Shame on Who?

Reading Vivi’s excellent article on racism stimulated lots of pain and shame in me. I feel our culture and our people are trying to be shamed in Arizona. Shame has really been part of our history since the earliest days of the Spanish conquest. Our mestizo ancestors were seen as a “bastard” race. That does not go a long way toward instilling pride and nurturing self-esteem! We have carried that in our generational programming for the last 500 plus years. Such programming about shame keeps us from our greatness. It keeps us back. We must reverse this or we will not be able to stand up to the Civil Rights assaults that are being thrown at us now.



My own encounter with shame happened in first grade in East Los Angeles. Believe it or not my teacher’s name was Mrs. White. I was sitting in Mrs. White’s class being the little social butterfly that I am known to be and talking to my little buddies. I was fairly new to first grade so I didn’t have all my social skills in order. I spoke both Spanish and English and would switch comfortably between the two. It was arts and crafts time so I felt comfortable to chat a bit with the other chicas. I was talking about our project in Spanish to my friends when Mrs. White came up to the table “Lala what did you just say?” I repeated my words that I had said in Spanish into English for her benefit. “No you did not say that! You were speaking in Spanish. That is not allowed here.” She yanked me out of my seat by the arm and led me up to her desk. She had a roll of silver duct tape in her desk and quickly tore off two pieces that she taped over my mouth. She sat me in a chair at the front of the room so I would be a lesson to all the other Mexican children. Thanks to Mrs. White this started a lifetime of being a social revolutionary. I knew from that moment on what a “pinche gavacha” was. I decided I was not going to let her make me cry and I sat starring at her for several hours with my little blue eyes. After 3 hours she removed the tape because it was time to go home. The tape blistered and burned my skin so it looked like someone had burned my face and lips. I became the heroine of the classroom and didn’t cry till I got home and saw my poor father’s face. We both cried together. It made me a devious, mischievous Robin Hood who spent much time in Principals’ offices getting paddled the rest of my elementary and junior high school history.

Scenes like this one were common for people of my generation as well as for our fathers and mothers. My friend Mina went to elementary school in the 1930’s. She had her mouth washed out with soap numerous times for speaking Spanish. She would laugh and say she got really good at blowing bubbles, but never gave up speaking Spanish. Many Mexican Americans growing up in the 50’s never learned to speak Spanish because of their parents’ fear of “not fitting in” to the dominant culture. My mother spent her lifetime as a civil rights activist. She was a “Freedom Rider” and marched with Dr. King. In California she worked tirelessly with people like Rep. Edward Roybal to keep children who spoke Spanish out of mentally handicapped classrooms and actually promoted the first ESL programs. Even with that she had enough shame about her husband being Mexican and having an accent to his English that she made me have “speech classes.” This was so I would not have that little accent to my English

Shame has been a tactic to keep us from our power as a people. It has worked well until now. Shame has helped divide us into “sub groups”. We have identified with being Chicanos, Mexican-Americans, Latinos, and Hispanics. We in turn have called our own newly immigrated brothers and sisters from Mexico “mojados”. We have turned our own shame on them so we can feel a little bit better, a little bit safer. The truth is none of us are safe from what is happening

A friend of mine just recently expressed something that really inspired me. He stated that his family had been here for generations. He said, “we never moved, but the border moved”. That is true. We have so much history that we are not aware of. The people in power don’t want us to remember as they keep enacting legislation to help us forget. Some examples are banning cultural studies that may “promote resentment” and “advocate cultural solidarity” among young Mexican Americans. At least now there is no pretending that they are trying to keep us in our place. They don’t want us to feel “solidarity” because we make up 30 percent of the population in Arizona. If they keep us back biting one another and blaming those “damn illegal immigrants” from causing loss of jobs and every other evil known to mankind, they have control of us. They keep us in our place. My friend said another wise thing: “The most important thing we can do is get our community registered to vote and help folks who have green cards become citizens”. Wow! That made me think how maybe True Mexican can help promote “citizenship scholarships“ or micro loans to folks with green cards who haven’t taken that final step because of finances or support.

Lets remember too when it is time to vote not to vote against our own self-interests. Racists, bigots and reactionaries hope you’ll forget their mean spirited, shame inspiring laws when you vote next election. I pray we don’t forget.