Mexican

When pondering your position on current issues, don’t just think in the moment, fast forward your thinking to take into account things that are happening that might influence how you feel about certain issues, so you don’t pick fights that aren’t worth fighting.  A good example of that is on the issue of “Spanish Only” proposals by State Governments or private companies, and also on the related issue of immigration.  Days before the issuance of this blog, the worst nightmare of White Supremacists came true, there were more colored, including Latino, babies born in the United States than Ang

In the halls of New Braunfels High School, in the parking lots of the same, the cafeteria or actually anywhere on school grounds when I was attending in the late 70’s, Spanish was prohibited.  I think the first time I was dragged into the Principal’s office for the violation of “Speaking Spanish”, it was because I had called my food by its name, out loud and to a friend who from across the table was asking me what I had brought for lunch.  The cafeteria was a rather loud place, so when I responded to him that my mother had packed “tacos” for me, it was with enough force to ensure that he co

There is nothing more important to the U.S.A. than the education of its kids, nothing, except maybe national security. There is also nothing more important to those kids than getting educated, because it is a fact that the unemployment rate for those with degrees is half of those without and that the salaries of those with degrees is double of those without. Getting back on track getting our youth educated allows us to compete with other Countries who have overtaken the U.S. in the past few years, which is important to the U.S.

Villa’s short-story book, “I Voted For Him Because He’s Black”, spells out how it wasn’t a “brother” whose school system kicked him out for speaking, looking and acting Mexican, it wasn’t a “brother” whose police force provoked negative reactions and it wasn’t soul-food restaraunts that had signs that said “no dogs, no Mexicans.” It was in fact Mexicans, before there was an official Texas, that fought a War because Texans were using “brothers” as slaves. Yet there has been bad blood at times between the races.

The name tells a big story, the Mexican-American (Chicano) musical artist brings the best of those two worlds when they write or perform their music, sometimes keeping those two distinctive cultures separated in their numbers and other times mixing them just as they do their music.  It goes deeper for the Chicano though, because on the Mexican side of things there are at least two genres working at the same time, that which comes from South of the border and then that spinoff that was born on this side of the border and exclusively from the experiences of the Chicano culture.  Carlos Santan