Posted on 04/06/2006 6:55:56 AM PDT by Unam Sanctam
PHOENIX - Hundreds of protesters gripped Mexican flags as they marched for immigration reform in the past few weeks, but they say a display of cultural unity is being mistaken as a lack of loyalty to the United States.
The displays turned off many Americans. Conservative talk show hosts admonished the protesters, while everyday people wrote angry letters to the editors of their local newspapers.
Some called for those carrying the Mexican flag to return to Mexico. Others questioned why immigrants demanding rights in the United States would wave symbols of Mexico.
But those who carried them, and scholars of the immigrant community, say that pride in their culture should not be misconstrued as a lack of patriotism in their adopted nation.
"Nobody gets upset with the Irish on St. Patrick's Day," said Gabriela Lemus, director of policy and legislation at the Washington, D.C.-based League of United Latin American Citizens, the group that organized most of the recent protests and is heading the dozens of marches and rallies scheduled across the nation Monday.
Critics of waving the red, white and green have questioned marchers' loyalty to the United States, but Latino activists deny the implications.
"The Mexican flag is like a symbol of dignity and identity and pride for the people who carry it," said Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the United Farm Workers of America with Cesar Chavez. "If people try to read more into that flag than what it is, they're wrong."
Huerta, who spoke from her home in Bakersfield, Calif., carried the Mexican flag during the farm workers' movement in the 1960s, and she carried it more recently during rallies in Los Angeles and Tucson.
"Pride and roots is what it is," she said. "It definitely does not mean separation or nationalism in the sense that we want to go back to Mexico."
Isidro D. Ortiz, a political scientist and professor of Chicano and Chicana studies at San Diego State University, said the flag is primarily a symbol of Mexican pride. But, in the current climate of the United States, Latinos also wave it to express dissatisfaction with how they are treated, Ortiz said.
"(Immigrants) have been trying for some time to imagine themselves as a part of the United States," he added. "What they've experienced is refusal."
Intentional or not, protest organizers acknowledge that the controversy over the Mexican flag is detracting from the message demonstrators want to send.
"(The flag) is a distraction," said Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano. "What the marchers were marching for was to say, 'Hey, we are here, we work, we're tired of being made to blame for every ill that people experience.'"
Lemus said her organization is encouraging protesters to carry both the U.S. and Mexican flags to show their pride in both countries.
"The American flag is a symbol of what they are trying to become — a U.S. citizen," she said.
Jennifer Allen, executive director of the immigrant rights group Border Action Network, said she is not discouraging anyone from bringing the Mexican flag to Monday's march in Tucson. Rather, the protesters themselves are spreading the word.
"A lot of immigrant families in southern Arizona are telling one another to carry the American flag in their hands, but hold the Mexican flag in their hearts," she said.
If they're so "proud" of Mexico, then they should go home.
DITTO pride should take them home.
Exactly WHAT does Mexico have to be proud of? Someone PLEASE tell me.....Speedy Gonzalez was a friggin cartoon.
It was American demand that brought about the creation of Free Ireland ~ the Brits agreed as part of the price paid for our aid in WWI.
Ergo, Ireland is about as American as you can get ~ a child even. Mexico is its own place and relishes the difference. Their flag should be kept at home.
La Raze = La Raza
AP is spinning, spinning, and spinning.
Those "protesters" were far from dignified, they were disrespectful to their hosts.
If they love Mexico so much, then they need to go back there.
Let me see, I'm sure there's something....um...Poverty? No, wait, how about drug trade? Or, let's see, corruption from top to bottom? Maybe not, but how about filth, disease, and child prostitutes?
Ok, I give up. I can't think of a thing.
When I see the protesters with signs saying "Viva la Raza" (roughly "Long live our race") I want to know how this is any different than than other groups with signs saying "White Power".
Perhaps we should react to Mexican marching through the streets under the banner of Mexico in the same manner my ancestors did at the Alamo?
If they are so "proud" of Mejico, then go the hell back there.
TODAY!
Folks of Irish descent carry the flag on ONE DAY a year to celebrate ONE DAY. There's no talk of "taking anything back. The Mecha/Aztlan movement is a growing, steady, and has a more than subversive "we will not be defeated" undercurrent that is in your face and decidedly hostile.
Yeah. Now we see the backtracking and "oh, we didn't mean to disrespect you gringos, especially if it means our meal ticket might go away". Not an apology, mind you.
"The Mexican flag is like a symbol of dignity and identity and pride for the people who carry it,"
Then be dignified and GO HOME! Pronto!
In America, be you of Mexican, Italian, German, Polish, or even "Confederate" descent, you have a right to carry that flag. See Columbus Day in Chicago.
That's a crock! Germany also had a national flag before the Swastika replaced it – these marchers are thumbing their noses at immigration and the United States. They refuse to speak English, refuse to assimilate, and refuse to obey the law…..and they are getting away with it because of our intimidated politicians and liberal un-American academics i.e. school board members, churches and others that have successfully removed American roots from the history books in the name of Diversity and Multicultureism.
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