Having been born and raised in Florida, the home of the two oldest cities in the United States -- the Spanish were here first and in the largest numbers. The English were relative latecomers. Mayhap someone needs to go back and read some junior high history again.

Mexico ain't Florida, and if you really want to talk about who got here first, look at the Norse (if you want to talk Europeans), or the Asians who tromped over the Bering Land bridge thousands of years ago who became the first "native" Americans.

I would also like to point out that Americans are not English. When America declared its independence, it became a new nation, not an extension of British rule. So any arguments about the English being latecomers are irrelevant.

Are all of you forgetting the Sabre-Tooth-Tiger-Americans? Speciesists.

It really doesn't matter who was here first. It's who's here last.

why does everyone forget that spaniards are white europeans too?

The night The Manchurian Moonbat was elected, my closest friends & I adopted these immortal words as our credo:

We gotta take these bastards.

Sure, we could fight them with conventional weapons, but that could take years and cost millions of lives.

In this case I think we have to go all out. I think this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part.

And we're just the guys to do it.

Mexico, and thus "Mexicans", did not exist at the founding of the U.S. Elementary geography and elementary history. To say "Mexicans" were here before the U.S. was founded is like saying "Canadians" founded Canada, not the British and French.

Say, Madeline Albright ever find anybody locked in Don Rumsfeld basement?

The real point is being missed here. Look at the first sentence: "Long before America was even an idea, this land of plenty was home to many peoples."

This land of plenty. He's not speaking of the natural resources. He's talking about the wealth that has been created. That's the "plenty" he's talking about. Yet he refuses to acknowledge the source of that wealth.

When he says "Mexican", he means "La Raza" - the distinctive Aztec/Spanish hybrid that many Mexicans hold as their racial identity.

In that sense, "Mexicans" did indeed predate Mexico.

My fear isn't that the President is an idiot; it's that he knew exactly what he was saying, and meant it.

Bernal Dias del Castillo was one of the Conquistadores with Hernan Cortez, and in his book "The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico" an eye-witness account (1522) he calls the "Aztecs" as "Mexicans" (Mexicanos) and their city "Mexico." The term "Aztec" was a term invented much later to call these people. Incidentally, Mexico at this time was pronounced something like Meshico. His book is very interesting and enlightening, with admiration and praise for the Indians and display of a wide range of emotions, not just gold-lust.

Dennis is correct. Mexica is another name for what we call the Aztecs. But, the modern Mexicans are not Aztecs (Thank God), they are the descendants of the mixing of Spanish and the native tribes, including the Aztecs. So, we are back to 1810.

Obama may indeed have read, and been referring to, the "mexicans" in Bernal Dias del Castillo's "The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico".
Now if only he'd read a high school primer on economics.

If you assume Dennis is right and that's what Obama meant was the Aztecs, well I could be wrong but I don't think the Aztec empire stretched into what is now the USA. Not even close. Unless he's referring to North America rather than the nation he's leading. If that's the case wtf?

Actually, I kinda think of Obama as Dean Wormer.

Where can I buy 10,000 marbles?

Who today speaks of the Chiapas annexation, or the Soconusco annexation?

It is ludicrous to set an arbitrary date when everything was deemed "fair," then brand every change after that as unfair.

A little further south, the Incas had not quite finished their own conquest when Columbus landed in 1492. The Incas took until 1525 to complete the oppression of the "true" owners of Peru and Chile, and begin pushing up into Ecuador...

The Mexica (aka Aztecs) were just one of the many peoples in what is now Mexico at that time. In fact the conquistadors took advantage of that and played the oppressed peoples against their Mexica overlords, which was one of the reasons they were able to overthrow them so easily. The native ancestors of most of today's Mexicans generally didn't like the Mexica and were glad when they fell (though that didn't last long since the conquistadors weren't exactly rays of sunshine either).

Insofar as the term "Mexicans" can be applied to people living before the creation of Mexico, it would be to the Mexica that the term applies (though I personally think the term makes no sense to use before the inception of such an entity as a unified Mexico, any more than using "Spaniard" to refer to Carthaginian inhabitants of Iberia). So to characterize any but the Mexica's direct descendants as pre-1776 "Mexicans" would be disingenuous.

People are way over-thinking his "Mexicans" comment. It was pure, deliberate, calculated pandering to the Hispanic audience. That's all it was. Whether Obama himself actually knew he was factually inaccurate doesn't matter. Obama will say whatever he feels he has to say to achieve a desired result. The man has no relationship whatsoever to "truth". Words are just tools to achieve an end.

In this case the "end" was to try to get Hispanics to offset the oncoming tidal wave of middle Americans fed up with his lies, his bankrupting of America, his bowing to our enemies and insulting our friends, and pretty much all else of Obama's true agenda.

It was pure, simple, deliberate, calculated pandering to an audience he was confident would lap it up.

And they did.

If la raza wanted north America, they should have fought harder for it. They didn't, and it's the United States now. End of story.

Sigh. No one could make me laugh like John Belushi.

Elsewhere at Faber 2010: FOOD FIGHT!

Obama is wrong as usual. Everybody knows that leaf blowers were'nt invented until the 1950's or so.
This is proof that Mexicans were not in America before that time.

The graduates of Ethnic Studies classes in our town like to teach little ESL students that all Mexicans should be proud of their superior Aztec heritage. Even when some of the kids are from other countries. Like Yemen.

This leads to ongoing fights over whether Mexican or Arab culture is superior. Among kids living in America. Multiculturalism is great.

I think cosmic conservative 2:10 am nailed it. O neither knows nor cares about the facts. The reason they continue to call him a "scholar" is because they don't care about the facts any more than he does. It's all about the politics.

"Say, Madeline Albright ever find anybody locked in Don Rumsfeld basement?"

No, but while she's down there, could she grab a mop bucket?

It's fine to know the history, but not if you're trying to rewind it.

He seems to have mastered the Golden Book version of U.S. history.

The president's statement isn't exactly incorrect, though even read favorably it is odd. Remember that before the Mexican-American War, parts of Texas were Mexican territory. The Treaty of Guadelupe-Hidalgo ceded (or sold) Mexican claims to territory in California, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Colorado, Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Wyoming. The subsequent Gadsden Purchase added additional chunks of previously Mexican land to Arizona and New Mexico. Any families who were in those areas before hostilities and whose descendants remain there are, in a manner of speaking, Mexicans who preceeded the United States.

But, that rather tortured and academic exercise aside, President Obama's sentiment is pure mularkey; full of the kind of multi-culti pablum we've come to expect from the egghead set that he typifies.

You do realize that "America" was part of the Mexican-American War, right? So I think it's fairly safe to conclude that America had become an idea at that point, being in existance and all.

You could of course try to torture history by claiming that America didn't became an idea until July 4, 1776, but that mexicans became mexicans long before there even was a Mexico, but it's equally fair to say that the *idea* of America is hundreds or even thousands of years older, it's as old as anyone has wanted freedom and a chance to create their own life. It's as old as the Vikings that crossed the sea to find new land, or the asians that crossed the land bridge into Alaska for the same reason.

Or even as old as the first people to leave the African continent, looking for better opportunities somewhere else. That's the *idea* of America, the idea of the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness.

Hey, he's right. I have proof the Mexicans where first in those 51st throught 57th states Obama talks about.

The Mexicans before America line is the kind of crap you hear at cocktail parties hosted by left wing twits. They spout such nonsense trying to impress each other on their activist creds.

There is one other place you hear this kind of garbage; second grade essays as the poor kids try to regurgitate the party line as their teachers present it.

The country name Mexico is derived from the name of an Aztec tribe, the Mexica, and from the name of Mexico City, which the Aztec called Mexico-Tenochtitlan. Most Mexicans are descended from the indigenous population.

So yes, Mexicans were here before European settlers.

Marmalard? Dead. Niedermeyer? Dead. Reid? Dead. Feingold? Dead.

In defense of Obama, there WERE 57 venues in which the Democrats held primaries:

* The 50 states, of course,
* District of Columbia,
* Guam,
* The U.S. Virgin Islands,
* American Samoa,
* Patagonia,
* Rhodesia, and, er,
* Shangri La.

Repeating myself from another forum, whether there were people referred to as Mexicans before Mexico became a independent nation or not or whether Americans were called Americans before the United States (they were) is kind of beside the point. The President says they (British, French, Dutch, Mexicans, Indians) were “sharing” the land. Is he using “sharing” in its commonly understood sense of “fighting numerous wars and countless battles, massacres and skimishes” or were they “sharing” the land some other way? I am perfectly happy to agree that the United States and Mexico “shared” the Southwest and California in 1846 and at the end of the “sharing” Mexico ceded the land to the United States. Somehow I don’t think that is what the President is saying and even from the weird historical perspective he brings to bear on questions his statement makes no sense.

I am offended - this is an insult to Blutarsky fans everywhere!

"When he says "Mexican", he means "La Raza" - the distinctive Aztec/Spanish hybrid that many Mexicans hold as their racial identity"

I'm sure you are an authorized interpreter of his meaning, but you're still wrong. He meant nothing at all, except his contempt for our country. He simply read the words on the teleprompter and gave it not one thought.

The bloodthirsty Aztecs were feared and hated by all the other indigenous Mesoamericans in the surrounding region whom they brutalized, and without whose assistance Cortez's small band would not have been able to conquer the Aztecs.
Indeed it's believed some of the worst aspects of Aztec culture, the ritual child-killing, blood sacrifices, and ritual cannibalism were introduced into the Anasazi culture of the Southwestern Indians, by Aztecs who fled from the Spaniards.
Also the "Mexicans" who moved up the coast and received land-grants from the Spanish Gubb'mint - were engaged in a movement to free themselves from the distant, unresponsive, and burdensom Spaniards who taxed them heavily. They saw themselves as independent Californios, and not as Mexicans.

Meh. What were you expecting? They probably didn't teach much American history at Obama's madrassa.

Let's see those pre-1624 Mexicans' birth certificates!

Before you try to figure out who was here first, do some reading. 1) The settlements in S.A. are older than those in C.A. and those in N.A. This indicates a movement from South America northward into the current NM/AZ area. The Athabascan language was used by the populations from AK south into NM/AZ while Nahuatl was the language of the central and south American tribes. THe Aztecs were not the original folks in "Mexico", the Toltecs were there before the Aztecs. And there is much archaeological evidence indicating movement across the Pacific straight to S.A. The land bridge story is good for the common folks but you really got to get into the graduate programs to learn what the Profs really think/know.

Also you might try _Columbus_Was_Last_ available at Barnes and Noble. Folks were coming here long before Columbus. And the first person from Colubus' ship to reach this land was an Irishman who walked ashore. In fact many of Columbus' sailors were Irish as he went there before departing to get the maps of St. Brendan who probably sailed to the new world in the 5th century.

Put that spammer on Double Secret Probation!

Actually, I was just commenting about the name "Mexico" and it origins. I doubt that President Obama ever read or even heard of Bernal Dias. He was probably just running off a politically correct list of peoples. I think that a third or more of the Aztecs (Mexica) died of smallpox before the Spanish closed in and most of the rest died in the fighting as tens of thousands of other Indians assisted the Spanish in leveling their city. The Aztecs were indeed much hated. The vast majority of the Indian ancestry in Mexico is from other groups. And the Aztecs never came anywhere near what is now the USA. I recently saw a DNA study on some Mexican Indian groups and the mitochondrial DNA (from female line) was something like 90% Indian, but the Y-chromasome DNA (male line) was like 60% European and 10% African. I believe in 1848 all residents (except Indians) of the lands acquired from Mexico were declared to be US citizens.