Mexican-American, Chican, Native American labels

In the message below from Victoriano, he takes issue with certain labels we descendants of Mexicans here in this country use. One issue was the use of the term "Mexican-American", which he found "redundant", and he states that when he lived here he knew only people from Africa and Asia who did not use hyphens to describe their ethnicity. So, he was talking about those that had been born in foreign countries, not those who had been born here for generations, who do use Asian-American, and African-American, Native-American. The United States' statistical systems placed those labels on us, and we have to accept them in order to have some kind of identity since we are still minorities.

Amongst ourselves we are simply "Mexicans" even if we have never been to Mexico and know very little about it. Then there are the "political" labels, such as Mexicas or Aztlan or Chicano. Some of those groups claim to speak for all of us, but others of us reserve the right to speak for ourselves. We want to assimilate, but not lose our ethnic identity completely. So we compromise. I am not an Indian, not having been born in India. I am not Mexican, not having been born in Mexico. I am American, because that is what all native-born US residents call themselves, whether our ancestors came from England, Asia, Africa, etc. Only our darker colors, surnames and language identify us as not the majority American. My nephews' father was Black-American. His ancestry can be traced to the first slave ships that landed on "American" shores hundreds of years ago. They get asked all the time if they are "Hawaiian" and they answer that they are "Black". They know nothing about Afr
ica and
never will. If you happen to be white, you do not have to identify yourself as English-American, Italian American, though sometimes a Latin surname raises questions. Many Italian-Americans have changed their surnames to make them sound more "American".

Because the White Anglo Saxon Protestant culture holds sway here, those of us who do not fit the profile become hyphenated Americans. My husband is a white "Mexican" with roots in Mexico going back to the 1500s. His great-grandfather immigrated here in 1895. The WASP people that meet him for the first time decide that he cannot possibly be Mexican, he must be "Spanish", or "Castillian". "No", he says, "there is Spain and there is Mexico, and my people came from Mexico".

I am small, very dark, and have an Asian cast to my eyes. People who meet me up here in the Northwest where there are few people of Mexican descent think I am Filipino, or ask if I speak English. My husband's great-niece, whose parents and grandparents are all white (in family gatherings, I am the only raisin in the vanilla pudding), kept staring at me one day. She finally blurted out, "Aunt Emilie, what are you?" I was taken aback for a second, then I said, "Oh, you mean my ethnicity!". I told her I was "Mexican" like her great-uncle and his sister, her grandmother, but that unlike them, I had indigent blood and they had none, or it was very diluted, thus my dark skin vs. their fair skin. I told her my father had Mexican indigent blood (and I found in records also "mulatto" blood), and my mother descended from the Pueblos of New Mexico. I could take the time to explain to the great-niece why I look different than other members of her family, but when strangers ask, all
I can s
ay is "Mexican-American---I was born in Colorado, my father in Mexico....".

I think, Victoriano, you would be surprised at what we Mexican-Americans think about the labels placed on people in Mexico, and about the language they speak. The predominant language there at one time might have been Nahuatl, so why is that not the national language of Mexico? I guess because all indigent people have to assimilate and speak the language of the conqueror and adapt to his customs, same as in the US. I found the label "morena" and "guera" to identify people in Mexico very strange. We don't call people in the US "whitey" or "brownie" to their faces.

I was in a beauty shop in Mexico one day when the beautician asked me my husband's ethnicity. I told her, then she wanted to know if he was "norteno". I asked her what she meant. She said he was tall and white, like the "nortenos" in Jalisco. Now I know that he also could be referred to as Alteno, or guero. When we were in Acapulco or Puerto Vallarta one time, my husband was walking down from the swimming pool in next to nothing with his white skin red from the sun, and one maid said to the other, "Hay viene un calsonudo!" He whirled around and told her in Spanish that he, the "calsonudo", was paying her salary. I also saw a blue-eyed, very pink man at the swimming pool get very angry when a waiter walked up and asked him in English if he wanted a drink. The man said, "No soy gringo! Soy espanol!" And so it went.

I was shopping in Mexico one day, when a young boy asked me, "De donde eres?" I said, "Porque?" He said, "Porque hablas espanol, pero tienes un accento muy raro", and that was about the most polite exchange I had. I told him I was EstadoUnidense, the way my husband's aunts taught me to respond, but it was a while before I could get my tongue around that word. Due to my accent and poor Spanish, I was mostly treated in a very sarcastic manner, asked why, since it could be seen in my face that I was Mexican, why didn't I speak better Spanish. They said I should be proud of my "patria", but I wasn't born there. I just said I was not espanola, and the language of my native country is English. Labels are redundant, maybe, but when you look different or sound different from the majority, they have to suffice, you are forced to identify yourself, and so far only in the US is everyone that is born there identified as just plain American. We have a song, "God Bless America", no
t "God B
less the United States". Mexico is also the Estados Unidos Mexicanos.

Emilie

---Original Message---
victorianonavarro | 11 May, 2007 - 2:23pm

Hi Arturo,
I guess the way we divide continents has more to do with geography, history and culture than with geology. I remember learning in school that Europe and Asia formed the Eaurasian continent, and if you even add Africa it was the Eurasianafrican continent. So, I do consider the British and Irish islands as part of Europe (even Iceland), and Cuba and Caribbean islands as part of America. I even learned about a whole continent made just of islands (Oceania: Australia, New Zealand, etc.).
Even not all the citizens of the USA would de truly geographically American, mainly all Hawaiians.
As for American Football, I know it is derived from Rugby and Football Soccer; however the sport the way we know it is American, it was developed at Yale University in New England (Go Bulldogs!!!), even though some people form Harvard may not agree.
Going back to racial designations, I also have issues with the term Native American as used in the USA, since it seems to me it only refers to tribes form the USA, excluding the rest of the continent. I reckon I once described myself as part White Hispanic and part Native American (I have no problem with the tem Indian) in a USA census form, and in the section of "Tribe" I just wrote "Mexican" since I don't know from which of the many local Indian tribes I descend (chances are, from many different ones). Now thanks to DNA testing I know I'm not just part White and part American Indian, but also part Jew, part Middle Eastern-Mediterranean, and who knows what else. It is hard to describe your race when you are the product of centuries if not millennia of race mixing.
I am a citizen of Mexico, not a citizen of the USA, and I am very proud of being Mexican, and of being American, and again I think the term Mexican-American is as redundant as Kenian-Afican, Chinese-Asian or Italian-European.
I would tell all so-called Mexican-Americans, you ARE 100% AMERICAN, don't feel excluded, don't let them take away your American heritage, your ancestors have been in this American Continent for over 10 thousand years. All Mexicans are Americans, and you are TWICE American if you were born in the USA. By the way, I am thrice Mexican, since I was born in Mexico City and raised in the State of Mexico (before some governor changed our name from Mexican to Mexiquenses).
Just my two cents ;)
VN