Thank you for your reply and personal perspective. You may wish to read some books from the University of California press and reports to the Rand Corporation authored by David Hayes-Bautista, PhD. Director of UCLAs Center for the Study of Latino Health. and Culture and Professor at UCLAs David Geffen School of Medicine.
I am not sure what you mean about Mexico getting rid of labels but the last time I visited Zacatecas the Mexicanos had many labels for people both officious and sometimes unsavory.
Emilie Garcia wrote:
Well, Robert,
It plays both ways. People have a choice. Many newcomers are enthusiastic about this land of opportunity and fare better than others who have been here longer but have gotten entrenched in bad habits of living for the day and not saving (instant gratification) and they end up on welfare when they get laid off or the women and children are left to fend for themselves. Also many newcomers are afraid of the migra and won’t sign up for welfare or obtain care when they are sick and end up in emergency rooms under other programs, thus skewing the “data”. They refuse to assimilate and they isolate themselves.
I worked in a large urban hospital which obtained government grants to help the indigent, and the school nurses would send new immigrant kids with all kinds of sometimes contagious conditions to be treated—TB, hepatitis, lice, tape worms, abscessed teeth, heart conditions, etc., things that those here longer had had taken care of, so I don’t know how “healthy” these newcomers always are. Think of all those newcomers that avoid schools and doctors and are running around out there not learning English and exposing the rest of us to contagious disease.
Newcomers will continue to fare well if they stay out of the barrios that are riddled with outlaw gangs and drugs and learn English to assimilate faster. Also, I don’t consider myself “chicana”; I dislike the word. I consider myself an American of Mexican ancestry. I don’t think we should arbitrarily categorize people with labels even if it comes from the people themselves. They did away with those labels officially in Mexico, so we shouldn’t continue that practice here.
Emilie
—– Original Message —–
From: robert hernandez
To: research@nuestrosranchos.org
Sent: Saturday, May 05, 2007 11:28 AM
Subject: Re: [Nuestros Ranchos] Race Designations in Civil Records
I believe there are several studies with empirical data which demonstrates that Mexicano newcomers, migrants, undocumented and documented residents in California fair better then children of Mexicanos who were born here . . . Chicanos if you will . .Chicanos are marginalized in the education achievement and populate the social service rolls.the aforementioned Mexicanos are also more healthy and have the lowest unearned income of all groups. .Unearned income is a euphemism for “Welfare” .
Emilie Garcia > wrote:
Yes, the class and race issue—My husband’s aunts (white professionals) in Mexico City looked down their noses at “inditos” (but who employed them as cooks and maids) and “rancheros” and made the statement that they couldn’t understand why everyone in Mexico didn’t take advantage of the opportunity to get a higher education there, and instead left their native country. They just could not see that some people (meztizos-morenos-rurals) have lived for so many generations so downtrodden that despite all their labors all they could get was beans and tortillas on the table in their miserable huts. And come a drought, etc. they couldn’t even get the beans and tortillas. They had to migrate.
The downtrodden couldn’t imagine any kind of an education, and if the opportunity ever came, they had become so resigned to their fate (nosotros los pobres) that they would shy away from schools, etc., considering their situation their just due for whatever reason, or that there was no time for such things. Their reason for being was to have children to help them and care for them later (no criados for them), and many of the men fell into a chauvinistic attitude that if more money came their way, they would spend it on the fights and beer as their just due, and not on education for their children. It takes time and exposure to opportunity and education to reach the status that many of us American descendants of immigrants have attained. Many of us are better off than some whites even.
I see this same failure in motivation in this country amongst rural whites (rednecks) and urban blacks as I do in new immigrants of the lower classes from Mexico. We all need to help them pull themselves up, if they will be helped, the way we were helped. That lady that you heard speak in Mexico, Esperanza, seemed to be saying that the immigrant was in his situation due to a mental inability to learn and that even special ed classes couldn’t help them. My inspiration to exceed came from my teachers who told me I could do anything, and not from my male cousin who wanted to know why I had started college –“they don’t want us there”, he said. My father didn’t think women needed to have higher learning either. So there seems to be attitude both ways, one of instant gratification or a chauvinist attitude on the one hand, and class and racial prejudice on the other.
Emilie
************************************** See what’s free at http://www.aol.com.
Thank you for your reply and personal perspective. You may wish to read some books from the University of California press and reports to the Rand Corporation authored by David Hayes-Bautista, PhD. Director of UCLAs Center for the Study of Latino Health. and Culture and Professor at UCLAs David Geffen School of Medicine.
I am not sure what you mean about Mexico getting rid of labels but the last time I visited Zacatecas the Mexicanos had many labels for people both officious and sometimes unsavory.
Emilie Garcia wrote:
Well, Robert,
It plays both ways. People have a choice. Many newcomers are enthusiastic about this land of opportunity and fare better than others who have been here longer but have gotten entrenched in bad habits of living for the day and not saving (instant gratification) and they end up on welfare when they get laid off or the women and children are left to fend for themselves. Also many newcomers are afraid of the migra and won’t sign up for welfare or obtain care when they are sick and end up in emergency rooms under other programs, thus skewing the “data”. They refuse to assimilate and they isolate themselves.
I worked in a large urban hospital which obtained government grants to help the indigent, and the school nurses would send new immigrant kids with all kinds of sometimes contagious conditions to be treated—TB, hepatitis, lice, tape worms, abscessed teeth, heart conditions, etc., things that those here longer had had taken care of, so I don’t know how “healthy” these newcomers always are. Think of all those newcomers that avoid schools and doctors and are running around out there not learning English and exposing the rest of us to contagious disease.
Newcomers will continue to fare well if they stay out of the barrios that are riddled with outlaw gangs and drugs and learn English to assimilate faster. Also, I don’t consider myself “chicana”; I dislike the word. I consider myself an American of Mexican ancestry. I don’t think we should arbitrarily categorize people with labels even if it comes from the people themselves. They did away with those labels officially in Mexico, so we shouldn’t continue that practice here.
Emilie
—– Original Message —–
From: robert hernandez
To: research@nuestrosranchos.org
Sent: Saturday, May 05, 2007 11:28 AM
Subject: Re: [Nuestros Ranchos] Race Designations in Civil Records
I believe there are several studies with empirical data which demonstrates that Mexicano newcomers, migrants, undocumented and documented residents in California fair better then children of Mexicanos who were born here . . . Chicanos if you will . .Chicanos are marginalized in the education achievement and populate the social service rolls.the aforementioned Mexicanos are also more healthy and have the lowest unearned income of all groups. .Unearned income is a euphemism for “Welfare” .
Emilie Garcia > wrote:
Yes, the class and race issue—My husband’s aunts (white professionals) in Mexico City looked down their noses at “inditos” (but who employed them as cooks and maids) and “rancheros” and made the statement that they couldn’t understand why everyone in Mexico didn’t take advantage of the opportunity to get a higher education there, and instead left their native country. They just could not see that some people (meztizos-morenos-rurals) have lived for so many generations so downtrodden that despite all their labors all they could get was beans and tortillas on the table in their miserable huts. And come a drought, etc. they couldn’t even get the beans and tortillas. They had to migrate.
The downtrodden couldn’t imagine any kind of an education, and if the opportunity ever came, they had become so resigned to their fate (nosotros los pobres) that they would shy away from schools, etc., considering their situation their just due for whatever reason, or that there was no time for such things. Their reason for being was to have children to help them and care for them later (no criados for them), and many of the men fell into a chauvinistic attitude that if more money came their way, they would spend it on the fights and beer as their just due, and not on education for their children. It takes time and exposure to opportunity and education to reach the status that many of us American descendants of immigrants have attained. Many of us are better off than some whites even.
I see this same failure in motivation in this country amongst rural whites (rednecks) and urban blacks as I do in new immigrants of the lower classes from Mexico. We all need to help them pull themselves up, if they will be helped, the way we were helped. That lady that you heard speak in Mexico, Esperanza, seemed to be saying that the immigrant was in his situation due to a mental inability to learn and that even special ed classes couldn’t help them. My inspiration to exceed came from my teachers who told me I could do anything, and not from my male cousin who wanted to know why I had started college –“they don’t want us there”, he said. My father didn’t think women needed to have higher learning either. So there seems to be attitude both ways, one of instant gratification or a chauvinist attitude on the one hand, and class and racial prejudice on the other.
Emilie
************************************** See what’s free at http://www.aol.com.
On the internet, there is the Family Search site for the LDS Mormon church.
Their catalog is on there and you type in the town your ancestors were born
in, or where you think they were born, and the list of records on microfilm
can be found that way. You then have to actually go to your nearest Family
History Center located at the church itself and order the microfilms.
Corrine Ardoin
Santa Maria, California
