Posted 4 years, 4 months ago in the late afternoon by oso
A few days ago I was picking up my little sister at her high school. The morning fog had lifted leaving behind bright blue skies and an energetic buzz. First time moms, clad in lycra pants and tank tops, pushed their kids around in those three wheel exercise strollers with either a white and green Starbucks cup or a cellular phone in one hand. I pulled into the parking lot and spotted my sister. It never ceases to amaze me – every time I see her in an environment other than our house, she looks so much more like a woman and less like a child.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hey.”
“So … what’s up?”
“Not much … it’s a nice day huh?”
“I’m hungry”
Laura and I were in the middle of a big argument and I jumped on the chance to stay away from the house for another half hour. We decided on Rubios, rolled the windows down, and turned up the radio. Then, driving up Torrey Pines, the sister turned it back down.
“Oh my god. Ok, so do you want to hear the drama?”
I chuckled. “I doubt it, but go on.”
“You know you do. So, like all these beaners totally wanna kick my friends’ asses …”
“WHAT!?!?”
She knew she fucked up. “I didn’t mean … I mean … It’s cause that’s what they s … You know what I mean,” she trembled.
I did know what she meant. My sister is not racist. She let out an expletive that is part of our shameful socio-historic baggage. A word (or at least an equivalent) that we have all thought before. And I didn’t mean to make such a big deal about it - my reaction was probably more exaggerated than it needed to be. She was salivating with nervousness, swallowing big while still stuttering, trying to explain what she meant to say and then trying to move past it. I stayed quiet to let her squirm a little bit. It was interesting how these people went from beaners to Mexicans to the kids from other neighborhoods to “those gansta rap types.” Whatever the stereotypical reference, this group of students wanted to kick my sisters’ group of friends’ asses because one of these friends was overheard saying, “Why don’t those beaners just go back to Logan Heights where they are from.”
“You should tell your friend to come talk to me so I can kick her ass and the beaners won’t have to.”
“Brother …” (really, that’s what she calls me) “she didn’t mean it like that. V doesn’t even know what she’s talking about.”
I’ve heard this explanation before; that, so and so doesn’t even know what (s)he is talking about. I understand what it means - that so and so is just parroting what (s)he hears on television or what his/her parents say. I’ve seen that happen myself. But if you can’t hold someone responsible for what they say and do, what can you hold them responsible for. Think about this: if you truly had no idea what you were saying, then what would be your motivation for saying it?
Long time friend and sometimes housemate, Kevin and I went to school for grades 6 through 9 at a small private school in Anaheim, California. At the end of junior high dances, while Boyz II Men where singing End of the Road and the boys finally got up the courage to ask a girl to slow dance, you could hear the fireworks go off at Disneyland. There was always something cinematic about that. I could probably say that as Caucasians, Kevin and I were in the ethnic minority. If there even were ethnic minorities and majorities at that school. I’ll have to look back at my yearbooks to see if my memory is slanted, but I remember the school being as diverse as you could imagine. Actually, that’s something of a contradiction because I was hardly even aware of ethnicity as an identity construct in junior high. We were the sons and daughters of liberals and immigrants well convinced that a combination of multi-culturalism and color-blindness were our only hopes. We would have cultural events at the school to show the unique characteristics of all the diverse ethnicities we represented (Kevin and I were stumped) and then be told that that there is absolutely no difference between any two people based on their skin color or where they come from.
It would take a while to reconcile those very opposing statements that were hammered into our heads our entire adolescence, to move from political correctness to a complex understanding of race like Omi and Winant are impressively able to put into words.
In last week’s LA Times (3/22/2004) there was an article about five high school students from Canton, Georgia who have been arrested for a string of hate crimes against Latino immigrants. The high school students would offer the working migrants rides home from agricultural fields, take them to a secluded spot, and then beat them with metal pipes and baseball bats before leaving them behind. According to the article there has been a long running build up of hate against the “Mexicans” (nearly all of the migrant workers in Canton, GA are Mayans from Guatemala who struggle speaking Spanish, let alone English) who are streaming into the community to fill the vacant construction jobs as a result of a local economic boom.
Long time conservatives of Canton however say that the illegal immigrants are draining tax payer resources. (a side note: most “illegal” immigrants still pay taxes on what they make though, unlike their “legal” counterparts, they cannot file for a tax return. The only time that migrant workers do not pay taxes is when their American employers agree to pay them under the table) One observer noted that most of the tension was between two “distinct social groups - the Latinos and the ‘rednecks.’”
Two groups with one thing in common: they are both being left behind in the knowledge economy. Though while the Mayan-Guatemalan immigrants have proven their adaptability through learning new languages and new skills, the ‘red-necks’ are losing their grip at a quickening pace of their plantation hegemonic heritage. (That is, the fruits of slave labor and then Jim Crow are finally falling from the same thorn covered trees that once hung the bodies of young black men denied judicial process) Not so ironically, one of the young men being tried is 18 year old Ben Cagle from one of Canton’s most well established and connected families. Heir to Cagle’s Dairy, Ben Cagle’s grandparents were founding members of the Cherokee County’s Republican Party.
It is perhaps Darwinian karma that - in my opinion - these Guatemalan migrants will continue their upward mobility, bettering themselves and their future generations while the racist “Old South” will finally punished for their exploitation of labor.
We are still far away from this justice, but what is important to take away from this article is that 60 years ago field laborers getting beaten (whether “legal” or “illegal,” brown or black) would not have even entered the media. These five young men would not receive a single punishment more than a reprimand from their fathers for letting the news go public. Rather they would be protected by a white web of connected lawyers, judges, plantation families, and city officials. Instead though, they are charged with “armed robbery, aggravated assault and false imprisonment.” They could (and should) also be charged with hate crimes which would allow prosecutors to seek five additional years in prison.
I subscribe to a free Google service called “Google News Alerts” which sends a digest of summaries of news stories that match whatever theme I choose. One of those themes is “Mexican immigration,” because I once thought I wanted to write my Ph.D. thesis on a Mexican immigration case study. Every morning comes a digest of Mexican immigrants suffocating in the back of train cars or under fruit crates of semi-trucks. Or bodies floating along the Rio Grande. Or children stranded at the border, trying to be smuggled in to find their parents who had gone north for work a few years earlier. Also in my morning digest are stories like the one above - of hate crimes directed at immigrants and their American children.
I would recommend everyone to use Google’s free service. It will show you that when your news info of choice publishes or broadcasts an article on hate crime like the one above, that it is just one of a hundred that they could have chosen from. That when they do finally choose one of these stories it’s not to document it so much as to say, “well, today there is no celebrity in court. No Kobe Bryant, no Martha Stewart, just a few high school kids who were beating some beaners with pipes and baseball bats.”
It’s no surprise that some of their children are now willing to fight back. Even if it is against my sister and her friends.
Osito,
Beaners? I just love it when Xicanos call Mexicanos Beaners, I also love it when Xicanos hang out with people who say things like “You know you aren’t like those beaners.” How old is your sister anyway? I am sure she we will stand up more and more by the time she graduates HS.
Yeah, I love it when the Media assumes that all migrant workers are from Mexico, or that they all speak spanish. We actually have that problem here in Ohio too.
okay first off let me say that II called no one a beaner, that was my friend, and i was simply telling my brother what she said, and i am sorry on her behalf, she is jsut a stupid little la jollan highschool girl (well i guess i am too, but still…) my brother likes to exagerate so pay no mind to him.
but whats sad is it is true. especailly at la jolla high. we dont have any racist problems at our school or anything except for the seperation of mexicans, and well non mexicans. some of the mexican girls are friends with both “mexican” AND “:non mexicans” but they get shit from the other mexican girls. its pretty much segregated. all the mexicans are considered “gangsta” or whatever. there are some of them that are really anti “nons” like if you lok at them too long or walk by them and accidently bumpin to them they will start cursing at you, but i think thats just because alot of the “nons” talk shit about the mexicans because they think the mexicans think theyre the shit or somthing, an i guess that btohers them. the mexicans also get shit casue people think they make trouble at our school or somthing, since alot of them dont live around here some people think they shouldnt be here, and that they are bad influences on people so we get wathced more. which is stupid because its only liek a group of mexicans that act “badly” or whatever and there are plenty of “nonmexicans” who act worse. i deno the whole thing is jsut a stupid circle that has been around for ever.
but yeah, sorry about that whole beaner confusion
Hi Crystal!
It is cool to see you posting. You are really lucky you get to go to school with Mexicans and non-Mexicans…do you have friends on both “sides”? Making friends with Mexicans is a great way to eat lots of cool food and can be a huge fun cultural experience to hang out with them…
yeah. thanks.
well theres not that much of a difference between the two. thats not what im trying to put across. its not liek a big cultural exploration. im jsut trying to elaborate on what my brother was saying. there jsut seems to be a seperation, social wise, that doesnt need to be there. im not taking a big “STEP” by being friends with people from both “sides” alot of people are friends with “mexicans” and “non mexicans” but the groups of friends, especailly on the mexicans part, seem to be split up that way, its jsut more segregated than it needs to be.
:cool:como dijo MOLOTOV: “don’t call me beaner you fuckin gringo, no me llames frijolero pinche grinfo punetero, chingao” jajajajaja:mrgreen:
Too bad Hitler died years age, he could
probably help with the beaner problem.
It’s a perfectly good word to be quite honest, around here where I’m from (southeast TX) I have some Mexican friends, but most Mexican people here really are beaners. They steal, they start fights, they sit around & do drugs, they disrupt class/work (whichever you happen to go to, or both, they’re there) and they drive around in shitty looking Civics like the world is a racetrack. THESE people are all over the place and it’s not racism, the color of their skin is just fine, it’s the culture. They need to learn how to handle civilized society & realize this isn’t old school Mejico where they can walk across entire stretches of road and take what they please.
I know exactly how you feel man. I live in Mexico and live with a Mexican. And let me tell you, the car she drives looks way worse than a Civic. And she starts fights with me all the time. She even stole my heart.
Don’t you worry though. I’m teaching them all how to be civilized. If you’d ever like to come visit just you let me know. Beso.
That article (”Beaners”) is beautifully written and I hope you continue to write more, through lots of different media. How lucky your sister is to have a brother like you. I hope she takes full advantage of that. I had never heard the word “beaner” before I read this article and I can’t believe that’s an actual term. “If you lived where I did”–you say that “beaner” is a perfectly good term because where you live, “THESE” people steal, start fights, and drive “shitty looking Civics.” I’m not sure how this somehow categorizes them as “beaners,” whatever the hell that is. Seriously, I’d like to hear where this term came from. Beaners, because America associates Mexicans (and everyone they deem Mexican) with frijoles? Is that serious? I really dont get it, and almost have to laugh that people actually use this term. Maybe there’s more to it. And I dont know this Joe guy, but I’m assuming he’s being sarcastic? Or something?
This article is very interesting…
I have this white friend here at work that somewhat grew up in my area of LA, he grew up in Wilmington (For one semester I went to Stephen White, a Jr High there, but I got kicked out for fighting - someone was picking on my little cousin). And for those that don’t know, Wilmington, especially now, is predominantly (95%) a Mexican area. It has more than its fair share of poverty and has alot of gang violance. So this guy is very familiar and comfortable around Mexicans, his wife is Mexican too.
Anyway, he lives in Scripps Ranch, an upity area here in San Diego. He was telling me that there were also people (primarily Mexicans) from other districts that would attend Scripps Ranch, and he said that they tended to cause alot of problems, and are overall still part of the ‘ghetto’ culture that is typical of areas with high gang violence (The shitty thing about this is if this guy had not known me personally, and overall been confident that I wouldn’t mistake his statement for racism, he would have never been comfortable to be totally honest with me).
This was the first time I had ever heard of this system, of taking people from overall poor districts and having them attend schools in very nice areas. I never saw this in Compton/LA before.
Please, educate me, how is this implemented? What percentage of the High School represents students from other areas? Does this involve all of San Diego county? How long has this been going on?
More importantly, how do they pick what kids get to go to these upity schools? Do they base it on income of the parents? Do they base it on grades? Is it a mixture of the two? Any references would be greatly appreciated…
Crystal, if you’re still reading this, I’d be interested to hear your ‘generalities’ of the students involved. How do they act? Do they assimulate? What percentage of them would you say ’cause’ trouble? What perception of them do the’native’ students have, positive or negative? Is it worse, or better, than before this program started?
Please, be honest with me, I am thick skinned and appreciate blunt honesty much more than political correctness (you can email me privately if you wish).
Whether this is a good or bad idea depends greatly on how it is implemented, and I’d be very interested to see how this is playing out.
[...] t my little sister to come visit me in Monterrey for the past six weeks, but as I’ve already covered in depth, she hates Mexicans. Lucky for me, the White Stripes are coming to t [...]
Have you ever heard of a Mexican Jumping Bean. Its a bean which kind of looks like a lentil bean. Its brown and actually bounces on its own. This is where the term “Beaner” came from.
I recently read some of the comments that were posted on this site and was disappointed to see how little progress has been made towards the equal treatment of people and the overcoming of sterotypes. I don’t quite understand why so many of you devote your time to talking pests about Mexicans and happen to live in Mexico and live with Mexicans, if you don’t appreciate the culture then don’t live in the country and don’t marry/date or live with ‘these’ people.
I, for one, understand that there are people out there that ruin it for the rest of society. For examply you are all talking about the Mexicans and how much trouble they cause and how poor and ignorant they are, yet as an American I am embarrassed to say that people like you is what I have to call fellow citizens of my country. I am sorry that you don’t know how to look past appearances and sterotypes and appreciate and try to learn from a different culture, I guess growing up in a white hick town justifies our ignorance and our constant feelings of superiority.
Please find a better way to spend your time, I only happened to bump into this by mistake but rest assure I won’t be back. I like to do productive things with my time and not desctructive hobbies.
yo soy un frijolero que tiene un chango grande en mis pantalones.and all of u posers can just all go fuck yall selves.
viva la Mejico y frijolerans