Dear Mexican: I have a sister. I read your column each time it comes out in the Tucson Weekly. Once, we were talking about all the hatred against Mexicans in our state, and my sister said, “Sis, why do they hate Mexicans so much in Arizona? Why do they hate us so much?” I asked if she wanted me to ask that question in ¡Ask a Mexican!, and she said, “You think he would reply?” I said, “Let’s find out.” Would you please see if you can reply? Since we know you like us to use a funny name, my sister said to sign …
Encabronada en Tucson
Dear Pissed-Off in Tucson: Wow, you and your hermana must be mega-nerds to have a conversation about whether I’d answer your question! Where were ustedes in college when I needed some company?
Anyhoo, the two of you, as faithful readers, should know my contention that Mexican-hating has long been a characteristic of the American Southwest due to its proximity to Mexico, and forgotten pasts we are condemned to repeat. Everyone now knows your home state’s war against Mexicans, especially given that Gov. Bruja—I mean, Jan Brewer—signed another Know Nothing bill in addition to the racial-profiling-loving SB 1070: HB 2281, which bans ethnic-studies classes in Arizona public schools. The law’s proponents claim such a discipline teaches racial division, but what they don’t like is that what’s taught is the unvarnished, ugly truth of its home state.
To give you just one egregious example: Did you know that in 1904, a group of Mexicans in the Arizona mining towns of Clifton and Morenci tried to adopt 40 Irish orphans, only to see their new wards kidnapped by gabachos furious that Mexicans dared to raise white children? And that the gabachos weren’t prosecuted for their terror? It’s a true story—see Margaret Regan’s “The Irish Orphan Abduction,” March 15, 2007—one that Know Nothing Copper Staters desperately try to keep out of classrooms, lest children connect the dots between past injustices and present-day stupidities. It’s better to keep the masses dumb than honest, you know?
If the American psyche has always possessed a synapse of xenophobia, then the Arizonan mind’s chunk of hate is a pinche cerebral cortex. Sorry that you and other good people must live among such a bola de pendejos.
The Texas Board of Education voted to remove Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers union and well-known Xingona, because they didn’t like her politics. How long will this Manifest Destiny crap last?
Michicano in Texas
Dear Wab: FOREVER. You refer, of course, to the people in charge of textbook standards for the Lone Star State’s public schools, people so ahistorical they banned Huerta’s legacy from being taught because of her socialist politics, but approved of another committed socialist (Hellen Keller) since state-sanctioned historians have reduced her to some blind broad.
What people opposed to Chicano studies and other subaltern peoples’ history don’t realize is that such studies arose only because “respectable” scholars never bothered with the stories of Mexicans, being more content to document orange-crate labels than the people who picked the crops. Chicano studies doesn’t peddle lies, but rather fosters a grown-up perspective on our great land instead of an untruthful John Wayne dream world.
And so I conclude this columna with the words of Carey McWilliams, the legendary progressive historian whose 1949 book, North From Mexico: The Spanish-Speaking People of the United States, still remains a prophetic vision of Mexicans and how gabachos view them and their relationship: “When one examines how deeply this fantasy heritage has permeated the social and cultural life of the borderlands, the dichotomy begins to assume the proportions of a schizophrenic mania”
Ask the Mexican at themexican@askamexican.net; be his fan on Facebook; follow him on Twitter; or ask him a video question at youtube.com/askamexicano!
This article appears in May 27 – Jun 2, 2010.
WOW. Can’t be said any better, ever. God bless.
Wow! Can it be fabricated any better. This clown should be a fiction writer except for one thing…it gives away its nefarious intent and agenda before the story gets even remotely interesting. And how about the more recent firestorms of the NAACP raising hell when whites want to adopt children of color? Oh, you only wish you were the only group treated with prejudice; then you would have a half-assed justification to invent letters to your column. This law is prejudicial! It permits law enforcement to drag criminals from under their rocks and expel them from this country. If you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem…easy to see where the Tucson Weekly and you place your endorsement. When we get rid of the lawbreakers I hope they come for those who harbored them. Good luck finding a job you are qualified for.
First off, I want to say sorry to all the Mexicans in Tucson for having to go through more bull than what these politicians are serving on a daily basis. I was born Massachusetts but lived in the Southwest since I was 13 (about 21 yrs). Unfortunately, I have seen a lot of racism and bigotry throughout my years, so I know it’s there. However, I must stick up for myself when it’s articles like this that make it like all white people are racist. I know that’s not what you my think(although, idk), but it’s what you’re saying.
I am not racist, I don’t promote it and I will not tolerate it. If I look in my roots, I go back to French/Canadian/Irish/Indian. I’m proud to be me. but I don’t look at other cultures/races/regions and say that they are all a certain way. So, I’d appreciate it if you don’t look at all of us and think that way. I only say this because, lately as I’m shopping or doing stuff on South Side of Tucson, people have been giving me some mean looks, as if I supported this law.
I don’t support the law at all. I am against racial profiling and I wish we didn’t have such a Republican state even though Tucson is more of a Democrat. I think we need a statewide campaign to get the Republicans out of office and get the Democrats in there. I never vote Republican, yet they get elected every time. And you wonder why our state is so messed up. Look at any Republican run state and see how there budgets are how they are taking stimulus money even after voting against it.
We need better solutions than always playing the blaming game. Let’s get them out and get a person who knows the southwest better, a Mexican/Indian!
Su Amigo,
Pablo
SarqeDude, Thanks for the common sense reply! He “plays the race card,” it’s all he has to work with. These people don’t want any laws enforced, “they want anarchy, period.”
My question to Gustavo Arellano is, how would you strictly enforce our current immigration laws?
I’ve asked Jimmy Boegle the same question and he refuses to answer it!
I thought the Taco Bell Chiuaua dog was cute, too. It’s Mexicans who just don’t get it. Blend in. Speak English. That’s how to get along here in the ‘states.
I love when people think “blending” in is the solution. I am from a 5th generation, upper-middle class background where my parents are educated as well having a many fellow family members who are educated. I graduated from university a couple of years ago. Some of my closest friends are white. I am more American (U.S.) than Mexican. I speak perfect english, and very poor spanish. In fact, my family has been living in the U.S. longer than plenty of White American families I know. And we serve in the military! I DO NOT BLEND IN. I get along, but am still reminded I am not white. If it is not by my look, it is by my Spanish surname. I do not think white people understand what it is like to be the non-ruling minority. That is why it is so easy for them to accept this law. And I do not agree with what is going on in Arizona. I believe it is racial profiling. It actually makes me fear that I, a U.S. citizen, will be effected by this tough immigration law. Who says that we won’t see a repeat of Mexican Repatriation that occurred during the the late 1920’s and early 1930’s. Did you know over 50% of those “immigrants” were actually U.S. citizens. And, no, they were NOT criminals. They were innocent American’s who were sent back based on their easily recognizable mestizo look, not their citizenship status. Who says Americans like me are not next?
yours,
a proud American mestiza
P.S. The Mexican Repatriation is not normally discussed in text books. I had to learn about this from my Chicano parents and grandparents at home. Oh, don’t let me forget those nifty ethnic studies classes your wonderful governor has decided to take out of schools.