By Ché Marino

Bronx Anti-War Coalition

We stand as proud Mexicans — our heritage, Indigenous identity and nationalism are inseparable. Our flag, raised at anti-ICE and anti-imperialist protests, is a declaration of resistance against a U.S. empire that stole our land, committed genocide against our people and continues to incarcerate and criminalize us as “illegal migrants” on our ancestral territory.

Reactionaries — especially from the white Western left — attempt to isolate our Indigenous roots from our national identity to claim that our pride in being Mexican rejects indigeneity.

They falsely label Mexico a settler state — a tired smear designed to equate us with our oppressors and distract from the primary contradiction: U.S. imperialism and colonialism. In truth, Mexican nationalism is the very uplift of our Indigenous heritage. Our people, whose veins run with Indigenous blood, take to the streets not to reject our roots but to assert them, defying the U.S. settler-colonial system built on genocide, land theft and slavery.

Mexico’s history is one of active resistance and reclamation. We once served as a sanctuary for runaway enslaved people fleeing the brutal U.S. slavery system. This challenge spurred a U.S. settler-colonial response, leading to the invasion and seizure of territories now known as California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming.

While the U.S. continues to erase Indigenous histories and criminalize our people, Mexico is making real strides by returning thousands of acres to Indigenous tribes and issuing reparations for historic injustices — steps that reactionaries conveniently ignore.

At a time when Mexican youth, farm workers and service workers are rising up in Los Angeles and across the United States against imperial oppression, reactionaries launch feeble attacks on Mexican nationalism, Indigenous pride and our state.

Their arguments are a calculated deflection — an attempt to focus attention on our symbols and heritage rather than on U.S. imperialism, the root cause of systemic brutality and oppression. Such manufactured narratives only serve to justify the boot of U.S. colonialism on our necks.

F-ck ICE, f-ck Trump, and f-ck the police — we will not be silenced by anyone let alone servants of empire. Our Indigenous and Mexican pride is not a rejection of our roots, but a celebration of them — a recognition that our Mexican identity and Indigenous heritage are inextricably linked.

Remember: California was once part of Mexico, and our people have always considered this land their home. If you’ve got a problem with our Mexican pride, focus on your own f-cking country — a country built on colonial oppression, genocide and the erasure of Indegenous history.

Today, tomorrow and every day, we take pride in being Mexican. Any attempt to separate our Mexican identity from our Indigenous heritage, or to equate us with our oppressors, is nothing more than a diversion from the true enemy: U.S. imperialism.

¡Viva la revolución!

¡Viva México cabrones!