Has arisen as Mexican Americans now have to face being lumped with other brown people even though we all know that we are a different culture and even from different lands which makes us foreigners untill each other.
Every time a US born Mexican American is lumped into the Latino or Hispanic category this results in a new benign kinder gentler form of racism. Very simple, to be merged with people from another citizen amounts to racism within the US because a US citizen by birth is placed with people from foreign countries simply based on a perceived resemblance. Hence we have racism and ignorance as one.
Would an Argentinean who moved to Chile be merged with a Chilean by birth because they have the same last name? No.
So why does it happen to me? Because it's easy to label me off with other countries that have no place of my existence there. Even The United Mexican States has no record of me so even by Mexican standards I am not one of them even if I look like them and talk like them. I was not born in their domain called Mexico. I am a foreigner so the same exist with those born in Mexico who move north. Because we are of two different citizenships we are not fellow anything. So, neither those born south of the border should be lumped with those born north. They have a different legal and cultural definition. If this exists, then to be lumped with Centro or Caribbean People is the ultimate form of disrespect and racism because I'm being eliminated from my place of birth. If that is not racism then what would it be.
I understand the Che Guevara feel but he died so this no borders view is not real because nobody else is going to write up legal documents where I will be given citizenship. Truth of the matter, people from the border of Mexico/US to Tierra del Fuego are not the same. They are not the same land, nor the same people, cultures or continents. The Chicano Generation was full of acid to make this illogical conception logical. There is no fact to this illusion. I have traveled throughout all of Central America, Bolivia, Peru and Argentina and saw how all these countries would not allow their neighbors in without a visa or a passport.
I do not need to be lumped with foreigners nor do I want to coexist with cultures I do not know. I remember as a child thinking how different all these people were and I have always been correct. But US keeps insisting in labeling me as an outsider and not from here when this is were I am from and by generations.
I do not accept being called a foreigner when I am not even when labeled with those born in Mexico. We are different even if you believe we are not, we are, I am of a different nationality.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Monday, November 2, 2009
New Month
A new month has arrived. Just waiting for time to end. Today is Dia de los Muertos and it is not an arts festival as many like to believe. It is a time to visit the loved ones in the cemetaries and as I can recall visiting my father's tomb is not about painting my face or acting out a play.
If your father has died like mine did in Inglewood on May 4th, 1980 on my mother's birthday, I just cry. That day has not died for me for it forever lives on and the anger at fate and life gives you a pain of eternity. My eternity.
Since my father died, my maternal grandparents have now given way to the earth, three tombs over from where he is at. Before they died and he died, my mother's brother died who sits next to my father. And 8 years later my father's good friend and uncle, father of my cousin died, so he's right next to him too. So no, we don't paint our face like some costume festival. Death is real.
My cousin, another one has also died who rest on the otherside of my grandparents. He too died young for carelessness.
And just this past August, my father's older sister and younger brother too succumbed to cancer. They died a week apart. My father's mother has now buried four of her children and she is still alive to tell it. I can quite say I mourned for them though, our relationship died in 1980 when their brother died and our reason for linkage died so they were not all that close either. I am not really mourning here in a strange way.
And lastly, my grandfather Gus is my reason to mourn. After my father died, we were bounded by the departure of our intermediary. My father was my father and a son to my grandfather who spent their Saturdays at the horseraces or eating breakfast with us. When my father died, my grandfather-Nino too died because the death was too painful. He would not come to our home though he always wanted us to visit him. I was lucky to have him until age 37 until he asked to die and I had to respect his wish by not mourning for him. His death was beautiful in a way. He made it happen to be reunited with my Nina Kika and his son.
Hence el dia de los muertos is not an art project from school rather a place of great pain. I await my arrival too!
If your father has died like mine did in Inglewood on May 4th, 1980 on my mother's birthday, I just cry. That day has not died for me for it forever lives on and the anger at fate and life gives you a pain of eternity. My eternity.
Since my father died, my maternal grandparents have now given way to the earth, three tombs over from where he is at. Before they died and he died, my mother's brother died who sits next to my father. And 8 years later my father's good friend and uncle, father of my cousin died, so he's right next to him too. So no, we don't paint our face like some costume festival. Death is real.
My cousin, another one has also died who rest on the otherside of my grandparents. He too died young for carelessness.
And just this past August, my father's older sister and younger brother too succumbed to cancer. They died a week apart. My father's mother has now buried four of her children and she is still alive to tell it. I can quite say I mourned for them though, our relationship died in 1980 when their brother died and our reason for linkage died so they were not all that close either. I am not really mourning here in a strange way.
And lastly, my grandfather Gus is my reason to mourn. After my father died, we were bounded by the departure of our intermediary. My father was my father and a son to my grandfather who spent their Saturdays at the horseraces or eating breakfast with us. When my father died, my grandfather-Nino too died because the death was too painful. He would not come to our home though he always wanted us to visit him. I was lucky to have him until age 37 until he asked to die and I had to respect his wish by not mourning for him. His death was beautiful in a way. He made it happen to be reunited with my Nina Kika and his son.
Hence el dia de los muertos is not an art project from school rather a place of great pain. I await my arrival too!
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Societal Suicide
In these moments of hard times, I cannot help but think that I live in a society that can drive anybody to be suicidal.
This era reminds me of the early 1980's when you could feel evil in the sky in the dredful Reagan Years and I feel it again. I lived hunger and at times suicide felt like an escape even as a teenager. I see my life quite similar to my father's years of primarily being laid off and trying what ever the White society permitted him to do. Which was not much. I am there again and as I enter the 40 category I am not sure I want to live with these circumstances. I deserve better than to be beggin to stupid people of all races and even to foreign immigrants of all colors who have been given the green light. So much for birth. When foreigners have more access than a US born something is wrong.
And don't forget that more women have access especially in my field so I have to go and ask a woman now. A White male is not enough, now a woman too. Times are sad.
This era reminds me of the early 1980's when you could feel evil in the sky in the dredful Reagan Years and I feel it again. I lived hunger and at times suicide felt like an escape even as a teenager. I see my life quite similar to my father's years of primarily being laid off and trying what ever the White society permitted him to do. Which was not much. I am there again and as I enter the 40 category I am not sure I want to live with these circumstances. I deserve better than to be beggin to stupid people of all races and even to foreign immigrants of all colors who have been given the green light. So much for birth. When foreigners have more access than a US born something is wrong.
And don't forget that more women have access especially in my field so I have to go and ask a woman now. A White male is not enough, now a woman too. Times are sad.
Chalino & Huevos y la Mujer Latina New Releases by Floricanto Press
These new books are coming out and are being announced by the press named Floricanto Press.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Mexicans are not latinos
One of my most important themes as I write is to provide an accurate portrait of Northern Mexican Americans, those born in the US but also of Northern Apache Heritage from the border lands. It is of no coincidence that I do not believe that if you are born in the US but your parents are from Sinaloa south, I do not consider you to be Northern Mexican. The first reason is history. You have no history to the north other than a mere coincidence which implies of a different heritage.
I see this all the time especially when southern Mexicans are quick to point out I am not Mexican in their Jalisco definition. But I remember my grandfather commenting that the southern Mexicans would ask him where did he find my father. Did he find him shirtless on white horse bareback with a bandana around his head? Because of his appearance, too Apache looking and he was. This meant that my father was seen as not belonging to the southerners and as I have aged I have lived this similar existence. And just like my father, I do not deny it.
Therefore if my definition of Mexican American is not related to Chicanos who are primarily southerners born or moved to the north, I do not see any relationship to other people from the Caribbean, Central or South America. Mexican Americans have zero relationship to Puerto Ricans or Cubans or even Michoacanos.
The Puerto Ricans or the Central Americans sure want the access to Chicano Studies employment but out in the streets as my friend Ruben Lopez states they want nothing to do with us and neither do we. Why lie? I do not like other groups interferring in our existence that is being pummelted even by these southern Mexicans who pretend to be the voices of the Northern Mexican Americans when they can barely handle the desert.
If you are interested in reading more, I have posted a cover of my book "Unwanted and Not Included: The Saga of Mexican People in the US" and read the chapter "Mexicans are not Latinos" and to be inclusive, I do not accept the White notion that Whites mixed with Mexicans are Mexican Americans. They are not. They are white and because they are of two different parents they should not be thrown in with us because we are the mix category. Whites with a Mexican parent means you are white, like the author Kevin Johnson. He is not Mexican American like me and I find it insulting that those Whites believe they can be lumped with us and then use that position when Whites want a token voice. Much like Richard Rodriguez whose family was from Colima which is Centro Mexico should not be the voice of Northern Mexicans from California by heritage. What doe these outside voices know what it is like to come from the desert. Just because White authorities label them to be so.
Northern Mexicans are really natives who were not conquered by Catholocism whereas Southern Mexicans are extremely Westernized even in their folklore. Even Mexico City recognizes that the north still practices native religion which is why they call their mercado de brujeria, el mercado de Sonora.
Catholicism is not part of my Apache heritage unlike the southerners.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
My first words
I will begin posting words that will generate discussions of identity from an Apache Mexican perspective which many believe do not exist but they do. Many believe I do not exist, but I do and have done so. There is no contradiction other than my definition of Mexican is Apache and not some Catolico, Mestizo halfbreed European who takes his identity from the conqueror both in blood and myth.
The different Apache groups are the only natives of the deserts of California whether they are Mohave, Inglewood, El Centro, Yuma, Cucapah and not southern Mexicans who have no connection to the geography. They are new comers just like Whites and Blacks from the East.
The different Apache groups are the only natives of the deserts of California whether they are Mohave, Inglewood, El Centro, Yuma, Cucapah and not southern Mexicans who have no connection to the geography. They are new comers just like Whites and Blacks from the East.
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