The White House on Facebook sent out celebratory notifications this week in celebration of Title IX Gender equality that mandated equal funding in college sports but it also included admissions to programs in law and medicine. Forty years later the end result are more White women not only in college sports including Blacks and the occasional Mexican American female and others known as Latinas. But there are overall more females in college than males today amongst Whites, something that has caught the attention of many but to no avail. Moreover there are more White females in law schools--look at the over representation of female judges or attorneys, doctors via medical school and the fact that more women are now earning doctoral degrees than males. I am not sure this is something to celebrate because it means somebody has had the doors closed.
If we break it down racially, Mexican Americans continue to account state wide in California at 15-18% for B.A.'s and drops down to less than 2% in doctoral programs hence what has happened that one could really be happy about. If one accounts by lumping other Latinos and undocumented students from Mexico and raised in the US, the number of Mexican Americans drop much more drastically. Yours truly was rejected for 6-7 doctoral programs for all the reasons of having a penis, brown skin, not annointed by a college professor who valued my interest, no sobbing story of having been in the US without papers, etc.... or yeah and I am not gay so that does not help me. People can say I am a cry baby and sure I can accept their criticism yet it does not take away the fact that numbers speak for themselves. Since Title IX was signed Richard Nixon the end result is that Whiteness has still prevailed under the veil of inclusion and affirmative action in a skirt.
But why did this happen if one takes into account that White women were not historically discriminated, I don't recall a bus that stated, "White Women in the back", or "White women are not served", plus they had female colleges that the likes of Hilary Clinton attended to. So how were they discriminated? They couldn't vote argument until 1919 is then brought up but that was solved in 1919 and yet in the height of legal segregation they were still immune from colored places. Plus, White women were given the right to vote but Native Americans were non citizens in 1919 even if they had been born in this territory. In Arizona where my Apache grandmother Luz was born, she wasn't even given a birth certificate. She was assigned a number in 1926 only. Yes I have a reason to vent, where White women segregated like my grandmother?
Then after segregation was outlawed in 1954, White women as part of being from a White family were able to participate in the suburban funding of America and as a former older White female student once told the class, (her mother was a CIA operative for a Vice President in a US Airline), "the Black neighborhoods behind the our White houses in Florida were poorer and in horrible conditions". I thanked her for her honesty, she was great. She was an RN and would say many of the White male doctors were simultaneously idiots. Therefore, how were White women thrown into the Civil Rights equation plus they could marry up something Mexican American males cannot do today so lets put this in perspective.
The damage occurs when Lyndon Baines Johnson forced the South to sign on to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and they did so by adding legislation that included gender as a way to stifle the racial equalization the law was intended to solve. The focus was on Blacks and even though Mexican Americans were a national minority they were not included because they were not defined as a national minority until 1971 even though authors like Carey McWilliams mentioned that in California, Blacks were progressing in admissions to UCLA while Mexican Americans were numerically more and poorer. Stephen Pitti makes the same point in The Devil in the Silicon Valley, White administrators at San Jose State would advocate Blacks civil rights issues though they were only 2% of the population and Mexican Americans were 20%. And it did not help that on paper even until today, the Census classifies Mexican Americans as White, Hispanic Whites.
Thus White women inclusion was the devil in the language and when Title 9 is added in 1972, it was easy to make this legislation because they were included back in 1964 and the damage is visible today. White women have more access to college than Mexican American males and we are the minority so go figure. Yet who advocates for this position. Its worse, The White House celebrates it while Mexican American males, US born have the lowest college attendance rates and worse by generation, the longer in the US the worse the educational results are. Even in the political world, the results are seen because they do not vote but I don't believe voting does anything especially when I have to get in line behind, White women, gays, unions, undocumented students, corporation and so forth.
Hence I pose the question, what is there to celebrate if I am a Mexican American male. I've been let go of all the part time college positions I had because of budget cuts while women of all colors and White males along with the chosen brown people are given participation for something that I have paid into as a tax payer along with my parents, grandparents and even great grandparents. Honestly, I could care less about White women's issue while I have to beg for my existence but what do I expect, its not as if they care about my condition and obviously not even the White House.
Title IX was bad legislation and to promote it as good is both historically erroneous and contemporarily damaging as White women progress. And though I was rejected for doctoral programs, I have published 7 books hence their negative judgement of me was incorrect but what do I expect from a system that has their minds made up. Next time I'll check female on my applications.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
The Diasphoral Model Does Not Apply
I recently came across a news letter titled the California Mexico Project pushed by Chicano Studies professor Armando. He was advocating for a show of support for the 32 million Mexicans in the diasphoral and that they should be included in the upcoming election, presidential in Mexico.
The part that bothered me was this diasphoric claim which means they have left the homeland bus a Mexican American of Apache heritage this statement counters my belief that for us US Mexican Americans, the diaphoral model does not apply because I'm living in the same homelands of my Apache ancestors, so I find it troubling that this view exist in the field of Chicano Studies which is the study of Mexican Americans not Mexican from southern Mexico Studies which I believe harms the education of those people like myself who have a northern heritage from the US side.
Why is this separation from the homeland viewed even permitted in Mexican American Studies if the claim of the basis of Chicano Studies was from Aztlan which refers to the US desert or Northern Mexico. But I understand why it happened and its simple, all these Mexico born, most from the south arrive and push their agenda, personal, cultural and political and push those like me to the aside because they feel they are owed something. Yet how can a foreign born be given preference over a US citizen of birth, protected by the 14th amendment but because universities take the view, they are all the same, there is no respect for US born. What is worse is the ignorance that is taught by pushing
these deposed view from the homeland when that is not the case, these people left voluntarily for their own self interest. For those of us born here, there is no diaphoral model for explaining our history, but one of belonging in continuity, plus unlike those born in Mexico I'm not interested in Mexican politics or matters down there because I have no connection to anybody down there.
And because they weren't born here they push their form of culture and history at the expense of those that are from here, plus they live in two places at the same time whereas we don't. And if do, our relatives are from small towns within the US not from a 1000 miles away. The diasphoral model is based on the Jewish model of being displaced from Jerusalem but that was based on a forced exodus, for the Mexico City people, there is no forced displacement because they voluntarily moved for a job and a pension which I find problematic because that supercedes cultural survivor because the south of Mexico was not conquered whereas the north was. And it was those people that suffered.
I came across a quote from Geronimo who tells a Mexican officer, "You are from the south, I am from the north, you go south, I go north, I nor my people want nothing to do with you". Especially when they are intercepting our narrative and imposing they own views over us. Erasing our existence in the process.
The part that bothered me was this diasphoric claim which means they have left the homeland bus a Mexican American of Apache heritage this statement counters my belief that for us US Mexican Americans, the diaphoral model does not apply because I'm living in the same homelands of my Apache ancestors, so I find it troubling that this view exist in the field of Chicano Studies which is the study of Mexican Americans not Mexican from southern Mexico Studies which I believe harms the education of those people like myself who have a northern heritage from the US side.
Why is this separation from the homeland viewed even permitted in Mexican American Studies if the claim of the basis of Chicano Studies was from Aztlan which refers to the US desert or Northern Mexico. But I understand why it happened and its simple, all these Mexico born, most from the south arrive and push their agenda, personal, cultural and political and push those like me to the aside because they feel they are owed something. Yet how can a foreign born be given preference over a US citizen of birth, protected by the 14th amendment but because universities take the view, they are all the same, there is no respect for US born. What is worse is the ignorance that is taught by pushing
these deposed view from the homeland when that is not the case, these people left voluntarily for their own self interest. For those of us born here, there is no diaphoral model for explaining our history, but one of belonging in continuity, plus unlike those born in Mexico I'm not interested in Mexican politics or matters down there because I have no connection to anybody down there.
And because they weren't born here they push their form of culture and history at the expense of those that are from here, plus they live in two places at the same time whereas we don't. And if do, our relatives are from small towns within the US not from a 1000 miles away. The diasphoral model is based on the Jewish model of being displaced from Jerusalem but that was based on a forced exodus, for the Mexico City people, there is no forced displacement because they voluntarily moved for a job and a pension which I find problematic because that supercedes cultural survivor because the south of Mexico was not conquered whereas the north was. And it was those people that suffered.
I came across a quote from Geronimo who tells a Mexican officer, "You are from the south, I am from the north, you go south, I go north, I nor my people want nothing to do with you". Especially when they are intercepting our narrative and imposing they own views over us. Erasing our existence in the process.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
No Maternal Home
Six months ago, my mother had to move in with my youngest brother because my other brother moved on and had a beautiful little girl named Cheyanne.
However the tragic part of this story was that in essence something much more profound was lost lost for the rest of us five other siblings, which was a maternal home to return to. As a child, especially after my father died, with the uncertainty of Reagan's inflation, income limitations placed on earnings from Social Security and low wage employment, housing was always a perilious experience. So we end up in Lennox in the worst neighborhood according to my liking and we felt trapped there for 15 years. Even after college it seemed we could never get of of there.
Apart from some crazy neighbors at first and a few slap sessions, things calmed and we became friends with some of the neighbors but much more my brothers because they were younger and attended the same elementary and then junior high schools. When we moved there I was 15 versus 9, 8, or 6 hence as had become my experience after elementary school, my mom uprooted us from the Inglewood area I grew up in 95th and Arbor Vitae, across the street from the 405 freeway. Living a life as gypsy had become a way of life and my friendships were lost in that part of Inglewood. Lennox was just too far to walk to though my friend Scott would visit when he could. Even though he moved to to Gardena not long after I had moved.
In the subsequent years, the house in Lennox was home but never felt like home because the neighborhood was dirty, crowded, ugly, rat infested and just plain hideous. Even the devil would not create hell in this manner. But we stayed because that was all we could afford and felt like the song Hotel California, "you may check out but you may never leave". I checked out from Lennox but I never really left and so did my mother and nobody could really help. We were on our own.
When we left, it was as an individual for me but I felt I abandoned my siblings, then my brother left to live with his girlfriend, the other two to play college football and finally we moved my mother to Hawthorne which was suppose to be better but the apartment was a fraud; the second bedroom was a converted something, prostitutes roamed El Segundo Blvd. and it just did not feel like home even though my aunt lived in the floor below. Even though I have never admitted it, there was a lose with the neighbors from Lennox, somewhat still continues.
But by now the reality had kicked in that my mother would now live with us because she had never never been able to purchase a home because because, she was not permitted to. And it would make a difference which is why we moved around alot prior to remaining in Lennox for 10 years. When we moved to Whittier, it was to create that home base and independence but it never quite worked out for all kinds of reasons from financial to uncooperation from each sibling head and in the end, when my brother had the baby and moved back to the homeland of Inglewood and the increased mortgage and non refinancing of the house what was once dreamed of ended. Eventually she moved in with my younger brother where she lives comfortably but ultimately it's his house not hers, hence it's not a neutral home were we can all go peacefully.
When its moms home even though she might be messy and lacked better hygiene kitchen habits. it was still that home you felt you grew up in. Instead of complaining about the dishes or the grease on the wall, I would clean my part up. In her home, she had pictures of us as kids, high school graduates, now the grand kids and trinjunklets collected throughout the years even if dusty or not sliding to the side. The hanging towels of my mothers scent aromatizing the house and the television that is permanently fixed on the Spanish channels for the novelas that always have the great looking chiks. That is now gone because my mother was never allowed to build a nest and neither were we because we haven't really been successful apart for survival purposes. I know what its like to return to that nest, I spent time with my paternal grandmother in El Centro, California were no one sibling controlled the others. Pulling up to that driveway felt like home. My maternal grandmother also had a neutral home in Mexicali, Baja California and only when everybody was there did I feel crowded but not at home. One could sit under the mesquite tree and even sleep if it felt too crowded or just sit and enjoy the stars and the occasional ghost visiting us, we have quite a few. I know whats that like but I don't have it anymore and neither do my children. Not that my brother is not welcoming, he is but it's his home and his soon to be wife. We can't be too comfortable. At my moms house, I wouldn't ask to use the restroom, would sleep on the couch and roamed as if I was a home because I was. This I have no more
And even my other brother Alberto mentioned the same thing, though the only solution would be a home 100 miles away and that's not an option. But as he stated, "We need a home base, sometimes we need a break from everything" or just the feeling of returning to a place we called home. If we get separated there is a place to go to, fired from work (which happens quite frequently) or just want pure love without the nagging and responsibilty of adulthood. Its not there anymore!
However the tragic part of this story was that in essence something much more profound was lost lost for the rest of us five other siblings, which was a maternal home to return to. As a child, especially after my father died, with the uncertainty of Reagan's inflation, income limitations placed on earnings from Social Security and low wage employment, housing was always a perilious experience. So we end up in Lennox in the worst neighborhood according to my liking and we felt trapped there for 15 years. Even after college it seemed we could never get of of there.
Apart from some crazy neighbors at first and a few slap sessions, things calmed and we became friends with some of the neighbors but much more my brothers because they were younger and attended the same elementary and then junior high schools. When we moved there I was 15 versus 9, 8, or 6 hence as had become my experience after elementary school, my mom uprooted us from the Inglewood area I grew up in 95th and Arbor Vitae, across the street from the 405 freeway. Living a life as gypsy had become a way of life and my friendships were lost in that part of Inglewood. Lennox was just too far to walk to though my friend Scott would visit when he could. Even though he moved to to Gardena not long after I had moved.
In the subsequent years, the house in Lennox was home but never felt like home because the neighborhood was dirty, crowded, ugly, rat infested and just plain hideous. Even the devil would not create hell in this manner. But we stayed because that was all we could afford and felt like the song Hotel California, "you may check out but you may never leave". I checked out from Lennox but I never really left and so did my mother and nobody could really help. We were on our own.
When we left, it was as an individual for me but I felt I abandoned my siblings, then my brother left to live with his girlfriend, the other two to play college football and finally we moved my mother to Hawthorne which was suppose to be better but the apartment was a fraud; the second bedroom was a converted something, prostitutes roamed El Segundo Blvd. and it just did not feel like home even though my aunt lived in the floor below. Even though I have never admitted it, there was a lose with the neighbors from Lennox, somewhat still continues.
But by now the reality had kicked in that my mother would now live with us because she had never never been able to purchase a home because because, she was not permitted to. And it would make a difference which is why we moved around alot prior to remaining in Lennox for 10 years. When we moved to Whittier, it was to create that home base and independence but it never quite worked out for all kinds of reasons from financial to uncooperation from each sibling head and in the end, when my brother had the baby and moved back to the homeland of Inglewood and the increased mortgage and non refinancing of the house what was once dreamed of ended. Eventually she moved in with my younger brother where she lives comfortably but ultimately it's his house not hers, hence it's not a neutral home were we can all go peacefully.
When its moms home even though she might be messy and lacked better hygiene kitchen habits. it was still that home you felt you grew up in. Instead of complaining about the dishes or the grease on the wall, I would clean my part up. In her home, she had pictures of us as kids, high school graduates, now the grand kids and trinjunklets collected throughout the years even if dusty or not sliding to the side. The hanging towels of my mothers scent aromatizing the house and the television that is permanently fixed on the Spanish channels for the novelas that always have the great looking chiks. That is now gone because my mother was never allowed to build a nest and neither were we because we haven't really been successful apart for survival purposes. I know what its like to return to that nest, I spent time with my paternal grandmother in El Centro, California were no one sibling controlled the others. Pulling up to that driveway felt like home. My maternal grandmother also had a neutral home in Mexicali, Baja California and only when everybody was there did I feel crowded but not at home. One could sit under the mesquite tree and even sleep if it felt too crowded or just sit and enjoy the stars and the occasional ghost visiting us, we have quite a few. I know whats that like but I don't have it anymore and neither do my children. Not that my brother is not welcoming, he is but it's his home and his soon to be wife. We can't be too comfortable. At my moms house, I wouldn't ask to use the restroom, would sleep on the couch and roamed as if I was a home because I was. This I have no more
And even my other brother Alberto mentioned the same thing, though the only solution would be a home 100 miles away and that's not an option. But as he stated, "We need a home base, sometimes we need a break from everything" or just the feeling of returning to a place we called home. If we get separated there is a place to go to, fired from work (which happens quite frequently) or just want pure love without the nagging and responsibilty of adulthood. Its not there anymore!
Monday, March 26, 2012
Memories Not To Be Mentioned
Life is at a crossroads for the simple reason that I am getting older and yes older. I still have my black hair, still have my teeth, a few extra pounds and my memory. I have posted on facebook commentaries dating back to the years of high school about rejections whether it never being asked out for the Sadie Hawkins Dance by the women as they are suppose to or complaining about being rejected for the year book staff. My journalism fromt he beginning were tainted and have never gone anywhere. Hell I even vented at the arrogance of the honor students who thought they were too good because they were the selected smartest students according to the curriculum but come on, high school teachers are not necessarily the most appropriate at judging what is quality. They are high school teachers not members of the Noble Prize Award committee. Teachers who got their credentials from National University.
The commentaries even from friends have been fascinating to say the least with comments about let it go, its been 20 years, you can't live in the past, something is wrong, what does this say about you and move on. But I don't see it this way, maybe because these were rejections of the innocence when one is not defensible and you take them at face value and move on. But those rejections linger in ones life at least for me because I have a memory that is like a megabyte, I just don't forget and closure is something I want in the form of revenge. I am vengeful and have always been because I was never the one who wanted to harm somebody, so why would someone want to harm me in return. When someone has done me harm, its the Apache, I contemplate patiently and I do respond like a wrestler should with a reversal or a counter in boxing and its not with malice as those rejections were. I counter simply by bringing up something that would be memoried away and it seems to resonate because some took it personal even though nobody was mentioned. As a matter of fact I have forgotten many individuals and faces as 25 years of post graduation takes its toll and eternity fades away.
What struck me the most was the mere mentioned conjured up personal reactions when the questions posed were generalizations of the nobody, just circumstances of ponderings. In youth, I just swallowed the rejections in adulthood I question and challenge because arbitraryness is the rule of the law and if the popularizaiton of continuous 25 years later we are still the same and that is one place I don't want to be in because I'm getting old and I don't have to swallow rejections. At least now I can say, I hated those rejections or those people with their click mentalities and vice versa, I don't forget those that were the kindest when I was the most vulnerable like Louie Marin who gave me rides after wrestling practice and I didn't have to walk home, or my mother who would pick me up from football practice, fed me in the car and made sure I made it to work. And even the young woman who introduced me to life without me knowing what to do. I have never forgotten her and never will even when I did fail her because of my immaturity. Who knows I might be a grandfather right now or I would have caused her pain too as I seem to do frequently. I just don't like others determining my fate and that's my pedo.
On another note, I wrote an article for an online journal titled "A Voice For Men" under "Demonizing Machismo" under newer rejections for my thinking. But now I'm an adult and I don't hold back so I critiqued how places such as CSUN or Tia Chucha's bookstore along with feminist faculty and girlie men not only rejected my published book known as Huevos because it counters Chicana Feminism and advocates for Mexican American machismo. How threatening and logical is that, a bookstore who cries all the time about not selling enough books and they are not the only ones, refuses to sell my book because of its content. But if it was Gabriel Garcia Marquez book, "Memorias de mi Putas Triste" they would have no problem promoting it.
My reaffirmation was when I wrote the article the feedback on the site had 25 plus comments applauding what I wrote and cheering me which both reaffirmed what I said and have encouraged me to continue writing my convictions because I can't be afraid of the world. And what others think, I'm not in it for a popularity contest but to express what I feel which is ultimately what I do when I write or publish my books. By the way, I have two books that will be published within the summer on my grandmother's Apache Spirituality and my time at a Protestant Anglo church as a teenager. Will be you informed.......................................!
The commentaries even from friends have been fascinating to say the least with comments about let it go, its been 20 years, you can't live in the past, something is wrong, what does this say about you and move on. But I don't see it this way, maybe because these were rejections of the innocence when one is not defensible and you take them at face value and move on. But those rejections linger in ones life at least for me because I have a memory that is like a megabyte, I just don't forget and closure is something I want in the form of revenge. I am vengeful and have always been because I was never the one who wanted to harm somebody, so why would someone want to harm me in return. When someone has done me harm, its the Apache, I contemplate patiently and I do respond like a wrestler should with a reversal or a counter in boxing and its not with malice as those rejections were. I counter simply by bringing up something that would be memoried away and it seems to resonate because some took it personal even though nobody was mentioned. As a matter of fact I have forgotten many individuals and faces as 25 years of post graduation takes its toll and eternity fades away.
What struck me the most was the mere mentioned conjured up personal reactions when the questions posed were generalizations of the nobody, just circumstances of ponderings. In youth, I just swallowed the rejections in adulthood I question and challenge because arbitraryness is the rule of the law and if the popularizaiton of continuous 25 years later we are still the same and that is one place I don't want to be in because I'm getting old and I don't have to swallow rejections. At least now I can say, I hated those rejections or those people with their click mentalities and vice versa, I don't forget those that were the kindest when I was the most vulnerable like Louie Marin who gave me rides after wrestling practice and I didn't have to walk home, or my mother who would pick me up from football practice, fed me in the car and made sure I made it to work. And even the young woman who introduced me to life without me knowing what to do. I have never forgotten her and never will even when I did fail her because of my immaturity. Who knows I might be a grandfather right now or I would have caused her pain too as I seem to do frequently. I just don't like others determining my fate and that's my pedo.
On another note, I wrote an article for an online journal titled "A Voice For Men" under "Demonizing Machismo" under newer rejections for my thinking. But now I'm an adult and I don't hold back so I critiqued how places such as CSUN or Tia Chucha's bookstore along with feminist faculty and girlie men not only rejected my published book known as Huevos because it counters Chicana Feminism and advocates for Mexican American machismo. How threatening and logical is that, a bookstore who cries all the time about not selling enough books and they are not the only ones, refuses to sell my book because of its content. But if it was Gabriel Garcia Marquez book, "Memorias de mi Putas Triste" they would have no problem promoting it.
My reaffirmation was when I wrote the article the feedback on the site had 25 plus comments applauding what I wrote and cheering me which both reaffirmed what I said and have encouraged me to continue writing my convictions because I can't be afraid of the world. And what others think, I'm not in it for a popularity contest but to express what I feel which is ultimately what I do when I write or publish my books. By the way, I have two books that will be published within the summer on my grandmother's Apache Spirituality and my time at a Protestant Anglo church as a teenager. Will be you informed.......................................!
Friday, February 17, 2012
El Bobo Castillo & the Screwball
I want to write about something that's been bugging me for the longest time which is the lack of recognition for a Mexican American baseball player named Bobby "Bobo" Castillo who taught Fernando Valenzuela how to throw the screwball.
I remember el Bobo Castillo because as a kid I use to know the name of every baseball player on the Dodgers and because they won and I saw the World Series in 1981, and 1987 and remember the pain of losing in 77 and 78 to the Yankees, that damn Reggie Jackson interferred with the ball thrown to first base. Yet what really bothers me and it sort of did also back in the day was why all the attention by the Mexico born fan base was given to Fernando Valenzuela though Castillo had been there for a few years and taught Fernando the famous screwball. I'm not arguing different types of players, some would say Fernando was a better overall player, the Cy Young and Rookie of the Year Award proved it but it was the skill of a Mexican American, born in Los Angeles who taught the southern Sonoran player how to throw that famous screwball. El Bobo never seemed to get attention except for Vin Scully saying LA's own but that was the extent of the recognition which should have been much more because he was one of our own and in those days baseball use to mean something to me. Granted I was never good, would hit the ball at Centinela Park(underhand pitch) and watched the ball go up in the air. My grandmother Kika would yell "run, mijo, run" and I would watch the ball go up in the air and then decide to run. My father Julian and grandpa Gus would just throw their arms into frustration. Later when I played at Sentinel Field in Inglewood, on Inglewood Avenue with the vaunted 3-4 story high fence I would never hit the ball, dropped flyballs that my friends on the opposing teams wished I would hit the ball to get over the embarassment of being the worse player. Baseball was not for me and I knew it, but I was a Dodger fan.
I never dreamed of making it but it meant something to see a brown Castillo versus a Black Castillo from the Caribe or Venezuela. Castillo had been on the Dodgers but as soon as Fernando arrived, he was overly promoted and the dog pack from Mexico responded in kind along with the Dodger machine. But those same Mexican nationals did not support a Bobo Castillo even though it was known that he taught Fernando Valenzuela how to pitch the screwball. I remember in 1982 visiting Mexicali where they are big Aguila followers and even attended a game at the Nido Stadium but when Fernando was going to pitch, even the mudo of the neighborhood Cuautemoc where my father's friend lived uttered words to see "lllll tolo llll tolo" el toro was going to pitch as my Ernesto el Cochis, my father's adopted brother translated. Every little television was on and El Bobo was a forgotten player nobody mentioned much less in Mexicali.
I see this phenomenon, as indicative of a trend where Mexican nationals come to the US, sometimes sponsored, or on their own but the people who help them along is some solitaire Mexican American who sees a kin or because he's the one that translates for the Whites just like Fernando, he did not know how to speak English. Mike Brito was the translator, Vin Scully tried his sombrero comment, Tommy Lasorda was carrying sentences and even Stu Nahan travelled to the Mayo rancho where Fernando was from and spoke in his Canadian Version of Spanish with Fernando's parents. Fernando did not have to speak English and made much more money while el Bobo got lost in the mania.
I always wondered how El Bobo must have felt, because he never got his recognition or fan support simply because the Mexican nationals did not see him as one of them. Even though his knowledge is what made Fernando Fernandomania but as I once saw an interview on the farmworkers, Gilberto Rodriguez stated that he and other Mexican Americans taught the newly arrived braceros how to work in the fields because it is a learned skill and the Mexicans were getting paid more. It obviously bothered him because he would not have mentioned this in the Cesar Chavez documentary. My Nino Gus would say that it was the Mexican Americans who taught Mexican nationals how to work in the railroad tracks in the mid 1940's otherwise the jobs would have taken longer to learn. And 50 years later, he still remembered that skill before his passing.
I guess I see that the Mexican nationals want to see themselves and only believe that those in Mexico are like them and do not consider those of us north of the border as them hence the Bobo Castillo phenomenon of not being known anymore or celebrated back then when pitching schools should have been established with the screwball being the signature pitch.
And that still happens today, where the Mexicans with skills, capital--Chivas USA, or preferred labor even without residency arrive and are given access while the average Mexican American fights for is existence and is lumped in with the rest of Mexican nationals as if he was one of them even though he was born in the US. In the Mexican national eyes, a Mexican American is an American and now a Gringo. Hell the Mexican nationals are allowed to even move in academia Chicano Studies which was based on the Mexican American narrative of US birth and have been pushed aside for the undocumented plight, dream act and fight for amnesty when none of those issues have anything to do with a Mexican American. Mexican Americans don't face deportation hearings so that is not our narrative. We can vote assuming there is no criminal record but that also applies to Whites, Blacks and women.
Fernando was a phenomenon which I believe was first inspired by ABBA that then carried into the baseball mound but those of us with baseball memory know that before Fernando ever crossed the border, El Bobo Castillo was already pitching with the Dodgers practicing the screwball pitch that Fernando was able to use for his own development. I wonder if he was like Adele's ex boyfriend wanting part of the royalty for inspiring "Rolling in the Deep".
Fernando I hope once acknowledged him for that lesson.
I remember el Bobo Castillo because as a kid I use to know the name of every baseball player on the Dodgers and because they won and I saw the World Series in 1981, and 1987 and remember the pain of losing in 77 and 78 to the Yankees, that damn Reggie Jackson interferred with the ball thrown to first base. Yet what really bothers me and it sort of did also back in the day was why all the attention by the Mexico born fan base was given to Fernando Valenzuela though Castillo had been there for a few years and taught Fernando the famous screwball. I'm not arguing different types of players, some would say Fernando was a better overall player, the Cy Young and Rookie of the Year Award proved it but it was the skill of a Mexican American, born in Los Angeles who taught the southern Sonoran player how to throw that famous screwball. El Bobo never seemed to get attention except for Vin Scully saying LA's own but that was the extent of the recognition which should have been much more because he was one of our own and in those days baseball use to mean something to me. Granted I was never good, would hit the ball at Centinela Park(underhand pitch) and watched the ball go up in the air. My grandmother Kika would yell "run, mijo, run" and I would watch the ball go up in the air and then decide to run. My father Julian and grandpa Gus would just throw their arms into frustration. Later when I played at Sentinel Field in Inglewood, on Inglewood Avenue with the vaunted 3-4 story high fence I would never hit the ball, dropped flyballs that my friends on the opposing teams wished I would hit the ball to get over the embarassment of being the worse player. Baseball was not for me and I knew it, but I was a Dodger fan.
I never dreamed of making it but it meant something to see a brown Castillo versus a Black Castillo from the Caribe or Venezuela. Castillo had been on the Dodgers but as soon as Fernando arrived, he was overly promoted and the dog pack from Mexico responded in kind along with the Dodger machine. But those same Mexican nationals did not support a Bobo Castillo even though it was known that he taught Fernando Valenzuela how to pitch the screwball. I remember in 1982 visiting Mexicali where they are big Aguila followers and even attended a game at the Nido Stadium but when Fernando was going to pitch, even the mudo of the neighborhood Cuautemoc where my father's friend lived uttered words to see "lllll tolo llll tolo" el toro was going to pitch as my Ernesto el Cochis, my father's adopted brother translated. Every little television was on and El Bobo was a forgotten player nobody mentioned much less in Mexicali.
I see this phenomenon, as indicative of a trend where Mexican nationals come to the US, sometimes sponsored, or on their own but the people who help them along is some solitaire Mexican American who sees a kin or because he's the one that translates for the Whites just like Fernando, he did not know how to speak English. Mike Brito was the translator, Vin Scully tried his sombrero comment, Tommy Lasorda was carrying sentences and even Stu Nahan travelled to the Mayo rancho where Fernando was from and spoke in his Canadian Version of Spanish with Fernando's parents. Fernando did not have to speak English and made much more money while el Bobo got lost in the mania.
I always wondered how El Bobo must have felt, because he never got his recognition or fan support simply because the Mexican nationals did not see him as one of them. Even though his knowledge is what made Fernando Fernandomania but as I once saw an interview on the farmworkers, Gilberto Rodriguez stated that he and other Mexican Americans taught the newly arrived braceros how to work in the fields because it is a learned skill and the Mexicans were getting paid more. It obviously bothered him because he would not have mentioned this in the Cesar Chavez documentary. My Nino Gus would say that it was the Mexican Americans who taught Mexican nationals how to work in the railroad tracks in the mid 1940's otherwise the jobs would have taken longer to learn. And 50 years later, he still remembered that skill before his passing.
I guess I see that the Mexican nationals want to see themselves and only believe that those in Mexico are like them and do not consider those of us north of the border as them hence the Bobo Castillo phenomenon of not being known anymore or celebrated back then when pitching schools should have been established with the screwball being the signature pitch.
And that still happens today, where the Mexicans with skills, capital--Chivas USA, or preferred labor even without residency arrive and are given access while the average Mexican American fights for is existence and is lumped in with the rest of Mexican nationals as if he was one of them even though he was born in the US. In the Mexican national eyes, a Mexican American is an American and now a Gringo. Hell the Mexican nationals are allowed to even move in academia Chicano Studies which was based on the Mexican American narrative of US birth and have been pushed aside for the undocumented plight, dream act and fight for amnesty when none of those issues have anything to do with a Mexican American. Mexican Americans don't face deportation hearings so that is not our narrative. We can vote assuming there is no criminal record but that also applies to Whites, Blacks and women.
Fernando was a phenomenon which I believe was first inspired by ABBA that then carried into the baseball mound but those of us with baseball memory know that before Fernando ever crossed the border, El Bobo Castillo was already pitching with the Dodgers practicing the screwball pitch that Fernando was able to use for his own development. I wonder if he was like Adele's ex boyfriend wanting part of the royalty for inspiring "Rolling in the Deep".
Fernando I hope once acknowledged him for that lesson.
Friday, February 10, 2012
I Am Not Mesoamerican
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.
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.
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.
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