Dear Mexican: I noticed that Mexican people don’t generally smoke. Don’t get me wrong—I’m not condoning smoking, but it’s interesting to see how some groups do or do no smoke, and I have yet to see a Mexican person smoke cigarettes. Does the tobacco industry not target Latinos?
Fulminating Fumador Dear Gabacho Smoker: American Lung Association stats show that Latinos have the second-lowest rate of smoking among ethnic groups, with only 15.8 percent of Latinos smoking in 2008, compared with 21.3 percent of negritos and 22 percent of gabachos. And in the Latino category, Mexican immigrants had an astoundingly low rate of 11.6 percent (Chicanos, on the other hand, smoke at a 20.1 percent rate—go, assimilation!). And it’s not a new trend—studies going back to the 1980s cite the low smoking rate of Mexis. Reasons? Catholicism, mostly: the Church forbade smoking back when it ruled Mexico, and the stigma resonates to the present day. Besides, Mexicans need their lungs for the Reconquista. Our livers, on the otra hand? Meh… Mexicans, birds, and ferrets all seem to be naturally attracted to shiny, sparkly things no matter how gaudy or tacky. If evolution is true, does this mean that Mexicans evolved from birds and ferrets?
Fond of Frottage Dear Gabacho: No, we’re descended from jaguars—and evolution says we’ll eat gabachos to extinction … or is that demographics? Hola! I’m a long time reader, first time writer. I was thinking a long time about what to ask, because I don’t want to ask a dumb question and embarrass myself. I finally decided to ask on something that tends to bother me a lot. Why do you think that the second and/or third generations of Mexicans born in this country don’t know about their history? What makes parents not teach their kids? My father is Mexican and my mom is of Latino descent. When I was a small boy, I was always taught about my heritage and I embrace it. I know that it has to do with where I was brought up, but I was raised in a predominately Mexican area of Houston. When we moved away from there, I came to reside in an area with more gringos than anything. Now my brother, who is 13 years younger than I am, knows a small amount, if anything, about his heritage. Dammit! I’m proud to be brown and I think that the younger generations should be too. Just so you know I am not some cholito with tattoos and a lowrider; I’m just a regular guy in his 20s who happens to know where he comes from.
El Niño Confundido Dear Confused Boy: It’s not just the second- and third-generation Mexicans who forget their history; as you noted in your own family story, even younger siblings within familias forsake their traditions, even if they live in the brownest sections of town. But everyone in this country forgets, from the Know Nothings who are currently demonizing Central American and Mexican kids coming across the border with the same language used against their ancestors to Mexican-Americans who rail against new arrivals from southern Mexico despite being más darker than pressure-treated redwood to the neocons who want us to invade Iraq anew. I wish I could end this answer on a funny note, but our collective historical amnesia is the biggest threat to the U.S.’s future since … a yak in heat!
Ask the Mexican at themexican@askamexican.net, be his fan on Facebook, follow him on Twitter @gustavoarellano or follow him on Instagram @gustavo_arellano!
This article appears in Jul 10-16, 2014.
I have a brother in-law Rudy Marivas Moved from Old Nogales Hwy. and Canelo. His mother moved them “migrant” from there to a ranch working in California. Rudy said because of the prejudice. I asked I didn’t see it Rudy oh yes when I came home and had great grades cousins and playmates ridiculed alienated him for not being part of the Heritage they behold. “not the right kind of Hispanic” So in California Trabuco Canyon and the ranch he was reared. He later joined the military and was stationed in Turkey with the missiles. The GI bill and he married attained his Doctorate degree in economics became San Francisco water bond manager later finance director of Anaheim raised 11 children and retired ant the age of 55. I asked him what he thought of his Hispanic devote catholic heritage that he holds dear. His response so many of my family have done so much to get me here I have been able to give so much to my family. I don’t need anyone to tell me what my family did or who I am I do need my family but now they are only part Hispanic and I to am learning and having respect for what their families did to get here. It has not been one-sided anywhere.
I think there is confusion with forgetting your heritage and identifying yourself as an American. My great-grandparents came from Italy. My great-grand mother was pregnant with my grandfather. When they settled outside of NYC in the 1920s. They celebrated their Italian heritage with other Italian Immigrants. However, my great-grand parents made sure their children realized they were Americans now. My great-grandparents punished my grandpa for speaking Italian in public. Not because they were ashamed of their heritage but because they realize to be successful in this country, their children needed to assimilate to their new home.
My great-grand parents and grandfather did keep their traditions alive. However, when my mother had me. I was taught about how my family came from Italy, but we did not identify as “Italian-Americans.” This is just a natural occurrence when a family moves from one country to another. I love my heritage from both sides of my parents. However, I proudly identify as an American and love living in the US.
So be proud of your heritage. Pass down traditional food recipes. Tell your children where they come from and the hardships they endured to bring them to the US. However, do not identify as a “Mexican-American” “African-American” “Italian-American” “Irish-American” etc. There is not room from half Americans in this country. You are either 100% American or not. This division and putting Americans in different groups is what is killing our future.
Like one of the best Presidents we ever had some elegantly said,
“There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all … The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic … There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.
President Theodore Roosevelt