Aztlan Mug

Historical: The ancestral home and nation of the Aztec people and their descendants. Presumably existed the area of what is now known as the Southwestern United States, possibly in Utah. Current use: An unrecognized and unallyed theoretical nation consisting of the lands of northwestern Mexico (All of Baja California, and the states of Sonora, Chihuahua and Sinaloa) and the southwestern United States (New Mexico, Arizona, California and parts of Nevada, Utah and Colorado). Justifications for the creation of such a nation primarily rest on a few assertions: 1. The area (as distinguished above) of Aztlan has been under the rule of invaders; ruthless, war-like, greedy imperial powers, since the Spanish first colonized it. As the fate of people must be determined by their own self rule, the people of Aztlan have the right to demand a government that truly represents their collective will. Clearly, the respective nations of Mexico and the United States of America are not such governments. Therefore a new one must emerge. 2. Aztlan has a culture truly distinct from the rest of Mexico and the United States. Food, customs, art, architecture, all aspects of culture have been ingrained with particular indigenous, Hispanic and, to a lesser part, Anglo influences unique to the area. There exists a physical border (the U.S.-Mexico border wall) where there exists no significant cultural boarder, and indeed one can safely assert that there exists a Mexican culture, an American culture and the culture of Aztlan, each side by side and perhaps similar, but ultimately distinct from one another. 3. Size. This is the assertion that the creation of Aztlan is simply a practical move, as no nation can be said to have a truly representative form of democracy if its population exceeds 300 million spread across a continent. This argument primarily comes from the camp that says nations must be small enough to truly represent the will of the people, since large nations end up sacrificing the will of the downtrodden minority to the tyranny of the massive majority. 4. Aztlan would allow indigenous tribes within its borders to truly be independent, sovereign nations, a right never fully given to tribes within the U.S. and Mexico. Though there are certainly more assertions, these seem to be the primary ones.