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RE: the term wetback

Growing up in Texas with several Hispanics amongst our family lineage the term was typically (by family anyway) only used in instances where we now say “illegals.” Living in San Antonio especially the word was used among the Hispanic population to differentiate between legal and illegal.

When I started dating my dad specified “don’t you ever bring home a wetback” tho. His life experience was that “wetbacks” were looking for a path toward legality so he had a logical reason.

Fast forward 45 years, and I married my co-worker from Maine. 98% of my extended family are from Texas or Arizona so lots of Hispanics. The first time I took my hubby to a family reunion someone in the family of Hispanic heritage mentioned a grandparent who was a “wetback.” My new (at the time), very white, Mainer husband pops up and says, “my mother’s dad was a wetback too.” Turns out hubby’s granddad was Scots and worked abord a merchant ship. He jumped ship in port in Maine and swam to shore. In his lily white family they still use that term as “illegal, swimming to America.”

Probably the term has been corrupted by our PC nation. Not everyone using the term is using it as a racial slur. But the more the left cries “Racist!” the more the term will be racist. The PC police now tell us that using the word “illegal” is racist. When I was a child we were told the polite way to refer to African Americans was, Negro. Then that became ugly and we were told to say “black.” Now it’s African American. Language evolves this way in our country. But it’s been driven by angry libs for my entire life. These words don’t make the speaker ugly, the heart of the speaker makes them ugly. The word is spoken in love by both my husband and my cousin of each grandparent.

Thank you.

Negro is in fact the correct term.

Proof?

Go into the hardware store and look at the cans of paint. A bilingual label will state both “black” and “negro”...the Spanish word for black.

Or are the Mexicans racist?

😊