We used to say that New York was the city that never sleeps. More than that, it is a city that wants to keep you alert.

U.S. Hispanics are not—most of them, anyway—laying claim to a united territory. It may therefore be objected that Hispanics cannot become a “nation” because they have neither a flag nor a land to fly it over. And if they did, where would it be? A secessionist chunk of the American Southwest? East Harlem? Miami?