To the editor:

I want to thank columnist Geoff Schumacher ("Myths of the 'reconquista' movement," May 14) for putting my mind to rest about the possible overthrow of the southwest United States via means of migration, followed by demographic sumpremecy, followed by colonization -- yada, yada. I don't know how I could have allowed myself to be so blindsided by the "far right's Paul Revere-like alarms about illegal immigration."

After all, Just because it happened in Kosovo -- when the once predominant Serbs awoke one day to find the Muslim Albanians were now the majority and the end of nationalism in that area of Yugoslavia was at hand ---how could I ever think that such a thing could happen here in the United States?

Thank you also, Mr. Schumacher, for setting the record straight about MEChA, a Spanish acronym for Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan, "the far right's primary target." Silly me, I could've sworn this "Hispanic student rights organization" was nothing more than the Klan-with-a-tan. You know, a racist organization. Maybe it had something to do with their motto which used to be on their Web site, but has been removed, obviously for political correctness. To paraphrase: "To the race, everything. To those outside the race, nothing."

Or maybe it was the quotes from activists within MEChA such as Armando Navarro, a professor of ethnic studies at UC Riverside, who at a Latino Summit Response to California's Prop 187 said in 1995:

"These are the critical years for us as a Latino community. We're in a state of transition. And that transformation is called 'the browning of America'. Latinos are now becoming the majority. Because I know that time and history is on the side of the Chicano/Latino community. It is changing in the future and in the present the balance of power of this nation. It's a game -- it's a game of power -- who controls it. You (to MEChA students) are like the generals that command armies. We're in a state of war. This Proposition 187 is a declaration of war against the Latino/Chicano community of this country. They know the demographics. They know that history and time is on our side. As one community, as one people, as one nation within a nation as the community that we are, the Chicano/Latino community of this nation. What this means is a transfer of power. It means control."

Another favorite of mine is that of Jose Angel Gutierrez, a professor at the University of Texas-Arlington, and founder of La Raza (the Race), said in 1995.

"The border remains a military zone. We remain a hunted people. Now you think you have a destiny to fulfill in the land that historically has been ours for forty thousand years. And we're a new Mestizo nation. And they want us to discuss civil rights. ... This is our homeland. We cannot -- we will not -- and we must not be made illegal in our own homeland. We are not immigrants that came from another country to another country. We are migrants, free to travel the length and breadth of the Americas because we belong here. We are millions. We just have to survive. We have an aging white America. They are not making babies. They are dying. It's a matter of time. The explosion is in our population."

Thank goodness for MEChA that they have people such as Geoff Schumacher to put a Band-Aid on the gaping wounds of hatemongering from the likes of Navarro and Gutierrez. Let's see, just put on some liberal, rose-colored glasses and suddenly the MEChA members "are too busy going to college 'to overthrow the U.S.' "

And besides, it's a 'peaceful and law-abiding organization.' "

So I don't have to worry about the MEChA activist in academia as the future bourgeoisie and the millions of unwashed illegal aliens, streaming across our borders, as the future proletariat of Aztlan, according to Mr. Schumacher.

I guess those early protests I saw on television nationwide were also a figment of my imagination. I thought I saw illegal aliens and their offspring proudly displaying Mexican flags and signs that read "Viva Reconquista." Mr. Schumacher says it's all a myth.

When I was in Arizona on the border with Mexico with the Minutemen, I came in contact with patriotic Americans from all over the nation. They were Caucasian, American-African, Hispanic, Asian, men, women, Jew, Gentile -- all American! I met those who claimed to be Republican, Democrat, liberal, conservative and Libertarian. But Mr. Schumacher alludes to the attacks on racist, reconquista organizations like MEChA as "the far right's primary target."

Unless you want to think of the "right" as in righteous.

One common denominator to Geoff Schumacher's myth about reconquista as a myth can be reduced to one word: appeasement. That's the same mind-set used by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlin in playing subservient to the demands made by Adolf Hitler of Germany and Benito Mussolini of Italy in order to avoid a war. Like Neville Chamberlin, Geoff Schumacher and his ilk only see what they want to see.

It's time to remove the rose-colored glasses of appeasement and see reconquista for what it is: a coordinated act of naked aggression against the sovereignty of the southwest United States -- one neighborhood at a time.

Mark Wilson

HENDERSON