Who are we? was Re: double surnames
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Alicia,
Regarding immigrants from lands other than Mexico: When I was working
in San Jose, I saw the first immigrants from Vietnam back in the 1970s, who were appalled by our habits of individuals eating whole steaks when in Vietnam the same amount of meat would have fed a whole family. Yet, little by little, I saw them gain weight, and their English improved with the help of their children, born here, going to school and speaking only English. Since the kids liked eating at McDonalds as their American friends did, the mothers saw the convenience of taking the kids there for dinner rather than going home and fixing dinner when they were tired from their jobs. Also, I once watched show on TV about a spelling bee that took place in the South where the winner was a young girl of Vietnamese descent. She had such a drawl that had I closed my eyes, I would have sworn I was listening to a blue-eyed, blonde Southern belle! They learned quickly that "when in Rome, do as |
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Rosalinda,
What a great group this is. I agree with everything you say, but you
should not feel guilty about anything --- not about not being fluent in Spanish (English is the language of this country), about enjoying the fruits of your labor (that is why our ancestors left Mexico), about the plight of the new immigrant (you can fight for them by voting in their favor, coming to their defense when someone bad mouths them in your presence, sending contributions to those on the front lines of sober activism), etc. You are doing your job as you said you do, in your classroom. As for that student that wonders why you should be teaching English when you are Mexican: don't let him make you feel different; it is he who perceives you as different. (Makes me wonder what he has learned at home). I too had to learn English and forget my Spanish and ended up being
more articulate in English than many who have never known any other language. (As a second grader, I could |
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Victor,
As usual your observation is as astute as always. I did identify with
some of the debaters, those that took the middle road. I think we all need to get together and advance our situations by sticking together and not going off on tangents to the extremes, such as the Aztlan group. It is unfortunate that those in that group do not realize that people like Pat Buchanan stir the Anglo populace up by making it look like that fringe group speaks for us all, and that we are all into "Reconquista" which brings up to the Anglos the specter of armed brown hordes seeking to re-conquer the land. We are slowly re-conquering anyway, due to the American economy being so dependent on cheap Mexican labor in manufacturing, agriculture and services. We just need to tone down our resentments and work towards ensuring that this country remains the bastion that it has been for human rights for everyone. We can't afford to take any backward steps. We must acculturate, but |
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Yes, Peggy, regarding your comment about not knowing which is
worse---comments about your ethnicity from Anglos or from Mexicans: my husband was made fun of by a group of Mexicans in the Marines when he went out on the lawn at Camp Pendleton to lie down and try to get a tan. Though he was as white as snow, they still thought it was inappropriate for someone named Antonio Garcia to get a tan, that only "gringos" should do that. Also, when he hears someone speaking Spanish and he joins in, he gets surprised looks. As for the comments from Anglos, I recall another incident at his workplace later that someone told him, "Oh, I didn't know you were Mexican. The only Mexicans I have ever known were little brown guys working construction". Yes, the political incorrectness comes from both sides. Emilie
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Emilie and all, I've been enjoying your messages and agree with you about identifying myself as Mexican. My 25 year-old son said it best when he told one of his friends that his parents were both Mexican, so that makes him Mexican. He is pretty Americanized, but still appreciates his Mexican culture. He doesn't define himself by his ethnicity, but that doesn't mean he isn't proud of it. Emilie, I chuckled at your comment about Aztlan. I'll have to remember to ask if it's south, east, north or west of Atlantis next time I hear it. Maria --- In ranchos@yahoogroups.com, "Emilie Garcia"wrote: > > Linda, > > When some Anglo says "you don't look Mexican" it means that you don't look like his idea of Mexicans formed by most of the Mexicans he has seen---field or orchard workers, very dark, made darker by the sun, very small due to their mostly Indian blood, pitch black hair and eyes, poorly dressed, not too clean due to their constant labor in
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Reading all of your thoughts makes me |
For your information: Publications by El colegio de Michoacán, including a few that deal with "Nueva Galicia" and other historical topics. http://www.colmich.edu.mx/publicaciones/indices/indice_titulo.asp Victor México
Good write up...
I have in the past felt that same way as you have
written. And this is the reason I enjoy and indulge
in genealogy--to learn who I am and where I came from.
Alberto Duarte Prieto
Santa Maria, California
--- lareina2@...
wrote:
---------------------------------
The issues of acculturation and assimiliation run deep
and are painful in this land of multiethnic and
multicultural groups. What do I call myself? Who am
I? Much of the pain of the generation that follows
the immigrant one often causes much confusion, and
sometimes, self-hatred and denial of
I was asked this past week at work (I'm a library clerk) by a black gentleman if I had Indian blood. I responded that I did, on my father's side but that it was so remote as to be almost impossible to name. (Moctezuma's daughters are my ancestresses.) My father's father's mother probably had Indian, but what kind, who knows?
Anyway, I wasn't insulted just surprised. The funny thing is is that my features are my Scots mother's but my coloring is a paler version of my dad's. I have salt and pepper hair like my Jerezana grandmother and her almond-shaped eyes. I have funny colored eyes...I don't think they're those eyes we were discussing earlier in December. Sometimes if my skin flushes or I'm red from being out in the sun, they're almost hazel. I DO consider myself Hispanic as opposed to Mexican because I had more Scots influence in my formative years and I'm married to a South American of Italian descent, so our family is more continental than Mexican. But I can't and don't
Good write up... I have in the past felt that same way as you have written. And this is the reason I enjoy and indulge in genealogy--to learn who I am and where I came from. Alberto Duarte Prieto Santa Maria, California --- lareina2@... wrote: --------------------------------- The issues of acculturation and assimiliation run deep and are painful in this land of multiethnic and multicultural groups. What do I call myself? Who am I? Much of the pain of the generation that follows the immigrant one often causes much confusion, and sometimes, self-hatred and denial of ancestry. How can I call myself a Mexican when I can speak only a rudimentary Spanish and only visited the birthplace of my grandma and great-grandma once? When I visit Mexico, I recognize its beauty and its devastation, and when I land in the United States, I am happy to drive my sedan, go inside my condo, and turn on my tv to "Law and Order." Both my parents are of Mexican descent, but both were born in the US.
Linda I understand about them words. I consider myself a Mexican Indian
female. And I dont like it when someone calls me Chicana, Hispanice or
Latina. Because to me I am none of them titles. Just my 2 cents.
~~glo~~
From: "Erlinda Castanon-Long"
Reply-To: ranchos@yahoogroups.com
To: ranchos@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [ranchos] dialoge of the dead?
Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 17:08:57 -0000
Joseph, WOW!!!!
What a great format for airing our concerns about who we are as a
group of people as diverse and any other ethnic group!
My father hates to this day the word "Chicano" because in his younger
days in California it was used in a very negative, gang style manner.
To him it's a put down and very militant. I guess that's how we pick
up our own racist attitudes, we learn them at home... I still cring
when someone calls me Chicana.. so much to unlearn and with the help
of forums like this I'm getting better!
thank you again Joseph
Linda in Everett
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Just thought I would make a comment about
identity from a different perspective. My uncle Tomás, who never set
foot in the US and of course, did not speak a word of English, told me the following: "We are Tlaxcalans. We are not Mexicans
although one of our greatgrandmothers was an Aztec." He used to say that in our family dona Cecilia was the only Mexican. As I said before, She was a Mexica (Aztec or Mexican). He chafed everytime someone from the
area in Coahuila my family settled in said "we are Mexicans". He used to say that that moniker (or gentilicio as it is properly called) became popular around the 1930 with a push from the Mexican government to unite the nation. Apparently before that people still were having problems feeling themselves Mexican. Once a group of officials from the Mexican government told the people at a meeting of agricultores "You are all Mexicans." My uncle and the others promptly responded angrily "Lo serán |
Oh what a photos exposition I went trough! Some tears it cost me. What a treasure! Cameras are time machines, the images are frozen but they rock and roll a world inside of us, innocent expectators, I traveled in the company of unknown people, but maybe it is the influence of the feeling "belonging to a group", but felt them like family. It is true then "nobody dies until it is forgotten". My mom past the way fiftheen years ago and she is so around me, when I see her in photos she is so photografed! Leticia Leon Morales
--- In ranchos@yahoogroups.com, Joseph Puenteswrote: > > > http://www.historynothype.com/deaddialog.htm > > DIALOG of the DEAD--An Interactive One-Act Play > By > Rubén Sálaz Márquez > > © Copyright 2005 by Rubén D. Sálaz > > Dramatis Personae > > Narrator (female), Chicano, Above-It-All, María (female), Latino, > Immigrant (female), Hispano. > > Heckler, Policeman, Immigration Officer (female), Army Soldier, Sheriff, FBI Agent. Two male stage hands. > > Dual roles: Heckler/Sheriff; Policeman/Stagehand. > > Scene: The stage is dark and bare except for the Narrator standing > behind an upstage, brightly spotlighted (overhead) podium. Joseph, That play sure is thought provoking. By personifiying the prevalent views of different segments of American society in an imaginary (but realistic) debate, the first reaction from the spectator (or reader) may be to identify with one of the characters in the play. But by the way the author chooses to end all, he's
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Linda,
When some Anglo says "you don't look Mexican" it means that you don't look
like his idea of Mexicans formed by most of the Mexicans he has seen---field or orchard workers, very dark, made darker by the sun, very small due to their mostly Indian blood, pitch black hair and eyes, poorly dressed, not too clean due to their constant labor in dirty places. You probably speak English without an accent, too. When asked a question by an Anglo and I don't respond instantly, inevitably
comes the next question, "Do you speak English?" Most people in the Southwest and California "know" that I am "Mexican"; I look "typically" Mexican, but the Asian cast to my eyes throws people who are more familiar with Filipinos, Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, Thai, etc. such as up here in the Northwest. When asked what I am, I say I am Mexican and Native American (in Mexico, I
am a Mestiza or Morena). When asked by a Latin American in Spanish "eres Latina?", I say "Si, soy |
-----Original Message-----
From: ranchos@...om
[mailto:ranchos@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of Arturo
Ramos
Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 11:56 AM
To:
ranchos@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [ranchos] Re: double
surnamesErlinda:
The whole Chicano vs.
Erlinda: The whole Chicano vs. Mexican-American vs. Latin@ vs. Hispanic debate is a very contentious one in the United States. I think that all of those terms are very politically laden such that there is no single one that everyone would agree with. There is an interesting episode where the renowned author Sandra Cisneros balked at being featured in Hispanic magazine because of such a disagreement. She agreed only after the magazine agreed to show her on the cover in a profile shot with a fake tatoo reading "LATINA" across her arm. There is an interesting article on this: http://www.hispanicmagazine.com/2000/dec/Features/latino.html I suppose that if you want to designate descendancy from peoples of Mexico, Mexican or Mexican-American would be the most precise. I will leave my commentary at that lest I get myself in trouble. Interesting thing though, I have run across documents where the indigenous peoples of the area around Colotlan and Totatiche would refer to
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Any actors/actresses in the group? Joseph, WOW!!!! What a great format for airing our concerns about who we are as a group of people as diverse and any other ethnic group! My father hates to this day the word "Chicano" because in his younger days in California it was used in a very negative, gang style manner. To him it's a put down and very militant. I guess that's how we pick up our own racist attitudes, we learn them at home... I still cring when someone calls me Chicana.. so much to unlearn and with the help of forums like this I'm getting better |
Joseph, WOW!!!! What a great format for airing our concerns about who we are as a group of people as diverse and any other ethnic group! My father hates to this day the word "Chicano" because in his younger days in California it was used in a very negative, gang style manner. To him it's a put down and very militant. I guess that's how we pick up our own racist attitudes, we learn them at home... I still cring when someone calls me Chicana.. so much to unlearn and with the help of forums like this I'm getting better! thank you again Joseph Linda in Everett
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I want to thank everyone for the input on double surnames and y versus de... I had forgotten that I use a double surname too! I felt I didn't want to give up my Hispanic maiden name so just hyphenated it with my married name. That makes me Castanon-Long, I guess in Latin America that would make me Castanon y Long ... I found at the family reunion that most of my female cousins from my generation did the same. Many of us did not marry Hispanic but would have kept our maiden name regardless. Just like someone said, it's a matter of family pride.. One more question.. which is 'politically' correct to designate our nationality of origin if we or our ancestors were from Mexico... Hispanic, Latino, Mexican-American or American-Mexican? http://www.historynothype.com/deaddialog.htm DIALOG of the DEAD—An By Rubén Sálaz Márquez © Copyright 2005 by Rubén D. Sálaz
Dramatis Personae Narrator (female), |