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This is one of those oft-repeated claims that is really tenuous at best: the number of Mexicans living in all of Texas (with drastically larger borders than the current state) in 1824 was under 8000, and likely much smaller than the number of Native Americans in the region at the time. The Spanish (and then Mexican) claims on the region were pretty sparse to begin with, which is part of why they were so interested in importing settlers under their flag. That the Anglos would eventually push for independence is a more complicated story (yes slavery, but also yes Mexican imperialism) for another post.
We don't talk about how Nebraska and Oklahoma were French before they were Anglo because despite being ceded in the Louisiana Purchase, actual French influence on the ground there was quite limited, unlike, say, New Orleans.
To be even more fair, Mexican-Texans who trace their ancestry to pre-Texas independence settlement are a recognizable social group in current day Texas which is politically important and regionally predominant enough to be visible far in proportion to their actual numbers. That's what 'tejano' actually means.
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It's a Noah Smith quote, you should assume he's making up the history (and most of the other factoids) as he goes along.
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Additionally, the entire Mexican population of the territories ceded to the US after the Mexican-American War (i.e. California and most of the modern Southwest and Mountain West) was only about 100,000. They were offered US Citizenship under the terms of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and roughly 80,000 of them took the opportunity.
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