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Invisible and Voiceless
The Struggle of Mexican Americans for Recognition, Justice, and Equality
By Martha Caso
iUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2011 Martha Caso
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-9499-7
Chapter One
Racism
"But I do believe in God. So much, you know, that I can't imagine He put us on earth to be no one." —Carlos Fuentes, Diana, the Goddess Who Hunts Alone
America has suffered over five hundred years of racial violence. In the United States, the first time the American continent experienced European violence was against the Indians. The Europeans had never encountered the American people who populated these continents. Many of the conceptions Europeans had about Native Americans came from explorers who reached the Americas earlier. Some of the stories about the Indians were true, but others were myths, often promoted by Indians who wanted the Europeans to leave their territory and take their explorations elsewhere. Such was the case of the search for El Dorado, which lead the Spaniards in a long trek throughout the Americas searching for the legendary city of gold. They had already encountered cities in Mexico and in Peru, which were actually exploited to enrich the Spanish crown.
Lewis Hanke wrote that the "Spanish captains went forth to their conquest expecting to encounter many kinds of mythical beings and monsters depicted in medieval literature: giants, pygmies, dragons, griffins, white-haired boys, bearded ladies, human beings adorned with tails, headless creatures with eyes in their stomachs or breasts, and other fabulous folk."
The people of the Americas spoke languages that Europeans did not understand. To them, the indigenous languages sounded unnatural and strange. In many films, Indians speak in short, one-syllable sentences. The truth is that Indians used rich vocabularies in their languages but probably had to communicate with short words and signs with the Europeans, who could not understand them and made no effort to do so. In Massachusetts, the native language was difficult; today all that is left is the name of the state and some cities named in the Massachusett language. In Mexico, the Nahuatl language was also difficult, with complex words like cacahuacuauhuitl (cacao tree). This language was hard for the Spaniards to decipher and understand.
The languages of the American indigenous people made communication between Europeans and natives very difficult. The diversity of languages became one of the principal barriers between the Europeans and the Indians.
Indians also looked physically different; they were not blond, their skin was bronze, and their hair was dark and straight. They did not have hair on their bodies, and this amazed the Europeans.
Their culture, their clothing, their homes, and their lifestyles were different. Some indigenous groups were nomadic, creating the impression among Europeans that they owned no property; and finally, they were not Christians.
The communication problems with those strange cultures made it hard for Europeans to accept Native Americans as humans. Not being Christian implied they could not have souls, and not having souls made the Indians inferior and thus less than human. According to Europeans, the Indians had no concept of ownership of property; thus, they owned no land, and their territories were available for the taking. It was what Europeans considered a vast territorial gift from their Christian God.
Sarah Vowell explains with her humorous tone that when the Puritan leader John Cotton preached to the immigrants coming to America, he spoke to them about being like the Old Testament Jews who had journeyed to the Promised Land. They were God's new chosen people: "And, like the Old Testament Jews, God has printed eviction notices for them to tack up on homes of the nothing-special, just-folks who are squatting there."
This notion was not limited to the Puritans but was similar to the general Spanish and English concepts of what it meant to be white, European, and Christian. It gave them the notion of superiority. God ordained it: white man should occupy and take possession of the land.
Thus began the holocaust of the American natives. The Spaniards did whatever was necessary to get rid of the "savage" natives in the Caribbean, in Mexico, and down to the tip of South America. They burned them, they killed them, they enslaved them, and they infected them with diseases to which the Indians did not have any immunity.
To quell indigenous resistance, the Spanish concluded that for every Spaniard killed by an Indian, they should in turn murder a hundred natives.
When the Europeans went to Africa to obtain slaves, they had the same experience with the African natives. Africans looked different, spoke different languages, had different cultures, and were not Christian. Those reasons made Africans also less than human. They too were savages and were treated as subhuman. They were imprisoned and shackled and their families separated. On the trip to the Americas, many got sick and died.
Thus, since the arrival of the Europeans on the American continents, racism has existed. This racism was based partially on religion; only European Christians had souls and were therefore racially superior.
Europeans considered Indians an inferior race. In addition, Indians did not own land. Thus when Europeans came seeking economic prosperity, they would enslave and own Indians. When the first Puritans came to America, they claimed to have come over to help the Indians. What they really did was to help themselves to what the Indians possessed.
Indians and Africans were destined to serve and work for the benefit of the European race. They fitted the classical definition of slavery according to Aristotelian philosophy, an old philosophy that existed five hundred years before the time of Jesus Christ. Aristotle used this argument to justify the enslavement of warriors during the Greek wars. Europeans used the same theory to justify the enslavement of Indians and Africans. Europeans rationalized that since Indians and Africans did not have souls, it was acceptable to exploit them, murder them, deny their rights to the land, and break up their families.
When the Europeans came to America, they also engaged in wars with the Indians. During those battles, they had to defend their families and the lands they had taken from the Indians. However, when they ended the wars, they were the only ones who had the power to write their own history.
Later the British realized that if they converted the Indians and the African slaves to the Christian faith, it would be easier to subject them and manage them, but they would have to worship in their own churches. Thus, a given Christian denomination could become segregated into two or three separate churches. This practice carried on when the United States became independent from England. During that period, churches became racially divided into White churches, African American churches, and Native American churches.
In New England, John Elliot really wanted to convert the Indians and did what no other British person had done before; he actually translated the Bible and other Protestant tracts into the Massachusett language. He did not work alone; he got help from his friend Sassamon, an Indian translator.
Nevertheless, in England no one took the ethics and morality of slavery very seriously. During colonial times, the Church of England never took a strong stance against slavery.
On the other hand, possibly because of the enactment of the Law of the Indies, the Spanish crown and the Spanish Catholic church accepted that Indians actually did have souls and were part of God's family, so the Spaniards never totally segregated the Catholic Church.
This did not mean that the Spaniards were more benevolent than the British were; the violent and cruel treatment of the Indians in the lands the Spaniards conquered was no different than the treatment of American Natives in North America.
If we start from these premises, we need to admit that racism in North, Central, and South America was buried deep in the souls of many pious European Christians. It is a tradition so deeply ingrained in their minds that it has never completely abandoned their souls and hearts.
Jill Lepore writes that while some Indians were awed by the looks of Europeans when they first arrived, "the reverse was not true; Europeans usually regarded the Indians with pity or disgust rather than admiration."
White men have for generations believed that America belongs to the white race; it is there for them to own and govern. That is why today in the United States many Americans cry out, "Give us back our country." Having a partially African American president is too challenging for them, so they try to bring him down. Yes, it is racial; we cannot pretend the age of racism is dead. Americans can struggle to eliminate racism, but it is still there, looking for poor and powerless people to persecute.
Today we have seen a revolution in racial equality for many in the African American community. Yet a large number have been left behind, and they live in dire poverty. This rise in political power in the Black community has left many Anglo Americans fearful that they might lose their political and social power in the United States. They feel they are losing control of their old traditions and family values, so they seek to re-assert their political power by turning on what they consider the second soulless racial group, the so-called Hispanics and the old indigenous American groups from Mexico and Central and South America.
This antagonism started during the 1990s with a campaign to promote fear that the Spanish language was taking over the English language. Another demonstration of fear was the building of a wall to prevent Mexicans and Central and South American people from coming into the United States. All of this racism is often justified by the premise that many of the people come through our borders illegally. Some Anglo Americans feel these people are coming over to claim American territory in much the same way Europeans came and obtained Mexican territories in the 1800s. The third fear is the fear of terrorism and drugs coming over the border. It is the sum of all these fears that some Americans still carry deep in their minds, but the fear of drug trafficking is the only fear with any basis in reality.
The traffic of drugs comes into our country thanks to the free trade of weapons from the United States to Mexican drug dealers. It is mostly border states, such as Arizona, New Mexico, California, and Texas, that provide Mexican drug dealers with weapons. Guns fuel the increase of drug violence in Mexico.
As American prejudices against Mexicans continue to grow, Mexican Americans and other Spanish-speaking Americans can easily become victims of the growing anti-Hispanic sentiment. That is why we must understand who we are and where we need to go—in order not to fall into the claws of racism.
Is this simply paranoia, or does it have some real factual basis? One only has to point out some of the racist indoctrination going on in the United States. One good example is academics who publish books and articles in which they teach students and the public to shape their minds against Mexican Americans. Those pseudointellectuals' influence will continue to ignite the flames of prejudice against Mexican Americans and other Spanish-speaking people not only in the United States but anywhere else their works are published.
Some of these academics allege that when Mexican American schoolchildren are asked how they identify themselves, only a small percentage claim to be Americans. They imply that Mexican Americans are not truly American. The fact is that every Mexican American has been taught in schools to call him- or herself every hyphenated name but American. Our children have been taught that they are Mexican Americans, Hispanic, Latinos and People of Color. Mexican American children will respond that they are Americans when their schools teach them they are Americans and call them Americans. In other words, when they are accepted as Americans!
Another voice of American racism has consistently come from CNN, where Lou Dobbs used racial innuendos when speaking of Mexican Americans and promoted racial distrust and hate against Mexicans and other Spanish-speaking workers. He claimed that immigrants were responsible for illnesses (such as leprosy), crimes, and joblessness. The kind, smiling image hid a true racist, and CNN supported all his wild accusations against immigrants, because they hired him to do that kind of programming. The organization Democracia Ahora (Democracy Now) confronted CNN and Lou Dobbs. Fortunately, CNN agreed with some of its sponsors and Democracia Ahora that Lou Dobbs had to tone down. Lou Dobbs probably felt it would be best just to leave CNN, so he did.
Hitler started out as a mildly patriotic German but turned into a monster; the same thing can occur in our country if the voices of racism and intolerance are left unchecked. History has shown they can destroy and annihilate minorities and entire ethnic groups.
After World War II in Germany, Martin Niemoller, a Protestant Lutheran minister who was imprisoned during the Nazi regime, wrote:
First they came for the communists and I did not speak out because I was not a communist. Then they came for the socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me.
Today it is time for Mexican Americans to speak out; paraphrasing Rev. Niemoller, we could add the following lines:
First, they came for the Ecuadorian undocumented immigrants, and I did not protest, because I am not Ecuadorian. Then they came for the Guatemalan undocumented workers, and I did not protest, because I am not Guatemalan. Then they came for the Mexican undocumented immigrants, and I did not protest, because I am not Mexican. Next they will come for me, and there will be no one left to speak for me.
In reality, if we do not speak out for our civil rights, we can become victims of racism and intolerance, which are alive and well in the United States.
History can also be a tool to express racism. Every day, new evidence shows that there were thriving civilizations in the Americas as far back as the time when Egypt was developing its ancient culture. Archeologists might someday discover that people from the Americas traveled across the Bearing Strait and populated Asia. Why not? we could ask. Native Americans are just as intelligent as the people from any other continent. We often hear how savage American aboriginal people were and how travelers from other continents imported civilization. Today, some people try to minimize the cultural wealth of American natives by attributing their wisdom to foreigners who came from other continents and instructed them on civilization, astronomy, and social issues. Some say American natives got their knowledge from Egypt, others claim that people from Japan or China came over, and still others go so far as to declare that Vikings came to America and influenced American culture.
The knowledge of civilization in the Americas is still in its early stages; conquerors usually write history, and it changes frequently. The true nature of early American civilization may still not be up to date.
The most common misconception was and still is that this is a new continent—the "New World"—and that all the people who were here traveled from other areas of the planet. There are many theories as to the origin of the indigenous American people, some outlandish like the one involving extraterrestrials and some more "reasonable," such as the idea that they came from Egypt, China, Japan, or Vikings from Europe. The most respected and accepted theory is that they came through the Bering Strait from Asia.
All of the above theories are used to justify making aliens out of the original dwellers of the Americas, who can then be viewed as immigrants who just beat Columbus to this paradise. Columbus himself described this continent as a paradise: And now, as the news arrives ... about these lands which again I have discovered, my heart is fixed on claiming that this is the Earthly Paradise ... so that Your Majesty will be served and find pleasure. Thank God.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Invisible and Voiceless by Martha Caso Copyright © 2011 by Martha Caso. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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