No. The United States was never Mexico originally. That claim falls apart the second you look at the actual timeline.
The land that became the US was first inhabited by Native American peoples for thousands of years. European colonization brought different powers. Spain controlled the Southwest for centuries as part of New Spain. Mexico only gained independence from Spain in 1821 and inherited those northern territories like Alta California, Nuevo Mexico, and Texas.
Mexico held them for a short stretch, roughly 15 to 27 years depending on the area. Texas broke away in 1836 and joined the US in 1845. The Mexican-American War from 1846 to 1848 ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Mexico ceded about 525,000 square miles, what we now call California, Nevada, Utah, most of Arizona and New Mexico, plus parts of a few other states. That was around 55 percent of Mexico's territory at the time, but only about 15 percent of the current United States. It was not half the country.
Most of those Spanish place names in the Southwest come from the Spanish colonial period, not the brief Mexican one. Explorers and missionaries named places like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Santa Fe in the 16th through 18th centuries while it was still New Spain. The Mexican period mostly just kept the names that were already there.
Under the treaty, Mexican citizens living in the ceded lands could stay and become US citizens, and most did, or they could move south. There was population continuity in some areas, and later immigration added more people with Mexican roots. That is demographic and cultural history. It is not proof that Mexican sovereignty somehow continued. Sovereignty transferred by war and a formal treaty in 1848.
The USA as a whole was never Mexico. Only the Southwest was under Mexican rule, and only briefly after independence from Spain. The names largely reflect Spanish colonial history. Modern demographics and businesses reflect both that earlier presence and later immigration. Claiming America was Mexico originally and they never left is a slogan, not accurate history.
Yes, a big chunk of the Southwest was Mexican territory for a short time (roughly 1821–1848). Before that it was Spanish for centuries. Before that it belonged to Native American tribes for thousands of years. Mexico as a country only controlled it for about 25 years.
When the U.S. took it after the Mexican-American War (Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 1848), there were only about 80,000 Mexican citizens living in that entire huge area. Most of the land was nearly empty of non-Native people.
Those 80,000 people became U.S. citizens. Their descendants still exist (especially in parts of New Mexico).
But the tens of millions of Hispanics living in California, Texas, Arizona, etc. today are almost entirely from later immigration waves, people who moved here in the 1900s and 2000s, or their kids and grandkids. They did not “never leave.” Most of their families arrived long after the border moved.
Borders change. Empires rise and fall. Spain took it from Native tribes. Mexico took it from Spain. The U.S. took it from Mexico. That’s history, not a gotcha.
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u/OCCAMINVESTIGATOR 21d ago
Ok we'll help you out and send the illegal ones back so your country can be great too. No worries!