identifies the Hispanic demographic nucleus inside the UnitedrnStates. Mexicans, by far the largest part of the Hispanic immigrantrnpopulation, are racially indistinguishable from many otherrnCentral Americans and even many Caribbean immigrants,rnbut they do not always have much in common with other Hispanics,rnand in the grand new nation that sparkles in the eyes ofrnMr. Obledo and his racial companeros, it would not be too surprisingrnif the Mexicans, the Salvadorans, the Nicaraguans, thernCubans, the Puerto Ricans, and all the rest of La Raza startedrncutting one another’s throats. They will discover that race by itselfrnis not sufficient to constitute a nation. If it were otherwise,rnthere would not be two different words, “nation” and “race,” tornrepresent two different, though related, concepts.rnIn a famous passage of the Federalist, John Jay enumeratedrnthe qualities that Americans shared in common that constitutedrntheir nationality: “one united people—a people descendedrnfrom the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professingrnthe same religion, attached to the same principles of government,rnvery similar in their manners and customs,” and sharingrnthrough their common victory “their general liberty andrnindependence.” The very first element Jay mentioned was descentrnfrom the same ancestors, which is a definition of ethnicityrnor race. However, nationality for him and for most Americansrnwas certainly not confined to common descent butrnincluded other bonds as well. Though not the whole of Jay’srnidea of nationality, ethnic inheritance was clearly an importantrnpart of it, and the mental and behavioral characteristics that arernpart of that inheritance, as well as the by-no-means negligiblernphysical appearance of those descended from the same ancestors,rnhelp form the bonds without which nationality cannot exist.rnBut by itself, common descent does not ordinarily constihiterna sufficient social, political, or cultural bond to unite allrnthose who share it in a common national unity. The Hispanicsrnwho get to cross the borders into the new nation of Ld Raza, orrnAztlan, or whatever they plan to call it, will in fact share a goodrndeal in addition to race —a common history and a commonrnmemory of that history, a more or less common religion, a commonrnlanguage, and a common way of doing things and evaluatingrnthings that constitiites a common culture—even thoughrnthey and their leaders, to judge from their own rhetoric, seemrnto be oblivious to such bonds. Yet without those commonalitiesrnthey would not even be inclined to form a nation, newrnor old.rnIn Alien Nation, Peter Brimelow defines a nation as “an ethno-rncultural community—an interlacing of ethnicity and culture,”rna definition that manages to synthesize race and nation.rn'”The word ‘nation,'” he tells us,rnis derived from the Latin nescare, to be born [actually,rnthe Latin word is nasci; so much for the vaunted classicalrneducation of British schools, but the point remains thernsame]. It infrinsically implies a link by blood. A nationrnin a real sense is an extended family. The mergingrnprocess by which all nations are created is not merelyrncultiiral, but to a considerable extent biological, throughrnintermarriage.rnNor is it only Mr. Brimelow who thinks so. He quotes the definitionrnof “nation” offered by Daniel Pafrick Moynihan, senatorrnfrom New York and once a respected intellectual, in his book.rnPandemonium: “a group of people who believe that they are ancesfrallyrnrelated. It is the largest grouping that shares that belief”rnMoynihan’s emphasis on “believe” might seem to deflectrnfrom the reality of biological descent toward the intellectiial realityrnof what a population thinks as the frindamental bond of nationality,rnbut the fact is that no population that is not to a largernextent really “ancestially related” can believe that it is. It is difficultrnto name a modem nation-state whose historic populationrnthinks it shares a common ancestry but in reality does not. Nornmatter how hard you try to pitch them out, race and ethnicitybiologicalrndescent and the traits carried by descent—comernback, and the harder you try, the harder they retiirn, as they returnrntoday, among Hispanics, blacks, Asians, and just about everyrnother racial category except among Americans who fracerntheir ancestry to Britain and Europe.rnBut whether the emerging nationalities and their nationalismsrnare defined by race or by other features, their appearancernwithin the territory of the old nation that Jay described suggestsrnthat the political future of that territory is going to be shaped byrnforces quite different from those that have shaped the old nation.rnWith the exception of the Indian wars of the 18th andrn19th centuries, the political conflicts of American history havernbeen conflicts within Jay’s “one united people,” even whenrnthey imagined themselves to be two or more peoples. The politicalrnsfruggles of the fritiire, and indeed many of those beingrnwaged now, are conflicts among the different races, nations,rnand cultures —the different peoples —that have begun tornemerge. Their emergence does not necessarily imply that thernold nation will fragment into separate national units through arnprocess of “Balkanization”; it is quite possible that national unityrnwill persist and that the (literally) inter-national conflicts betweenrnthe internal nations will be conducted by fairly conventionalrnpolitical means—elections, lobbying, propaganda, andrnappointments—rather than by the more typical means of internationalrnconflict, namely, war.rnThe intensity of black self-consciousness today, not only inrnterms of race but just as sfrongly in terms of history, culhire, religion,rnand even language, is sufficient to justify speaking of arndistinct black nation within the United States. But the blackrnnation appears to be content (so far) to pursue its national identityrnwithin the political-territorial framework of the old nationrnwithout claiming a particular territory within the larger nationrnas its own.rnHispanic nationalists, however, may take a different path.rnTheir talk about7ztlan or reconquista of the Southwest suggestsrnthat they aim at actual independence or bringing that part ofrnthe United States back to Mexico. My bet, however, is that theyrnwill do neither, no matter how much power they acquire in thernSouthwestern states. If the remainder of the United Statesrnstayed intact, a separate and independent Hispanic nation-staternwould simply be one more Cenfral American appendage of E/rnNorte. Merging with Mexico is equally unlikely. What wouldrnbe tiie point of rejoining Mexico, especially since being part ofrna First World country like the United States rather than a ThirdrnWorld one like Mexico offers far more advantages?rnIn the managerial state, national and ethnic subgroups achiallyrnhave material incentives to keep the macro-national staternintact while their own micro-national groups contend withrneach other and pursue their own interests within the conventionalrnpolitical framework of the larger state. The national andrnethnic subgroups, even though they may evolve into fullfledgedrnnational consciousness, lack the military power to establishrntheir own territorial autonomy and could expect to gainrn22/CHRONICLESrnrnrn