their turf, after all," he said, reminding the audience that at one point the land he was standing on Monday belonged to Mexico. "They feel they have a particular right to be there."

The splitting of America from one strong national identity into two already is starting to show the signs of a developing backlash, he said...
Outside, the protesters were working overtime to prove his points:
Nearby, professor Armando Alonzo, a founding member of the Mexican American Latino Faculty Association and a researcher of Southwest history, took a similar stance. His organization could not support such defamatory views, he said.

Hispanics have been coming to America since 1848 and have constantly assimilated, he explained. The current process might end up being slower than in the past, but it is occurring, he said.

"I think if he was to look at the newer research, it would show that Mexican immigrants are in the process of making those adjustments," he said. "These immigrants make valuable contributions in their own ways."
Obviously, there's a bit of a problem. For instance, from the picture above we see one of the signs saying, "You're standing on stolen land". That doesn't sound too much like assimilation to me. The other signs I can't make out, but one looks to be from LULAC, some of them are in Spanish. Yet more Alonzo-style assimilation for you. And, here's some more:
Outside the building in the minutes before the speech, Father Raymond Chavez of Santa Teresa Catholic Church in Bryan stood among dozens of members of his flock as he wore a T-shirt stating "Mexican!" underneath his black jacket...

The Mexico native said it wasn't difficult to rally his parishioners - many of whom are immigrants themselves - to attend the protest.

"We don't agree with him, of course," he said. "We have to defend our Mexican rights, our human rights."
Previously: "More lame attempts to diss Samuel P. Huntington".

Comments

Betcha not too many of the protesters knew that Prof. Huntington worked in the administration of that well known immigrant-hating recist, Jimmy Carter.