The Black community united nationally during the‘60s. They spoke up. They protested. They were arrested, beaten, discriminated against. Hispanics went through the same hardship and we still do. The difference is we do not unite nationally. We do not talk about the police brutality or the discrimination nationally as the black community does. Who’s fault is that? Do we censor ourselves as Latinos? Let’s talk about it…
Armando Cantu: “I believe what you are talking about is true. If we united, we would be a great force in this Nation. Hispanics Latinos always talk the talk be-hind closed doors, but when it was important to speak up most stay silent. I don’t understand that crap. I have gotten into trouble many times, even fired from a job because I spoke for Hispan-ics I stand for what’s right. I will never change. Most Hispanic parents don’t raise their children to be united like the Blacks. There is too much hatred within our own culture. Lately, I do see some changes but is it enough? Let’s give each other love and strength. That’s all I pray for Hispan-ics to do.”
Charles Cervantes: “We, Hispanics Chicanos, Mexi-cans, Nortenos or Brown Power, can’t band together. We separate ourselves by the have and have nots. Which one are you?”
Hope Robinson: “I have experienced very little rac-ism in my life. I never blamed any of my problems on being Mexican. I consider myself Mexican American. I grew up in white culture. It’s not fear. It’s because I’m American first; it goes both ways. There is racism against whites as well as people of color. Racists need to be ashamed, beat back down, and not seen as acceptable. It should be ALL LIVES MATTER, not Black or Brown or Red.”
Joseph Martinez: “There is too much pride embedded deeply in our heritage. While this may not be a bad thing, times have changed and we won’t change with them.”
Mike Miller: “I really don’t think it is a race thing. All the kids in the daycare and elementary get along. Why is it that when we are told we are different we be-come racist? We all have the same basic life issues. Imagine if we were blind or in the dark.”
Nick: “The freedom of speech we all cherish so much was not meant for us- the colored skin, black, red, brown. The American system was designed to put people of European descent at an advantage. The “founding fathers” unleashed genocide and slav-ery on people indeginous to this land. They did not have us in mind when they established “freedoms.” Our “freedom of speech” and two party system is an ilusion of choice to keep society fighting and divided and the 1% stays in power for generations to come. We need to practice love, respect, and understanding for each other’s very unique situations in life. We need to stop trying to make ev-eryone lives our idealistic life styles.”
Thank you for this article. Growing up on the Westside of San Antonio and being raised by my grandparents, I always heard this….”mexicanos don’t unite like the black communities do”. I heard this over and over, but I also learned early on that we don’t support each other like the black communities do. This is a sad commentary since we appear to be the majority in this country now. We are the sleeping giant politicians should be worried about, and it is truly unfortunate that we cannot come together and really build each other up.
I want to share a story that my church pastor shared several years ago while in mass. He decided he wanted to try and unite the parishoners…teach us a lesson about supporting each other and not trying to knock each other down…this was in a church, where we were all mexicanos and could not work together to get along and support one another. So, the story goes…”one day there was a man walking along the beach and came across another man that was collecting crabs and placing them in a bucket. As the first man approaches the man with the bucket, he notices that the bucket is overflowing with crabs. The first gentleman, tells the second gentleman…’hey, you may want to cover that bucket, those crabs are about to start climbing out and you’ll lose all that you’ve collected. The second gentleman then says, ‘Oh, I’m not worried, those are Mexican crabs’. The first gentleman asks, ‘Mexican crabs? What are Mexican crabs?’ The second gentleman then replies, ‘oh as soon as one gets up the other pulls him back down’.
This story has resonated with me for years. I do my best to try and uplift, encourage, support, and cheer on all Hispanics. We need to stop hating on each other and trying to one-up each other. I love seeing successful Hispanics/Latinos out there doing there thing.