What is the importance for sociological analysis, according to Merton, of differentiating between latent functions (unforeseen or unintended consequences) and manifest functions (purposed consequences)? In other words, why does Merton think making a distinction between manifest and latent functions matters? Consider Merton's own thinking about this, and then give your own brief example of an intended and an unintended consequence of a major component of our society.
2 full pages
TEACHING
TOLERANCE
A PROJECT OF THE SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER
TOLERANCE.ORG
TEACHING
The New Jim Crow
THE NEW JIM CROW by Michelle Alexander
CHAPTER 5
The New Jim Crow
Mapping the Parallels
The United States has almost always had a racial undercaste—a group defined wholly
or largely by race that is permanently locked out of mainstream, white society by law,
custom, and practice. What is most striking about the design of the current caste system,
though, is how closely it resembles its predecessor. [T]here is a profound sense of
déjà vu. There is a familiar stigma and shame. There is an elaborate system of
control, complete with political disenfranchisement and legalized discrim-
ination in every major realm of economic and social life. And there is the
production of racial meaning and racial boundaries.
Historical parallels. Jim Crow and mass incarceration have similar politi-
cal origins. [B]oth caste systems were born, in part, due to a desire among
white elites to exploit the resentments, vulnerabilities, and racial biases of poor
and working-class whites for political or economic gain. Segregation laws were proposed
as part of a deliberate and strategic effort to deflect anger and hostility that had been
brewing against the white elite away from them and toward African Americans. The birth
of mass incarceration can be traced to a similar political dynamic. Conservatives in the 1970s
and 1980s sought to appeal to the racial biases and economic vulnerabilities of poor and
working-class whites through racially coded rhetoric on crime and welfare. In both cases,
the racial opportunists offered few, if any, economic reforms to address the legitimate
economic anxieties of poor and working-class whites, proposing instead a crackdown on
the racially defined “others.”
Legalized discrimination. The most obvious parallel between Jim Crow and mass incar-
ceration is legalized discrimination. During Black History Month, Americans congratulate
themselves for having put an end to discrimination against African Americans in employ-
ment, housing, public benefits, and public accommodations. Schoolchildren wonder out
loud how discrimination could ever have been legal in this great land of ours. Rarely are
they told that it is still legal. Many of the forms of discrimination that relegated African
Americans to an inferior caste during Jim Crow continue to apply to huge segments of
the black population today—provided they are first labeled fel.
Unit 3 Emotional Intelligence and Spiritual Intelligence.pdf
What is the importance for sociological analysis, according to Mer.docx
1. What is the importance for sociological analysis, according to
Merton, of differentiating between latent functions (unforeseen
or unintended consequences) and manifest functions (purposed
consequences)? In other words, why does Merton think making
a distinction between manifest and latent functions matters?
Consider Merton's own thinking about this, and then give your
own brief example of an intended and an unintended
consequence of a major component of our society.
2 full pages
TEACHING
TOLERANCE
A PROJECT OF THE SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER
TOLERANCE.ORG
TEACHING
The New Jim Crow
THE NEW JIM CROW by Michelle Alexander
CHAPTER 5
The New Jim Crow
Mapping the Parallels
The United States has almost always had a racial undercaste—a
group defined wholly
or largely by race that is permanently locked out of mainstream,
white society by law,
custom, and practice. What is most striking about the design of
the current caste system,
2. though, is how closely it resembles its predecessor. [T]here is a
profound sense of
déjà vu. There is a familiar stigma and shame. There is an
elaborate system of
control, complete with political disenfranchisement and
legalized discrim-
ination in every major realm of economic and social life. And
there is the
production of racial meaning and racial boundaries.
Historical parallels. Jim Crow and mass incarceration have
similar politi-
cal origins. [B]oth caste systems were born, in part, due to a
desire among
white elites to exploit the resentments, vulnerabilities, and
racial biases of poor
and working-class whites for political or economic gain.
Segregation laws were proposed
as part of a deliberate and strategic effort to deflect anger and
hostility that had been
brewing against the white elite away from them and toward
African Americans. The birth
of mass incarceration can be traced to a similar political
dynamic. Conservatives in the 1970s
and 1980s sought to appeal to the racial biases and economic
vulnerabilities of poor and
working-class whites through racially coded rhetoric on crime
and welfare. In both cases,
the racial opportunists offered few, if any, economic reforms to
address the legitimate
economic anxieties of poor and working-class whites, proposing
instead a crackdown on
the racially defined “others.”
6. TH
E
N
EW
P
RE
SS
.
TEACHING THE NEW JIM CROW
account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
Formally race-neutral devices
were adopted to achieve the goal of an all-white electorate
without violating the terms of
the Fifteenth Amendment.
Following the collapse of Jim Crow, all of the race-neutral
devices for excluding blacks
from the electorate were eliminated through litigation or
legislation, except felon disen-
franchisement laws. The failure of our legal system to eradicate
all of the tactics adopted
during the Jim Crow era to suppress the black vote has major
implications today. Less
than two decades after the War on Drugs began, one in seven
black men nationally had
lost the right to vote, and as many as one in four in those states
with the highest African
American disenfranchisement rate.1
Exclusion from juries. One hallmark of the Jim Crow era was
7. all-white juries trying black
defendants in the South. Today defendants face a situation
highly similar to the one
they faced a century ago. [T]he [U.S. Supreme] Court has
tolerated the systematic exclu-
sion of blacks from juries by allowing lower courts to accept
“silly” and even “superstitious”
reasons for striking black jurors.2 To make matters worse, a
large percentage of black
men (about 30 percent) are automatically excluded from jury
service because they have
been labeled felons.3 The combined effect … has put black
defendants in a familiar place—
in a courtroom in shackles, facing an all-white jury.
Closing the courthouse doors. The parallels between mass
incarceration and Jim Crow
extend all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In Dred Scott v.
Sanford, the Supreme Court
immunized the institution of slavery from legal challenge on the
grounds that African
Americans were not citizens, and in Plessy v. Ferguson, the
Court established the doctrine
of “separate but equal”—a legal fiction that protected the Jim
Crow system from judicial
scrutiny for racial bias.
Currently, McCleskey v. Kemp and its progeny serve much the
same function as Dred Scott
and Plessy. Mass incarceration is now off-limits to challenges
on the grounds of racial
bias, much as its predecessors were in their time. The new racial
caste system operates
unimpeded by the Fourteenth Amendment and federal civil
rights legislation—laws de-
signed to topple earlier systems of control.
10. PE
RM
IS
SI
O
N
O
F
TH
E
N
EW
P
RE
SS
.
TEACHING THE NEW JIM CROW
Mass incarceration functions similarly. It achieves racial
segregation by segregating prison-
ers—the majority of whom are black and brown—from
mainstream society. Prisoners are
kept behind bars, typically more than a hundred miles from
home.4 Even prisons—the actual
buildings—are a rare sight for many Americans, as they are
often located far from popu-
lation centers. Although rural counties contain only 20 percent
11. of the U.S. population, 60
percent of new prison construction occurs there.5 Prisoners are
thus hidden from public
view—out of sight, out of mind.
Prisons, however, are not the only vehicle for racial
segregation. Segregation is also created
and perpetuated by the flood of prisoners who return to ghetto
communities each year.
Because the drug war has been waged almost exclusively in
poor communities of color,
when drug offenders are released, they are generally returned to
racially segregated ghetto
communities—the places they call home.
Symbolic production of race. Arguably the most important
parallel between mass incar-
ceration and Jim Crow is that both have served to define the
meaning and significance
of race in America. Indeed, a primary function of any racial
caste system is to define the
meaning of race in its time. Slavery defined what it meant to be
black (a slave), and Jim
Crow defined what it meant to be black (a second-class citizen).
Today mass incarcera-
tion defines the meaning of blackness in America: black people,
especially black men, are
criminals. That is what it means to be black.
[T]he conflation of blackness with crime did not happen
organically; rather, it was con-
structed by political and media elites as part of the broad
project known as the War on Drugs.
In the era of colorblindness, it is no longer permissible to hate
blacks, but we can hate crimi-
nals. Indeed, we are encouraged to do so.
12. Just as African Americans in the North were stigmatized by the
Jim Crow system even
if they were not subject to its formal control, black men today
are stigmatized by mass
incarceration … whether they have ever been to prison or not.
For those who have been
branded, the branding serves to intensify and deepen the racial
stigma, as they are con-
stantly reminded in virtually every contact they have with
public agencies, as well as with
private employers and landlords, that they are the new
“untouchables.”
The Limits of the Analogy
Just as Jim Crow, as a system of racial control, was
dramatically different from slavery,
mass incarceration is different from its predecessor. If we fail
to appreciate the differences,
we will be hindered in our ability to meet the challenges created
by the current moment.
Listing all of the differences here is impractical; so instead we
will focus on a few of the ma-
jor differences that are most frequently cited in defense of mass
incarceration ….
Absence of racial hostility. First, let’s consider the absence of
overt racial hostility among
politicians who support harsh drug laws and the law
enforcement officials charged with en-
forcing them. The absence of overt racial hostility is a
significant difference from Jim Crow,
but it can be exaggerated. [R]acial hostility and racial violence
have not altogether disap-
15. SS
.
TEACHING THE NEW JIM CROW
peared, given that complaints of racial slurs and brutality by the
police and prison guards
are fairly common. Racial violence has been rationalized,
legitimated, and channeled
through our criminal justice system; it is expressed as police
brutality, solitary confine-
ment, and the discriminatory and arbitrary imposition of the
death penalty.6
White victims of racial caste. Whites never had to sit at the
back of the bus during Jim
Crow, but today a white man may find himself in prison for a
drug offense, sharing a cell
with a black man. The direct harm caused to whites caused by
mass incarceration seems
to distinguish it from Jim Crow; yet, like many of the other
differences, this one requires
some qualification.
If 100 percent of the people arrested and convicted for drug
offenses were African Ameri-
can, the situation would provoke outrage among the majority of
Americans who consider
themselves nonracist and who know very well that Latinos,
Asian Americans, and whites
also commit drug crimes. We, as a nation, seem comfortable
with 90 percent of the people
arrested and convicted of drug offenses in some states being
African American, but if the
figure were 100 percent, the veil of colorblindness would be
16. lost. [T]he inclusion of some
whites in the system of control is essential to preserving the
image of a colorblind criminal
justice system and maintaining our self-image as fair and
unbiased people. Because most
Americans, including those within law enforcement, want to
believe they are nonracist, the
suffering in the drug war crosses the color line.
White drug “criminals” are collateral damage in the War on
Drugs because they have
been harmed by a war declared with blacks in mind. While this
circumstance is horribly
unfortunate for them, it does create important opportunities for
a multiracial, bottom-up
resistance movement, one in which people of all races can claim
a clear stake. For the first
time in our nation’s history, it may become readily apparent to
whites how they, too, can be
harmed by anti-black racism—a fact that, until now, has been
difficult for many to grasp.
Black support for “get tough” policies. Yet another notable
difference between Jim Crow
and mass incarceration is that many African Americans seem to
support the current sys-
tem of control, while most believe the same could not be said of
Jim Crow. It is frequent-
ly argued in defense of mass incarceration that African
Americans want more police and
more prisons because crime is so bad in some ghetto
communities.
[I]t is inaccurate to say that black people “support” mass
incarceration or “get tough”
policies. The fact that some black people endorse harsh
19. PE
RM
IS
SI
O
N
O
F
TH
E
N
EW
P
RE
SS
.
TEACHING THE NEW JIM CROW
oppose, as a matter of social policy, the creation of racially
isolated ghettos and the subse-
quent transfer of black youth from underfunded, crumbling
schools to brand-new, high-
tech prisons.
The predicament African Americans find themselves in today is
not altogether different
from the situation they faced during Jim Crow. Jim Crow, as
oppressive as it was, offered a
20. measure of security for blacks who were willing to play by its
rules. Those who flouted the
rules or resisted them risked the terror of the Klan. Cooperation
with the Jim Crow sys-
tem often seemed far more likely to increase or maintain one’s
security than any alterna-
tive. [I]t is understandable why some blacks believed their
immediate safety and security
could best be protected by cooperation with the prevailing caste
system.
Disagreements within the African American community about
how best to respond to
systems of control—and even disagreements about what is, and
is not, discriminatory—
have a long history. The notion that black people have always
been united in opposition to
American caste systems is sheer myth. Following slavery, for
example, there were some
African Americans who supported disenfranchisement because
they believed that black
people were not yet “ready” for the vote. Former slaves, it was
argued, were too illiterate
to exercise the vote responsibly, and were ill-prepared for the
duties of public office. This
sentiment could even be found among black politicians such as
Isaiah T. Montgomery,
who argued in 1890 that voting rights should be denied to black
people because enfran-
chisement should only be extended to literate men. In the same
vein, a fierce debate raged
between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois about
whether—and to what extent—ra-
cial bias and discrimination were responsible for the plight of
the Negro and ought to
be challenged. Du Bois praised and embraced Washington’s
21. emphasis on “thrift, patience,
and industrial training for the masses,” but sharply disagreed
with his public acceptance of
segregation, disenfranchisement, and legalized discrimination.
In Du Bois’s view, Washing-
ton’s public statements arguing that poor education and bad
choices were responsible
for the plight of former slaves ignored the damage wrought by
caste and threatened to
rationalize the entire system.
Today, a similar debate rages in black communities about the
underlying causes of mass
incarceration. While some argue that it is attributable primarily
to racial bias and dis-
crimination, others maintain that it is due to poor education,
unraveling morals, and a lack
of thrift and perseverance among the urban poor. [A]rguments
can be heard from black
people across the political spectrum who believe that reform
efforts should be focused
on moral uplift and education for ghetto dwellers, rather than
challenging the system of
mass incarceration itself.
Many black people are confused—and the black community
itself is divided—about how
best to understand and respond to mass incarceration. A
seemingly colorblind system has
emerged that locks millions of African Americans into a
permanent undercaste, and it ap-
pears that those who are trapped within it could have avoided it
simply by not commit-
ting crimes. Isn’t the answer not to challenge the system but to
try to avoid it? Shouldn’t
the focus be on improving ourselves, rather than challenging a
24. P
RE
SS
.
TEACHING THE NEW JIM CROW
The genius of the current caste system, and what most
distinguishes it from its prede-
cessors, is that it appears voluntary. People choose to commit
crimes, and that’s why they
are locked up or locked out, we are told. This feature makes the
politics of responsibil-
ity particularly tempting, as it appears the system can be
avoided with good behavior. But
herein lies the trap. All people make mistakes. All of us are
sinners. All of us are criminals. All
of us violate the law at some point in our lives.
The notion that a vast gulf exists between “criminals” and those
of us who have never
served time in prison is a fiction created by the racial ideology
that birthed mass incar-
ceration, namely that there is something fundamentally wrong
and morally inferior about
“them.” The reality, though, is that all of us have done wrong.
Yet only some of us will be
arrested, charged, convicted of a crime, branded a criminal or
felon, and ushered into a
permanent undercaste.
Urging the urban poor—or anyone—to live up to their highest
ideals and values is a good
thing, as it demonstrates confidence in the ability of all people
25. to stretch, grow, and evolve.
Even in the most dire circumstances, we all have power and
agency, the ability to choose
what we think and how we respond to the circumstances of our
lives. The intuition
underlying moral-uplift strategies is fundamentally sound: our
communities will never
thrive if we fail to respect ourselves and one another.
As a liberation strategy, however, the politics of responsibility
is doomed to fail—not be-
cause there is something especially wrong with those locked in
ghettos or prisons today,
but because there is nothing special about them. They are
merely human. They will con-
tinue to make mistakes and break the law for reasons that may
or may not be justified; and
as long as they do so, this system of mass incarceration will
continue to function well.
Generations of black men will continue to be lost—rounded up
for crimes that go ignored
on the other side of town and ushered into a permanent second-
class status. It may
seem at first blush that cooperating with the system while
urging good behavior is the
only option available, but in reality it is not a liberation
strategy at all.
Fork in the Road
Our nation declared a war on people trapped in racially
segregated ghettos—just at the
moment their economies had collapsed—rather than providing
community investment,
quality education, and job training when work disappeared. Of
course those communities
are suffering from serious crime and dysfunction today. Did we
28. IS
SI
O
N
O
F
TH
E
N
EW
P
RE
SS
.
TEACHING THE NEW JIM CROW
of “us.” We could do that. Or we can choose to be a nation that
shames and blames its
most vulnerable, affixes badges of dishonor upon them at young
ages, and then relegates
them to a permanent second-class status for life.
Endnotes
1 See Jamie Fellner and Marc Mauer, Losing the Vote: The
Impact of Felony Disenfranchisement Laws in the United States
(Washington, DC: Sentencing Project, 1998).
2 See Purkett v. Elm, 514 U.S. 765 discussed in chapter 3, p.
29. 150.
3 Brian Kalt, “The Exclusion of Felons from Jury Service,”
American University Law Review 53 (2003): 65.
4 Jeremy Travis, But They All Come Back: Facing the
Challenges of Prisoner Reentry (Washington, DC: Urban
Institute Press,
2002), 32, citing Bureau of Justice Statistics.
5 Peter Wagner, “Prisoners of the Census”; for more
information, see www.prisonersofthecensus.org.
6 See, e.g., Charles Ogletree and Austin Sarat, eds., From
Lynch Mobs to the Killing State: Race and the Death Penalty in
Ameri-
ca (New York: New York University Press, 2006); and Joy
James, The New Abolitionists: (Neo) Slave Narratives and
Contemporary
Prison Writings (New York: State University of New York
Press, 2005).
http://www.tolerance.org
http://www.tolerance.org
TEACHING
TOLERANCE
A PROJECT OF THE SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER
TOLERANCE.ORG
TEACHING
The New Jim Crow
30. THE NEW JIM CROW by Michelle Alexander
CHAPTER 6
The Fire This Time
Shortly after sunrise on September 20, 2007, more than ten
thousand protestors had
already descended on Jena, Louisiana, a small town of about
three thousand people. Jesse
Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Martin Luther King III were among
those who trav-
eled hundreds of miles to participate in what was heralded as
“the beginnings
of a new civil rights movement.”1
National news media swarmed the town; cameras rolled as
thousands of
protestors from all over the country poured into the rural
community to
condemn the attempted murder charges filed against six black
teenagers
who allegedly beat a white classmate at a local high school.
This was no ordinary schoolyard fight. Many believed the attack
was related to a string
of racially charged conflicts and controversies at the school,
most notably the hanging of
nooses from a tree in the school’s main courtyard.
The uprising on behalf of the six black teens paid off. Although
the prosecutor refused to
back down from his decision to bring adult charges against the
31. youths, an appellate court
ultimately ruled the teens had to be tried as juveniles, and many
of the charges were re-
duced or dropped. While this result undoubtedly cheered the
thousands of Jena 6 support-
ers around the country, the spectacle may have been oddly
unsettling to parents of children
imprisoned for far less serious crimes, including those locked
up for minor drug offenses.
Where were the protestors and civil rights leaders when their
children were tried as adults
and carted off to adult prisons? Why the outpouring of support
and the promises of a “new
civil rights movement” on behalf of the Jena youth but not their
children?
If there had been no nooses hanging from a schoolyard tree,
there would have been no Jena
6—no mass protests, no live coverage on CNN. It was this
relic—the noose—showing up so
brazenly and leading to a series of racially charged conflicts
and controversies that made
it possible for the news media and the country as a whole to
entertain the possibility that
these six youths may well have been treated to Jim Crow
justice.
Ironically, it was precisely this framing that ensured that the
events in Jena would not
actually launch a “new civil rights movement.” A new civil
rights movement cannot be orga-
nized around the relics of the earlier system of control if it is to
address meaningfully the
racial realities of our time. Any racial justice movement, to be
successful, must vigorously
challenge the public consensus that underlies the prevailing
34. PE
RM
IS
SI
O
N
O
F
TH
E
N
EW
P
RE
SS
.
TEACHING THE NEW JIM CROW
cial slurs, and overt bigotry are widely condemned by people
across the political spectrum;
they are understood to be remnants of the past, no longer
reflective of the prevailing public
consensus about race. Challenging these forms of racism is
certainly necessary, as we must
always remain vigilant, but it will do little to shake the
foundations of the current system of
control. The new caste system, unlike its predecessors, is
officially colorblind. We must deal
35. with it on its own terms.
Rethinking Denial—Or, Where Are Civil Rights Advocates
When You Need Them?
[W]hat is most striking about the civil rights community’s
response to the mass incarcera-
tion of people of color is the relative quiet. Given the
magnitude—the sheer scale—of the
New Jim Crow, one would expect that the War on Drugs would
be the top priority of every
civil rights organization in the country. Conferences, strategy
sessions, and debates regard-
ing how best to build a movement to dismantle the new caste
system would be occurring
on a regular basis. Major grassroots organizing efforts would be
under way in nearly every
state and city nationwide. All of that could have happened, but
it didn’t. Why not?
A bit of civil rights history may be helpful here. Throughout
most of our nation’s history—
from the days of the abolitionist movement through the Civil
Rights Movement—racial
justice advocacy has generally revolved around grassroots
organizing and the strategic
mobilization of public opinion. In recent years, however, a bit
of mythology has sprung up
regarding the centrality of litigation to racial justice struggles.
The success of the brilliant
legal crusade that led to Brown v. Board of Education has
created a widespread perception
that civil rights lawyers are the most important players in racial
justice advocacy. As public
attention shifted from the streets to the courtroom, the
extraordinary grassroots move-
ment that made civil rights legislation possible faded from
36. public view.
With all deliberate speed, civil rights organizations became
“professionalized” and increas-
ingly disconnected from the communities they claimed to
represent.
Widespread preoccupation with litigation, however, is not the
only—or even the main—rea-
son civil rights groups have shied away from challenging the
new caste system. Challeng-
ing mass incarceration requires something civil rights advocates
have long been reluctant
to do: advocacy on behalf of criminals. The “politics of
respectability” has influenced civil
rights litigation and advocacy, leading even the most powerful
civil rights organizations
to distance themselves from the most stigmatized elements of
the community, especially
lawbreakers. Advocates have found they are most successful
when they draw attention to
certain types of black people (those who are easily understood
by mainstream whites as
“good” and “respectable”) and tell certain types of stories about
them.
A prime example is the Rosa Parks story. Rosa Parks was not
the first person to refuse
to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery,
Alabama. Civil rights advocates
considered and rejected two other black women as plaintiffs
when planning a test case
challenging segregation practices: Claudette Colvin and Mary
Louise Smith. [C]ivil rights
advocates declined to use [Claudette Colvin] as a plaintiff
because she got pregnant by an
39. EW
P
RE
SS
.
TEACHING THE NEW JIM CROW
Most people who are caught up in the criminal justice system
have less than flawless back-
grounds. The new caste system labels black and brown men as
criminals early, often in their
teens, making them “damaged goods” from the perspective of
traditional civil rights advo-
cates. With criminal records, the majority of young black men
in urban areas are not seen
as attractive plaintiffs for civil rights litigation or good “poster
boys” for media advocacy.
We can continue to ignore those labeled criminals in our
litigation and media advocacy and
focus public attention on more attractive plaintiffs … . But if
we do so, we should labor un-
der no illusions that we will end mass incarceration or shake the
foundations of the current
racial order. We must face the realities of the new caste system
and embrace those who are
most oppressed by it if we hope to end the new Jim Crow.
Tinkering Is for Mechanics, Not Racial-Justice Advocates
If we become serious about dismantling the system of mass
incarceration, we must end the
War on Drugs. There is no way around it. The drug war is
largely responsible for the prison
40. boom and the creation of the new undercaste, and there is no
path to liberation for commu-
nities of color that includes this ongoing war.
Ending the drug war … cannot be accomplished through a
landmark court decision, an
executive order, or single stroke of the presidential pen. Since
1982, the war has raged like a
forest fire set with a few matches and a gallon of gasoline. What
began as an audacious fed-
eral program, has spread to every state in the nation and nearly
every city. It has infected
law enforcement activities on roads, sidewalks, highways, train
stations, airports, and the
nation’s border. The war has effectively shredded portions of
the U.S. Constitution—elimi-
nating Fourth Amendment protections once deemed inviolate—
and it has militarized
policing practices in inner cities across America.
[A] flawed public consensus lies at the core of the prevailing
caste system. When people
think about crime, especially drug crime, they do not think
about suburban housewives
violating laws regulating prescription drugs or white frat boys
using ecstasy. Drug crime
in this country is understood to be black and brown, and it is
because drug crime is racially
defined in the public consciousness that the electorate has not
cared much what happens
to drug criminals—at least not the way they would have cared if
the criminals were under-
stood to be white. It is this failure to care, really care across
color lines that lies at the core
of this system of control and every racial caste system that has
existed in the United States
43. IS
SI
O
N
O
F
TH
E
N
EW
P
RE
SS
.
TEACHING THE NEW JIM CROW
very important. We need an effective system of crime
prevention and control in our com-
munities, but that is not what the current system is. This system
is better designed to create
crime, and a perpetual class of people labeled criminals, rather
than to eliminate crime or
reduce the number of criminals.
[W]e need to talk about race openly and honestly. People must
come to understand the
racial history and origins of mass incarceration—the many ways
our conscious and uncon-
44. scious biases have distorted our judgments over the years about
what is fair, appropriate,
and constructive when responding to drug use and drug crime.
We must come to see, too,
how our economic insecurities and racial resentments have been
exploited for political
gain, and how this manipulation has caused suffering for people
of all colors. Finally, we
must admit, out loud, that it was because of race that we didn’t
care much what happened to
“those people” and imagined the worst possible things about
them.
Admittedly, though, the temptation to ignore race in our
advocacy may be overwhelming.
Race makes people uncomfortable. One study found that some
whites are so loath to talk
about race and so fearful of violating racial etiquette that they
indicate a preference for
avoiding all contact with black people.2 The striking reluctance
of whites, in particular, to
talk about or even acknowledge race has led many scholars and
advocates to conclude that
we would be better off not talking about race at all.
Even if fairly dramatic changes were achieved while ignoring
race, the results would be
highly contingent and temporary. States would likely gravitate
back to their old ways if a
new, more compassionate public consensus about race had not
been forged. The crimi-
nalization and demonization of black men is one habit America
seems unlikely to break
without addressing head-on the racial dynamics that have given
rise to successive caste
systems. Although colorblind approaches to addressing the
45. problems of poor people of
color often seem pragmatic in the short run, in the long run they
are counterproductive.
Colorblindness, though widely touted as the solution, is actually
the problem.
Against Colorblindness
[T]he public consensus supporting mass incarceration is
officially colorblind. It purports
to see black and brown men not as black and brown, but simply
as men—raceless men—
who have failed miserably to play by the rules the rest of us
follow quite naturally. The fact
that so many black and brown men are rounded up for drug
crimes that go largely ignored
when committed by whites is unseen. Our collective
colorblindness prevents us from
seeing this basic fact. We have become blind, not so much to
race, but to the existence of
racial caste in America.
More than forty-five years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. warned
of this danger. He insisted that
blindness and indifference to racial groups is actually more
important than racial hostility to
the creation and maintenance of racialized systems of control.
Those who supported slavery
and Jim Crow, he argued, typically were not bad or evil people;
they were just blind.
Could not the same speech be given about mass incarceration
today? Again, African
Americans have been “crucified by conscientious blindness.”
People of good will have been
http://www.tolerance.org
48. SS
.
TEACHING THE NEW JIM CROW
unwilling to see black and brown men, in their humanness, as
entitled to the same care,
compassion, and concern that would be extended to one’s
friends, neighbors, or loved ones.
Racial indifference and blindness—far more than racial
hostility—form the sturdy founda-
tion for all racial caste systems.
If colorblindness is such a bad idea, though, why have people
across the political spectrum
become so attached to it? For conservatives, the ideal of
colorblindness is linked to a com-
mitment to individualism. Gross racial disparities in health,
wealth, education, and oppor-
tunity should be of no interest to our government, and racial
identity should be a private
matter, something best kept to ourselves. For liberals, the ideal
of colorblindness is linked
to the dream of racial equality. The hope is that one day we will
no longer see race because
race will lose all of its significance. In this fantasy, eventually
race will no longer be a factor
in mortality rates, the spread of disease, educational or
economic opportunity, or the distri-
bution of wealth.
Seeing race is not the problem. Refusing to care for the people
we see is the problem. The
fact that the meaning of race may evolve over time or lose much
of its significance is hardly
a reason to be struck blind. We should hope not for a colorblind
49. society but instead for a
world in which we can see each other fully, learn from each
other, and do what we can to
respond to each other with love. That was King ’s dream—a
society that is capable of seeing
each of us, as we are, with love. That is a goal worth fighting
for.
All of Us or None
Taking our cue from the courageous civil rights advocates who
brazenly refused to defend
themselves, marching unarmed past white mobs that threatened
to kill them, we, too, must
be the change we hope to create. If we want to do more than just
end mass incarceration—if
we want to put an end to the history of racial caste in
America—we must lay down our racial
bribes, join hands with people of all colors who are not content
to wait for change to trickle
down, and say to those who would stand in our way: Accept all
of us or none.
That is the basic message that Martin Luther King Jr. aimed to
deliver through the Poor
People’s Movement back in 1968. He argued then that the time
had come for racial justice ad-
vocates to shift from a civil rights to a human rights paradigm,
and that the real work of move-
ment building had only just begun.3 A human rights approach,
he believed, would offer far
greater hope for those of us determined to create a thriving,
multiracial, multiethnic democ-
racy free from racial hierarchy than the civil rights model had
provided to date. It would offer
a positive vision of what we can strive for—a society in which
all human beings of all races are
52. IS
SI
O
N
O
F
TH
E
N
EW
P
RE
SS
.
TEACHING THE NEW JIM CROW
of African Americans basic human dignity. The significance of
this cannot be overstated, for
the failure to acknowledge the humanity and dignity of all
persons has lurked at the root of
every racial caste system.
If Martin Luther King Jr. is right that the arc of history is long,
but it bends toward justice, a
new movement will arise; and if civil rights organizations fail
to keep up with the times, they
will be pushed to the side as another generation of advocates
comes to the fore. Hopefully the
53. new generation will be led by those who know best the brutality
of the new caste system—a
group with greater vision, courage, and determination than the
old guard can muster, trapped
as they may be in an outdated paradigm. This new generation of
activists should not disre-
spect their elders or disparage their contributions or
achievements; to the contrary, they
should bow their heads in respect, for their forerunners have
expended untold hours and
made great sacrifices in an elusive quest for justice. But once
respects have been paid, they
should march right past them, emboldened, as King once said,
by the fierce urgency of now.
Those of us who hope to be their allies should not be surprised,
if and when this day comes,
that when those who have been locked up and locked out finally
have the chance to speak
and truly be heard, what we hear is rage. The rage may frighten
us; it may remind us of riots,
uprisings, and buildings aflame. We may be tempted to control
it, or douse it with buckets
of doubt, dismay, and disbelief. But we should do no such thing.
Instead, when a young man
who was born in the ghetto and who knows little of life beyond
the walls of his prison cell
and the invisible cage that has become his life, turns to us in
bewilderment and rage, we
should do nothing more than look him in the eye and tell him
the truth. We should tell him
the same truth the great African American writer James Baldwin
told his nephew in a letter
published in 1962, in one of the most extraordinary books ever
written, The Fire Next Time.
With great passion and searing conviction, Baldwin had this to
54. say to his young nephew:
This is the crime of which I accuse my country and my
countrymen, and for which neither
I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, that they have
destroyed and are destroying
hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not
want to know it … . It is their
innocence which constitutes the crime. … This innocent country
set you down in a ghetto
in which, in fact, it intended that you should perish. … You
were born into a society which
spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible,
that you were a worthless
human being. … But these men are your brothers—your lost,
younger brothers. And if the
word integration means anything, this is what it means: that we,
with love, shall force our
brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from
reality and begin to change it.
[W]e can make America what it must become. …5
Endnotes
1 Salim Muwakkil, “Jena and the Post–Civil Rights Fallacy,” In
These Times, Oct. 16, 2007.
2 See “Study Finds Whites Anxious About Race,” Bryant Park
Project, National Public Radio, Dec. 3, 2007.
3 For a more detailed exploration of Martin Luther King Jr.’s
journey from civil rights to human rights, see Thomas F. Jack-
http://www.tolerance.org
http://www.tolerance.org
57. TEACHING THE NEW JIM CROW
son, From Civil Rights to Human Rights: Martin Luther King,
Jr. and the Struggle for Economic Justice (Philadelphia:
University
of Pennsylvania Press, 2006); and Stewart Burns, To the
Mountaintop: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Sacred Mission to Save
America
(New York: Harper One, 2005).
4 For background on the nature, structure, and history of
human rights, see Cynthia Soohoo et al., eds., Bringing Human
Rights Home, vol. 1 (New York: Praeger, 2007).
5 James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time (New York: Vintage,
1962, 1993), 5–10.
http://www.tolerance.org
http://www.tolerance.org
Gloria Anzaldua
is a.lso the co-editor of
This Bridge Called My Back
Gloria Anzaldua
Borderlands
fafrontera
The New Mestiza
aunt lute books
SAN FRANCISCO
59. Printed in the U.S.A.
Lorraine Grassano
Ambrosia Marvin
Papusa Molina
Sukey Wilder
Kathleen Wilkinson
Libl9lry o~ 'Congress CatalogiJlilg-ill-Publica.tion Data
A02:a1dua, Glllli.a. .
Borderlands : the new mestiza = La frontera I Gloria
Anzaldua - 1st eel. - San Francisco : Aunt. Lute, c1987.
2031', : po,!" : 22 em.
Englis.h .and Spanish,
Some poems tr:atnslat,ed from Sp,anisbi.
ISBN 1·819%0·12·5 !pbk,l' : $9.'95
1. Mexrucan~American Boroc'r Region- Poetry. 2. Mexfucan-
American
women - Poetry. 3,. Me::dc:an-American Horde[ Region -
Civilizatio:JIIJ. I.
Title. U. Title: Frontera.
PS3551.N95B6 1987 811'.54-dcl9 87·60780
AACRZ MARC
Acknowledgements
To you who walked with me upon my path and who held out
a hand when I stumbled;
to YOll who brushed past me at crossroads never ~o touch me
again;
60. to you whom I never chanced to meet but who inhabit
borderlands similar to mine;
to you for whom the borderlands is unknown territory;
to Kit Quan, for .feeding me and listening to me ram and
rave;
to Melani,e Kaye/Kamrowitz, .for believing in m~ and being
ther,e for me;
to Joan Pinkvoss, my editor and publisher, midwi~e extraor-
dinaire, whose understanding., caring, and batanced mixture of
gentle prodding and pressure not only helped me bring this
"baby" to term, but helped to create it; these images and words
are for you.
To the production staff at Spinsters/ Auot Lute who bore
the pressure of impossible deadlines well: Martha Davis whose
invaluable and excellent copy-editing has made the material
more readable and cohesive; Debra DeBondt who worked long
and hard to keep the book Dn schedule; Pam Wilson and Graoe
Harwood.;.
to Frances Doughty, Juanita Ramos, Judith Waterman,
Irena Klepfisz, Randy Conner,Jan,et Aalphs, Mirtha N. Quinta-
nales, Mandy Covey and EIana Dyk,ewomon for their support
and
,encouragement, as well as f,eedback, Dn various pieces; (0 my
friends, swdents and cDHeagues in the ADP program in
Vermont
Col]ege, Women's Voices Writing Workshop, VCSC, and
writers
who participated in my writing workshops in NYC,. New
Haven,
61. San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, and Austin,. Texas, in
particu-
lar: Pearl Olson, Pau.la Ross, Marcy Alancraig, Maya
Valv,erde,
Ariban,. Tirsa Quinones, Beth Brant, Chrystos, Elva pere.z-
Trevino, Victoria Rosales, Christian McEwen, Roz Calvert,
Nina
Newington, and Linda Smuckler;.
to Chela Sandoval, Rosa-Maria ViUafane-Sosolak, Osa
Hidalgo de la Riva, Lisa Carim, Sue Schwiek, Viviana Varela,
Cindy Cleary, Papusa Molina and Rusty Barcelo;
to Lisa Levin, Shelley Savren,. Lisa Albrecht, Mary Pollock,
Lea AreUano, Christine Weiland, Louise Rocha, Leon Fishman,
Claude Talley;
to my family: my mother, Amalia; my sister, Hilda; my
brothers,. Urbano (Nune) and Oscar (Carito);. my sisters-in-law,
Janie and Sara; my niece, Missy, and my nephew, Urbie; Tio
Pete
y Tia Minga;.
and especially to the memory of my father,. Urbano, and my
grandmothers, Eloisa (Locha) and Ramona;
gracias .a todi.tos ustedes.
THIS BOOK
is dedicated a todos mex.icanos
on both sides of the border.
G.E.A.
62. Preface
The actual physical bordedand that I'm dealing wi th in this
book
is the Texas-U.S Southwest/Mexican border. The psychological
borderlands, the sexual borderlands and the spiritual
borderlands
are not particular to the Southwest. In fact, the Borderlands are
physicaHy present wherever two or more cultures edge each
other, where peopIe of differ em races occupy the same
territory,
where under, lower, middle and upper classes touch, where the
space between two individuals shrinks with intimacy.
I am a border woman.. I grew up between I."WO cultures, the
Mexican (with a heavy Indian influence) and the Anglo (as a
member of a colonized people in our own territory). I have been
straddling that teja,r-Mexican border, .and others, all my life.
h's
not.a comfortable territory to liv,e in,. this place of
contradictions.
Hatred, anger and exploitation are the prominent features of this
landscape.
However, there have be·en compensations for this mestiza,.
and certain joys. Living on borders and in margins., keeping
intact
one's shifting and multiple identity and integrity, is like trying
to
swim ina new element, an "alien" element. There is an exhilara-
tiolJi in being a participant in the funherevolution of
humankind,
in being "worked" on .. 1 have the sense thatoertain "Iaculdes"-
,not just in me but in every border resident,. colored or non-
colored-l'I;nd dormant areas of consciousness are beingacti-
63. v.ated, awakened. Strange, huh? And y,es, the "alien" element
has
become familiar-never comfortable, not with society's clamor
to uphold the old,. to rejoin the flock, to go with the herd. No,
nm
comfortable but home.
This book, then, speaks of my existence. My preoccupations
with the inner life of the Self, and with the struggle of that Self
amidst adversity and violation; with the confluence of
primordial
images; with the unique positionings consciousness takes at
these confluent streams; and with my almost instinctive urge to
communicate, to speak, to write about life on the borders, life in
the shadows.
Books saved my sanity,. knowledge opened the locked places
in me and taught me first how to survive and then how to soar.
LA
madre naturaleza succored me, allowed me to grow roots that
anchored me to the earth .. My love of images-mesquit,e flower-
ing,. the wind,. Eheca.tl, whispering its secret knowledge, the
fleeting images of the so.ul in famasy-and words, my passion
for
the daily struggle to render them concrete in the world and on
paper, to Jr.end~ctj1emflesh,. keeps me alive ..
The switching of "codes" in this book from English to
Castillian Spanish to the North Mexican dialect to Tex-Mex to a
sprinkling of Nahuatl to a mixture of aU of these, reflects my
language, a new language-the language of the Borderlands.
There, at the juncture of cultures, languages cross-poHinate and
are revitalized; they die and are bom. Pr,esemly this inram
64. language.,. this bastard language,. Chicano Spanish, is not
approved by any society. But we Chicanos no longer feel that
we
need to. beg entrance, that we need always to make the first
overture-lQ translate to Anglos, Mexicans and Latinos, apology
bhlrting out of our mouths with every step. To.day we ask to be
met halfway. This book is our invitation to. you-from the new
mestizas.
Borderlands
La Frontera
Contients
A TRAVESANDO FRONTERAS I CROSSING BORDERS
1. The Homeland,. Azdan I El atro Mexico, page 1
El destie1'1'o I The Lost Land
El Cfflzar del mojado I IHega] Crossing
2. MovimientoJ de rebeldia y laJ cult.u'J':M q.ue traicionan,
p.age 15
The Strength of My RebeHion
Cultural Tyranny
Half and Half
Fear of Going Horne: Homophobia
Intimate Terrorism: Life in the Borderlands
The Wounding of the india-Mestiza
3. Entering Into the Serpent, page 25
Ella tiene JU tona
Coatlalopeuh, She Who Has Dominion Over Serpents
For Waging War Is My Cosmic Duty
Sueno con JerpienteJ
65. The Presences
Lafacultad
4. La herencia de Coatlicue I The Coatlicue State, page 41
EnfrentamientoJ can el alma
El secreta terrible y la rajadur.a
Nopal de castilla
The Coatlicue State
The Coatlicue State Is A Prelude co Crossing
That Wh ich Abides
5. How to Tame a Wild Tongue, p.age 53
Overcoming the Tradition of SHence
Oye como ladra: e/ lenguaje de la frontera
Chicano Spanish
Linguistic Terrorism
"Vistas," corridos, y comMas: My Native Tongue
Si Ie preguntas a mi mama, "ique eres?"
6. Tlmi,. Tlapatli: the Path of the Red and Black Ink, page 65
Invoking Art
Ni cuicani: I, the Singer
The S'hamanic State
W firing is a Sensuous Act
Something To Do With the Dark
7.. La concienc;a de III, mestiza: Towards aNew
Notes
Consciousness, page 77
Una lucha de ironteras / A StruggIe of Borders
A Tolerance for Ambiguity
66. La encrucijada I The Crossroads
Elcamino de III, mestiza I The Mestiza Way
Que nO' se nos alvide los hombres
Somos una gente
By Your True Faces We Will Know YOIl
El dill, de III, Chicana
El retarno
UN A GITADO VIENTO I EHECATL, THE WIND
I. Mas ante.s en los r:anchos
White-wing Season, page 1.02
Gervicide, p.age 1.04
horse, p.age 106
Immaculate, Inviolate: Como Ella, page 108
N apalitos, page 112
n. La perdida
JUS plumas €II viento,. page 116
Cultures, page 12.0
sobr:e piedras can lagar:tijos, page 121
el san.avabitche, page 124
mar de repollas, page 13.0
A Sea of Cabbages, page 132
We CaU Them Greasers, p.age 134
Matr;z sin tumba a "€II bartO' de la basura ajen.a"; page 136
HI. Crossers y otras atravesados
Poets have strange eati ng habits,. pag,e 14.0
Yo no fui, lue Tete, page 142
The Cannibal's Cancion, page 143
En mi cor:az6n se incuba, page 144
Corner of 50th St. and Fifth Av., page 145
Companera, cuando amabamos, p.age 146
Interface, page 148
67. IV. Cihuatlyotl, Woman Alone
Holy Rdics,. page 154
En €II nombre de todas las m.adres, page 160
Letting Go, page 164
I Had To Go Down, page 167
Cagada abinna, quiero saber, page 170
that dark shi ning thing, page 171
Cihua.tlyott, Woman Alone, page 173
V. Animas
La curandera,. page 176
mujer cacto, p.age 18.0
Cuyamaca, page 182
My Black Ange.tas, page 184
Creature of Darkness, p.age 186
Antigua,. mi diosa, page 188
VI. EI Retorno
Arriba mi gente,. page 192
T 0 li~~ in the Bon:ledands means you, page 194
Canc~an .de III, diosa de la noch.e, page 196
Nose raje, chican.ita, page 2.00
Don't Give In,. Chicanita, page 2.02
Atravesando fronteras
Crossing Borders
1
The Homeland, .Azdan
El atro Mexico
68. El afro M,exico que' aea hemos com.truido
el e.sp.acio es 10 que ha sido
territorio n,a,eional.
Es.te el esju.erzo de todos n.ue;.tror hermanos
y la#noamericanos que han sabido
progressar.
-Los Tigr,es del Norte1
"The A z;.tecasdel norte ... compose the largest single tribe
or nation of Anishinabeg (Indians) found in the United States
today ..... Some caU themselves Chicanos and see themsdves as
people whose true homeland is Azdan[the U.s.. SOI.lthwest]."2
Wind t~gging at my sleeve
feet sinking into the sand
[ stand at the edge where eanh touches ocean
where the two overlap
a gentle coming together
at other times and places a violent dash.
Across the border in Mexico
stark silhouett,e of houses gutted by waves,
diffs crumbling into the sea,.
silver waves marbled with spume
gashi.nga hole under the border fence.
2
The Homeland, Aztian I HI ot,.,o Mexico
Mira el mar atacar
69. la cerca en Border Field Park
con sus buchO'nes de agua,
an East,er Sunday resurrection
of the brown blood in my veins.
OigG elllGridG del mar, el respirG del aire,
my heart surges to the beat of the sea.
In the gray ha.ze of the sun
the gu[1s' shrill cry of hunger,
the tangy smeU of the sea seeping into me ..
I walk through the hole in the fence
to the other side ..
V nder my fingers I feel the gritty wire
.rusted by, 139 years
of the salty breath of the sea.
Beneath the iron sky
Mexican children kick their soccer ball across,
run aft,er it, entering the U.S.
I press my hand to the steel curtain-
chainlink fence crowned with roHed barbed wire-
rippling from the sea where Tijuana touches San Diego
unrolling over mountains
and plains
and deserts,
this "TortiHa Curtain" turning into el riG Gr,ande
70. Hawing down to the fladands
of the Magic Valley of South Texas
its mouth emptying into the GuH.
1,950 mile-long open wound
dividing a pueblO', a culture,
running down the length of my body,.
staking fence rods in my flesh,
splits me splits me
me raja me raja
3
The Homeland, Azdan I HI Ofro MexicO'
This is my home
this thin ,edge of
barbwire ..
But the skin of the earth is seamless.
The sea cannot be fenced,
,el mar does not stop at borders.
To show the white man what she thought of his
arroganc,e,
Y;emaya blew that wire fence down.
This land was Mexican once"
was Indian always
and is.
And will be again.
71. YO' soy un puente tendido
del mundG gabacho at del mojado,
to paI'adG me estir,a pa' 'trlH
y 10' pr:esente pa' 'delan.te ..
Que fa Virgen de Guadalupe me cuide
A'y ay ay, I'oy mexicana de este lado ..
The V.S.-Mexican border es una herida abierta where the
Third World grates against the first and bleeds. And be.fore a
scab
forms it hemorrhages again, the lifeblood of two worlds
merging
to form a third country-a border cu]tur,e. Borders are set up to
define the places that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from
them. A border is a dividing Hne, a narrow strip alonga. steep
edge. A borderland is a vague and undetermined place created
by
the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary. It is in a con-
stant state of transition. The prohibited and forbidden are its
inhahitants. Los atravesadGs .Iive here: the squint-eyed, the
per-
v'erse, the queer, the troublesome, tbe mongrel, the mulato, the
half-breed, the half dead; in short,. those who ,cross over, pass
over, argo through the confines of the "normal" Gringos in the
U.S. Southwest consider the inhabitants o.f the borderlands
transgressors, aliens-whether they possess documents or not,.
whether they're Chicanos, Indians or Blacks. Do not enter, tres-
passers win be raped, maimed, strangled, gassed" shot.
Ih.1:,Q~nly~
")egitimate" inhabitants are those in power, the whites and
those
72. 4
The Homeland, AzeJan I Et ot1'O MexicO'
who .• dign themselves with whites. Tension grips the
inhabitants
of the borderlands like a virus. Ambivalence and unrest reside
there and death is no stranger ..
In the fields, la migra. My aunt saying, "NO' ,cGrran,
don't run. They'll think you're del GtrG laG." In the confu-
sion, Pedro ran, terrified of being caught. He couldn't speak
English, muldn't tell them he was fihhgeneration Ameri-
can. Sin papeles-he did not carry his birth certificate w
work in the fields. La migr:a wok him a way while we
watched .. Se 10 Ilevaron. He tried to smile when he looked
back at us, to raise his fist. But I saw the shame pushing his
head down, I saw the terribIe weight of shame hunch his
shoulders .. They deported him to Guadabjara by plane. The
fUifthest he'd ,ever been te Mexico was Reynosa., a small
berder town oppesite Hidalge, Texas, net far from
McAllen. Pedro wa.lked aU the way to the VaHey. Se 10'
llevaron sin un centavO' al pobre .. Se vino ,andandG desde
GuadalaJara.
During the original peepHng of the Americas, the first
inhabitants migrated across the Bering Straits and walked south
across the mntinent. The eldest evidence .of humankind in the
U.S.-the Chicanos' andent Indianancesters-was found in
Texas and has been dated to 35000 B.C.3 In the Southwest
United
States archeelogists have found 20,000- year-eld campsites of
the
Indians who migrated through, or permanendy .occupied, the
Southwest, Aztliin-Iand of the herons, land of whiteness, the
Edenic place .of origin of the Azteca.
73. In WOO B.C., descendants .of the original Cechise people
migrated into what is now Mexico and Central America and
became thedir,ect ancestors of many of the Mexican people.
(The
Cechise cultur,e of the Southwest is the parent culture of the
Aztecs. The Uta-Aztecan languages stemmed frem the fanguage
of the Cochise people.)4 The Aztecs (the Nahuad word for
people of AztIan) left the Southwest in 1168 A.D.
Now let us go.
Tihueque, tihueque,
VamGnOS, vamGnos ..
Un piJjaro ,canto.
5
The Homeland, Azthln I Ei ot1'O MlJ:xico
Con sus G,cho .tribus salieron
de la "'cu,eva del origen .. "
los aztecas siguierGn at diGS
HuitzilopGchtli.
HuitzilopG,chtli, the God of War, guided them to the place
(that later became Mexice City) where an eagle with a writhing
serpent in its beak perched on a cactl.ls. The eagle symbolizes
the
spirit (as the sun, the father); the serpent symbolizes the seul
(as
the earth, the mother). Tog,ether, they symbolize the struggle
between the spiritual! celestial! male and the underwerld! earth!
feminine. The symbolic sacrifice of the serpent to the "higher"
masculine powers indicates that the patriarchal .order had
already
74. vanquished the feminine and matriarchal OJrd,er in pre-
Columbian America.
At the beginning of the 16th century, the Spaniards and
Hernan Cortes invaded Mexico and, with the he.lp of tribes that
the Aztecs had subjugat,ed, conquered it. Before the Cenquest,
there were twenty-five million Indian peeple in Mexico and the
Yu:catan. Immediately after the Conquest, the Indian population
had been reduoed te under seven millien. By 1650., .only one-
and-
a-haH-million pure-Moeded Indians remained. The mestizO's
who were genedcaHy equi pped to surv ive small pox, measles,
and
typhus (Old World diseases to which the natives had no immun-
ity), founded a new hybrid race and inherited Central and South
America.5 En 1521 n·acfG .una nueva raza, el mestizo, el
mexicanG
(people .of mixed Indian and Spanish blood)., a race that had
never existed befere .. Chicanos, Mexican-Americans, are the
offspring of those first matings.
Our Spanish, Indian, and mestizo ancestors explered and
settled parts of the U.S. Southwest as early as the sixteenth
century. For every gold-hungry conq.uist.adorand soul-hungry
missienary who came north from Mexico, ten to twenty Indians
and mestizos went along as porters or in other capadties.6 For
the Indians, this constituted a return te the place .of origin,
Az.tlan, thus making Chicanes originally and secendarily indi-
genous to the Seuthwest. Indians and mes.tizos from central
Mexico intermarried with North Amerkan Indians. The contin-
ual intermarriage between Mexican and American Indians and
Spaniards formed an even greater mestizaje.
6
75. The Homeland, Aztian I Elo.tro Mexico
El destierro/The Lost Land
Entonces corre la sangre
no sabeel indio que hacer,
Ie van a quitar su tierra ..
ta tiene que defender,.
€II indio se cae m.uerto"
y el afuerino de p.ie.
Levantat.e, Manquilef.
A ra.uco .tiene .una pen a
mas negra que su ch,amal,
ya no son los e sp,afioles
los que les hacen /lorar,
hoy .son los propios chilenos
los que les quitan su p,an.
Levan.tate, Pailahuan.
- Violeta Parra, "Arauco tien,e una pena''l
In the 1800s, Anglos migrated megally into Texas, which
was then part of Mexico, i.n greater and greater numbers and
gradually drove the .tejanos (native Texans of Mexican descent)
from their lands,. committing aU manner of atrocities against
them. Their illegal invasion forced Mexico to fight a war to
keep
its Texas territory. The Batde of the Alamo, in which the Mexi-
can forces vanquished the whites, became, .for the whit,es, the
sy mbol for the cowardly and villainous charact'er of the
Mexicans.
It became (and still is) a symbol that legitimized the white
imperialist takeover .. With the capture of Santa Anna later in
1836, T,exas became a republic. Tej:anos lost their land and,
overnight, became the foreigners.
76. Ya la mit.ad det terreno
les vendi6 el traMor Santa A nn.a,
can 10 que se ha hecho muy r.ica
la naci6n americana ..
c'Que acaso no se conforman
con €II oro de las minas?
Ustedes m.uy elegantes
y aqulnosotros ,en ruin,as ..
·-from the Mexican corrido,
"Del peligro de ta In.tervenci6n,J/:3
7
The Homeland, AztrJan I EI 011'0 Mexico
]n 1846, the U.S .. incited Mexico to war. V.S. troops invaded
and occupied Mexico, for!t"ing her to give up almost haH of her
nation, what is now Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and
California ..
With the victory of the V.S .. forces over the Mexican in the
U.S.-Mex.icao War,. los norteamel'icanos pushed the Texas
border down 100 miles, from eJ rio N ueces to el rio Grande.
South Texas ceased to be part of the Mexican state of Yamauli-
pas. Separated from Mexico, the Native Mexkan-Texan no
longer look,ed toward Mexico as horne; the Southwest became
our homeland once more.. The border fence tJh:at divides the
Mexican peop]e was born on February 2, 1848 with the signing
of
the Tr,eaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo .. It left 100,000 Mexican
citi-
z'ens on this side, annexed by conquest along with the land. The
land established by the tr,eaty as belonging to Mexicans was
soon
77. swindled away from its owners. The treaty was never honored
and restitution, to this day, has never been made.
The justice and benevolence of God
will forbid that ... Texas should again
become a howling wilderness
trod only by savages, or ..... benighted
by the ignoranc,e and superstition,
the anarchy and rapine of Mexican misruIe.
The Anglo-American race are destined
to be forever the proprietors of
this land of promise and fuUHlment.
Their laws wiUgovern it,
their learning will enlight,en it,
their enterprise will improve it.
Their flocks range its boundless pastures,
for them its fertile lands will yield ...
luxuriant harvests •..
The wilderness of Texas has been redeemed
by Anglo-American blood &. enterprise.
-WilHam H. Wharton9
The Gringo, locked into the fiction of white superiority,
seized complete political power, stripping Indians and Mexicans
of their land while thdr feet were still rooted in it. Con el
desti.erro yel exilo fuimos d.esufia.dos,. destron.cados, destri·
8
The Homeland, Aztlan / Et otro Mexico
pados-we were jerked out by the roots, tcuncar,ed, disembo-
weled, dispossessed, and s,eparated from our identity and our
history. Many, under the threat of Anglo terrorism, abandoned
78. homes and ranches and went to Mexico. Some stayed and pro-
tested. But as the courts, law enforcemem o.fficials, and
govern-
ment officia.ls not only ignored their pleas but penalized them
for
their efforts, tejanos had no other recourse but armed retaliadon.
After Mexican-American resisters robbed a train in
Brownsville, Texas on October 18, 1915, Anglo vigilante
groups
began lynching Chicanos. Texas Rangers would take them into
the brush and shoot them. One hundr,ed Chicanos were killed in
a
matter of months, whole families lynched. Seven thousand fled
to Mexico, leaving their small ranches and farms .. The Anglos,
afraid that the mexi,canos10 would seek independence from the
U .8., brought in 20,000 army troops to put an ,end to the sodal
protest movement in South Texas .. Race hatred had finany
fomemed into an all out war .. l1
My grandmother lost all her cattle,
they stole her land.
"Drought hit South Texas," my mother tdh me. "La tiefra
se puso biense,ca y losanimales comenzaron a morrirse de se'.
Mi
papa se mudD de .un heart attack dejando a mama pregnant y
,con
O'cho huercos, with eight kids and one on the way. yO' lui la
mayO'r, tenia di,ez afios. The next year the drought col1tinued
Y el
g,anadO' got hoof and mouth. Se calleron in droves en las
pastasy
el brushland, pansas blancas baHooning to the skies .. EI
siguiente
ano still no rain. Mi pO'bre madre viuda perd;6 two-thirds of
79. her
ganadO'. A smartgabacho lawyer took the land away mama
hadn't
paid taxes. NO' hablaba ingles, she didn't know how to ask for
time to raise the money. " My father's mother, Marna Locha,.
also
lost her tefreno. For awhile we got $12.50 a y,ear for the"
mineral
rights" of six acres of cemetery, aU that was, left of the
anc,estral
landis .. Mama Locha had asked that we bury her there beside
her
husband. EI cemeterio e.staba cercado. But there was a fence
around the cemetery, chained and padlocked by the ranch
owners
of the smrounding land. We couldn't even get in to visit the
graves, much less bury her there .. Today, it is still padlocked.
The
sign r,eads: "Keep out. Trespassers will be shot."
9
The Homeland, Azrlan I Elot1'O Mexico
In the 1930s, aft,er Anglo agribusiness corporations cheated
the sman Chicano landowners of their land, the corporations
hired gangs of mexicanos to pullout the brush, chaparral and
cactus and to irrigate the desert. The land they toiledl over had
once belonged to many of them, or had been used communally
by
them. Later the Anglos brought in huge machines and root
plows
and had the Mexicans scrape the land dean of natural
vegetation.
In my childhood I saw the end of dryland farming. I witnessed
the
land cleared;. saw the huge pipes connected to underwater
80. sources
sticking up in the air. As children, we'd go fishing in some of
those canals when they were fun and hunt for snakes in them
when they were dry. In the 1950s I saw the bnd,. ,cut up into
thousands of neat reaangles and squares, constantly being irri-
ga ted. In the 340-day growth season, the seeds of any kind of
fruit
or vegetable had only to be stuck in the ground in order to
grow.
More big landl corporations came in and bought up the
remaining
land.
To make a living my father became a sharecropper .. Rio
Farms Incorporated loaned him seed money and living expenses
..
At harvest time,. my father repaid the loan and fork.ed over
40%
of the earnings. Sometimes we eamed less than we owed, but
always the corporations fared well. Some had major holdings in
vegetable trucking,. livestock auctions and conongins. Aho-
gether we lived on three successive Rio farms; the second was
adjl3cent to the King Ranch and induded a dairy farm; the third
was at chicken farm. I remember the white feathers of three
thousand Leghorn chickens blanketing the landl for acres
around.
My sister, mother andl I cleaned, weighed and packaged eggs.
(For
years afterwards I couldn't stomach the sight of an egg.) I
remember my mother attending some of the meetings sponsored
by wen-meaning whites from Rio Farms. They talked about
good
nutrition, health, and held huge barbeques. The only thing sal-
vaged for my family horn those years are modern techniques of
food canning and a food-stained book they primed madle up of
recipes from Rio Farms' Mexican women. How proud my
81. mother was to have her recipe for en,chilada.s cO'loradas in a
book.
EI cruzar del mO'jadolIllegal Crossing
"A.bO'r:a si Ja t.engo una tumba para liorar, "
dice CO'nchita, upon being reunic,ed with
10
The Homeland, AztIan I Elo.tro hIexi,co
her 1.lI1known mother just before the mother dies
-from Ismael Rodriguez' film,
NOJOtros los pobres12
La crisis .. Los gringos had not stopped at the border. By the
,end of the nineteenth century, powerful landowners in Mexico,.
in partnership with U.S. colonizing companies, had dispossessed
miHions of Indians or their lands. Currently, Mexko and her
eighty minion citizens are almost completdy dependent on the
V.S. market. The Mexican government and wealthy growers are
in partnership with such American conglomerates as American
Motors,. IT&T and Du Pont whkh own fanories called
maquiladoras. One-fourth of all Mexkans work at maquiladoras;
most are young women. Next wail,. maquiladoras ar,e Mexico's
second greatest source of u.s.. dollars. Working eight to twelve
hours a day to wire in backup lights of U.S. autos or solder
miniscule wires in TV sets is not the Mexican way. While the
women ar,e in the maquiladoras, the children are left on their
own. Many roam the street, become part of cholo gangs. The
infusion of the values of the white culture, coupled with the
exploitation by that culture, is changing the Mexican way of
life.
82. The devaluation of the peso and Mexico's dependency on
the V.S. have brought on what the Mexicans callia crisis. No
hay
trabajo. Half of the Mexican people are unemployed .. In the
U.S .. a
man or woman can make eight times what they can in Mexico.
By
March, 1987,.1,.088 pesos were worth one U.S .. dollar. I
remember
when I was growing up in Texas how we'd cross the border at
Reynosa or Progr,eso to buy sugar or medicines when the dollar
was worth ,eight puos and fifty centavos.
La travesia. For many mexicanos del otro lado, the choice is
to stay in Mexico and starve or move north and live. Dicen que
c,ada mexicano siempre suena de laconquista en los brazos de
cuatro gringas rttbias,. laconquista del pals poderoso del norte,
los
Est.ados Unidos. En cada Cbicano y mexicano vive el mito del
tesoro territorial perdido. North Americans call this return to
the homeland the silent invasion.
"A la cuev,a volverlm"
-EI Puma en …
![though, is how closely it resembles its predecessor. [T]here is a
profound sense of
déjà vu. There is a familiar stigma and shame. There is an
elaborate system of
control, complete with political disenfranchisement and
legalized discrim-
ination in every major realm of economic and social life. And
there is the
production of racial meaning and racial boundaries.
Historical parallels. Jim Crow and mass incarceration have
similar politi-
cal origins. [B]oth caste systems were born, in part, due to a
desire among
white elites to exploit the resentments, vulnerabilities, and
racial biases of poor
and working-class whites for political or economic gain.
Segregation laws were proposed
as part of a deliberate and strategic effort to deflect anger and
hostility that had been
brewing against the white elite away from them and toward
African Americans. The birth
of mass incarceration can be traced to a similar political
dynamic. Conservatives in the 1970s
and 1980s sought to appeal to the racial biases and economic
vulnerabilities of poor and
working-class whites through racially coded rhetoric on crime
and welfare. In both cases,
the racial opportunists offered few, if any, economic reforms to
address the legitimate
economic anxieties of poor and working-class whites, proposing
instead a crackdown on
the racially defined “others.”](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)