There Are No Friends In The World

Was my mother's philosophical saying or warning and she was adamant because she would open her eyeballs, keep them fixated on me and not wink.  And then she would repeat, "en este mundo no hay amigos".  I use to think she was crazy because she would continue with more warnings, "you can't trust what those friends will do because you don't know their motives"; "they'll use you and blame you for their deeds"; "they only want to use you and when they don't need you they'll forget you"; "or they'll use you for money and never pay you back"; even family proved that.  Then she would say, "they'll do things of police danger and make you take the fall because they'll forget about you once in jail" while emphasizing in closing, "there are no friends in this world".

To be honest I was confused because certain strangers had become our friends through being Godparents but they were an older couple who never had children and had been friends with her aunt and uncle.  But in reality Gus and Kika became grandparents and the limitation to other friendships stopped there.  My father did not really have friends he had more acquaintences but then my mother would say, "see your father, he doesn't bring just anybody over, and if they do come they wait outside, he doesn't trust people coming over". And I remembered my father was like that but he was friend with my godfather Gus and his brother in law Pocaluz.  And if he did, none of his work friends ever entered our house and I do remember an older man waiting for him across the street.  My father was just that protective of the household and mistrusting of the outside world.

I didn't know why because I was the opposite, gullible and trusting of the outside world and maybe I should have been. These were the 70's of the hillside strangler and boys being kidnapped and murdered along with the normal street risks of unexpected cholos and prowering Blacks but I had no fear of that unless they started following me.  I didn't really comprehend the world. I felt that the world was not as dangerous as it was portrayed and that other kids I knew from the neighborhood were brother like but my mother did not abide by those rules.  She didn't like Sammy because there was something not there or others because they lived too far or didn't know them.  But she liked my friend Scott who was Black but generally distrusted the other Mexican kids because tyhe would lead me down the wrong path. They were all potential criminals, just look at the family, even their look would reveal they were to not be trusted especially if they had any Sinaloa background. But I kept insisting it was not true but then I started seeing her points.  Sammy was a prick, even I didn't really like him, then he dropped out of school, was a wondering kid because his mother always worked, other Mexican kids she judged by appearance. If they had slick back hair, cholo shoes, and a white JC Penny t-shirt I was not to ever hang out with them.  Then I could see what she meant, because as I aged into teenageship, apart from Sammy, another guy across the street from Sammy, Enrique fit that cholo profile of attire, hair and attitude apart from the talk and an older brother that had that tshirt look but the jeans and converse tennis shoes confused me because he wasn't. He was like half cholo, half 501 Levi's and cholos wore Khaki pants not jeans.  But I didn't like him either because he would bully and I wasn't one who liked to fight. If there was ever a downfall that I had was that I actually showed fear because I hadn't been taught to fight by my father and fighting was not something I was good at naturally.  Even once I didn't stand up for my younger brother or myself against Sammy or Enrique only to have been defended by Sammy's step dad and then a scolding I got from my father for not defending my brother. I was scared and I felt fear so I did what I had always done in figthing, I always moved away and joined this Assembly of God church and hung out with my Black friend Scott Mosely who was not like those other morons.  Maybe my mom was right.  Cant really trust Mexicans.

Then we moved to Riverside in 1982 and 1983 and by then, I had become a stranger to Sammy and Enrique and we still lived in the neighborhood but one block up.  I trusted the new church group who were majorily white and my sole Black friend Scott.  Scott wasn't violent nor a jerk like the two other guys.  In honesty, my mother sent me away from other Mexicans because the cholo syndrome, the competitive syndrome and the chusma low class syndrome.  My mother didn't have this ethnic love most would think. I wasn't raised with the ideal of seeking solidarity with Mexicans because if there was one group that was not united were Mexicans so the rule was to generally stay away, we generally hated each other.  The few white and black friends had not been like the Enriques and Sammy's and to find diamonds like Nino Gus and Nina Kika was almost impossible.  And attending that White church was a better environment and I could see it, those other guys were beginning to experiment with cigarettes and then I just dropped out from hanging out with them. But they were also doing semi criminal elements that I would hear from others, later on I found out they were into heavier drugs so I did good plus why would I want to hang out with misfits.  But I had friends from elementary who I attended high school with and felt a connection to them and they did too especially my senior year at Hawthorne High School.

We hung out like our friendship mattered which originated from elementary schooling even if we lived 8 blocks apart, we were linked and we even traveled together to Coahuila as they introduced me to Mexico beyond Baja California.  Another equal friend from high school but one were we played football all three years, whom I sat next two in one or two classes for a year, helped him get hired at the local supermarket where I worked at and visited him on weekends on my way home from visiting my girlfriend.  The Sammy's and Enriques faded away while the Guillermos and Gilbert's came along and continued into my mid 20's.  My friendship with Scott diminished because we had to move from 99th street to 106th then he moved even further to Gardena and for his occasional visits we stopped visiting each other. That friendship ended but he would visit me until one day in 1989 he joined the military, was in the first Iraq and Panama Invasion and didn't see him again for 20 years until he looked me up on myspace.  So much was lost but with Guillermo and Gilbert we continued and though I'm partially responsible at times for moving away because I got a girlfriend I tried to always keep in touch, until one day they both just stopped talking to me.  By the late 1990's we had had only one conversation and we have not seen each other again. And here I thought because we were high school friends, I assumed we would always be tight but I kept hearing those words from my mother, "there are no friends in this world'.  And just like that they disappeared and even when there was a possibility of conversation through facebook there has not been any effort that even I gave up.  My mother stated, "its because they won the lottery" which they did and in her eyes didn't want any association. 

In adulthood, my friendships have been even less.  People have come and gone just like women have so the ideal of a friendship has been much like that high school sweetheart, a false illusion.  Fortunately, I have found four new friends of different ages and levels which I am grateful for but those guys from my adolescent years hurt me more because I thought our past history meant something. We knew each other from kids, from being teenagers, from classes, from football practice, from walking home, from checking out their sisters to aging as young men to end up as if we never even knew each other is quite puzzling and sad. 

I feel as if Im orphaned now removed from that era and it bothers me because the high school I attended was not a feeder school from my elementary to junior high years plus the move to Riverside.  I spent junior high, my 8th grade year in two schools where I didn't know anybody and only knew a few so high school was a foreign place in 9th grade and 10th grade.

Yet as I paralleled my mother's aging process, she's also gone through ups and downs of so called friends and has only revolved around two.  They too have come and gone and even cousins she hung out with  now won't talk to her and as she stated, "well if they don't want to visit, that means they don't want to be around or be around their lives".

I accept this is now my fate for my past in an odd way does not exist anymore, it died years back.  Without denying it, I see my mother's philosophy because she would say at times "from thousands 1 can be your friend" and fortunately, I have that.  Now female friends, lets just say I don't have any, maybe paying the  mortgage matters more.

Peace!

My Cultural Page

It has been a while since I have last written and it was probably due to a break that I needed and did not want to sound repetitive but maybe this needs to be talked about over and over again until there is recognition of differences.  I guess I do not like the fact that as a Mexican American I am automatically lumped with people born south of the border or that I should be guilt tripped into supporting immigration.  The question I ask is whose concerned with me because I have never felt more than three people have concerned with me beyond my mother, grandfather and a old family friend who passed away in 1987. My family friend Ken Hillman was himself even homeless living with his daughter Nancy as colon cancer took him away.

I am just adamant that that is not my issue because it priorities them, those born outside the US and us born inside the US just get ignored.  A Mexican American has no place and what makes it worse is that the few public journalists are adamant immigration supporters but I believe they do not think this out because there is this view that Mexico is the worse country out there and they will not have a future there.  If that was the case how do many deported who were US raised been able to adjust even when they are limited in their English and why does Mexico import so many Argentineans.  Can their skills truly be that beneficial?  If they were why would they be leaving their beloved Che country.  To continue to support immigration under some Quxiotic ideal is not to think scenarios out first from economic competition to the very definition of what is a Mexican American.  And yet its ignored that this newer generation of people even starting back from the 1986 immigration reform have benefitted much more than me or my mother. Call me a hater, yes I am, I believe I should be given an equal opportunity without the guilt trip view they place about "wo is me", I don't have a green card.  All I can tell you is that I don't view the statistics but the reality.  My uncle was one of those who moved from Baja California at age 40 and never really struggled for employment as a machinist and some time later he's retired and is a home owner while my mother has never owned a home and lives with a brother which she does not really like.

I keep saying this because I too have held the door closed to me while in higher education or employment as an instructor and they hire Mexico born who lack my academic output.  I do feel  cheated because I'm not viewed by merit and we are suppose to be a society of based on such effort but I'm not recognized.  It might seem an oxymoron to be want to be recognized by the very people and institutions that won't hire me but precisly because of that reason do I feel entitled to.  My 7 publications should mean something especially becaue I am a Mexican American writing about Mexican American issues.  I find it insulting that non Mexican Americans are hired based on some stereotyping that they look the same or have same names but the defining factor should be what defines an American which is the 14th Amendment.

And I know that this issue is quietly boiling because I have come across four Mexican American males that have views not too different from mind, the only difference was that I was willing to state my opinion much earlier because I was terminated and saw how CSULB hired immigrants with not relevant degress while ignoring my production and it pissed the hell out of me, still does.  In conversation with two who are adjunct instructors and one a chair, the commonality was they all stated that the differences between US born and Mexico born was reaching a boiling point and becoming an issue.  Another stated that somebody had to be responsible for those born in Mexico and that the excuse of "we didn't chose to come here" was a cop out.  The 14th Amendment does not accept such excuse as valid and why should we.  The last one stated that immigration was not something that defined Mexican Americans and was not something to be covered.  But he added something that I have also come to believe which is that these newer groups of people have not suffered the same way and are better off than those of us born here. He stated it is partly due to illicited money but that is clearly even more visible when seeing all these Mexican restaurants that sprung up like charter schools or churches.  Can one really make money from selling tamales or beans because if it was I'm sure we could have copied it.  I remember once a group of Chicano activists from the east side complaining why they could not find a place for their Mexican American University but paisas could selling food.  I found the arguement compelling because it proves I am not alone and not a bigot just questioning something we are expected to accept as gospel because some people say so.  And our ethnicity does matter because as he informed me, Mexican American graduate students are not attending Cal State LA's program and I bet alot of it has to do with the hiring of a Salvadorian, Guatemalan, Mexican national who were all attempting to change the departmental name to Latino Studies and were rebukked because they could not changed the name of the degree program which is Mexican American Studies.  Not applying to that program is an indication of such protest, along with other issues probabling related to feminism and other pc themes being force fed. That are not Mexican American issues people are interested in.

I did not feel lonely anymore in this debate but feel this should be addressed and it probably won't but political inaction keeps this issue relevant as Congress will not provide a solution and they should not because it effects Mexican Americans unfairly and does not hold Mexico accountable for their people.