Ah, it's that storied day of celebration of a Mexican victory over the French, Cinco de Mayo.
Good thing it falls on a weekend, otherwise lots of high school students wearing American flag t-shirts would be scolded and sent home.
Just for the record, I have come to know a lot of Hispanics, many of them from Mexico, here in Hollister. For the most part, they are very good people: hard workers, good friends, good neighbors, and good customers. When they learn that I am studying Spanish, that I think Spanish is a beautiful language, and that Hispanic culture has a lot of worth and beauty, they respond with warmth and friendship. I don't view Hispanics as "the enemy." Some are, most are not.
My Spanish teacher at Gavilan College and I have become rather close friends.
Do you know that I can sing "Besame Mucho" and "Cielito Lindo" completely in Spanish? Also "Rancho Grande" and some other tunes. When I sing these songs, the alley cats of Hollister join me in the chorus until someone calls the police. It's fun anyway.
Does this mean that I support illegal immigration? Not on your life. But the great majority of Hispanics I have met over the past year are here legally.
One more thing: Hispanic women are hot, hot, hot!! Just the facts, ma'am, that's all.
Yes, race is often important -- but it is not all-important. Keep things in perspective.
Saturday, May 05, 2012
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Though Hispanic myself--even if not a Mexican-American, rather a Cuban-America, which tends to come with a completely different worldview--I must say the whole Cinco de Mayo thing peeves me somewhat. Some of that irritation has to do with the somewhat ersatz nature of the holiday, which, I am sure you know, is not a big one in Mexico proper, at least outside the town of Puebla, which, my Mexican-from-Mexico acquaintances tell me, does go whole-hog in celebrating it.
All right, I admit my cavils at the lack of historical perspective are sheer petulance on my part. What does bother me much more is that Cinco de Mayo has increasingly become a celebration of Mexican-racialist irredentism--the whole La Raza-Aztlan thing--instead of the feel-good, healthy-ethnic-pride holiday that I remember Mexican-Americans celebrating in my youth. The change in perspective has not been good for the health of the American body politic; ethnics should, when in the public forum, not displace American traditions and symbols with those of their ancestral homelands. That is not just bad manners, if unchecked it can lead to the eventual balkanization of the society.
Face it: what is most valuable about American culture has been inherited from Anglo-Saxon civilization, going back at least as far as the common law and equity courts of Henry II. The real genius of the American melting pot was to turn all immigrants and their descendants, whatever their ethnic provenance, into _civic_ Anglo-Saxons, with all that implies in terms of respect for the rule of law, the probity of elections, respect for individual rights, etc. Thus, men with last names as diverse and un-Anglo-Saxon as LaGuardia, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Cardozo, Nixon, Dukakis, and, yes, even Schwarzenegger (I know--I was disappointed in him too!) could become important American political and juridical figures, in the Anglo-Saxon civilizational mold.
Though Hispanic myself--even if not a Mexican-American, rather a Cuban-America, which tends to come with a completely different worldview--I must say the whole Cinco de Mayo thing peeves me somewhat. Some of that irritation has to do with the somewhat ersatz nature of the holiday, which, I am sure you know, is not a big one in Mexico proper, at least outside the town of Puebla, which, my Mexican-from-Mexico acquaintances tell me, does go whole-hog in celebrating it. All right, I admit my cavils at the lack of historical perspective are sheer petulance on my part. What does bother me much more is that Cinco de Mayo has increasingly become a celebration of Mexican-racialist irredentism--the whole La Raza-Aztlan thing--instead of the feel-good, healthy-ethnic-pride holiday that I remember Mexican-Americans celebrating in my youth. The change in perspective has not been good for the health of the American body politic; ethnics should, when in the public forum, not displace American traditions and symbols with those of their ancestral homelands. That is not just bad manners, if unchecked it can lead to the eventual balkanization of the society. Face it: what is most valuable about American culture has been inherited from Anglo-Saxon civilization, going back at least as far as the common law and equity courts of Henry II. The real genius of the American melting pot was to turn all immigrants and their descendants, whatever their ethnic provenance, into _civic_ Anglo-Saxons, with all that implies in terms of respect for the rule of law, the probity of elections, respect for individual rights, etc. Thus, men with last names as diverse and un-Anglo-Saxon as LaGuardia, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Cardozo, Nixon, Dukakis, and, yes, even Schwarzenegger (I know--I was disappointed in him too!) could become important American political and juridical figures, in the Anglo-Saxon civilizational mold.
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