MEXICO CITY

THE ARRIVAL OF Mexican firefighters to help their American neighbors fight the fires devastating Los Angeles, has seen a call for California to return to its original position as a province of Mexico.

California was ‘acquired’ by the United States after the Mexican-American War of 1848, together with what is now Nevada, Arizona and Utah; much of New Mexico; and parts of Colorado, Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas and Wyoming. Though they received $15 million for the land transfer, many Mexicans have always felt that these lands belong to Mexico, were taken by force, and should rightly be returned to Mexico.

“That feeling is beginning to gain currency in California,” says Mark Zorro, a writer whose eighteen volume history of Spanish America is known to have caused the death of at least twelve academics. “Some Californians are increasingly growing sick and tired of their place in the world – being run by incompetents and being shackled to what they see as an increasingly tired empire. They now see the old country,Mexico, as the coming power in the region, and have really been stunned into action by the arrival of help from a country that once would have been the recipient of US international aid. Watch this space.”