I recently purchased the book 1491 by Charles C. Mann on recommendation of a new friend and fellow Hawthorne High alum and Lennoxer/Inglewooder named Derek Barraza. I do not meet many fellow Mexican Americans from this area and most non South Bay Mexican Americans do not really believe we exist because we are a small community which we weren't but the perceptions are that only Whites or Blacks lived in that area. Derek and I prove that we did live there and Derek even more because he's 7 years older so he has the memory of the 1960's which I don't though my grandparents where in Inglewood too. It was refreshing to also meet a fellow Northerner from California like him because I do feel as a minority with so many foreign born and southern Mexico born. Derek's parents where from El Paso and his father was a World War II veteran. It was refreshing to meet him because I felt he understood points I say.
I followed his advice even on where to buy the book, Costco which I did and found. As I read the preface, I came across the following sentence: "I may not have even been familiar with the term "Mesoamerica, which encompasses the area from Central Mexico to Panama".
I was taken aback by this statement because as I shared this common history with Derek of Apache background we connected and I had a flashback to my childhood when most of the people I knew where of northern desert heritage the east coast Anglos call the Southwest. This is not the southwest, it is the desert northwest where ancient indigenous Mexican cultures have existed before southern Mexicans arrived and any other foreigner from Europe, Asia and Africa. Even the Mexico born people I knew were northern Mexico born, Baja California, Sonora and remnants of Chihuahua with the occasional Sinaloa people who were tamed in those days. Hell, even my uncle Amado's father from Baja California was born in Miami, Arizona and his mother in Santa Rosalia, Baja. My tio Amado was born south of the border because his father avoided the draft from World War II and said later. His brother was drafted and served and when he would brag about being in the US Army, Victor Moreno jokingly would say, "Shut up, callate cabron, you were a dishwasher only and you're proud of that". One of my favorites lines I have ever heard.
Thus, I really had no knowledge of centro Mexicans my grandmother called el sur, los del sur; from the south. And when I would travel to the Imperial Valley I had grandmother's on both sides so the Mexicans in Mexicali and El Centro had a shared culture. I remember being surprised by the lowrider culture in the colonia in Mexicali on the dusty road. The dickies khaki and JCPenny attire with the gold necklace and it was not a corner gang well sort of, it was more fashion. I learned the term Chicali for Mexicali down there and my Baja California ama Alberta, the Cucapah, that's where the rancho was at spoke half Mexican Spanish, half English but couldn't understand English if it was spoken to here. I learned the words pichel-pitcher, raite-ride, carro-car, picup, tenis for shoes, pants for sweats, chaqueta-jacket, soccer, trayler-trailer truck, tractor, baisbol, una libra for a pound (though Mexico uses metric system), milla for mile (though kilometers is standard use), and khaki for cholo pants though it is a color. I didn't know I was supposedly incorrect until newer Mexicans from the south would tell me I was wrong and were going to knock the "Indian" out of me or South Americans who felt I was illiterate. In essence the border culture of the region was linked to the Mexican American culture because remnants of them being one country still existed in the oral memory of many older adults I grew up hearing them talk. Every other Mexican word on the US side proved my point.
But in essence, the world that Derek and I has died since our youth because the memory of the adults have have faded into disperse memory banks like solitaire lobos such as us who nobody wants to talk to because they sense danger. Another component has been the arrival of the southern Mexican from the center of Mexico such as Nayarit, Jalisco, Michoacan, Zacatecas (too many of them), San Luis Potosi though in smaller numbers, Mexico City, Puebla and now Oaxaca. Their mere appearance with no historical connection not even to the border Mexican states has resulted in them pushing their version of southern Mexican culture which is distinct to the California born Mexican American culture which is rooted in their homelands being places such as El Centro, El Paso, Inglewood, Watts, or East Los Angeles. When someone is from these places within the United States, there is a distinct cultural and ethnic difference with somebody from southern Mexico and for those of us who are really Apaches, Comanchero, Mescalero, are non related to somebody whose family come from Zacatecas even if born in California. What extensive history does the Zacatecano or Jalisco origen people have in California? Those Mexicans are a different version of Mexican Americans I would call Southern Mexican Americans because they don't have that geographical connection to California or New Mexico. We should not be forgotten just because southern Mexicans arrived, we were here first.
Yet we make these distinctions amongst ourselves, as a woman named Betty from Montebello once asked me, what part of Mexico are you guys from and I told her both sides of California. Really, your people even in Baja California were from there? Yes, my maternal grandparents came from a rancho and she could not believe it. Yes, El Rancho del Schenk at the base of the Cerro Prieto is where my mother was born. My grandfather had a US border pass where he could come and go with no trouble and never wanted to live on the US side even though he milked cows for a living and never owned any land. I am like him now. To further prove my point, I remember being at my uncles funeral in Mexicali who lived in Lennox and his friends went. They were from Zacatecas and as I conversed with one, I could tell he was uncomfortable being in Mexicali. It was too different for him and all he kept referring was his tierra in Zacatecas. It didn't matter that he was in Mexico, what was important to him was that it was not his place even if he was in Mexico, Baja California was a different planet. Whereas for me, I was in a very familiar place with the same name as the land across the border. I was in my Californias and I learned to live both.
Thus as I read Mesoamerica starts in Centro Mexico I could not help but think that my heritage is not part of Mesoamerica because I have no heritage down there and have found myself always in relative conflict with many of those southern Mexicans born in California because those people are trying to impose their brand of Mesoamerican culture on those of us born here and of indigenous heritage like and Derek.This is one reason I cannot subscribe to the Lalo Alcaraz's or Gustavo Arrellano branches of whatever they are because they are trying to defind that we are all their branch of Mexican American when we are not. I didn't even grow up being told I was a pocho because my parents didn't think that way because we were all born in the same geo zone and no my father nor mother did not sneak into the US in the trunk of a car. I'm not of Zacatecas heritage and I am proud of it nor where my parents and my grandparents were not braceros either. None of my grandparents migrated anywhere. What do they know about somebody like me or Derek? So these southerners are trying to tell us northerners what we are. Speak for your own and don't include me because I am not a Mesoamerican from centro Mexico and am proud of having Yuma-El Centro-Mexicali-Inglewood heritage because it is my history.
And as I spent many years in the profession of Chicano Studies, even they recognize the differences. At CSULA, the Chicano Studies Department created a minor called Mesoamerican Studies by a Professor Roberto Cantu. Why did he do that? because he's not Mexican American from the north nor even US born hence because he wants to not be left out and impose his cultural perspective and because he fits the model Mexican immigrant, academia allowed him to go through and hired him even though he's not a Chicano which is a US born Mexican American, he can legitimize his own cultural realm in a field has does not belong to. By creating the minor in Mesoamerican Studies he's saying I'm not from the north but from the south. If that's the case, the universities should create the Southern Mexican Studies because at least that would be accurate and leave the true Mexican Americans, the Northerners alone.
I am not a Mesoamerican.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Thursday, January 26, 2012
From Lennox to Huntington Beach
During the Christmas Holiday my friend Marcos from Oakland visited me and as we looked for the famous pancake place on Main Street he asked me, "how did you go from Lennox to Huntington Beach". This place that had the skin head reputation, the Republican hotbed and other notorioties and just not a welcoming place for Mexican Americans so I thought. I just told him "I don't know", but living near the beach for me is not new. Lennox, 90601 if I can remember was really unincorporated South Inglewood, with the worst racial poverty reputations that could be seen with the same main avenue Haarlem name except we were a combination of Mexican Americans, Mexican nationals, some Central Americans, some Blacks, some Samoans, some Cubans both Black and White and some Whites--a Stajoviak.
In Lennox, I had the same ocean breeze as El Segundo or Manhattan Beach without the funny smell from the hyperion plant and it was just as crowded as Manhattan except for the graffitti on 106th and Hawthorne Blvd. Beach culture is not new to me unlike most Mexican Americans that generally live east of east before the 105 freeway connection directly to the 710 freeway and north to the greater east sides of which there are many. From my Lennox perspective, everything was east.
Ironically, Marcos grew up just east about 5 miles on 98th Street in Los Angeles, South Los Angeles and in a time before our move to Lennox in 1985, I too lived on 99th street in Inglewood right near the 405 freeway. One reason I have always liked this guy, is that we share geographical history because we grew up in the South Bay, around Blacks, him more than me and in circumstances quite challenging. Both our neighborhoods were places that depressed you as you drove through them, now imagine having lived there. He grew up not just in a Black neighborhood but a violent impoverished neighborhood where he saw Freeway Ricky Ross doing business and being picked on because he looked White. He wasn't just a Black hair Mexican American but a fair skin kid with yellowish blonde hair, hence his nom de guerre Yellow Boy, but his father has Black hair. I think he had it rough because those communities were aggressive and I did not live in that kind of neighborhood. West Inglewood tended to be safer and those Blacks would be afraid of a South LA Black. There were class and violent differences in these neighborhoods.
I got a taste of South LA Blacks when I attended Crozier Junior High in downtown Inglewood in 1982 and met Blacks from Crenshaw Blvd. east. It was rough, I got into fights, got suspended twice, learned to defend myself because the Black teachers didn't defend me and the lone Mexican American English teacher I had would quitely say Mexicanisms at the rude Black students. I knew not all Blacks were this way because my best neigborhood friend was a Black kid named Scott, we are still in touch- but I knew those from Crenshaw east were a different kind, much more aggressive, Rolling 60's Crips as I heard along with Florencia. Sometimes I heard Florencia existed as protection from harassing Blacks, it's just the way it was. The best advice I got from a cholo or cholo look a like, Enrique at Crozier was in Spanish, "defiendete y nos les ensenhenes miedo", that was the inspiration and best lesson I learned in 7th grade. And it worked, a few fists, a pushed table and those Blacks feared me and befriended me. At least there was progress.
Marcos and I have that bond because we didn't grow up in traditional Mexican American communities though in my case, because my family had rancho roots on a street called Ballona, El barrio as it was called on a 1 acre lot. A rancho carry over from the turn of the century that ended when eminent domained, my grandmother Kika would cry how the city took their land even if they did pay, the spatial memory has been lost and I'm the youngest at 42 to have that memory of time long past. The watermelon fields are not even a memory anymore. And even I didn't cherish the place because by age 8 they were pushed out hence my grandmother Kika crying to me as I stopped to visit her on the way home from Oak Street Elementary on Kenwood. Even my mom has memory of pre 1965 days before the Watts riot when there were few Blacks in Inglewood.
Marcos was part of the Mexican American movement into South Los Angeles in the early 1980's after Blacks had moved in in the 60's but they weren't the first there, my mother's cousins from her father's side the Seguras were born in Watts on 106th Street in the mid 1930's and part of that family remained on 106th Street even until today. My mother's aunt Ventura would talk about how money dried up in the depression who then moved to the Imperial Valley to take up ranching near the Cerro Prieto where my great grandfather had paid for that land. Marcos family had moved from the MacArthur Park area now most associate to Centro Americans but he is evidence that Mexican Americans existed there prior to the arrival of newcomers who don't really have a historical place other than to look for inexpensive housing.
Marcos and I share this experience of having lived near Blacks, near the beach and not near Mexican American neighborhoods where they are 95% of the population. And that sometimes is something people don't understand about me, including Blacks themselves who have moved in from the South looking for a job and don't think I know anything about Blacks. I think I have more Black than Barack Obama who was born in Hawaii, coming from Inglewood and so does Marcos in our own Mexican American way. We know the head bop greeting chin up, the jive and the confidence of where we came from and most important a common history other Mexican Americans don't have.
Our experience cannot be generalize and if it wasn't for our discussions our history would be relegated to oblivion because it's not valued in the world of academia. And as we walked back to the car, all I cared about was that my buddy travelled 400 miles to visit me because both of us came from places unknown and faces generalized into endless names of people never to be recognized.
It was a good evening.
In Lennox, I had the same ocean breeze as El Segundo or Manhattan Beach without the funny smell from the hyperion plant and it was just as crowded as Manhattan except for the graffitti on 106th and Hawthorne Blvd. Beach culture is not new to me unlike most Mexican Americans that generally live east of east before the 105 freeway connection directly to the 710 freeway and north to the greater east sides of which there are many. From my Lennox perspective, everything was east.
Ironically, Marcos grew up just east about 5 miles on 98th Street in Los Angeles, South Los Angeles and in a time before our move to Lennox in 1985, I too lived on 99th street in Inglewood right near the 405 freeway. One reason I have always liked this guy, is that we share geographical history because we grew up in the South Bay, around Blacks, him more than me and in circumstances quite challenging. Both our neighborhoods were places that depressed you as you drove through them, now imagine having lived there. He grew up not just in a Black neighborhood but a violent impoverished neighborhood where he saw Freeway Ricky Ross doing business and being picked on because he looked White. He wasn't just a Black hair Mexican American but a fair skin kid with yellowish blonde hair, hence his nom de guerre Yellow Boy, but his father has Black hair. I think he had it rough because those communities were aggressive and I did not live in that kind of neighborhood. West Inglewood tended to be safer and those Blacks would be afraid of a South LA Black. There were class and violent differences in these neighborhoods.
I got a taste of South LA Blacks when I attended Crozier Junior High in downtown Inglewood in 1982 and met Blacks from Crenshaw Blvd. east. It was rough, I got into fights, got suspended twice, learned to defend myself because the Black teachers didn't defend me and the lone Mexican American English teacher I had would quitely say Mexicanisms at the rude Black students. I knew not all Blacks were this way because my best neigborhood friend was a Black kid named Scott, we are still in touch- but I knew those from Crenshaw east were a different kind, much more aggressive, Rolling 60's Crips as I heard along with Florencia. Sometimes I heard Florencia existed as protection from harassing Blacks, it's just the way it was. The best advice I got from a cholo or cholo look a like, Enrique at Crozier was in Spanish, "defiendete y nos les ensenhenes miedo", that was the inspiration and best lesson I learned in 7th grade. And it worked, a few fists, a pushed table and those Blacks feared me and befriended me. At least there was progress.
Marcos and I have that bond because we didn't grow up in traditional Mexican American communities though in my case, because my family had rancho roots on a street called Ballona, El barrio as it was called on a 1 acre lot. A rancho carry over from the turn of the century that ended when eminent domained, my grandmother Kika would cry how the city took their land even if they did pay, the spatial memory has been lost and I'm the youngest at 42 to have that memory of time long past. The watermelon fields are not even a memory anymore. And even I didn't cherish the place because by age 8 they were pushed out hence my grandmother Kika crying to me as I stopped to visit her on the way home from Oak Street Elementary on Kenwood. Even my mom has memory of pre 1965 days before the Watts riot when there were few Blacks in Inglewood.
Marcos was part of the Mexican American movement into South Los Angeles in the early 1980's after Blacks had moved in in the 60's but they weren't the first there, my mother's cousins from her father's side the Seguras were born in Watts on 106th Street in the mid 1930's and part of that family remained on 106th Street even until today. My mother's aunt Ventura would talk about how money dried up in the depression who then moved to the Imperial Valley to take up ranching near the Cerro Prieto where my great grandfather had paid for that land. Marcos family had moved from the MacArthur Park area now most associate to Centro Americans but he is evidence that Mexican Americans existed there prior to the arrival of newcomers who don't really have a historical place other than to look for inexpensive housing.
Marcos and I share this experience of having lived near Blacks, near the beach and not near Mexican American neighborhoods where they are 95% of the population. And that sometimes is something people don't understand about me, including Blacks themselves who have moved in from the South looking for a job and don't think I know anything about Blacks. I think I have more Black than Barack Obama who was born in Hawaii, coming from Inglewood and so does Marcos in our own Mexican American way. We know the head bop greeting chin up, the jive and the confidence of where we came from and most important a common history other Mexican Americans don't have.
Our experience cannot be generalize and if it wasn't for our discussions our history would be relegated to oblivion because it's not valued in the world of academia. And as we walked back to the car, all I cared about was that my buddy travelled 400 miles to visit me because both of us came from places unknown and faces generalized into endless names of people never to be recognized.
It was a good evening.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Half Siblings Not Relatives
As I have aged, what I believed before as normal has ceased to exist. For example, I use to believe that friends would last for a long time or that every one would have a high school sweetheart. Well neither of that existed for me and my mother's words of "there are no true friends in life seems" even more prophetic in actuality.
The same now applies to family members I assumed were always family members. But time, recognition, death and reunitement has proven that those family members were not really related. With Facebook, family reunifications have become somewhat possible for me and it has been good to connect with my cousin even if only over the phone especially because he's only 6 months younger is a the historian of the family in ways that no Mormon or genelogical website can do especially when there are no papers along the way.
Part of the unity urge has been driven by the fact that my father died 31 plus years ago and only lived to the age of 30 so the desire for him is ever present and this clan are the children of his sister who was also from the same father. We are cousins, both my father and his sister had an additional Camacho brother formerly known as Miguel Angel or Mike and he too has now died.
These three sets were the Camacho clan but as my brother Alberto said, we were the better looking ones and we all laugh. However, the clan did not end there but the Camachos did. My father was from my grandmother's second marriage, the first clan of three children were the Guardados, two of whom have already died too (we are bewitched: Jose and Rosa). Then there were four more each from different father's (yes she was) but all were raised that they were all siblings because they came from the same mother and that wasn't questioned but the fatherly differences were ever present. So I could tell the difference but put it to the back.
As we aged, it became ever present that different grandfathers made us all different, because we developed into unique families however, amongst the Camachos we knew were were bounded because of the same grandfather/grandmother. Besides death and time we associated more with my mother's clan because out of fear from the Camachos however the Segura cousins could also be dangerous which was ignored by my mother because it was her family but the Camachos were related to me so I sensed that difference. Not that I wanted to hang out with them either because they were crazy but they were all I had from the death of my father. I felt amputated and worse, my appearance came from the Camachos not the Seguras, if I looked like the Seguras maybe I would have felt different but I didn't have my mother's good looks. I had the Apache's look especially the ugly ones so how could I negate my blood if I looked like them. The eagle looking semi crossed eyes and nose, high cheek bones, fat and dark black hair were always reaffirmed by southern Mexican females who would say "your not my type of guy". Or the man from Jalisco telling me, "you look like you are from Sonora", I looked Yaqui Indian to him. We have chubby faces.
But time and drama separated us for 20 years and honestly I felt we were excommunicated because my father's half older brother Jose Guardado, died, then the half older sister Rosa Guardado died and a week later, Miguel Angel Camacho died. This family is cursed. And we were not notified about the deaths until after they were buried and weren't really invited. I learned about Jose's death because my eldest cousin from Maine went to visit my sister after the burial and then we learned of his death. Rosa, she was a Jehovah Witness so they only invite themselves and Miguel even less though I knew he was sick and had body parts amputated due to his diabetes complications and lack of attention. He was hacked to death. I'm not quite sure I wanted to attend, but an invite would have been nice. And those younger half siblings of my father by now have been long and gone so that time, lack of acknowledgement have really turned us all into the strangers we have always been, even if we shared memories in the 70's.
However, sensing that the female Camacho might die, curosity, outreach and wanting to see what pictures they had of my father we reunited. I had actually already seen Lorenzo but I wanted more. And we met with only the first cousins from the Camacho's. They were happy to see us as men in our late 30's early 40's and in a flashback we were little kids of time once lived, except our little kids were also partaking in the newness of these people partially confused. It felt good but the reception was not so warm from the Camacho aunt because in all honesty, we hadn't seen eachother in 20 years. We had developed into unknown people even if we were related. I didn't even recognize the half sister Rosa of my father because I hadn't seen her in 15 years when she had black hair and was gray haired. The aunt was not receptive nor warm but she gave my brother a painting of my father as a toddler which I never knew existed. She insisted we take it and maybe felt it was due to us. Even I don't recognize my father in that baby picture.
Then as I was changing my son, a hand stretched across and stated, "nice to meet you". It was my father's youngest half sister Angie who I hadn't seen in 20 plus years and 1-2 times in 30 years. I found it odd I did not get a hug or share a moment in the past as she's only 8-9 years older, I remembered her, how could she not remember me. I felt it was a sympathy shake but that confirmed for me what I have always known is that those half siblings of my father are not really my siblings first because they were of a different father and that difference only developed through the years proven by the fact that we don't look a like.
Yes, I understand it's all in the mind and attitude but there is a difference that cannot be denied that we are just too distinct even if they all came from my grandmother which I don't deny they have a bond but that bond does not carry over to me much like my cousins' cousins are not related to me. And this is hard for me to say because I have an older sister from a different father but this has always been an issue of divide because she felt she was different and now that she has young adult children, she feels that because my niece and nephew are not Camachos that they are treated less than. Even now that there are 10 Camacho grandchildren, my sister has stated enough times that there is a distinction of treatment from my mother and my brother's but we did the best we could in terms of inviting them to places or spending money on them when they were kids though we never received the same in return. Even my niece and nephew feel that there is a distinction side themselves away from us but not because we exclude them. If we battle it's personality clashes.
And when I least expect it, I get a slap in the face that only proves my point. At my maternal grandmother's funeral in Mexicali, my sister out of the blue states, "let me introduce you to my niece". I was shocked by that because my sister was never raised by her father and never had contact with them then 40 years later, I'm introduced to her niece. I was blindsided and jeolous my sister belonged to somebody else and was never truly my sister by mother/father.
That hurt but I brush that aside and acted normal because our communication still continues but down deep inside I know the difference and realized I never had a Camacho sister because we were all male offsprings from Julian Padilla Camacho.
As for my father's family, I only have 1 aunt that still lives.
The same now applies to family members I assumed were always family members. But time, recognition, death and reunitement has proven that those family members were not really related. With Facebook, family reunifications have become somewhat possible for me and it has been good to connect with my cousin even if only over the phone especially because he's only 6 months younger is a the historian of the family in ways that no Mormon or genelogical website can do especially when there are no papers along the way.
Part of the unity urge has been driven by the fact that my father died 31 plus years ago and only lived to the age of 30 so the desire for him is ever present and this clan are the children of his sister who was also from the same father. We are cousins, both my father and his sister had an additional Camacho brother formerly known as Miguel Angel or Mike and he too has now died.
These three sets were the Camacho clan but as my brother Alberto said, we were the better looking ones and we all laugh. However, the clan did not end there but the Camachos did. My father was from my grandmother's second marriage, the first clan of three children were the Guardados, two of whom have already died too (we are bewitched: Jose and Rosa). Then there were four more each from different father's (yes she was) but all were raised that they were all siblings because they came from the same mother and that wasn't questioned but the fatherly differences were ever present. So I could tell the difference but put it to the back.
As we aged, it became ever present that different grandfathers made us all different, because we developed into unique families however, amongst the Camachos we knew were were bounded because of the same grandfather/grandmother. Besides death and time we associated more with my mother's clan because out of fear from the Camachos however the Segura cousins could also be dangerous which was ignored by my mother because it was her family but the Camachos were related to me so I sensed that difference. Not that I wanted to hang out with them either because they were crazy but they were all I had from the death of my father. I felt amputated and worse, my appearance came from the Camachos not the Seguras, if I looked like the Seguras maybe I would have felt different but I didn't have my mother's good looks. I had the Apache's look especially the ugly ones so how could I negate my blood if I looked like them. The eagle looking semi crossed eyes and nose, high cheek bones, fat and dark black hair were always reaffirmed by southern Mexican females who would say "your not my type of guy". Or the man from Jalisco telling me, "you look like you are from Sonora", I looked Yaqui Indian to him. We have chubby faces.
But time and drama separated us for 20 years and honestly I felt we were excommunicated because my father's half older brother Jose Guardado, died, then the half older sister Rosa Guardado died and a week later, Miguel Angel Camacho died. This family is cursed. And we were not notified about the deaths until after they were buried and weren't really invited. I learned about Jose's death because my eldest cousin from Maine went to visit my sister after the burial and then we learned of his death. Rosa, she was a Jehovah Witness so they only invite themselves and Miguel even less though I knew he was sick and had body parts amputated due to his diabetes complications and lack of attention. He was hacked to death. I'm not quite sure I wanted to attend, but an invite would have been nice. And those younger half siblings of my father by now have been long and gone so that time, lack of acknowledgement have really turned us all into the strangers we have always been, even if we shared memories in the 70's.
However, sensing that the female Camacho might die, curosity, outreach and wanting to see what pictures they had of my father we reunited. I had actually already seen Lorenzo but I wanted more. And we met with only the first cousins from the Camacho's. They were happy to see us as men in our late 30's early 40's and in a flashback we were little kids of time once lived, except our little kids were also partaking in the newness of these people partially confused. It felt good but the reception was not so warm from the Camacho aunt because in all honesty, we hadn't seen eachother in 20 years. We had developed into unknown people even if we were related. I didn't even recognize the half sister Rosa of my father because I hadn't seen her in 15 years when she had black hair and was gray haired. The aunt was not receptive nor warm but she gave my brother a painting of my father as a toddler which I never knew existed. She insisted we take it and maybe felt it was due to us. Even I don't recognize my father in that baby picture.
Then as I was changing my son, a hand stretched across and stated, "nice to meet you". It was my father's youngest half sister Angie who I hadn't seen in 20 plus years and 1-2 times in 30 years. I found it odd I did not get a hug or share a moment in the past as she's only 8-9 years older, I remembered her, how could she not remember me. I felt it was a sympathy shake but that confirmed for me what I have always known is that those half siblings of my father are not really my siblings first because they were of a different father and that difference only developed through the years proven by the fact that we don't look a like.
Yes, I understand it's all in the mind and attitude but there is a difference that cannot be denied that we are just too distinct even if they all came from my grandmother which I don't deny they have a bond but that bond does not carry over to me much like my cousins' cousins are not related to me. And this is hard for me to say because I have an older sister from a different father but this has always been an issue of divide because she felt she was different and now that she has young adult children, she feels that because my niece and nephew are not Camachos that they are treated less than. Even now that there are 10 Camacho grandchildren, my sister has stated enough times that there is a distinction of treatment from my mother and my brother's but we did the best we could in terms of inviting them to places or spending money on them when they were kids though we never received the same in return. Even my niece and nephew feel that there is a distinction side themselves away from us but not because we exclude them. If we battle it's personality clashes.
And when I least expect it, I get a slap in the face that only proves my point. At my maternal grandmother's funeral in Mexicali, my sister out of the blue states, "let me introduce you to my niece". I was shocked by that because my sister was never raised by her father and never had contact with them then 40 years later, I'm introduced to her niece. I was blindsided and jeolous my sister belonged to somebody else and was never truly my sister by mother/father.
That hurt but I brush that aside and acted normal because our communication still continues but down deep inside I know the difference and realized I never had a Camacho sister because we were all male offsprings from Julian Padilla Camacho.
As for my father's family, I only have 1 aunt that still lives.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
US Born Means Something
A few weeks back I came across an article written by Sara Calderon in newstaco.com on the difference between US born and Mexico born and as she pinpointed there is a difference for all reasons. Yet the part that got my attention was the response by people on facebook especially the Mexico born. Some of the comments read, "you think you are better; this is White wash; what happened to you; unemployment has really messed you up" and the list continued.
I was actually surprised because I actually thought that Calderon's article was stressing something vital which is quite easily sweeped under, which is the belief that Mexican Americans and Mexican Nationals are the same. And in the eyes of White people that might be the perception especially from universities that prove that there is no distinction between US born and foreign born but I guess the 14th Amendment does not matter. University ignorance is so prevalent they just lump undocumented Mexicans, legally admitted, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, Cuban all as one. Though we the actual people they profess to be teaching about distinguish instantly. If Puerto Ricans and Cubans who are island brothers don't share the same culture even if they speak the same how is someone from the deserts going to share anything with a Latin America.
Yet as I have aged into my mid forties the characteristic of being Mexico born in my eyes has become that much more prevalent simply because being Mexico born and central and southernly born implies for me an entirely distinct cultural animal. Though this is not a new feeling, it has always been present since I can remember. The first actual cultural fact is the culture into one is born and due to the fact that the majority of Mexico born are not born in Baja California but from hundreds to thousands of miles away in lands I never saw until I was 18 years old and have never seen because most people come from small cities or pueblos I'll never see because I don't have a personal or family connection to. Those differences were even visible with cousins born in Baja California just across the entry point to Baja California because somehow we were of a different culture and we were though we shared many common cultural norms beyond just family and they seemed to be copying US customs too from the cholo dress to love of trucks, danish pastries to the constant usage of English in their Spanish. And grammatically they spoke correctly using raite, pichell, marketa, pickup, carro to Anglocizing their nicknames, Antonio to Tony, Maria to Mary, Pedro to Pete and Miguel to Mike. Nobody thought of it until southern Mexicans showed up and began correcting them and us on the US side to an abnoxious point. Hence if I noticed differences with people within the same region and similarities, I really noticed the differences with people from Sinaloa south.
For one I could never comprehend their word usages because they used words I did not comprehend and them correcting my California Spanish got to my nerve because they felt they culturally superior and they let it be known. I saw this with Mexico born girlfriends and a Bolivian foreigner too. I came to dispiss them because I felt they were all trying to impose a proper way of being without actually accepting me for who I was. I further saw we ate different foods, never quite liked their foods and even then they would try to say that isn't real Mexican food but it was to me California Mexican food and the most obvious difference was space.
Spatially much like the neighborhood definitions of defining ethnicity I saw them not spatially the same as me even with US born with their families originating from Zacatecas or Michoacan for the simple reason that my people were from both California/Baja California border region in Calexico. Even my mother doesn't see herself related to people from Sinaloa or Durango and neither do I. So culturally we are not the same and my grandmother being an Apache Yuma born in Arizona and never denying but stressing that she grew up speaking Apache Kunahuati Chalea Turi and practicing brujeria I was raised with that culture from the desert that did make us different from somebody not born in that region. Even my mother would stress that we were Apache (not her) because of my grandmother and was proven to me when people from Jalisco would tell me I looked like I came from Sonora, Indios.
Even from the US side I see myself different from Phoenix or New Mexicans and much less Tejanos--who likes them-- but when I was warmly received in Zuni or was asked what tribe I belonged to when visiting Acoma west of Alburquerque I can't help to notice I do belong to those desert ranchos where I originate from. Or better yet when I'm not viewed as a Mexican by recent arrivals because they don't view my spatialnicity related to theirs and neither do I. I was even told by Zamora, Michoacan people that my children didn't look Mexican even though their abuela Teresa was born in Los Angeles, their grandmother in Clifton, AZ, their great grandmother in Isleta, Texas and the great grandfather in Safford and they were Apache Mexican Americans. Even my great grandfather was born in Yuma from my Apache grandmother and only my father turns out to have been born in Baja Ca/ the Mexico side for protection. Birth certificates were not given to my grandmother born in Yuma but she didn't learn Spanish until age 10 so Baja Ca was more of a refuge place. Yes being US born does matter and it's not the same as Mexico born much less born 1000 miles south.
And there is also the 14th Amendment but why discuss that, it's no big deal. But the part that irritates me the most is this, who are Mexico born people to judge those of us born in the US? Do we need their permission to express how we feel? Are they the torchbearers of Mexican American culture? Do we need their permission to express ourselves or their reaffirmation because somehow we are Mexicanless in their eyes? Are they our cultural bestowers? Do I only exist because of them? Or as I just heard the other day, "I wasn't raised as Mexican American because my family stated they were all cholos and cholas", like the southern Mexicans knew what that was. Please don't speak for me. I don't speak for you nor profess to know Sinaloa, Durango, Nayarit or Zacatecas culture. Plus I don't really like those foods.
Mexico born even if raised in the US need to stop thinking they know how we US born think because you don't, you don't have the same cultural upbringing and definition muchless in my case where as an Apache, I continue to live in the desert no different than my great grandparents or my children. I don't go to the Federal Building to obtain my permission to live in the US, I was born into this animal.
I was actually surprised because I actually thought that Calderon's article was stressing something vital which is quite easily sweeped under, which is the belief that Mexican Americans and Mexican Nationals are the same. And in the eyes of White people that might be the perception especially from universities that prove that there is no distinction between US born and foreign born but I guess the 14th Amendment does not matter. University ignorance is so prevalent they just lump undocumented Mexicans, legally admitted, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, Cuban all as one. Though we the actual people they profess to be teaching about distinguish instantly. If Puerto Ricans and Cubans who are island brothers don't share the same culture even if they speak the same how is someone from the deserts going to share anything with a Latin America.
Yet as I have aged into my mid forties the characteristic of being Mexico born in my eyes has become that much more prevalent simply because being Mexico born and central and southernly born implies for me an entirely distinct cultural animal. Though this is not a new feeling, it has always been present since I can remember. The first actual cultural fact is the culture into one is born and due to the fact that the majority of Mexico born are not born in Baja California but from hundreds to thousands of miles away in lands I never saw until I was 18 years old and have never seen because most people come from small cities or pueblos I'll never see because I don't have a personal or family connection to. Those differences were even visible with cousins born in Baja California just across the entry point to Baja California because somehow we were of a different culture and we were though we shared many common cultural norms beyond just family and they seemed to be copying US customs too from the cholo dress to love of trucks, danish pastries to the constant usage of English in their Spanish. And grammatically they spoke correctly using raite, pichell, marketa, pickup, carro to Anglocizing their nicknames, Antonio to Tony, Maria to Mary, Pedro to Pete and Miguel to Mike. Nobody thought of it until southern Mexicans showed up and began correcting them and us on the US side to an abnoxious point. Hence if I noticed differences with people within the same region and similarities, I really noticed the differences with people from Sinaloa south.
For one I could never comprehend their word usages because they used words I did not comprehend and them correcting my California Spanish got to my nerve because they felt they culturally superior and they let it be known. I saw this with Mexico born girlfriends and a Bolivian foreigner too. I came to dispiss them because I felt they were all trying to impose a proper way of being without actually accepting me for who I was. I further saw we ate different foods, never quite liked their foods and even then they would try to say that isn't real Mexican food but it was to me California Mexican food and the most obvious difference was space.
Spatially much like the neighborhood definitions of defining ethnicity I saw them not spatially the same as me even with US born with their families originating from Zacatecas or Michoacan for the simple reason that my people were from both California/Baja California border region in Calexico. Even my mother doesn't see herself related to people from Sinaloa or Durango and neither do I. So culturally we are not the same and my grandmother being an Apache Yuma born in Arizona and never denying but stressing that she grew up speaking Apache Kunahuati Chalea Turi and practicing brujeria I was raised with that culture from the desert that did make us different from somebody not born in that region. Even my mother would stress that we were Apache (not her) because of my grandmother and was proven to me when people from Jalisco would tell me I looked like I came from Sonora, Indios.
Even from the US side I see myself different from Phoenix or New Mexicans and much less Tejanos--who likes them-- but when I was warmly received in Zuni or was asked what tribe I belonged to when visiting Acoma west of Alburquerque I can't help to notice I do belong to those desert ranchos where I originate from. Or better yet when I'm not viewed as a Mexican by recent arrivals because they don't view my spatialnicity related to theirs and neither do I. I was even told by Zamora, Michoacan people that my children didn't look Mexican even though their abuela Teresa was born in Los Angeles, their grandmother in Clifton, AZ, their great grandmother in Isleta, Texas and the great grandfather in Safford and they were Apache Mexican Americans. Even my great grandfather was born in Yuma from my Apache grandmother and only my father turns out to have been born in Baja Ca/ the Mexico side for protection. Birth certificates were not given to my grandmother born in Yuma but she didn't learn Spanish until age 10 so Baja Ca was more of a refuge place. Yes being US born does matter and it's not the same as Mexico born much less born 1000 miles south.
And there is also the 14th Amendment but why discuss that, it's no big deal. But the part that irritates me the most is this, who are Mexico born people to judge those of us born in the US? Do we need their permission to express how we feel? Are they the torchbearers of Mexican American culture? Do we need their permission to express ourselves or their reaffirmation because somehow we are Mexicanless in their eyes? Are they our cultural bestowers? Do I only exist because of them? Or as I just heard the other day, "I wasn't raised as Mexican American because my family stated they were all cholos and cholas", like the southern Mexicans knew what that was. Please don't speak for me. I don't speak for you nor profess to know Sinaloa, Durango, Nayarit or Zacatecas culture. Plus I don't really like those foods.
Mexico born even if raised in the US need to stop thinking they know how we US born think because you don't, you don't have the same cultural upbringing and definition muchless in my case where as an Apache, I continue to live in the desert no different than my great grandparents or my children. I don't go to the Federal Building to obtain my permission to live in the US, I was born into this animal.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Ignorant Academicians
As I age into my mid 40's I realize I hate ignorant people especially ignorant PhD's like most I have come across in my adulthood because all they do is press the play button of their professors. One in particular was a stupid White woman who was interviewing for a Chicano Studies position at CSULB which proves that the full time Chicano Studies faculty was just as stupid for interviewing a non Mexican American, but what do I expect from people who are not even Mexican Americans themselves.
She was referring to Mexican Americans as immigrants but last I recall, Mexican Americans dont exist in Mexico they would not be and then talked about new Oaxaca people in Baja California which she then referred that because a certain amount had moved in so now they could change the name of my people's land to Oaxacalifornia. That irritated me because it was a direct assault on those who had lived in Baja and were from Cucapah, Kumeyaay or other groups that were now part of the peninsula and the culture. So just because new people show up the identity of the place has to be changed to accomdodate them because they are so deserving. I was mad because my family history is being obliterated and never given an opportunity to be known but now because ugly people from 2000 miles away arrive they have to be catered to. And because some idiotic professor believes they can create new labels they now have carte blanche to do as they please. Lets call women men then and men women.
This is very similar to the definition of Mexican American or Chicano, I only use Mexican American, which somehow now includes Mexico born when it never did and others from Central America. And if we Mexican Americans speak up we are wrong when outsiders as I previously stated have no right to come and impose themselves on us. We didn't ask them to and we don't need them much less do we need so called White or Brown academicians creating false identities or changing the identities to suite their little box.
Call this a gripe, I don't care but don't profess to present an argument and ignore the other millions that live in that place because you believe these exotic subethnic Mexican migrants have to be showcased because they moved and moving is akin to some religious pilgrimmage. The natives of Baja didn't ask them to show up much less like Whites or Asians who want to turn the upper half of California into their homeland while they ignore those that have been living there the longest. This isn't a free for all to take. And as a person who believes space is identity the attempted swap is paramount to destroying my history all because academicians do not want to acknowledge a population existed prior and continue to live there.
Go to your home state and change that name not mine because when I was born in the Imperial Valley we were Mexican Americans only and not Latinos or anything else, well except that we were Apache too. I was born in Apacheria and I kind of like it that way, I don't need no more White woman ignorance.
I will be reading this and posting to youtube and am only two stories away from finishing my new book that has no title but does have 26 chapters. I will post more blogs sooner.
She was referring to Mexican Americans as immigrants but last I recall, Mexican Americans dont exist in Mexico they would not be and then talked about new Oaxaca people in Baja California which she then referred that because a certain amount had moved in so now they could change the name of my people's land to Oaxacalifornia. That irritated me because it was a direct assault on those who had lived in Baja and were from Cucapah, Kumeyaay or other groups that were now part of the peninsula and the culture. So just because new people show up the identity of the place has to be changed to accomdodate them because they are so deserving. I was mad because my family history is being obliterated and never given an opportunity to be known but now because ugly people from 2000 miles away arrive they have to be catered to. And because some idiotic professor believes they can create new labels they now have carte blanche to do as they please. Lets call women men then and men women.
This is very similar to the definition of Mexican American or Chicano, I only use Mexican American, which somehow now includes Mexico born when it never did and others from Central America. And if we Mexican Americans speak up we are wrong when outsiders as I previously stated have no right to come and impose themselves on us. We didn't ask them to and we don't need them much less do we need so called White or Brown academicians creating false identities or changing the identities to suite their little box.
Call this a gripe, I don't care but don't profess to present an argument and ignore the other millions that live in that place because you believe these exotic subethnic Mexican migrants have to be showcased because they moved and moving is akin to some religious pilgrimmage. The natives of Baja didn't ask them to show up much less like Whites or Asians who want to turn the upper half of California into their homeland while they ignore those that have been living there the longest. This isn't a free for all to take. And as a person who believes space is identity the attempted swap is paramount to destroying my history all because academicians do not want to acknowledge a population existed prior and continue to live there.
Go to your home state and change that name not mine because when I was born in the Imperial Valley we were Mexican Americans only and not Latinos or anything else, well except that we were Apache too. I was born in Apacheria and I kind of like it that way, I don't need no more White woman ignorance.
I will be reading this and posting to youtube and am only two stories away from finishing my new book that has no title but does have 26 chapters. I will post more blogs sooner.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Outsiders Telling Us Who We Are
Sometime this past June, I attended a meeting with the dean of CSULA who oversaw Chicano Studies and the chair of Chicano Studies, Michael Soldatenko whose not a Chicano which means Mexican American, born in the US.
I was part of The Chicano Task Force which is a subcommittee of the Chicano Roundtable that meet weekly at the Boys and Girls Club in East Los Angeles one block east from Ford/710 freeway exit. I attended with great guys who even though we have different perspectives on all things we agreed that changing the name from Chicano Studies to Latino Studies was an affront to Mexican Americans and wrong for the sake of the politically correct era that somehow people born in Latin America have to be accomodated while Mexican Americans born in the US are thrown under the bus.
I have not written about because I needed to process the words and reasoning from both the dean and the chair. Dean Henderson sounded like he was given a script from the non Mexican American faculty in Chicano Studies that justifies why Guatemalans, Salvadorians, Southern Mexicans have to be given recognition when they are not historically Americans. Can Guatemalans and Salvadorians trace their history to California or Arizona or New Mexico? Where are their historical monuments in California?
And I do take it personal because as someone from Apache Cucapah lineage from Southern California/Yuma I view outsiders with mistrust especially when they arrive and feel entitled. They sure don't show any consideration to those of us born here and the same can be stated for southern Mexicans who show up to the north and believe they are owed something.
The likes of Saul Figueroa, Chihuan Montalvo, David Sanchez, Ruben Lopez, Agustin Cebada, Luis Garcia and Popeii Aguilar were in attendance to protest the proposed name change.
After back and forth respectable but heated debate the dialogue took us to the most important part of the meeting that began with Michael Soldatenko stating the following:
"The problem here is I think we have a different definition of what is a Mexican American, according to your definition, somebody like Rudy Acunha is not a Chicano".
And for the record, Soldatenko admitted he was born in Mexico City too when questioned where was he during the Chicano Movement of the early 70's and he stated, "I was in Mexico". Meaning he was not in the US.
"That's true, Chicanos are US born people". I replied.
He was not happy at my reply and yet the most poignant point was made when Luis Garcia asked him: "What's your definition of a Chicano"? And he remained quiet.
I couldn't help but think the following in the subsequent months since that meeting.
Since the time of my birth in 1969 a constant legal definition of a US citizen has been birth with naturalization coming in at second. Though some might say that they are the same, there are certain qualifications that only applies to US born and not those naturalized. Second, in an era where laws are being changed and those that naturalized but engaged in illegal activities find themselves being deported after their time, one can't help to comprehend that those Mexican Americans won't be on any bus for deportation. And vice versa, Mexican Americans in Mexico do not exist as an anything because they weren't born there so to them we are foreigners and gringos to them too. Birth is sacred to both countries. At least those born in Mexico have a place to return to, we don't. And it shows history to both countries. When someone is born in Mexico it means they have had a presence there for at least one generation. The same can be said for those of us born here, we have presence. I was born here, my grandmother was born in Yuma eventhough she gave birth to my father in Mexicali, her father and mother were born in Arizona, my children are born in the US too. Birth isn't just luck, its a connection which people born outside don't have. My children are 7th generation by their Mexican American grandmother: born in Los Angeles, grandmother born in Clifton, AZ, great grandmother born in El Paso, great great in Isleta, mother in Santa Ana. How do others compare to my children's history. They don't.
And I'm not the only one, Cebada was born in Cuba, New Mexico whereas Soldatenko and his mention of the so called father of Chicanos was not so how do they compare to somebody like Cebada or myself.
But the part that irks me the most is the following: Who are foreigners to come to the US and tell us, US citizens, Mexican Americans who we are.
That is the part I cannot reconcile because its these outsiders who are the heads of so called academia of Chicanos when they are not Mexican Americans. Non Mexican Americans are telling us who we are and I find that to be disgusting because it's another form of colonialism.
Mexican Americans don't go to their universities and tell them who they are thus what gives them the right to feel that they can dictate to us. Where else is this permitted?
The assumption is that because Whites see us all as "Mexicans" then we can be lumped with people from Mexico but in actuality for US Whites to lump US citizens with another country is in itself racism. Just because we might share the same name then Mexican Americans must be from Mexico. Can people not distinguish between the American part? Why because we're racialized? It is easier to write us off as foreigners versus considering us to be American. But I don't deal with anything that a Mexican national has to deal with when migrating to the US. I don't stand in line for a green card, take a citizenship test or deal with relatives in southern Mexico. That is not my history.
So yes, I find it insulting and disrespectful that universities permit foreigners from Mexico and now Central America to dictate to me a Mexican American what I am which is not a foreigner. If I don't allow Whites, my fellow US citizens to dictate who I am why should we permit a Mexican national to dictate. Who the hell are them? If they want to talk about Mexican Nationals in the US go ahead but don't speak for Mexican Americans and don't steal from us what little we have.
The same could be said for Central Americans, they don't know Mexican American culture, we don't speak the same, have a different cosmic vision and look different and the same can be said when employing other US citizens such as Puerto Ricans in Chicano Studies much like CSULB has done. They don't know Mexican American culture and we don't know them either and this I can tell you by the two Puerto Rican boyfriends my mother has had, we don't have cultural simularity.
Though the issue is not isolated to CSULA, it's at CSULB as I mentioned along with their current chair who was undocumented by his own admission, Mexican Americans have never been illegal, that narrative does not apply to us. And even the UCLA has faculty from Mexico like Raul Hinojosa who was my instructor at UCLA in Urban Planning but he's not Mexican Ameican because he was born in Mexico City.
That is University racism by lumping them into Chicano Studies which has always been about those from the US not those that migrate north but those faculty don't care because it's a job, a retirement to them and they benefit while we US born lose.
And the best part, these foreigners born in Mexico hire others born in Mexico because that's their shared narrative and screw over those born here. Some say, they have qualifications, but why do they hire an EDD when that's not a PHD or MA in Fine Arts or Creative Writing. They make up rules as they please and attempt to change to meet their cultural needs which always ends up coming at the expense of US born Mexican Americans because nobody believes they exist today because they are all assumed to be immigrants.
Lastly, I could help but thing that the majority of us complaining about the proposed name change were the Mexican Americans looking in while the foreigners where the ones in positions that belonged to Mexican Americans.
So they had the last laugh.
I was part of The Chicano Task Force which is a subcommittee of the Chicano Roundtable that meet weekly at the Boys and Girls Club in East Los Angeles one block east from Ford/710 freeway exit. I attended with great guys who even though we have different perspectives on all things we agreed that changing the name from Chicano Studies to Latino Studies was an affront to Mexican Americans and wrong for the sake of the politically correct era that somehow people born in Latin America have to be accomodated while Mexican Americans born in the US are thrown under the bus.
I have not written about because I needed to process the words and reasoning from both the dean and the chair. Dean Henderson sounded like he was given a script from the non Mexican American faculty in Chicano Studies that justifies why Guatemalans, Salvadorians, Southern Mexicans have to be given recognition when they are not historically Americans. Can Guatemalans and Salvadorians trace their history to California or Arizona or New Mexico? Where are their historical monuments in California?
And I do take it personal because as someone from Apache Cucapah lineage from Southern California/Yuma I view outsiders with mistrust especially when they arrive and feel entitled. They sure don't show any consideration to those of us born here and the same can be stated for southern Mexicans who show up to the north and believe they are owed something.
The likes of Saul Figueroa, Chihuan Montalvo, David Sanchez, Ruben Lopez, Agustin Cebada, Luis Garcia and Popeii Aguilar were in attendance to protest the proposed name change.
After back and forth respectable but heated debate the dialogue took us to the most important part of the meeting that began with Michael Soldatenko stating the following:
"The problem here is I think we have a different definition of what is a Mexican American, according to your definition, somebody like Rudy Acunha is not a Chicano".
And for the record, Soldatenko admitted he was born in Mexico City too when questioned where was he during the Chicano Movement of the early 70's and he stated, "I was in Mexico". Meaning he was not in the US.
"That's true, Chicanos are US born people". I replied.
He was not happy at my reply and yet the most poignant point was made when Luis Garcia asked him: "What's your definition of a Chicano"? And he remained quiet.
I couldn't help but think the following in the subsequent months since that meeting.
Since the time of my birth in 1969 a constant legal definition of a US citizen has been birth with naturalization coming in at second. Though some might say that they are the same, there are certain qualifications that only applies to US born and not those naturalized. Second, in an era where laws are being changed and those that naturalized but engaged in illegal activities find themselves being deported after their time, one can't help to comprehend that those Mexican Americans won't be on any bus for deportation. And vice versa, Mexican Americans in Mexico do not exist as an anything because they weren't born there so to them we are foreigners and gringos to them too. Birth is sacred to both countries. At least those born in Mexico have a place to return to, we don't. And it shows history to both countries. When someone is born in Mexico it means they have had a presence there for at least one generation. The same can be said for those of us born here, we have presence. I was born here, my grandmother was born in Yuma eventhough she gave birth to my father in Mexicali, her father and mother were born in Arizona, my children are born in the US too. Birth isn't just luck, its a connection which people born outside don't have. My children are 7th generation by their Mexican American grandmother: born in Los Angeles, grandmother born in Clifton, AZ, great grandmother born in El Paso, great great in Isleta, mother in Santa Ana. How do others compare to my children's history. They don't.
And I'm not the only one, Cebada was born in Cuba, New Mexico whereas Soldatenko and his mention of the so called father of Chicanos was not so how do they compare to somebody like Cebada or myself.
But the part that irks me the most is the following: Who are foreigners to come to the US and tell us, US citizens, Mexican Americans who we are.
That is the part I cannot reconcile because its these outsiders who are the heads of so called academia of Chicanos when they are not Mexican Americans. Non Mexican Americans are telling us who we are and I find that to be disgusting because it's another form of colonialism.
Mexican Americans don't go to their universities and tell them who they are thus what gives them the right to feel that they can dictate to us. Where else is this permitted?
The assumption is that because Whites see us all as "Mexicans" then we can be lumped with people from Mexico but in actuality for US Whites to lump US citizens with another country is in itself racism. Just because we might share the same name then Mexican Americans must be from Mexico. Can people not distinguish between the American part? Why because we're racialized? It is easier to write us off as foreigners versus considering us to be American. But I don't deal with anything that a Mexican national has to deal with when migrating to the US. I don't stand in line for a green card, take a citizenship test or deal with relatives in southern Mexico. That is not my history.
So yes, I find it insulting and disrespectful that universities permit foreigners from Mexico and now Central America to dictate to me a Mexican American what I am which is not a foreigner. If I don't allow Whites, my fellow US citizens to dictate who I am why should we permit a Mexican national to dictate. Who the hell are them? If they want to talk about Mexican Nationals in the US go ahead but don't speak for Mexican Americans and don't steal from us what little we have.
The same could be said for Central Americans, they don't know Mexican American culture, we don't speak the same, have a different cosmic vision and look different and the same can be said when employing other US citizens such as Puerto Ricans in Chicano Studies much like CSULB has done. They don't know Mexican American culture and we don't know them either and this I can tell you by the two Puerto Rican boyfriends my mother has had, we don't have cultural simularity.
Though the issue is not isolated to CSULA, it's at CSULB as I mentioned along with their current chair who was undocumented by his own admission, Mexican Americans have never been illegal, that narrative does not apply to us. And even the UCLA has faculty from Mexico like Raul Hinojosa who was my instructor at UCLA in Urban Planning but he's not Mexican Ameican because he was born in Mexico City.
That is University racism by lumping them into Chicano Studies which has always been about those from the US not those that migrate north but those faculty don't care because it's a job, a retirement to them and they benefit while we US born lose.
And the best part, these foreigners born in Mexico hire others born in Mexico because that's their shared narrative and screw over those born here. Some say, they have qualifications, but why do they hire an EDD when that's not a PHD or MA in Fine Arts or Creative Writing. They make up rules as they please and attempt to change to meet their cultural needs which always ends up coming at the expense of US born Mexican Americans because nobody believes they exist today because they are all assumed to be immigrants.
Lastly, I could help but thing that the majority of us complaining about the proposed name change were the Mexican Americans looking in while the foreigners where the ones in positions that belonged to Mexican Americans.
So they had the last laugh.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
The X Files
I recently came across a chapter in year 9 of The X Files, I have been watching every episode from season 1, have turned on the subtitle and have read like if it was a novel. In this episode, they are on an oil ring investigating how one Mestizo was killed by a specific radiation but were not effected by the alien virus, oil.
Then in a dialogue over the so called Mestizo Mexican, that even the human like White aliens referred to them as mestizo, Scully tells Skinner, her boss the following line in the autopsy:
“Mr Simon de la Cruz is listed of mixed Mexican ancestry, when in fact he is of Hecha Indian, the Huecha are an indigenous Mexican culture that has a rate undiluted gene pool. Now, these genes may have an innate immunity to infection.”
Considering the Aztecs saw themselves as People of the Sun, literally coming from the sun and a belief in outer space is quite prevalent without having to ever go on an airplane, I could not help but think why this television program basically spelled out who Mexicans are and Mexican Americans but colleges who specialize in Mexico and Mexican American Studies keep insisting that they are something they are not. Why do these centers of higher education keep shoving down ignorance when the opposite is true.
To keep insisting Mexican Americans are mestizos with categories that are invalid perpetuates not just a mislabeling of the very people they profess to know but also a confusion of identities because they the very professors of knowledge are themselves confused. What more evidence do they need other than Black hair and brown or red skin to prove what they are? Or eating the same diet for centuries even if the cow came from Europe. As Dick Cheney said, "so". Are Spaniards or Germans Mexican because they have incorporated chocolate or a papa into their diet? They don't change other than better looking teeth and satisfied females, so why doesn't that argument hold truth for Mexicans. US whites drink more tequila than the tequila Gods just listen to country music and you would think hot water comes from Tenneesee. Maybe it does.
For you Chicano lost professors just look in the mirror and if you don't resemble maybe you are not which is ok, just don't confuse those who are "indigenous" because if the writers of The X Files got it correct why can't you?
Or as my fellow Mexican American Apache friend Ruben Lopez was told by the American Red Cross when he donated blood: "you have rare antagems, we want you to come back". And he just wanted the extra credit.
I personally love being a Cucapah Apache!
Kunahuati Chalea Turi!
Then in a dialogue over the so called Mestizo Mexican, that even the human like White aliens referred to them as mestizo, Scully tells Skinner, her boss the following line in the autopsy:
“Mr Simon de la Cruz is listed of mixed Mexican ancestry, when in fact he is of Hecha Indian, the Huecha are an indigenous Mexican culture that has a rate undiluted gene pool. Now, these genes may have an innate immunity to infection.”
Considering the Aztecs saw themselves as People of the Sun, literally coming from the sun and a belief in outer space is quite prevalent without having to ever go on an airplane, I could not help but think why this television program basically spelled out who Mexicans are and Mexican Americans but colleges who specialize in Mexico and Mexican American Studies keep insisting that they are something they are not. Why do these centers of higher education keep shoving down ignorance when the opposite is true.
To keep insisting Mexican Americans are mestizos with categories that are invalid perpetuates not just a mislabeling of the very people they profess to know but also a confusion of identities because they the very professors of knowledge are themselves confused. What more evidence do they need other than Black hair and brown or red skin to prove what they are? Or eating the same diet for centuries even if the cow came from Europe. As Dick Cheney said, "so". Are Spaniards or Germans Mexican because they have incorporated chocolate or a papa into their diet? They don't change other than better looking teeth and satisfied females, so why doesn't that argument hold truth for Mexicans. US whites drink more tequila than the tequila Gods just listen to country music and you would think hot water comes from Tenneesee. Maybe it does.
For you Chicano lost professors just look in the mirror and if you don't resemble maybe you are not which is ok, just don't confuse those who are "indigenous" because if the writers of The X Files got it correct why can't you?
Or as my fellow Mexican American Apache friend Ruben Lopez was told by the American Red Cross when he donated blood: "you have rare antagems, we want you to come back". And he just wanted the extra credit.
I personally love being a Cucapah Apache!
Kunahuati Chalea Turi!
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