Posted on 05/15/2014 3:29:45 PM PDT by nickcarraway
[¡Ask a Mexican!] And is a picture of chickens wearing sombreros racist?
DEAR MEXICAN: It occurred to me that one of the reasons we Mexicans are taking our time reaching our academic potential is an unspoken fear of feminization. There is a phobia that education and the mannerisms that come with it are emasculating. Would you agree?
Brown, Down and No Clown
DEAR POCHO: "What a question!" responds the Mexican's go-to Mexican for philosophical insights into mexicanidad, San Diego State professor William Nericcio, author of the scabrous Tex(t)-Mex: Seductive Hallucinations of the "Mexican" in America. "My first reaction was that I was going to write, 'I absolutely disagree.' But then the waves of memory hit me, plunging me into a fetid pool of negative nostalgia. In Laredo, Texas, growing up, I can't count the times I was called out as a joto, a mXXXcón or a 'XXXX puto' for doing well in school—and this was in a pretty well-respected Catholic high school. Now, Laredo in the 1960s and '70s was not progressive when it came to gender politics, and you can guarantee the homophobic labels tossed at me and other bookheads was a form of linguistic emasculation. The only thing that really saved me was that my love of rock, alternative media and comic books gave me some breathing room.
"I am really thrown by this question—I don't think it is so much a 'fear of feminization' as much as it is an embracing of a macho ideal that will have no truck with books (because women were not spending so much time with books and learning, either). 'Feo, fuerte y formal' was the mantra of Northern Mexico and South Texas, a world of ranchers, negocio and heat—always the heat. To be ugly (think Charles Bronson), strong and formal (which means you have your XXX together, solid—not necessarily formal, in the English sense) was an ideal that left no room for bookish indulgence. This is a great, great question—as evidenced by my inability to answer it well!"
Hey, Nericcio: I don't pay you the big shameless plugs for a half-assed answer! Shall I go find another scholar at Scholar Depot?
DEAR MEXICAN: Our graphic artist walked out of the room pissed the other day because the publisher asked my opinion of a Cinco de Mayo advertisement they were planning to run. The graphic showed a row of chickens with sombreros. The publisher asked if I thought it was funny or racist; I said, "Racist." Later, when they decided to publish it anyway, the proofreader (who is black) had the same reaction—funny, but it was racist because it played on stereotypes. The graphic artist, who is white, took offense over the observation, asking me if I boycott Mexican restaurants that display sombreros. I don't go to many Mexican restaurants—not because of the stereotypes, but rather because the food is usually watered down to fit the taste buds of gabachos. Anyhow, my question is: Is it me, or is it that people of non-color just don't get it?
DEAR POCHO: The biggest problem here is that your graphic designer thought putting sombreros on chickens for a Cinco de Mayo celebration was clever. He's not racist; he's just a lazy pendejo who deserves to get fired for his incompetence. But to your point: Of course gabachos will never think their stereotypes of Mexicans are racist—but a lot of Mexicans also think stereotypes of Mexicans are hilarious. Hell, how else do you explain the popularity of this column—or George Lopez, who just happens to own the TV rights to this column? Come on, George: Let's get this fiesta started with tequila shots in a Canadian casino!
I don’t think rejection of education is a characteristic of Mexicans. I know a number of college-educated people from Mexico, and even the laborers I know are determined that their children will get a good education in the U.S. I think it’s a determination to stay lower-class, and it can be found in any race and ethnicity. My white (German-descended) in-laws, for example ...
No but the vast majority of Black men think that educated Black men are “fags”. Quote.
This clown’s stuff appears in every free “alternative” paper ever produced to line parrot cages in the university areas of town.
Any college student doing a production floor internship is fully aware of being jeered as “college boy”, “book boy” , “Mr. Smarty pants”, “propeller head”, “book smart but dumb” , “lazy little faggot”, “Mr. too good for his own britches”, “gold brick” and the list goes on and on.
I guess we get to welcome the newbies into the real world as they belatedly learn the realities of life in the world as it has been since the dawn of time.
I'm sure if you could translate the above monikers into ancient Egyptian, you would find them scrawled onto the walls of the Great Pyramids by resentful laborers
I agree. (But not about your in-laws, I don’t know them)
If these folk are that sensitive to education — it makes you wonder how the pure lgbt faggotry of the democrat party is going down with Mexicans. Or the the blacks for that matter. It may just be that they figure you gotta take the bad with the....whatever. Maybe they just don’t figure.
When I went to school if a Mexican student was smart all the other Mexican kids would want them to do their homework or else.
You can take my word for it.
Then there is the “acting white” phenomenon.
My wife is Mexican and refuses contact with a lot of her family and she is an exception paying lots of taxes.
The problem here is that a great many educated men ARE sissies. If by sissies you mean men who aren’t able to handle tasks that a real man traditionally handled: minor repairs to house or car, changing a tire or towing a car, building a fire in the woods, hitting what he shoots at (or shooting, FTM), being able to defend himself or others, etc.
The geek or nerd stereotype has a lot of overlap with the sissie stereotype.
When TR assembled the Rough Riders, about half were western cowboys and such, and the other half from his society friends. Lots of needling of the society types for being sissified till the cowboys got their asses kicked a few times.
When I lived in NM, a number of our friends were of Mexican ancestry. All the women were adamant that their daughters marry Anglos.
Nice that the guy used Gabacho, a chicano racist term for anglo “invaders”, instead of other words. This isnt to be confused with the Mexican word(same thing except for context).
I think the answer is complicated. In Mexico, someone with a graduate degree is a “man of letters”, and regarded with some amount of deference. Scientists, especially, are held in high regard. There is a statue to Louis Pasteur in Mexico City.
As of 2012, Mexico graduates 130,000 engineers and technicians a year from universities and specialized high schools, more than Canada, Germany or even Brazil, which has nearly twice the population of Mexico.
However, for many years, immigrants from Mexico to the US were a “blue collar drain”. That is, oriented more to blue collar than white collar jobs. So less emphasis was placed on book learning than hands on and apprentice learning.
In the southwest it makes, or made anyway, a lot of sense.
There were essentially two groups of people, the Spanish/Mexicans who were Hispanic in language and culture, and the “Americans” who were English in language and Anglic in culture.
Led to some oddities, like black guys being called Anglo. But perfectly logical from the perspective of the Hispanics, who were simply identifying someone as “not Hispanic,” and of the dominant American culture.
When I was a kid in the ‘70s, my pediatrician was from Mexico. Very highly regarded, everyone sent their kids to him, his office was across the street from the elementary school.
I remember the big “Speedy Gonzales” is a racist cartoon parody of Mexicans controversy. It seems that ole speedy is revered as a national hero much the same way Mickey or Mighty are up here. And for the same reasons. I guess the morons that wanted to sterling the magnificent mouse into obscurity couldn’t believe the uproar of support in Mexico. Mexican kids were ready to declare war.
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