As we celebrate Earth Day, it’s necessary to reflect on the history of environmentalism in the US. People of color and especially Chicanxs are largely invisible in its past and present form.
Some of you may know that my academic monograph is forthcoming in January 2021. You can preorder now from the OU Press website and it will be shipped in early January.
At only $24.95, it’s an incredibly affordable monograph.
Here’s the link: https://www.oupress.com/books/16122730/homeland
You might have missed it, given the state of the nation and world, but George Lopez released a stand-up special at the end of June on Netflix. “We’ll Do it for Half,” the title of the special is an allusion to a controversy that Lopez was involved in, a joking tweet about a rumored bounty on Trump issued by Iran.
Lopez continues to be one of the most famous Latino actors and comedians, who has used his celebrity to weigh in on politics. The titles of his stand-up specials alone indicate this, “America’s Mexican,” “Tall, Dark, and Chicano,” and “The Wall.” “Tall, Dark, and Chicano” in 2009 was released during Obama’s presidency, but revealed the cracks in the purported era of post-racial America. Lopez was coming off his sitcom and was angry about the comedic, directorial, and content concessions he had to make appeal to white audiences in order to be “mainstream.” No longer under the constraints of media whitewashing, he was a dark Chicano and he had something to say.
Continue Reading
I’ve had the opportunity to write for Sojourners lately. I’ll be posting the articles I’ve written for them over the next weeks.
Demographically, socially, and culturally, the reconquista (re-conquest) of the Southwest United States by Mexican immigrants is well underway.
– Samuel P. Huntington
The first cast in the ochre light of the dawning sun is a morning prayer, filled with hope and faith that ceremonies sought in earnest will feed the soul. I reel dutifully, waiting for a faint tap on the end of my line. My father stands at the front of the boat, scanning for ripples on the water in the low light. “Wachale!” he exclaims in joking Spanglish as he reels in the first largemouth of the day. Two Mexican-Americans bass fishing in Texas. This is the face of the Reconquista.
Continue ReadingDonald Trump has announced that he plans to rescind birthright citizenship through an executive order.
While possibly a ploy to encourage support among his white nationalist base in the upcoming midterm elections, this new proposal fits into the Trump administrations larger policy project: making America white again. While they cannot change the demographic reality of the nation, they will make the nation whiter by fiat.
Continue Reading
My son and daughter’s favorite part of church is communion.
They can finally leave their seats at the back pew where my wife and I have been feeding them snacks, trying to bribe from them their patience. They stand. They walk down the center aisle. They smile at nearly every face they see and wave at many they know. As we approach the front, the pastor takes bread and places the pieces in their small hands.
“Do you know that Jesus loves you?” she asks.
And nearly every Sunday, as broken bread stands for broken bodies, I am struck with the words of James Baldwin, when he wrote that to be born black or a person of color in America means that you must “give up all hope of communion.”
Guest Contributor: Aaron E. Sanchez
#ChicanoDadProblems are real. For some reason my kids run away when I try to read them Pablo Neruda poems. They’d rather listen to the Frozen soundtrack than Chicano-inspired Son Jarocho.
They showed no interest when I tried to read them Fidel Castro’s obituary at the breakfast table years ago. When my son was little, the violin in Mariachi music made him cry but the fiddle in bluegrass cheered him up.
Now that they’re back in school, there are only more #ChicanoDadProblems to deal with.
Here are a few.
1. Trying too hard to make people know your mixed-race kids are Chicano.
Despite popular handwringing about the Democratic Party’s left-wing moves, recent tracking from Latino Decisions and the NALEO Education fund indicates that registered Latino voters and likely Latino voters support the progressive plank of the party. Young women like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley are proof of the eagerness among the communities of color, who form an important part of the Democratic coalition, for important social reforms.
Latinos Care About a Fairer Economy and Society, not Just Immigration
The Latino Decisions/NALEO poll shows that Latino voters would be more likely to support candidates who have policies that align with the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Respondents overwhelmingly favored candidates who wanted a clean DREAM act, universal background checks for gun purchases, expanded access to health care, protection of social programs like Medicare and Social Security, and reproductive rights.
Public health researchers and sociologists are showing that living in a deportation state has a real health cost that is being disproportionately paid by citizen children. According to these experts, immigration is no longer just a policy issue; it is a national public health concern. Deportation-centered policies affect American families. Of those deported in the United States, nearly one in four deportees are parents of U.S. citizens. The impact on U.S.-born children becomes clear when considering that within the Latino community—one in four children are born into families where at least one parent is undocumented, or a mixed status family. The issue becomes even larger when considering that across the nation, where one in eight children born in the U.S. are born into mixed status families.
Last month, the Trump administration made it clear that the 2020 census would include a question regarding citizenship. The administration claimed that the new citizenship question was added to make sure that key sections of the Voting Rights Act were being upheld. The block-by-block census data could identify communities under threat and the Justice Department, headed by Jeff Sessions, could keep an eye on those vulnerable communities. The administration argued that it was nothing for community or civil rights organizations to worry about.
The census is constitutionally mandated in order to ascertain the number of people living in the country. Using that information, representation can be apportioned, congressional districts can be drawn, federal funding can be issued, states can make long-term plans. But the census is important because it one of the ways that the state “sees.” That is, government officials at local, state, and national levels do not personally know every single constituent or person living in their district, city, state, or country. It is impossible for them to know something or anything about everybody, yet these officials must. In order for highly organized states to function, they must know key aspects about the populations they encompass. The census, a series of questions asking individuals to describe themselves and their families, is one of the many ways governments know their populations (others include social security numbers, driver’s licenses, birth certificates, death certificates, tax returns, etc.).
