Absolut Vodka produced a Spanish ad which many anti-illegal immigration activists saw as encouraging the repatriation of the southwest US back to Mexico.
In a Mexican magazine, Absolut Vodka printed an ad, here, that has a map of North America showing Mexico extending into what is now the Southwestern United States with the caption "In An Absolut World" in bold white print. English-speaking Americans who saw the ad were outraged and urged a boycott of Absolut. Absolut responded a few days later and apologized for the ad while abandoning it.
What the Map Shows
There are many odd things about the ad (why have an English caption on an ad made for Spanish speakers?) and the controversy surrounding it (English-speaking Americans read Spanish gossip magazines?)
Also, the argument cannot be made that the makers of the ad copied the map from a history textbook. The Mexico shown in the ad is shown occupying Oregon and the southern half of Idaho, neither of which was ever a part of Mexico. Other than these errors, the Mexico shown is the Mexico of 1830, before the Texas Annexation war with the United States, the cessession of much of the (now) Western United States due to Mexico's loss of that war and the Gadsen purchase of southern Arizona and New Mexico.
The US States that are shown to be part of Mexico are also ones in Aztlan. An organization dedicated to improving the lives of latinos in the United States called the "Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan" (MEChA) uses the term. The argument that this group (and others) believe that "Aztlan" belongs to Mexico is espoused primarily by right-wing commentators and white-supremacists.
White-Supremacy myths used in Mainstream Media
CNN's Lou Dobbs has accused former Mexican president Vicente Fox of promoting this view during one of Fox's tours of the United States. The correspondent called the tour Fox's "Atzlan" tour and displayed a map of Atzlan (pictured below) credited to the Council of Conservative Citizens. The CCC is considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defemation League.
When confronted about this, a CNN spokesperson apologized for the graphic, saying that it was rushed through the vetting process and put on without proper research into its attribution. Dobbs himself has dismissed criticism directed at him for using it by saying it was only up for a few seconds and that CNN did not know who the CCC was (despite his claim seconds later that he had sent producers and reporters to the SPLC to make sure this sort of thing doesn't happen).
Vicente Fox, of course, was not making an "Atzlan" tour, nor does he believe that the southwestern United States really belongs to Mexico. But Dobbs' (and Pat Buchanan's and Michelle Malkin's and others') claims of such a plot is believed by their listeners, viewers and readers, who find something like the Absolut Vodka advertisement and protest.
